Here's Why You Missed McCann's First Army Ad

It's in Arabic and Only Airing to World Cup Audiences
By Ira Teinowitz
Advertising Age
June 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- It's the long-awaited first broadcast-TV work from a new agency on a closely watched $1.35 billion account. It was produced in less than two weeks, runs nationally on the World Cup and is getting heavy rotation. So why isn't McCann Erickson's first spot for the U.S. Army getting much attention? It's in Arabic.
McCann's first TV spot for the U.S. Army is in Arabic and seeks to recruit Arabic-speaking translators. It's only airing in World Cup programming. | ALSO: Comment on this article in the 'Your Opinion' box below.

Replaced Leo Burnett
Though the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency's full-on advertising campaign remains several months off, the shop that replaced Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, in December 2005 on the Army business has broken its first national TV ad: a bid a to recruit Arabic-speaking translators.

The push began as a local advertising initiative for the Army's 1st Brigade, which seeks 250 translators for the U.S. forces each year. But it ended up as a national buy on the Arab Radio & Television Network in the U.S. and Canada after the agency discerned what an unusual efficiency the World Cup Arabic telecasts offered.

David A. Salazar, an Army public-affairs officer, said that 1st Brigade and Army officials met with community leaders May 19 to discuss recruitment of Arabic translators when it was mentioned that the World Cup has high interest in the Arabic-speaking community and might be the perfect forum.

To air 800 times
Less than two weeks later, McCann had bought time and created two commercials set to run a total of 800 times during the network's telecasts of the soccer spectacle.

One spot features still pictures of soldiers in Iraq and Iran meeting with people and children. Translated, it says, "I am a bridge between two cultures. I am an American soldier and an Arabic interpreter. I build schools and bring running water. I make the children smile because I can speak with them. I am making changes in the world." It ends with a mention of a $10,000 reward for joining the Army and the possibility of expedited U.S. citizenship.

Big change in interpreter ads
The Army has mostly been using posters to try to find interpreters and the TV buy is a big change, but it seemed warranted.

Tom Owen, a field-marketing official for McCann, said the agency only recently became aware of the availability of the package, but thought of it as soon as the World Cup was mentioned. "It was the catalyst," he said, crediting Pentagon officials at the meeting with the remarkably quick turnaround in getting the ad done.

Sean Marshall, chief advertising and public affairs officer for the 1st Brigade, said the Army has seen immediate results, with calls rising from one or two a day to 20 to 27 a week.

Public diplomacy campaign targets key nations

By Sue Pleming
Wed Jun 28, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Determined to turn the tide of anti-Americanism in the Arab world, the Bush administration has drawn up a classified list of about a dozen high-priority countries on which to focus public diplomacy.

Karen Hughes, a political confidante of President George W. Bush and now his chief of public diplomacy at the State Department, said strategic plans were being developed for those "pilot" countries over the next three to five years.

"The exact list is a classified matter but it includes the type of countries where we believe it is very important to counter ideological support for extremism," Hughes said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

She declined to list the nations but officials said they included Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries that were chosen based on classified information in meetings among the Pentagon, State Department, the CIA and others. Hughes also hoped the approach would improve coordination among government agencies.

One goal was to identify what Hughes called "strategic influencers" -- local people such as sports stars, clerics and others who could explain America's values and confront "ideologies of hate."

Hughes cited a recent dinner at the U.S. ambassador's home in Morocco where the person on her right was a famous cooking show host, while on her left was a track star.

"I came back and shared with others what an interesting dinner this was and how every country should look at identifying who the most influential people are," said Hughes.

She said her department would seek out clerics from Muslim nations where some Friday prayers encouraged hatred and bring those clerics to America on exchange programs.

"All the research shows that people who have been to America or know someone who has been to America are far more likely to have a positive view of our country."

STUDY PROGRAMS AND PIZZA

Hughes has been in her job as Bush's public diplomacy guru for nearly a year and has traveled to dozens of countries trying to improve America's image, particularly in the Arab world where opinion polls show deep suspicion of U.S. motives abroad.

She has Bush's ear and usually meets him for a meal after each major trip, reporting where there needs to be improvement and how America can better sell itself.

Some critics of Hughes say her job amounts to nothing more than a crude propaganda machine and even Hughes is sanguine about her impact on the Arab world.

"There is no easy, snap your fingers and the problem will go away," she said. "Opinions aren't going to change overnight, particularly in a time of war."

Hughes said her efforts were not focused solely on the pilot countries and her goals included showing people that America and its values represented "hope for a better life" and to foster a sense of common values with other nations.

She has expanded English-language training and increased student exchange programs, recently bringing over young soccer players from abroad whom she hosted for pizza and ice cream.

