Mike Wallace lands an exclusive and rare interview with the president of Iran. In the wide-ranging interview, the Iranian leader comments on President Bush’s foreign policy, the lack of relations between Iran and the U.S., Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq. Robert Anderson is the producer --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Mike Wallace never had control of this interview at any point in the double length segment of CBS Sixty Minutes aired on August 13, 2006. President Ahmadinejad, a college professor with a doctoral degree in engineering, never deviated from his controlling script and simply ignored any of Mike's sensitive questions such as:
- Do your really mean Zionists be literally "wiped off the face of the earth"?
- Why the Holocaust truly an "overblown fairytale"?
Iran's Holocaust cartoon exhibition ---
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6332204D-7694-40B2-B134-06ADB6A47CD3.htm- Why is Iran "supplying insurgents in Iraq with roadside bombs"?
Ahmadinejad's prepared script was predictable --- Zionists (meaning Jews) have no legitimate right to reside anywhere in the Middle East; the U.S. is the world's immoral oppressor; the U.N. and European nations are puppets controlled by the U.S., and terrorism is a legitimate weapon of Islamic fundamentalism. Because Ahmadinejad's "advisors" were obviously nearby and made their presence repeatedly known during the interview, I was continually reminded of Baghdad Bob, although in fairness Ahmadinejad is more articulate, intelligent, educated, and dangerous than Baghdad Bob whose collected quotations are at http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/baghdad_bob.htm
There may be something of Iran's social principle of "taarof" in Ahmadinejad's more extreme comments. See below! Clearly Ahmadinejad's comments are widely off the mark regarding the U.N. (which usually votes against the U.S. on anything except motherhood and apple pie) and Europe (which has a hostile media on matters related to the U.S. and almost always opposes U.S. readiness to fight terrorists with force).
Question
What is Iran's social principle of taarof?
One Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity
because that is standard diplomatic protocol, said it was possible that when
Iran said it could not respond before the end of August to the West’s offer
on its nuclear program, that it was not only a diplomatic maneuver, but may
also have been a nod to the reality of internal Iranian politics. Major
decisions on the nuclear issue involve consensus at the highest levels of
the political elite. But consensus can be hard to achieve when interpersonal
communications, at least initially, are defined by taarof, mistrust and
different political agendas, the diplomat said.
"The Fine Art of Hiding What
You Mean to Say," Michael Slackman, The New York Times, August 6, 2006
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/weekinreview/06slackman.html
There is a social principle in Iran called taarof, a concept that describes the practice of insincerity — of inviting people to dinner when you don’t really want their company, for example. Iranians understand such practices as manners and are not offended by them.
But taarof is just one aspect of a whole framework for communication that can put Iranian words in a completely different context from the one Americans are familiar with.
“You have to guess if people are sincere, you are never sure,” said Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at the University of Tehran. “Symbolism and vagueness are inherent in our language.”
This way of communicating is suddenly essential for Americans to understand. Increasingly, it appears that the road to peace, and war, runs through Tehran. And so hearing what Iranians are really saying, not what Americans think they are saying, has become a priority. Iran has outsized influence with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It has profound influence with the newly empowered Shiites of Iraq. And it is locked in its own fight with the United Nations Security Council over its ambition to develop nuclear technology.
And yet, understanding each other — forget about agreeing — is complicated from the start.
“Speech has a different function than it does in the West,” said Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist who lived for many years in England and the United States before returning to Iran a decade ago. “In the West, 80 percent of language is denotative. In Iran 80 percent is connotative.”
Translation: In the West, “yes” generally means yes. In Iran, “yes” can mean yes, but it often means maybe or no. In Iran, Dr. Tajbakhsh said, listeners are expected to understand that words don’t necessarily mean exactly what they mean.
“This creates a rich, poetic linguistic culture,” he said. “It creates a multidimensional culture where people are adept at picking up on nuances. On the other hand, it makes for bad political discourse. In political discourse people don’t know what to trust.”
It is not a crude ethnic joke or slur to talk about taarof, but a cultural reality that Iranians say stems from centuries under foreign occupation. Whether it was the Arabs, the Mongols or the French and the British, foreign hegemony taught Iranians the value of hiding their true face. The principle is also enshrined in the majority religion here, Shiite Islam, which in other lands is a minority religion, often at odds with the majority. There is a concept known as takiya in which Shiites are permitted, even encouraged, to hide their belief or faith to protect their life, honor or property.
“When you tell lies, it can save your life,” said Muhammad Sanati, a social psychologist who lived for years in England before returning to Iran in 1982. “Then you can see the problem of language in this country.”
