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To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (22238)	12/31/2003 3:39:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793776

This could turn out to be extremely important. IRAN'S POLITICAL QUAKE By AMIR TAHERI NY Post December 30, 2003 -- IT may take months before we know the exact number of people who died during the recent earthquake in Bam, south-eastern Iran. The authorities have cited the figure of 30,000 dead and more than 50,000 injured. Local sources, however, speak of double those numbers. It would take weeks before all the affected small towns and villages, numbering in hundreds, are reached. The hasty burial of corpses in mass graves renders any exact estimates that much more difficult. Also, thousands of people who have lost their homes are already leaving the region in search of temporary or permanent refuge elsewhere in the province. One thing is certain: The earthquake has dealt a serious blow to the dwindling fortunes of the so-called pro-reform coalition led by President Muhammad Khatami. The anger it has provoked throughout the country is unlikely to ebb soon. It may, in fact, overshadow the general election that is now less than two months away. What is already known as "the Bam effect" could produce either a mass boycott of the polls or an unexpected victory for the more hard-line Khomeinists who insist that Khatami's talk of reform has led the country into an impasse. Khatami was able to take the measure of things himself when he was booed and boycotted during his whirlwind visit to the stricken regions four days after the quake. In fact, he had to cancel the best part of his program because the local authorities could not ensure his security. At least two of Khatami's ministers, visiting the affected areas, narrowly escaped being beaten up by angry survivors. To be sure, blaming Khatami for a natural disaster is unfair. But he represents a regime that, to many Iranians, is at least partially responsible for the tragedy. The ancient city of Bam, the epicenter of the quake, has a long history of destruction. It was first destroyed in an earthquake almost 1,900 years ago. But such is the unexplainable magnetism of Bam that, almost eight centuries later, it had become an important trading center with a cosmopolitan population of Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. The city was again almost totally razed by an earthquake in 1911. But by the 1930s it had reemerged as a trading center and a producer of dates and pistachios. Then came other earthquakes in 1950 and 1966. By the early 1970s, the government had decided not to allow people to build new houses in Bam itself. The city's ancient monuments were declared part of the heritage of mankind under UNESCO and no new buildings permits were issued for almost six years. The revolutionary turmoil of 1978-79 provided racketeers with an opportunity to seize large chunks of land in Bam and use it for poorly designed and badly constructed houses and shops. The racket was backed by a group of powerful mullahs who, in exchange for a cut in the proceeds, issued fatwas (religious opinions) that canceled government orders that banned house-building in the city. The mullahs claimed that the shah had wished to keep Bam empty because of a secret plan under which the city would be turned into a Zoroastrian center. They also dismissed warnings from the National Seismological Center in Tehran that opposed the repopulation of Bam. The mullahs claimed that the Hidden Imam would protect the new inhabitants of the city against all disasters. Thus, more than half of those who died in the earthquake could be regarded as victims of a racket ran by mullahs and their associates with the help of religious prejudice and superstition. Most Iranians knew nothing of the racket that the earthquake has exposed. The discovery that so many people died because cynical developers and bribe-taking mullahs sought a fast buck has sent a shock wave throughout the country. The earthquake has also revealed the abject poverty of parts of Iran. Bam and most of its satellite towns and village lacked the minimum infrastructure of urban and rural life in the 21st century. There were only 250 hospital beds and 31 doctors for a population of over 150,000. The region's one small airport could not take in even medium-sized aircraft bringing in relief. And when relief arrived, there were no vehicles and certainly no roads to carry them to those most in need. That level of poverty, often associated with sub-Saharan African states, comes as a shock when it is observed in an oil-rich country like Iran. A nation that has earned almost $500 billion in oil revenues alone in the past 25 years finds it hard to believe that some of its regions were as undeveloped as Burkina Faso. The earthquake also focuses attention on the nuclear power plant that Iran is building on the Bushehr Peninsula. The plant is on the same geological fault line that destroyed Bam. Each year, thousands of tremors of various degrees of intensity are recorded on that fault line. Bushehr itself has thrice been destroyed by earthquake in recent times (1877, 1911 and 1962). It is not hard to imagine what an earthquake that destroys a nuclear power plant could do to the entire Persian Gulf area. The Germans who designed the Bushehr plant and the Russians who are building it assure everyone that it could withstand tremors of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale. That is almost one degree higher than the tremor that destroyed Bam. Also, the available historical data show that the region has not known tremors of more than 7 on the Richter scale. But there is no guarantee that a higher-intensity tremor will not strike in the future. The Persian Gulf, through which passes almost half of the world's imported crude oil, is a shallow body of water that consists entirely of the continental shelf. (On average it does not go deeper than 90 meters). The destruction of a nuclear plant by earthquake in so shallow and narrow a waterway could create a disaster many times larger than that of Chernobyl. It would affect eight coastal countries directly, while dealing a severe blow to world trade by halting oil exports for months if not years. The Bushehr plant may have made some sinister sense under Iran's program to develop nuclear weapons. Last month, however, Tehran announced that it had suspended that program and would open the country to meaningful inspection of all its nuclear sites in the future. If the Tehran leadership is sincere, it must also review the necessity of building the plant at Bushehr. All the economic and political arguments are against the completion of the plant. The Bam earthquake has added a scientific argument: Iran should do nothing that could produce the world's biggest nuclear disaster if and when earthquake strikes Bushehr again. E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (22238)	12/31/2003 7:08:04 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793776