"Those are the things people remember, having them over to your house," said Hughes.

Fighting the negative fallout from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq and the U.S. prison for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has made her job tough.

Comments from one of her staff members that the suicides earlier this month of three Guantanamo detainees were a "great PR move" did not help, but the senior staffer, Colleen Graffy, kept her job.

Hughes said she understood that all those who dealt with the media said something they regretted later.

US: Most foreign fighters in Iraq are from Egypt

AFP
30 June, 2006

BAGHDAD: The US military said yesterday that it has several hundred foreign fighters in custody in Iraq and that most of them come from Egypt, followed by Syria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

“We have several hundred foreign fighters in captivity at this point of time and the greatest number come out of Egypt,” spokesman Major General William Caldwell told reporters.

“The top four countries are - the first is Egypt, followed by Syria, then Sudan and Saudi Arabia.”

The US military has already claimed that the new Al Qaeda in Iraq chief is Egyptian Abu Ayub al-Masri, saying he took over from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in an US air strike on June 7.

The military believes Masri is the same person as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, named by an Al Qaeda-led coalition as Zarqawi’s successor.

Caldwell said the US military tries to identify the nationalities of these fighters primarily through “passport verification.”

“We try hard to identify them when we capture them because at some point of time these people will be facing Iraqi civil authorities and court and when they do we want to be able to ascertain that they are here illegally and not at the request of the government of Iraq,” Caldwell said.

Caldwell also said at least “57 foreign fighters were killed by Iraqi and US forces in the month of June” in a series of nation-wide operations.

And in the week ended June 28 about 587 suspected insurgents have been detained, he added.

Meanwhile, Masri remains the “No. 1 one target”, Caldwell said.

“A lot of resources are committed to finding him. We are working hard to get him. There is no question that if we take him down that will just disrupt the organisation beyond a point where it will be ineffective for a long period of time.

Al Qaeda “is very disorganised right now and very disrupted right now. The reason we were able to pick up and track some of the middle-level people is because their system is so disrupted and that has given us the opportunities to find them, track them and go get them.”

Did Bush Commit War Crimes?

Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld could expose officials to prosecution.
By Rosa Brooks
Los Angeles Times
June 30, 2006

THE SUPREME Court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both U.S. military law and the Geneva Convention.

But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court's holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.

The provisions of the Geneva Convention were intended to protect noncombatants — including prisoners — in times of armed conflict. But as the administration has repeatedly noted, most of these protections apply only to conflicts between states. Because Al Qaeda is not a state, the administration argued that the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war on terror. These assertions gave the administration's arguments about the legal framework for fighting terrorism a through-the-looking-glass quality. On the one hand, the administration argued that the struggle against terrorism was a war, subject only to the law of war, not U.S. criminal or constitutional law. On the other hand, the administration said the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war with Al Qaeda, which put the war on terror in an anything-goes legal limbo.

This novel theory served as the administration's legal cover for a wide range of questionable tactics, ranging from the Guantanamo military tribunals to administration efforts to hold even U.S. citizens indefinitely without counsel, charge or trial.

Perhaps most troubling, it allowed the administration to claim that detained terrorism suspects could be subjected to interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law, such as "waterboarding," placing prisoners in painful physical positions, sexual humiliation and extreme sleep deprivation.

Under Bush administration logic, these tactics were not illegal under U.S. law because U.S. law was trumped by the law of war, and they weren't illegal under the law of war either, because Geneva Convention prohibitions on torture and cruel treatment were not applicable to the conflict with Al Qaeda.

In 2005, Congress angered the administration by passing Sen. John McCain's amendment explicitly prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees. But Congress did not attach criminal penalties to violations of the amendment, and the administration has repeatedly indicated its intent to ignore it.

The Hamdan decision may change a few minds within the administration. Although the decision's practical effect on the military tribunals is unclear — the administration may be able to gain explicit congressional authorization for the tribunals, or it may be able to modify them to comply with the laws of war — the court's declaration that Common Article 3 applies to the war on terror is of enormous significance. Ultimately, it could pave the way for war crimes prosecutions of those responsible for abusing detainees.

Common Article 3 forbids "cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." The provision's language is sweeping enough to prohibit many of the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration. That's why the administration had argued that Common Article 3 did not apply to the war on terror, even though legal experts have long concluded that it was intended to provide minimum rights guarantees for all conflicts not otherwise covered by the Geneva Convention.

