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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41655)	9/3/2002 1:42:48 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Daily Brickbat Absurd news bites, served fresh every day. By Charles Oliver Sentence the Children (9/3) Children in France can now be sentenced to up to six months in prison for insulting teachers, police or fire officers, or railway guards. Teachers had complained that their students sassed them, but police were willing to get involved only in cases involving assault. Children as young as 13 are covered by the law.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41655)	9/3/2002 3:03:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Mark Steyn's column today is about the "Sob Sisters" and "Grief Managers" who are lining up to cover 9/11. I have posted the part that fits, IMO, >>>>Which brings us to September 11th. In those first moments, no one quite knew what was happening, and so the events themselves set the tone. One plane hit, then another, then the Pentagon was smoking, the White House was evacuated, the towers crumbled, a plane crashed in Pennsylvania, there were other flights missing, there were bomb scares ... For a few hours that Tuesday it felt like the Third World War, and so commentators fell into war mode. And by the time the networks had shuttled Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters and the other glamorous pain-feelers to the scene it was too late to revert to the banality of "healing" and "closure" and all the other guff of a soft-focus grief wallow. It's very, very rare for the media to be caught so off-guard by an event that they lose control of their ability to determine its meaning. Within minutes of JFK Jr's plane going down, for example, you know Dan Rather was dusting off his Camelot lyrics and the producers were ordering up their "America's Son" and "America's Prince" graphics. But a year has gone by. And there seems to be an effort to do on the anniversary what they were unable to accomplish on the day: to make September 11th 2002 an occasion for "coping." George Jonas and I have written on this page about the American teachers' union's plans for the day as an occasion for therapy, complete with "healing tools, routines and rituals" and a "circle of feelings" designed to help students "feel better" and "comfort each other" by having their "feelings" about September 11th "validated" in a "non-judgmental" way. If you think America's largest teachers' union is just some minor fringe group of no consequence, then what are we to make of the ceremonies at Ground Zero itself? New York's woeful mediocrity of a mayor, Mike Bloomberg, has decreed there are to be no speeches: Instead, Governor Pataki will recite the Gettysburg Address, just as the third-graders do on small-town New England commons on Memorial Day. The Gettysburg Address is a fine address, but it's nothing to do with September 11th. It's as if at Gettysburg Lincoln had been told, "Well, this speech looks a little controversial. Couldn't you just stand up and recite the Declaration of Independence?" The nullity of Bloomberg's planned ceremony is an acknowledgment, even in the most sorely wounded city in America, that one year on there is no agreement on what Sept. 11 means. To some, it calls forth righteous anger and bestselling kick-ass country songs. To others, far more influential in the culture, it demands "healing circles." Look, I'm sorry if some school kids aren't feeling chipper. Tough. But 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, leaving a gaping hole in the lives of their children, parents, siblings and friends. Those of us who don't fall into those categories are not bereaved and, by pretending to be, we diminish the real pain of those who really feel it. That's not to say that, like many, I wasn't struck by this or that name that drifted up out of the great roll-call of the dead. Newsweek's Anna Quindlen "fastened on," as she put it, one family on the flight manifest: Peter Hanson, Massachusetts Susan Hanson, Massachusetts Christine Hanson, 2 Massachusetts As Miss Quindlen described them, "the father, the mother, the two-year old girl off on an adventure, sitting safe between them, taking wing." Christine Hanson will never be three, and I feel sad about that. But I did not know her, love her, cherish her; I do not feel her loss, her absence in my life. I have no reason to hold hands in a "healing circle" for her. All I can do for Christine Hanson is insist that the terrorist movement which killed her is hunted down and prevented from deliberately targeting any more two-year olds. We honour Christine Hanson's memory by righting the great wrong done to her, not by ersatz grief-mongering.<<<< nationalpost.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (41655)	9/3/2002 6:44:29 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Israeli Supreme Court is starting face reality. Warning! Sensitive posters may find this report distressing. :^) latimes.com Expelling Kin of Suspects Approved Mideast: Israeli court clears way for deportation of brother and sister who it says were shown to have aided alleged terrorist. By TRACY WILKINSON TIMES STAFF WRITER September 3 2002 JERUSALEM -- In a potentially far-reaching case that pitted human rights against a nation's need for self-defense, Israel's highest court ruled today that the army can expel the relatives of alleged Palestinian militants. The army, backed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, maintained that banishing the families will deter potential suicide bombers from attacking Israelis. Human rights experts countered that targeting relatives is a form of collective punishment forbidden by international law. Deportation is one of a number of draconian measures Israeli authorities are resorting to in their fight to crush a 23-month-old Palestinian uprising and wave of bombings and armed ambushes. Today's case involved three Palestinians whom the military wanted to expel from their hometowns in the West Bank to the Gaza Strip because of support they allegedly gave siblings who organized or carried out terror attacks. The Gaza Strip is easier to control because, unlike the West Bank, it is fenced in; the army says no suicide bomber has ever emerged from Gaza and reached Israel. In its ruling, the court indicated that a relative's involvement has to be clearly established. It said a brother and sister accused of aiding another brother, an alleged terrorist, can be expelled. But a third defendant, whose complicity the court said was not clearly established, cannot be deported, the court ruled. The ruling means that the army does not have blanket power to transfer relatives of suspects from the West Bank to Gaza but must provide evidence of involvement case by case. Government officials said they were pleased that the decision went as far as it did, but lamented that the court did not give the army a freer hand. Attorneys for the Palestinians said they were glad that actual acts, not the notion of deterrence alone, would serve as the basis for relocating relatives. Still, they said they would continue to fight any deportation of relatives. A special nine-judge panel--enhanced from the usual three members--heard the case. Chief Justice Aharon Barak returned early from a vacation to preside, reflecting the importance attached to the matter. In a hearing last week, Barak and other judges questioned the government's attorney, Shai Nitzan, on whether expelling the three individuals would prevent specific attacks. They also wanted to know about any concrete complicity on the relatives' part with the militancy of the suspected terrorists. Kifah Ajouri and his sister Intisar are accused of helping their brother Ali, whom Israeli forces tracked down and killed last month. Ali was accused by Israel of dispatching two suicide bombers to a Tel Aviv neighborhood where they killed five bystanders. Israeli government attorneys contend that Intisar sewed the explosive belts used by Ali's charges. Intisar denied the allegation, telling a military court last month that she was a pharmacy student who didn't know how to sew. Also facing deportation was Abed Nasser Assida, who is alleged to have provided transportation to his brother Nasser, an operative with the radical Islamic organization Hamas who allegedly staged two deadly shooting sprees outside the Jewish settlement of Emmanuel. A total of 19 people were killed. In last week's hearing, Nitzan argued that the expulsions do not violate international law. The Geneva Conventions, he said, bar the transfer of people from occupied territory to the state of the occupier or to a third country. But expulsion from one part of occupied territory--the West Bank--to another--the Gaza Strip--is permitted, he argued. Barak asked why the three were not being put on trial, if the charges against them are so critical. Nitzan said banishment was quicker and thus served as more of a deterrent. Attorneys for Assida and the Ajouris said the assistance they provided their brothers amounted to little more than food and the kind of shelter relatives routinely give one another. Dalia Kerstein, director of a human rights center representing the Palestinians, said Monday that the court was under considerable political and public pressure to endorse the expulsions. Sharon and his army general staff have sold the public on the idea that the deportations will end violence, she said. "The justices take into consideration the atmosphere," she said. "They don't want to confront everyone."