Here is a Blog by a Texas Minister who is becoming very well known. Because of what he has written there, he has several book offers going. It is very much worth reading this memoir of his, and seeing what he has been able to do because of the Internet. The Preacher’s Story blogs.salon.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (22238)	12/31/2003 9:31:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793776

This week in "New Yorker" magazine, Lawrence Wright writes about training journalists in Saudi Arabia, and about how young Saudi men and women see the future of the country. It is not available online. I am listening to him being interviewed on CSPAN right now. He lived with the local Saudis for several months, not in the compounds. He says the most prevalent feeling among the average Saudi is despair. They are constantly harassed by the Religious police. His article is called "The Kingdom of Silence." He says the unemployment of men is probably at about 40% and women at 95%. Highly literate, they can watch all the Satellite TV they want, and have to learn how to evade Internet restrictions. The Newspapers are totally censored. He feels the joblessness leads to the despair that then leads them to Al Qaeda. They express a lot of hatred of the west, but they don't want Bin Laden types running the country.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (22238)	12/31/2003 4:44:56 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793776

Al Qaeda videos found in Iraq weapons raid ...and some of the items hidden behind a false wall, at that.... Wonder just how these things got there, and when? Good for the members of Task Force Ironhorse 2nd Infantry's Arrowhead Brigade who discovered the materials and weapons!!! In addition to the al Qaeda literature and videos, the troops found nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition; 160 mortar rounds and six mortar tubes; 43 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 79 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs); and 19 AK-47 assault rifles, as well as dozens of other weapons. The military also said a significant amount of C4 and TNT explosives material was found, as was material to make improvised explosive devices -- the crudely made bombs that have killed or maimed dozens of coalition troops.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (22238)	12/31/2003 10:00:16 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793776

Glenn is catching hell all over the Internet for this post today. THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT TRY to play a "neutral arbiter" in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. We should, in fact, be doing our best to make the Palestinians suffer, because, to put it bluntly, they are our enemies. Just read this post and follow the links to see how they feel about America. And read this piece by Amir Taheri on the Iraqi "resistance," which notes Palestinian terror connections by the Iraqi insurgents, and features a Palestinian "journalist" egging them on. These folks are our enemies, and deserve to be treated as such. They don't deserve a state of their own. It's not clear that they even deserve to keep what they've got. I don't think this means that the Bush Administration should be taking direct action against them -- closing off their funding via shutting down Saddam is a good start, and a policy of slow strangulation directed at Arafat and his fellow terrorists is probably the most politic at the moment. We need to try to squeeze off the EU funding, too, especially now that it's been admitted to be part of a proxy war by the EU not just against Israel, but America. But let's stop pretending that what's going on between Israel and the Palestinians is some sort of family misunderstanding. It's war, and the Palestinians -- and their EU supporters -- think it's a war not just against Israel, but against us. We should tailor our approach accordingly. UPDATE: Reader Matt Gaffney emails that this post is "too shrill." Well, that's why I don't like writing about the Palestinian issue -- if you tell the truth, which is that these guys are enemies of civilization, in the grip of a psychotic death cult that will probably lead to their destruction, then you sound shrill. I also don't write about it much because the Palestinians, fundamentally, are the cannon fodder of other people who don't like the United States, and the real way to resolve this problem is to deal with those other people. And so it's those other people who get the bulk of my attention. But the amount of pious crap spouted about the Palestinians is so vast that every once in a while I do feel the need to cut through it by pointing out the facts. ANOTHER UPDATE: Now this, from a reader who signs himself "AK," is shrill: You should be ashamed of yourself posting such intolerant hateful bullshit. You sound like Goebbles reincarnate. I'm reminded of the now dead hater: Barbara Olsen and how life has a way of catching up with people of your ilk. Thus speaks the voice of the "peace movement" on the Middle East. instapundit.com