But here's where the rubber really hits the road. Under federal criminal law, anyone who "commits a war crime … shall be fined … or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death." And a war crime is defined as "any conduct … which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva." In other words, with the Hamdan decision, U.S. officials found to be responsible for subjecting war on terror detainees to torture, cruel treatment or other "outrages upon personal dignity" could face prison or even the death penalty.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, of course. For prosecutions to occur, some federal prosecutor would have to issue an indictment. And in the Justice Department of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales — who famously called the Geneva Convention "quaint" — a genuine investigation into administration violations of the War Crimes Act just ain't gonna happen.

But as Yale law professor Jack Balkin concludes, it's starting to look as if the Geneva Convention "is not so quaint after all."

Mubarak says deal reached with Hamas

THE JERUSALEM POST
Jun. 30, 2006

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Friday that a compromise had been reached with several Hamas leaders for a conditional release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

The agreement that Mubarak claimed to have reached with the kidnappers involved an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of prisoners scheduled to be released anyway in the next year, in exchange for the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped on Sunday, Palestinian sources said.

The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper said that Cairo has proposed that the swap would not be simultaneous but that the Palestinian prisoners would be freed later. Al-Hayat's sources, whom it did not name, said Hamas' leadership outside the Palestinian territories has not responded to the proposal.

Mubarak told Egypt's leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram that Shalit's kidnappers have agreed to his conditional release, but Israel has not yet accepted their terms.

Mubarak said, "Egyptian contacts with several Hamas leaders resulted in preliminary, positive results in the form of a conditional agreement to hand over the Israeli soldier as soon as possible to avoid an escalation.

The president said he had asked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "not to hurry" the military offensive in Gaza, but to "give additional time to find a peaceful solution to the problem of the kidnapped soldier."

Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, was expected to go to Gaza on Friday, as Mubarak's representative, to advance the compromise. He was also scheduled to meet with Hamas leader in Damascus Khaled Mashaal. However, Nazal dismissed as rumors reports that said Hamas is sending a representative to Egypt soon.

Gilad Shalit's father, Noam, welcomed the news of the compromise and thanked Mubarak for his efforts.

Still, MK Ephraim Sneh (Labor) dismissed the Egyptian initiative, saying "a diplomatic option is when someone brings about the unilateral, unconditional release of the kidnapped [soldier], not when someone serves as a mediator between us and the Hamas head in Gaza," Army Radio reported.

Sources in Jerusalem stated that they had not yet received the details of the compromise. Moreover, the Prime Minister's Office insisted that it was not negotiating for Shalit's release.

The Egyptian president also demanded from his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad to deport the Syrian-based Hamas leadership unless it agreed to Shalit, Palestinian sources said. He warned Mashaal that by insisting that thousands of Palestinian detainees be released in exchange for Shalit, he was leading the Palestinians to disaster, Israel Radio reported.

Mubarak's remark implied he was claiming a role in Israel's decision.

In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Gideon Meir, said Israel did not know of such an offer.

Reached just after midnight on Friday morning, Meir told The Associated Press that Israel would have no comment until daybreak.

"In general Israel's stance is, as the prime minister said earlier, that the soldier will only be released unconditionally and there will be no negotiations with a gang of terrorists and criminals who abducted a soldier from Israeli territory," Meir said.

Israel's Deadly Siege of Palestine

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch
June 27, 2006

"The idea is to put Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger," commented Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert, when asked how Israel should deal with the new Hamas government. Even these disgustingly callous words scarcely do justice to the collective punishment to Palestinians (illegal under international law) being inflicted by Israel on the people of Palestine for democratically electing a government that refuses to accede to Israeli demands.

The situation is desperate. Since the new Hamas-dominated government took office in January 2006, record levels of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, malnutrition, movement restrictions and social unrest of all kinds have been reported.

Here is the grim picture as culled from available sources by Jennifer Loewenstein of the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, the U.K.

In addition to an economic siege imposed by the governments of the United States and the European Union ­in which all aid to the Palestinian Authority (and in some cases to NGOs as well) has been cut, bank transfers suspended, contacts with and visas for new government members effectively banned, and $55 million in tax revenues illegally withheld each month- comprehensive closure has been imposed on the territories restricting access to goods and services within the West Bank and imposing draconian movement restrictions on the entire Palestinian population.

Israel has kept the Karni (al-Muntar) industrial crossing into the Gaza Strip shut for weeks at a time locking out medicines, food and goods as well as preventing the export of agricultural produce from Gaza. Approximately 165,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority have gone without pay for more than three months affecting the lives of at least 700,000 people. Doctors, nurses, teachers, civil servants, policemen and others return home empty handed each day to families whose overall levels of poverty and malnutrition have grown dramatically. Save the Children UK Program Manager Jan Coffey reports that in Gaza now 78% of the population lives below the poverty line ($2 per day) and that 10% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Israeli artillery shelling, targeted assassinations, incursions into cities and towns, arrests and raids continue with impunity. Even after the widely publicized deaths of almost an entire family on a north Gaza beach and a subsequent attack in which two children and three paramedics were killed after two Islamic Jihad militants were assassinated in Gaza City, the international community remains silent ­in effect condoning the piecemeal destruction of an entire society. These atrocities are in addition to the economic and political blockade of Palestine.

