Yesterday, two Palestinians convicted of working with Israelis were killed when a Palestinian police officer threw two grenades into their prison cell. One more of the wounded was then personally shot at the hospital. No arrests, of course; just the thin fiction of civilization evaporating.
Random tidbit of Middle Eastern politics
For those of you thinking that Iraq is the only place that’s on the verge of triggering extraordinary chaos, try this. It’s a roundup article about various recent developments in the Hezbollah / al Aqsa brigades / al Qaeda field, mostly deals, weapons testing, and a couple of key people getting unexpectedly blown up.
(Footnote: There’s enormous turmoil going on on the Palestinian political side at the moment – it looks like forces are finally starting to emerge against Arafat, that the myth that “he’s the only one who can save us” is starting to erode in the face of over a decade of thuggery and kleptocracy. Looks like a huge opportunity for any number of even less salubrious people to step up to the plate – the main difference being that most of these guys won’t even pretend to negotiate. They’re just out for blood.)
*Twitch*
A picture and a headline I never, never need to see again
(The story is just the usual from the Middle East)
The Lord’s our Shepherd, part (N+1)…
This hasn’t hit the English-language press yet anywhere that I can see, but for those interested here’s a link to an article in Ha’aretz: Mohammed el-Baradei, the head of the Int’l Atomic Energy Agency, now says that Pakistan has transferred detailed nuclear knowledge to at least 20 “countries and corporations”.
I’m assuming this count includes North Korea, Iran and Libya; he says that he knows of no other country in the Middle East to which he gave this information, so the locations of the other 17 or so targets are left as exercises for the rather alarmed reader.
Of course, given that A. Q. Khan (the head of Pak’s nuclear program) was printing out four-color glossy brochures with his picture on them advertising nuclear capability, I suppose this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise…
(Correction: Here’s a story in English)
Quick news updates:
We just transferred sovereignty to Iraq two days early. Bremer left the country shortly afterwards. Surprise! (Ulp)
In three decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees of various sorts have the right to judicial review by the courts. (Important!)
The Supreme Court also agreed to hear a medical marijuana case.
And “Fahrenheit 9/11” has set various box office records, including top grossing documentary, and interestingly enough has been selling out theatres in Republican strongholds. The overall meaning of this is still a bit unclear, but people certainly seem interested in seeing it.
New story on Abu Ghraib (Worth reading)
Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has a new story on how the entire Abu Ghraib incident came to pass. The story relies a great deal on background sources, so it’s got to be read carefully with a skeptical eye – but it smells more or less right to me.
There are strange things on television.
The Hezbollah has a game show.
I suppose it would be appropriate to say something about postmodernism here, or about how media is starting to pervade and reshape even corners of the world that seem anti-modern by their nature, but this is really just surreal.
What the fuck?
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of Hamas, was killed today by a helicopter gunship attack as he was leaving the mosque. Several other casualties reported in the vicinity.
The title of this posting is because (a) it’s approaching Passover, a traditional peak time for terrorist strikes anyway, and (b) this is, by far, the highest-level Hamas (or other terrorist) operative ever killed by Israeli forces, especially in quite so public a fashion. The result is almost certain to be tremendous violence, and it’s not at all clear to me why the hell the government thought that this would be a good idea. Violence has been at overall low levels recently, although this is in part because of very stringent enforcement efforts by the Israeli government – the wall, bad as it may be for other reasons, has been very effective at cutting down terrorist attacks, and a major attack was recently thwarted in the northern port city of Ashdod.
But this… this one is really asking for an opening to the gates of hell. It’s second only to killing Arafat for impact.
Some more analysis from Debka here. They seem about as confused as I am, although they offer some other points. Be aware that Debka has a right-wing (by Israeli politics axes, not American) bias.
Who’s next?
Secretary-general Hassan Rohani of Iran’s National Security Council (a group affiliated with the ayatollahs rather than the reformers, for those of you keeping score) issued a statement urging the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to end its investigation and “accept Iran’s membership of the atomic club.”
His statement further explained that Iran’s nuclear program is purely aimed at civilian nuclear power, and their advanced centrifuges and the discovery of 80% enriched Uranium by IAEA inspectors* was ignored.
English translation: Iran’s nuclear program is farther along than most estimates, especially after their little deal with North Korea (and thus indirectly, Pakistan) to trade workspace for technology; they’re not confident in having a bomb testable within a year, though, so they want to institute some medium- to long-term delays for the IAEA. (Rather than the more direct obstreprious stonewalling that they would use if they just wanted to keep the IAEA busy for a few more months)
But their technology is good, so expect to see Iran enter the nuclear club (barring unforeseen circumstances, which is a hell of a “barring”) somtime between now and 2007. The ayatollahs would like that to be earlier, the reformers could work with either early or late. Iranian internal politics may have an order-1 effect on all of this.
Just remember, kids – nuclear weapons don’t kill people, people kill people. Erm. With nuclear weapons.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 