Diplomacy everywhere is the art of not showing your hand, and if Iranians have shown skill at forcing negotiations over negotiations, or winning by stalling, it would be an overstatement to say that it can be explained solely by a culture of taarof. But Western diplomats based in Iran say that Iran’s cultural foundation gives it a leg up when dealing with the more studied negotiating skills of the Americans.
Perhaps more important, such diplomats and Iranians themselves said, Americans need to understand Iran’s approach to interpersonal communications in order to understand the complexities Iranians face in dealing with each other. Analyst after analyst said that after centuries of cloaking their true feelings, Iranians are often unsure whom they can trust when dealing with each other, let alone foreigners.
One Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity because that is standard diplomatic protocol, said it was possible that when Iran said it could not respond before the end of August to the West’s offer on its nuclear program, that it was not only a diplomatic maneuver, but may also have been a nod to the reality of internal Iranian politics. Major decisions on the nuclear issue involve consensus at the highest levels of the political elite. But consensus can be hard to achieve when interpersonal communications, at least initially, are defined by taarof, mistrust and different political agendas, the diplomat said.
Questions that might've ended the interview in a New York minute
"Questions for Ahmadinejad (That Mike Wallace Didn't Ask)," by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115560193943335712.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The time of the bomb is in the past. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges.
Q: A follow-up to that, Mr. President: Are you aware of a man named Mansour Ossanloo? He is the leader of the independent trade union representing the workers of the Vahed Bus Company in Tehran. A year ago, your security forces raided one of their meetings and cut out a piece of Mr. Ossanloo's tongue. Now he speaks with a lisp. Is this how "dialogue" is conducted in the Islamic Republic of Iran? A:
Q: Let's talk a bit about your government's relationship to Iranian political dissidents. A few weeks ago, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a member of the Guardian Council who is reportedly close to your boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned in his Friday sermon that Iran will execute en masse all dissidents if the U.N. Security Council votes to sanction Iran for your refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The sermon was broadcast on Iranian state radio. Does Ayatollah Jannati speak for you, Mr. President? A:
Q: Please be specific about the fate of one man: Ahmad Batebi. Mr. Batebi became the face of Iranian dissent when he appeared on the cover of the Economist during the brutally suppressed Tehran University student uprisings in July 1999. After serving six years of a 15-year sentence, Mr. Batebi was furloughed last year and rearrested on July 29; his whereabouts are unknown, which is of special concern because your government recently tortured to death student leader Akbar Mohammadi (www.iranpressnews.com). Can you tell us where Mr. Batebi is and give us assurances for his safety? A:
Q: More on thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges, Mr. President. You are possibly the first head of government to write your own blog: www.ahmadinejad.ir . Yet your government has shut down hundreds of Web sites and Web logs, including the BBC's Farsi service, and harassed the lawyers who represent them. An Iranian blogger who goes by the name Iron Shadow accuses you of "pursuing policies that are reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the Islamic Republic."
Your government also recently arrested and tortured blogger Abed Tavancheh, 23, who reportedly sustained permanent damage to his kidneys. Is this just your idea of beating the competition? A:
Q: Turn to the past. Kevin Hermening, a Marine sergeant at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the hostage crisis, tells this newspaper that you interrogated him personally on Nov. 4, 1979, while brandishing a pistol. For the record, he remembers you as a "very mean SOB" and described a sense of "déjà vu" while watching your performance on "60 Minutes." The U.S. State Department also believes that you were one of a group of five who planned the embassy takeover. Do you deny these charges? A:
Q: Numerous Iranian sources allege that in the 1980s you worked as an interrogator and executioner in Evin Prison in Tehran. They say you earned the nickname Tir Khalas Zan, or "The Terminator," for your methods there. You are also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Abdurrahman Qassemlou, a leader of Iran's Kurdish minority, in Vienna in 1989. Do you deny these charges, too? A:
Q: An American federal grand jury has indicted Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil and Abdel Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser as two of the ringleaders in the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in which 19 U.S. servicemen were killed. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh believes the two are "living comfortably in Iran." Will you hand over for trial the two to the U.S. or some other international authority, as Moammar Gadhafi did with the planners of the Lockerbie bombing? A:
Q: You are known to be a religious disciple of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. Among the Ayatollah's teachings is the view that slavery is justified. Do you agree with your mentor? A:
Q: Your views about Israel are categorical and well known; your views about whether the Holocaust took place have been ambiguous at best. How about the Jews? Do you agree with the December 2004 statement of Iranian academic Heshmatollah Qanbari on Iranian TV, as quoted by Memri, that "all corrupt traits in humanity originated in this group [i.e., the Jews]"? A:
Q: Another of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi's disciples, Mohsen Ghorouian, has said it is "only natural" for Iran to have nuclear weapons as a "countermeasure" to the U.S. and Israel. And one of your regime's hardliners, Hojjat-ol-Islam Baqer Kharraz, was recently quoted as saying that "we are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that." Do you disavow these statements, given your repeated insistence that Iran's nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes only? A:
Q: In your May letter to President Bush, you ask whether the attacks of Sept. 11 could have been "planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services." Is it your belief that those attacks were orchestrated by the CIA, the Mossad or another Western intelligence service? A:
Q: In the same letter, you discuss the "shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems." Is this a historical inevitability, and do you intend to hasten that fall? A:
Q: The scholar Bernard Lewis recently made note of your repeated references to the 27th day of Rajab in the Islamic year of 1427. That date corresponds to Aug. 22 -- a week from today. Anything special planned for the occasion? Or is it a surprise? A:
Iran's Holocaust cartoon exhibition ---
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6332204D-7694-40B2-B134-06ADB6A47CD3.htm
Probably the Most Important Point Often Ignored by the Media Years After
9/11
Even if there were no Israel, these people would still hate us as an embodiment
of everything they consider unholy. . . . The disappearance of Israel would do
nothing to prevent such [9/11-styled]
attacks.