On March 15, 2006 the World Bank published a report in which the economic outlook for the occupied Palestinian territories is assumed based on a scenario (now extant) in which tax revenues to the PA are withheld, trade and labor restrictions are imposed and foreign aid reduced. Under this scenario "[r]eal GDP per capita declines by 27 percent, and personal incomesby 30 percent ­a one-year contraction of economic activity equivalent to a deep depression. Unemployment hits 47 percent and poverty 74 percent by 2008. By 2008, the cumulative loss in real GDP per capita since 1999 has reached 55 percent."

The World Bank estimated in 2004 that, following "Disengagement," 2006 poverty rates in the West Bank would reach 41% and in the Gaza Strip 68%. Unemployment would be at 23% in the West Bank and 38% in the Gaza Strip. These estimates were made before the Western powers and their friends imposed the economic embargo and suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights provides conservative estimates of the current situation across the territories. According to Sourani, the rate of unemployment in the territories now is 34% in the oPts as a whole and 44% in the Gaza Strip. This rate rises to 55% during times of complete closure. He estimates current poverty levels at 50% for the territories as a whole and nearly 70% in Gaza.

According to an OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) report published on April 11th 2006, unless the siege on Palestine ends unemployment and poverty will reach especially high levels in the Gaza Strip (60%) and the northern West Bank (50% & 40% in the governorates of Salfit and of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem respectively). The OCHA office in Gaza has warned of a "humanitarian disaster" owing to a lack of money and food. OCHA estimates the current rate of poverty in the oPts at 56%. Prior to the Second Intifada it was 22%.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has also warned of a "humanitarian crisis" if aid and funding to the Palestinian Authority continues. "The ICRC is deeply concerned about the growing needs and the worsening security situation in the occupied territories, caused in large part by the decision earlier this year to withhold funds and other aid from the Palestinian Authority," it said on Monday, June 12. " [T]he occupying power ­in this case the State of Israel-is responsible for meeting the basic needs of the civilian population of the territories it occupies. Those needs include sufficient food, medical supplies and means of shelter."

Israel's continued withholding of just Palestinian tax/customs revenues reduces the total available budget resources for the PA to between US $700 - $750 million. In the PA's draft budget for 2006 prepared by the IMF in December 2005, the figure needed to sustain the territories was US $1.9 billion. The United States' administration nonetheless claims that no humanitarian crisis in the occupied territories exists.

The rationale for this onslaught on a civilian population? Israel says Hamas is a terrorist organization, bent on Israel's destruction. As prominent Israelis and western observers have pointed out, Hamas's leadership has made it clear on numerous occasions that Israel's right to exist is not at issue. What is at issue is Israel's adamant refusal to confirm Palestine's right to exist. As prime minister Olmert told a joint session of the US Congress in Washington DC a few weeks ago, "I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land." In other words he doesn't recognize the right of Palestinians to even the wretched cantons currently envisaged in his "realignment".

The world shook with rage at the reports from Darfur. Do not the starvation, not to mention almost daily murder of Palestinian civilians merit even a word of reproach to the government of Israel, or the US and European governments that have joined in this barbaric siege?

Israel remembers Mitla

Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jun 27, 2006

Israel reenacted its 1956 airdrop of troops into battle with Egyptian forces in the Sinai. Fifteen veterans of the original mission in the Mitla Pass joined current soldiers from Israel´s airborne 890th Regiment on Tuesday for an exhibition parachute jump off the Tel Aviv beach. There were also 120 volunteer parachutists from abroad, many of them veterans of British and French forces that joined Israel in the 1956 campaign to wrest control of the strategic Suez Canal from Egypt. Mitla, which inspired a novel by Leon Uris, was the only time when Israeli troops have been parachuted in battle. After landing in the rocky desert pass, the Israelis were ambushed by Egyptian commandos. Forty-six were killed and more than 100 wounded in the ensuing firefight.

A Democracy Policy in Ashes

By Joshua Muravchik
The Washington Post
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; A21

Gameela Ismail said she was going to collect the ashes and deliver them to the U.S. Embassy. Ismail is the wife of Ayman Nour, who ran second to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's presidential election last year. The ashes were what was left of the Nour Cultural Center in the poor Cairo neighborhood of Bab El-Shariya, gutted by a suspicious fire on June 1. This was apparently a further act of vindictiveness by a regime that had already dispatched the diabetic Nour to five years of hard labor for challenging Mubarak.

