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

To: NickSE who wrote (89213)	4/2/2003 3:04:07 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

In fact, most of Ansar's precepts are unrecognizable to the average Muslim. Pilgrims from as far away as Turkey and Jordan had visited the graves of the Muslim leader Neqishbandi buried in Biyara 300 years ago. But the Ansar fighters considered such devotion to be apostasy, and paved over the graves with concrete under their new mosque. This is Wahabbi influence. I have read that the Saudis have obliterated such pilgrimage sites even in Mecca, including the grave of the Prophet.

To: NickSE who wrote (89213)	4/2/2003 6:22:46 PM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Inside the Ring Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough washtimes.com Vietnam syndrome Aides to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are stunned at the negative war coverage they are getting in the New York Times and The Washington Post. Times editor Howell Raines explained his paper's slant well before the war started, saying on PBS his pages are full of anti-war stories because he does not want another Vietnam. Question: "The accusation is that you're more than following it, that you're campaigning against military intervention." Raines: "As I say, the people who make those kinds of accusations, usually for ideological reasons, are the best witness on why they say that. In this kind of reporting, one of the lessons of Vietnam is that it's important to ask the questions at the front end of the war, not afterwards." During the 2001 Afghanistan campaign, the New York Times declared on the front page that the war was a "quagmire" — in month one. "A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam," the Oct. 31 headline said on day 24. (Kabul and Kandahar fell by December 7.) The Post already has decided that, in week one, Operation Iraqi Freedom is another Vietnam — at least according to a Style-section story. Back to the current war. Let the record note that on the ground war's fourth day, the first "Vietnam" question came at the alliance's daily briefing in Doha, Qatar. A reporter for Abu Dhabi television asked briefer Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, "We have been seeing reports of U.S. soldiers killed, missing and captured, and the state of resistance of Iraqi in many cities which you claimed before taken full control, such as An Nasiriyah and Umm Qasr. Are you facing a new Vietnam in Iraq, or are you victims of over-self-confidence?" At the Pentagon, planners have a different view. "We've been doing great," said an Air Force official. "In regards to casualties and POWs, we are doing well. Killed in only low double-digits. It could be a lot worse, not that I don't feel for any people we've lost. I do." What does please senior policy-makers is the TV coverage. They believe the networks and cable news are providing a much more balanced picture of the battlefield. Their chief problem with cable news is the cadre of retired military officers who make pretty good educated guesses about where allied troops are headed. In fact, the pundits' analysis of the war plan was so accurate that Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, held a conference call on the day the war started to tell them to "tone it down a little," a source said.