Norman Podhoretz in the New York
Post as quoted by James Taranto and Ira Stoll, The Wall Street Journal,
September 14, 2001
Jensen Comment
What Islamic fundamentalists consider the most "unholy" is the attraction of
Western lifestyle, capitalist globalization, fashion, media/network freedom, and
equal rights for women --- unholy trends deemed far greater threats to Islam
than Zionists. Islamic spokespersons are now, for political purposes in 2006,
trying to blame terrorism on U.S./U.K. support of Israel, but accusations from
true Al Qaeda terrorists themselves repeatedly extend well beyond Israel and
U.S. presence in Iraq. Al Qaeda to date directed most of its attacks against
Western influence in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations that are not
forcefully resisting creeping Westernism within their own borders. Al Queada
terrorists targeted Bali and Saudi Arabia and African sites where few, if any,
Zionists were the main targets. Islamic terrorists are not targeting Zionists in
India. They're targeting Western-styled economic successes in India (India has
more Muslim citizens than either Pakistan or Iran).
How can 9/11 terror be blamed the takeover of Iraq?
They ignore the fact that 9/11 preceded Iraq, and that other unemployed
communities haven't resorted to mass murder. No, something else is happening. It
is significant that 22 universities have been named as epicenters of jihadist
recruitment. The leader of the latest terror attempt is alleged to be a
biochemistry student. These educated young men have ventured the farthest from
the enclosures of their communities: The well-fed bite the hand that feeds.
"East Enders Only with the help of Muslims can Britain defeat fundamentalist
Islam," by Farrukh Dhondy, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008798
The ACLU's political correctness might delay 1984 (to the relief of many in the Academy)
But it will be an uphill fight as political correctness runs four-square into
political reality
Over the past year the Democrats have built a political
case that President Bush's conduct of the war on terror is trampling civil
liberties and the rule of law. There is a list for the Bush assault on "our
values": the NSA's warrantless wiretaps, Guantanamo, phone-call data mining and
of course his Supreme Court nominations. Whatever the merits of all this,
Congress's Democrats are publicly committed to making this version of the Bush
civil-liberties record a voting issue for their party in November and beyond. So
presumably they will remain deaf to Secretary Chertoff's plea for a legal system
tailored to fight Islamic terror, at least until after 2008.
Daniel Henninger, "Bush Phobia May Prove Fatal: Our bitter politics may
drop the gift of a foiled plot," The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2006
---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110008815
Jensen Comment
Given the likelihood of more frequent terror incidents, ACLU resistance will
probably be futile in the long run in spite of ACLU's joy that Judge Anna
Diggs Taylor recently decided for the ACLU in proclaiming warrantless
international wiretaps as illegal even in time of war (the NSA agrees with her
that international wiretapping is not legal except in wartime such as the war in
Iraq) ---
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/index.html
An attorney and judge, Anna Diggs Taylor was the
first African-American woman appointed to a federal judgeship in Michigan and
later became the first African-American woman to be named chief federal judge in
the Eastern District of Michigan. Taylor has used her positions to advance civil
rights throughout the United States.