Why did Ismail single out the American Embassy? Not out of knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Nour is as friendly to the United States as Egyptian politicians get; he is often derided in the state-controlled media as an American puppet. Rather, his wife was expressing the bitter disappointment that Egypt's democrats feel over the apparent waning of the Bush administration's ardor for their cause.

Last year U.S. pressure impelled Mubarak to hold Egypt's first presidential election. U.S. pressure also led to a relaxation of constraints on freedom of speech, press and assembly that began to change the quality of public life in Egypt. Given this momentum, it was expected that Mubarak, once reelected, would allow further liberalization. Instead, 2006 has brought a wave of repression and brutality that goes beyond the jailing of Nour. The regime's goons have bloodied and arrested peaceful protesters doing nothing more than expressing solidarity with the dignified protests of Egypt's judges. Spurred by the persecution of its leaders for exposing election irregularities, the extraordinary judges' movement has sprung to the forefront of agitation for reform.

In response to these abuses, U.S. press spokesmen have issued formulaic criticisms, and Nour's conviction on patently bogus charges led Washington to postpone trade talks. But the mild tone of U.S. protests, the low level at which most have been delivered and the admixture of warm gestures toward the regime -- such as the meetings Vice President Cheney and other top officials held with Mubarak's son and hoped-for heir, Gamal, last month -- have combined to create the impression that the Bush administration has begun to pull its punches on Middle East democracy.

It's not only in Egypt that the administration is giving this impression. In Iraq, it has acted to shut down dozens of projects designed to nurture the seedlings of democracy: civil society, political parties, women's and human rights organizations, and the like. They had been initiated over the past few years through special allocations to the National Endowment for Democracy; the international democracy-building institutes of the Democratic and Republican parties, the AFL-CIO and chambers of commerce; and several similar organizations -- all of which constitute the core apparatus through which America works to promote democracy globally. In the supplemental appropriation bill just enacted, the administration sought to eliminate these funds until a Senate amendment partly restored them.

The motive for this action is hard to fathom. Perhaps it was more the result of turf battles than a decision to downgrade democratization. But even this would only show how far democracy has slipped in priority.

The muted response to Mubarak's depredations is more decipherable. Clearly, the strong electoral performances of Hamas in Palestine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have sown worry about the consequences of democratization. The dilemma is that Middle Eastern liberals usually spring from the educated elite and have little resonance at the grass roots, while Islamists command substantial popular appeal.

But this makes our actions toward Egypt all the more foolhardy, for the victims of today's repression represent a possible alternative to both the Islamists and the regime. Alone among Egypt's liberal politicians, Nour has demonstrated a populist touch. He also matched the Islamists' tactic of furnishing social services to poor constituents. That was the purpose of the center in Bab El-Shariya, now destroyed.

The judges may present an even more potent "third force." In voting for leadership of the "Judges Club," the professional syndicate of the judiciary, reformers crushed the pro-Mubarak slate. Their top demand is judicial independence from executive interference. This alone would be an enormous step toward democracy. But they also call for free speech, other human rights and clean elections, and some have gone so far as to stage sit-ins and hunger strikes.

Although judges are by definition part of the elite, they are deeply respected by the common Egyptian, even the humble peasant, in a way that intellectuals and politicians rarely are. The rebellion by Egypt's judges is pregnant with the promise of political change. This explains why the Mubarak regime has been so eager to repress it. And it makes inexplicable the halfhearted way in which the Bush administration has responded.

Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is writing a book about Middle Eastern democrats.

The Usual Suspects

By CLARK KENT ERVIN
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
June 27, 2006

WHILE relatively few people would repeat Representative John Cooksey's statement after the Sept. 11 attacks that "If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked," the vast majority of Americans do have a stereotype in mind when we think of terrorists, and that stereotype is of someone of Arab descent.

Stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason, of course. Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zahawiri, are Arabs. All 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Arabs. The late, unlamented Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's top man in Iraq, was an Arab. But even if, in the post-Sept. 11 world, it is to some extent understandable that we are more suspicious of those we take to be Arabs than we are of others, it is also illogical, politically incorrect and morally repugnant. Moreover, it could play into Al Qaeda's hands.

It is illogical because the chance that any given Arab is a terrorist is only marginally greater than the chance that anybody else is a terrorist. It goes without saying that such thinking is impolitic. And one needn't be an ethicist to realize that it is unjust to slap such a noxious label on a whole group of people on account of the misdeeds of a few.

