Had [that document] been released by now, it might have
provided some important context for understanding the
mosque attack in Iraq last week.
Iraqi documents, direct-mail excesses, more
The quest for Iraqi documents continues.
by The Scrapbook
The Weekly Standard
03/06/2006
More Documents, Please (cont.)
On February 14, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point released a study of 28 al Qaeda documents captured after 9/11. The West Point study provides an in-depth look at al Qaeda from those inside the organization, including Osama bin Laden. The most important aspect of the study was its accompanying release of the al Qaeda documents. While there are many views about what this new cache of documents means, there is little disagreement over the value of publicly analyzing and debating the documents.
A USA Today article notes that the documents
"came from a variety of sources and were selected because
they show al Qaeda discussions of ideology, tactics,
potential operations or training."
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius pointed to one of the documents for the insights it might provide on the disputed deal to let a United Arab Emirates company manage some U.S. ports. A CNN report discussed the "extraordinary details" in the documents.
"Military officials tell CNN they were chilled when they
read a document known as the al Qaeda employment
contract, which they strongly believe to be authentic."
And on it goes.
THE SCRAPBOOK thinks they have a point. We'd like to see many more of the documents captured in postwar Afghanistan. And Iraqi documents could be just as valuable in enhancing our understanding of the enemy there. For instance, we know that the former Iraqi regime imported and trained jihadists for years before the U.S. invasion. We know that Saddam's regime organized many elements of the ongoing insurgency long before the war began. We know that the Iraqi Intelligence Service called on its operatives and allies to assassinate Sunni and Shiite clerics and to attack Sunni and Shiite mosques. According to one Iraqi official who read a February 2003 memo from the former director of Iraqi Intelligence, the plan was simple: blame Sunnis for the violence done to Shiites and blame Shiites for the violence done to Sunnis. That document was found in April 2003. Had it been released by now, it might have provided some important context for understanding the mosque attack in Iraq last week.
The U.S. intelligence community has treated the captured documents as if they are little more than a historical curiosity. In fact, for the good of the Americans and Iraqis fighting insurgents in Iraq today, the sooner they are released the better.
****
Annals of Direct Mail
Many moons ago, THE SCRAPBOOK was enrolled in the junior-year-abroad program of a school that shall remain nameless. But before our year-long scholarly pub-crawl across Europe could begin, a bureaucratic correspondence had to be carried on between the American university and its European counterpart. We noticed that, instead of using our university's usual, tasteful red-on-buff official stationery, these letters went out sporting a gaudy, saw-toothed gold seal, with red and blue ribbons affixed. One day a secretary, pointing to the decoration, whispered to us, "We call this the dago dazzler."
This episode was brought to mind by a direct-mail fund-raising solicitation received last week by a couple of SCRAPBOOK friends: a suitable-for-framing certificate, reproduced here at a much-reduced size, from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Like the "dago dazzler," it is calculated to impress the rubes and, even by the low standards of direct mail, is spectacularly over-the-top. We should note that our friends are small and irregular donors, but they apparently live in the right Zip Codes.
Unfortunately not visible on our small scan here is the embossed eagle seal, situated midway between the autopen signatures of Elizabeth Dole and Mark Stephens, commemorating the "Republican Senatorial Inner Circle, 1979-2004." Translation: Hey! Our gimmick is still pulling in the bucks after a quarter century!
Or is it? We couldn't help but wonder if this elaborate mailing is a sign of trouble on the fundraising front. It smacks of trying too hard. Either that, or some of our profiteering friends in the direct mail business are making out like bandits. In addition to the certificate, a nice piece of printing business in itself, the envelope came stuffed with a stiffening piece of cardboard, three-page letter, reply envelope, and tissue to give the thing a classy feel. First class postage for all of the above: $1.59. If Nero had sent out direct mail, it would have looked like this.
****
The Idiocy of the Harvard Faculty
Elsewhere in this issue, James Piereson refers to the Harvard faculty's March 2005 passage of a resolution of no-confidence in President Larry Summers, who announced his resignation last week. Piereson notes that the resolution had an introduction, which was later removed before final passage. That introduction made explicit the infantile leftist agenda of Summers's detractors. It is worth reading in full, and is reproduced below in all its politically correct glory:
While the Faculty gratefully acknowledges Mr. Summers'
apologies for remarks minimizing the innate capacities of
women and for lapses of respect in his communication with
faculty members, the Faculty also wishes to register its
dissent from a number of public pronouncements by the
President that would otherwise appear to represent us
collectively, and to urge limits on the proposed
expansion of presidential prerogatives.
Over the past three and a half years, faculty members
have discerned in the conduct of President Summers a
pattern of aggressive communication and inattention to
faculty opinions, both of which are inconsistent with the
principles of free inquiry and the democratic management
of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Faculty
acknowledges Mr. Summers' promise to improve his
communication with us, but we remain concerned about the
substance of Mr. Summers' apparently ongoing convictions
about the capacities and rights not only of women but
also of African Americans, third-world nations, gay
people, and colonized peoples. We are concerned that Mr.
Summers' latest remarks minimizing the innate intellectual
capacities of women reflect Mr. Summers' tendency to
vocalize his speculations without due regard for either
the standards of scholarship or the effect of careless
pronouncements, particularly from the president of one of
the world's leading universities, on the human beings
concerned.
Mr. Summers has demonstrated little concern for his role
as the foremost public representative of the University.
Yet he has moved to increase the powers of his office
significantly, through, for example, the creation
of "divisional appointments." For these reasons, and in
the spirit of freedom of expression, the assembled
faculty members wish officially to register dissent from
Mr. Summers' stated opinions regarding the innate
capacities of subordinate populations, the wisdom of
dumping in third-world nations, the authorized presence
on campus of organizations that infringe upon the equal
rights of gay people, and the proposition that the
criticism of Israeli military policy toward the
Palestinians is inherently anti-Semitic.
We, the Faculty, vote to dissent from these positions of
Mr. Summers, to demand that they not be employed in the
governance of the University or in restricting the free
speech of professors and departments, and to halt any
further expansion of presidential prerogatives that will
facilitate the propagation of these positions.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/912csboj.asp |