Detroit African-American History Project ---
http://www.daahp.wayne.edu/biographiesDisplay.asp?id=64
Jensen Comment
Judge Taylor's illegal wiretapping decision could not have come at a worse time
for Democrats as elections in November approach. Apparently she's ignoring rising
voter sentiments for a stronger rather than a wartime-wounded and demoralized National
Security Agency. One reason the GOP has won so many recent elections is the
Democratic Party's bad timing when supporting agendas written by the ACLU that
are increasingly unpopular with voters. The GOP does not even have to try hard
against such ACLU political misreading of voter sentiments toward wartime
international wiretaps of possible terrorist sympathizers and support for
illegal immigration. There's a widening gap between political correctness and
political reality. Judge Taylor's decision is largely symbolic in futile
political correctness since her decision's almost 100% certain to be
overturned on appeal while leaving liberals wounded once again in election
races. The ACLU who filed the case argues that warrantless international wiretaps,
even in times of war, are another a step toward Big Brotherism. The GOP argues
that Judge Taylor's decision is beautifully written prose that is backed by
terrible legal research and precedents in the law that she totally ignores in
her political agenda.
Even The New York Times Criticizes the Scholarship of the ACLU
Arguments and Judge Taylor's Decision
Even legal experts who agreed with a federal
judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a
National Security Agency surveillance program is
unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric
yesterday. They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to
engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted
passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own
conclusions. Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal,
said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides
comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments. “It does appear,”
Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who
support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in
legal authority.”
Adam Liptak, "Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision," The New York
Times, August 19, 2006 ---
Click Here
The Wall Street Journal is more cryptic
So we suppose a kind of congratulations are due to
federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who won her 10 minutes of fame yesterday for
declaring that President Bush had taken upon himself "the inherent power to
violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of
the Constitution, itself." . . . Before yesterday, no American court had ever
ruled that the President lacked the Constitutional right to conduct such
wiretaps. President Carter signed the 1978 FISA statute that established the
special court to approve domestic wiretaps even as his Administration declared
it was not ceding any Constitutional power. And in the 2002 decision In Re:
Sealed Case, the very panel of appellate judges that hears FISA appeals noted
that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court,
as did all the other courts to have decided the issue,
held that the President did have inherent authority
to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
We couldn't find Judge Taylor's attempt to grapple with those precedents,
perhaps because they'd have interfered with the lilt of her purple prose. Unlike
Judge Taylor, Presidents are accountable to the voters for their war-making
decisions, as the current White House occupant has discovered. Judge Taylor can
write her opinion and pose for the cameras -- and no one can hold her
accountable for any Americans who might die as a result.
"President Taylor," The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2006; Page A14
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115585999824838921.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
The politically correct New York Times is facing up, at election
time, to political reality
Here is what we want to do in the wake of the
arrests in Britain. We want to understand as much as possible about what
terrorists were planning. To talk about airport security and how to make it
better. To find out what worked in the British
investigation and discuss how to push these efforts farther.
It would be a blessed moment in modern American history if we could do that
without turning this into a political game plan.
Editorial, "The London Plot," The
New York Times, August 11, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/opinion/11fri1.html
Jensen Comment
"To find out what worked in the British investigation and discuss how to push
these efforts farther." Yeah right! See the
WSJ editorial below.
Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled
because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their
spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard
would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the
details of such surveillance programs.
"'Mass Murder' Foiled A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American
liberals oppose," The Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008785
What Britain can teach America about counterterrorism ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008794
"A Self-Defeating War," by George Soros, The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2006; Page A12 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115560280788735731.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
• First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
• Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.
• Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
• Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
Jensen Comment
I define a terrorist as an insurgent or insurgency group that intentionally
targets innocent people (like patrons of a restaurant or passengers on an
airplane or subway train) for purposes of revenge, shifting of political power,
and/or extortion bounty. Some would argue that collateral damage of an air
force's bomb is also terror, although if lethal combatants are hiding behind
human shields bombing is not pure terrorism if the
combatant enemy is the real target of the bomb. It's against the Geneva
Convention for any combatants to hide behind innocent civilians, and it's absurd to
let lethal combatants always have their way simply because they use human shields.
In the latter case all combatants would resort to using human shields such as
attaching children to tanks. I think the
Israeli policy in the recent war in Lebanon had elements of both terrorism and
war. In the majority of instances the IDF war targets were combatants who
intentionally located themselves and their weapons behind human shields.
However, I think some IDF targets were intentionally terrorized to inflict so
much damage to Lebanon's infrastructure that Hizbullah felt a need to end
further destruction
even if it meant agreeing to a cease fire. Eventually a long-suffering Lebanon
would've turned on Hizbullah if that was their only alternative to restore their
the infrastructure.