But to understand why reflexively associating terrorism with Arabs is ill-advised, consider the arrests in Miami last week of seven men allegedly plotting to blow up the F.B.I. headquarters there and the Sears Tower in Chicago. It may turn out, as the men's families and friends maintain, that they were merely harmless oddballs. But, if the government's allegations prove true, these men were Qaeda loyalists intent on waging a "ground war" against the United States in order to "kill as many devils" as possible in an attack "as good or greater than Sept. 11."

None of these men is Arab. Most are African-American, and all of them are black. If it turns out that they were terrorists inspired by Al Qaeda and radicalized by an extremist interpretation of Islam, it will not be the first time that terrorist ideology has infiltrated the black community.

In 2004, Earnest James Ojaama, a Seattle-born black convert to radical Islam, was sentenced to two years in prison for providing material support to the Taliban. He was allegedly conspiring with someone who British authorities believe was linked to the London terrorist bombings last summer; they planned to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. And in August 2005, the government charged three African-American Muslim converts with planning to attack National Guard facilities, synagogues and the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles.

African-Americans are not the only non-Arab Americans who have been radicalized and enlisted in the terrorist cause. Jose Padilla, an American of Puerto Rican descent, grew up in Chicago and converted to Islam in prison. The government at first alleged that Mr. Padilla attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan and intended to set off a dirty bomb on American soil. (He has since been charged with less sensational crimes related to terrorism and transferred from the military justice system to the regular criminal justice system.) And of course, there is John Walker Lindh, the white "American Taliban" captured by American troops in Afghanistan in 2001.

In other words, terrorists can and do come in every color of the racial and ethnic rainbow. And Al Qaeda takes advantage of our tendency to stereotype Arabs as terrorists by actively recruiting among the non-Arab population. We know, for example, that Al Qaeda regards American prisons — hothouses of impressionable, idle and violence-prone men — as particularly fertile territory for planting and harvesting the seeds of terrorism, especially among the disproportionately high black and Hispanic populations.

To all this one may say, very well then; some terrorists aren't Arabs, but aren't they all Muslims? Shouldn't we subject Muslims to particular scrutiny?

This assumption, too, could be turned against us and exploited by Al Qaeda, if the group managed to make common cause with non-Muslim zealots of one kind or another who oppose the American government or particular groups of Americans. There are plenty of such groups within the United States: white supremacists, separatists, even plain old opportunists who can be bought for a price.

Finally, stereotyping Arabs or Muslims as terrorists angers and alienates them at a time when we need their support like never before to help root out those within their communities who do indeed pose a threat to our nation's security.

So the next time you find yourself wishing that the screeners at a crowded airport checkpoint would speed things up by letting the white-haired, blue-eyed grandmas through and concentrating only on the swarthy guys with odd headdresses, remember that Al Qaeda may be wishing for the very same thing.

Clark Kent Ervin, the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department from 2003 to 2004, is a fellow at the Aspen Institute and the author of "Open Target: Where America is Vulnerable to Attack."

Egypt journalists sentenced for 'insulting president'

Agence France Presse
Mon Jun 26, 2006

Two journalists from an independent Egyptian weekly have each been given a year in jail for reporting on a complaint accusing President Hosni Mubarak of misusing government money.

The Giza criminal court found Al-Dustour chief editor Ibrahim Issa and reporter Sahar Zaki guilty of "insulting and harming the president of the republic and the people of Egypt".

They were both given a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (1,735 dollars).

In April, Al-Dustour published a story about a complaint filed by an Egyptian citizen, Said Mohammed Abdallah, who accused Mubarak of misusing 500 million Egyptian pounds (86 million dollars) during the privatisation of several public companies.

Abdallah appeared in the same court as the two journalists Monday and was given the same sentence.

"It is the first time in Egypt that a journalist has been indicted for insulting the president. It is ironic that this sentence should be delivered even as the regime is talking about political reform," Issa told AFP.

"It shows that these reforms and promises are short-lived," he said, adding that both he and Zaki would appeal.

Al-Dustour is one of a handful of independent and opposition newspapers that have campaigned for democratic reform in Egypt and challenged Mubarak's 25-year rule.

Three other Egyptian journalists appeared before a criminal court earlier this month for denouncing reported state-sponsored fraud during the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Iraq's Best, Brightest Flee From Violence

By Sharon Behn, The Washington Times
Washington Times
June 26, 2006

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Rasha Tamimi sits comfortably in the luxurious lobby of the Millennium Hotel in Sharjah, part of a line of skyscrapers that stretches the length of the United Arab Emirates -- a world away from the bloodshed of her old Iraqi neighborhood.

Mrs. Tamimi, a doctor, is one of thousands of Iraqi professionals who have fled their country to escape the daily violence rocking Baghdad.

"I feel guilty sometimes, because I live a nice life, I have a nice job, I can go to fancy restaurants, while Iraqis are living a miserable life," said Mrs. Tamimi, the mother of two toddlers.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) estimates that more than 40 percent of Iraq's professional class has left the country since late 2003, and it anticipates that more will follow. The Iraqi government has issued more than 2 million passports in the past 10 months.

Of those who have left, the committee says, 350,000 are in Syria, 450,000 are in Jordan, and 90,000 are spread around the rest of the world.

"Clearly, this has a serious impact," said Lavinia Limon, president of USCRI, a nonprofit, private organization that has been tracking refugee movements for 45 years. "No country can lose 40 percent of its professionals and not have a lasting negative impact on their economic and social progress."

Miss Limon said much of the violence in Iraq is based on the victims' political affiliations or religious beliefs, or their families' ability to pay a ransom. Doctors, journalists, lawyers, engineers, artists and teachers are being attacked by an insurgency that wants to destabilize the society and by religious extremists who disapprove of their lifestyles.

"The criminals are a big part of this, as well," Miss Limon said. "They have carte blanche for kidnapping and extortion, and a lot of people feel there is no protection. People with any means, or those with a family member in Europe or the United States, can be targeted for extortion. So, some people are leaving because things are so lawless."

The brain drain is making life even more difficult for Iraqis. Adel al-Janabee, 24, said he could not finish his master's degree in computer science at Baghdad University because five of his seven professors have left the country.

"I used to have 11 classes a week; now I have three," he said. "Actually, I am thinking about quitting my studies because it is just a waste of time."

Those in need of medical care are also suffering. Retired school principal Amer Hassan used to visit Iraq's best medical specialist for disc and nerve damage in his spine until about six months ago, when the doctor left for Amman, Jordan.

"I have nobody to replace him, because even the other good doctors have left the country, and my situation is getting worse," Mr. Hassan said.

Every day, Mrs. Tamimi calls her parents in Baghdad, afraid that something may have happened to them. Her father, a former military officer, is high on the hit list of those trying to eliminate all remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime.

"Doctors, engineers, all educated people are trying to leave, and anyone who has the chance to leave will leave," said Mrs. Tamimi, who is working as a general practitioner in a private hospital in Dubai.

"The impact is that Iraq is losing all its intellectual people, that is for sure," Mrs. Tamimi said. "If they stay there in Baghdad, they will be killed, either for money or for no reason, or they will be kidnapped. One time they go after doctors; another time they go after other groups."

Even in the safety of Dubai, Mrs. Tamimi refused to say who she thought was behind the violence in her former neighborhood -- including repeated knocks on her door by strangers who had to be driven off by armed neighbors.

By mid-2004, Mrs. Tamimi found herself holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle in her hand as she watched her children play in their garden. She had lost a lot of weight, living in daily fear that her children would be taken hostage, or that she would be captured or killed for working as an emergency-ward doctor in a private hospital.

Not everyone is trying to leave. Many couples cannot bear to leave behind their elderly parents. Others cannot stand the idea of living away from their homeland.

"I am like a fish, and Baghdad is my water," said Om Noor, fluttering her hands in emphasis. "I cannot live outside of Baghdad."

Some Iraqis are settling in well in Dubai. One 20-year-old from the Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada who now works in an Internet cafe said he had no desire to go back to Iraq.

Others have found good jobs, share apartments and send money to their families while they try to get the paperwork done to bring over their wives. But they harbor constant thoughts of returning home when it is safe enough and an anger at the United States for what their country has become.

"Listen to this," said Mohanned, as he turned up the volume on a song that glorified the anti-American exploits of insurgents in Ramadi on his car's compact-disc player. He asked that his last name not be used.

Among the self-exiled in Dubai are a substantial number of Iraqis who had prospered under Saddam's Ba'athist government -- men like a former air force fighter pilot who fled after narrowly escaping an attempt on his life.

"I see that the best of the Iraqis are leaving. I feel hopeless. I feel we are losing my country," said the pilot, who warned that the brain drain would add to a growing development gap between Iraq and its neighbors.

But Miss Limon said the former Ba'athists were no less deserving of protection than refugees.

"The point is when you talk about the violence, extortion and kidnapping -- and people being targeted because of their profession, religion, or political activities -- that is the very definition of a refugee," she said.

Islam's Ann Coulter

The seductive and blinkered belligerence of Wafa Sultan.
By Stephen Julius Stein
STEPHEN JULIUS STEIN is a rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, where he also directs inter-religious programming.
Los Angeles Times
June 25, 2006

RECENTLY I WAS one of about 100 L.A. Jews invited to attend a fundraiser for a Jewish organization that seeks to counteract anti-Israel disinformation and propaganda. The guest speaker was Wafa Sultan, the Syrian American woman who in February gave a now legendary interview on Al Jazeera television, during which she said that "the Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations" and "I don't believe you can reform Islam."

The audience warmly greeted Sultan, a psychiatrist who immigrated to Southern California in 1989. One of Time magazine's 100 "pioneers and heroes," she said she was neither a Christian, Muslim nor Jew but a secular human being. "I have 1.3 billion patients," she quipped early in her remarks, referring to the global Muslim population. Sultan went on to condemn inhumane acts committed in God's name, to denounce Islamic martyrdom and to decry terror as a tool to subjugate communities. Those statements all made perfect sense.

Then this provocative voice said something odd: "Only Arab Muslims can read the Koran properly because you have to speak Arabic to know what it means — you cannot translate it." Any translation is, by definition, interpretation, and Arabic is no more difficult to accurately translate than Hebrew. In fact, the Hebrew of the Bible poses many more formidable translation problems than Arabic. Are Christians and Jews who cannot read it ill-equipped to live by its meanings?

Another surprising remark soon followed: "All Muslim women — even American ones, though they won't admit it — are living in a state of domination." Do they include my friend Nagwa Eletreby, a Boeing engineer and expert on cockpit controls, who did not seek her husband's permission to help me dress the Torah scroll? Or how about my friend Azima Abdel-Aziz, a New York University graduate who traveled to Israel with 15 Jews and 14 other Muslims — and left her husband at home?

There is no subjugation in the homes of these and other American Muslim women I know. They are equal, fully contributing members of their families.

The more Sultan talked, the more evident it became that progress in the Muslim world was not her interest. Even more troubling, it was not what the Jewish audience wanted to hear about. Applause, even cheers, interrupted her calumnies.

Judea Pearl, an attendee and father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, was one of the few voices of restraint and nuance heard that afternoon. In response to Sultan's assertion that the Koran contains only verses of evil and domination, Pearl said he understood the book also included "verses of peace" that proponents of Islam uphold as the religion's true intent. The Koran's verses on war and brutality, Pearl contended, were "cultural baggage," as are similar verses in the Torah. Unfortunately, his words were drowned out by the cheers for Sultan's full-court press against Islam and Muslims.

My disappointment in and disagreement with Sultan turned into dismay. She never alluded to any healthy, peaceful Islamic alternative. Why, for example, didn't this Southern California resident mention the groundbreaking efforts of the Islamic Center of Southern California, the leading exemplar of progressive Muslim American life in the United States? Why didn't she bring up the New Horizon School-Pasadena that the center started, the first Muslim American school honored by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Blue Ribbon School?

You might wonder why a rabbi is so uneasy about Sultan's assault on Muslims and Islam. Here's why: Contrary to practically every mosque in the U.S., the Islamic Center has a regulation in its charter barring funding from foreign countries. As a result, it is an American institution dedicated to propagating an American Muslim identity. Maher and Hassan Hathout are the philosophical and spiritual pillars of the mosque. They also have been partners of Wilshire Boulevard Temple rabbis and others throughout L.A. for decades.

The Hathouts' mosque has twice endorsed pilgrimages to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its members traveling with fellow L.A.-area Jews and Christians. It invites Jews to pray with them, to make music with them, to celebrate Ramadan with them. This is the mosque whose day school teaches students about Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah alongside lessons in Arabic and the Koran. Recently, the Islamic Center joined the food pantry collective of Hope-Net, helping feed the hungry and homeless.

Make no mistake: I am not an Islamic apologist. But Sultan's over-the-top, indefensible remarks at the fundraiser, along with her failure to mention the important, continuing efforts of the Islamic Center, insulted all Muslims and Jews in L.A. and throughout the nation who are trying to bridge the cultural gap between the two groups. And that's one reason why I eventually walked out of the event.

Here's another: As I experienced the fervor sparked by Sultan's anti-Muslim tirade and stoked by a roomful of apparently unsuspecting Jews, I thought: What if down the street there was a roomful of Muslims listening to a self-loathing Jew, cheering her on as she spoke of the evils inherent in the Torah, in which it is commanded that a child must be stoned to death if he insults his parents, in which Israelites are ordered by God to conquer cities and, in so doing, to kill all women and children — and this imagined Jew completely ignored all of what Judaism teaches afterward?

In a world far too often dominated by politicians imbued with religious fundamentalism of all flavors — Jewish, Christian, Muslim — we need the thoughtfulness, self-awareness and subtlety that comes from progressive religious expression. We have that in Judaism, in Christianity — and in Islam, right in our backyard. If only Sultan, applauded in many quarters yet miscast as a voice of reason and reform in Islam, were paying attention.