There are really two types of terrorists. One type has a central decision system under a controlling leader such as Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah. Hard core al Qaeda has a similar central decision system. The bad news is that these Type I terrorist systems are often better financed and better trained for large-scale terror. The good news is that the central decision system can call off the terror for whatever reason such as to give Lebanon a chance to rebuild.
Soros is wrong about military action possibilities in discouraging the Type I terrorists. The invasion of Afghanistan made al Qaeda far less brazen and badly damaged the worldwide belief that al Qaeda is invincible. Secondly, Type I terrorists can never stand up to collect their winnings because they will be instant victims of their own terrorist strategies. They must forever remain rats in holes unless they effectively surrender as a Type I terrorist insurgency and begin to act like legitimate governments. Hamas faces this dilemma in trying to achieve legitimacy after an election victory.
The second type, Type II, terrorist or terrorist group has no central decision system and generally reacts in numerous independent cells to incitement from the media. Type I Hizbullah may indeed agree to a truce and agree not to fire rockets into Israel or kidnap Israelis. But splinter groups of Type II Hizbullah insurgents, along with Hamas, will continue to terrorize Israel, especially since the Lebanese and U.N. peacekeepers have agreed not to not confiscate terrorist weapons (although some effort is being made to prevent the import of new weapons) --- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=110176
Paris has promised to send thousands of troops to lead the international force to carry out the ceasefire resolution, which requires "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that... there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State."
However, the resolution also calls for "no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government," and Lebanon already has said it will not force Hizbullah give up its arms. The French defense minister also has said its forces will not take away arms from Hizbullah terrorist guerillas.
. . .
The Lebanese government is approaching a compromise solution that would leave Hizbullah armed on condition its weapons are concealed. This violates the UN resolution, which states in Paragraph 8 that southern Lebanon must remain free of armed groups other than the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL.
Some Type II terrorists who strike out on their own are especially dangerous due to mental illness and medical inability to be reasoned with in any type of appeals or payoffs. If there are enough of such Type II armed terrorists operating independently there is no way to call them off just like there has not been any way to call off Saddam's former army insurgency groups and kidnappers in Iraq. Type II terrorists are intelligence dreams of central governments because governments can always take media credits for their successes in entrapment of a few ignorant rats. But all the Type II rats are impossible to exterminate, and Type II terrorist successes are inevitable over time. Britain may have foiled a Type II group of ignorant rats, but there are still plenty of rats in the U.K. and the rest of the world.
The disadvantage of Type II terrorist groups is that there is nobody to negotiate with and military action defeating one colony of rats simply inflames the other colonies of rats now popularly known as cells or militias. This is why a peace settlement with the leaders of Hizbullah will never stop fanatical militia rockets and suicide bombings. This is why taking out the core of al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba themselves cannot end Type II terror cells from attacking airplanes, buildings, pipelines, cruise ships, water supplies, harvests, etc.
Regardless of what we hear in the media, we cannot surrender to splinter groups of Type II terrorists to end the terror. They will always find an excuse to carry on, and each success only makes them salivate for bigger and better spoils of war. Liberal appeals to ever increasing negotiations/payoffs are truly self defeating because we then face an increasing multitude of copy cat extortionists. Each lucrative kidnapping in Iraq leads to ten more extortionist kidnappings that are not sponsored by insurgents themselves.
Payoffs only inspire copycat Type II extortionists. There are only two ways to frustrate Type II terrorists. One way is to crush them like Saddam brutally crushed any type of insurrection. This includes the current North Korean approach to discouraging dissidence by taking away virtually all freedoms. The freedoms that the U.S. cherishes prevent the U.S. from being so brutal and Orwellian at the present time. But our days of freedom are truly numbered if freedom and terror cannot co-exist in the long run.
The second way to attack Type II terrorist militias is to fund counter-terrorist militias that are also of the Type II type. In other words, the goal here is to let the opposing militias damage each other like a brutal Taliban could never fully gain control of all the equally-brutal and U.S.-funded independent warlords in remote parts of Afghanistan. Drug cartels terrorize each other on a grand scale in Mexico and some other parts of the world. Central governments, in public at least, generally deny supporting either side. The problem with this approach is that warring militias might lead to anarchy and a breakdown of law and civil obedience of any type, a circumstance that may well come to be in Iraq if the United States chickens out in Iraq after having helped create the anarchy danger by knocking out Saddam. Things would've been far worse in Viet Nam when we pulled out if the North Vietnamese army had not been strong enough to put down all post-war insurgency. I still wonder if we'd have pulled out of Viet Nam if that nation had a significant portion, say 50%, of the world's oil reserves or unranium?
Truly Type II terrorist anarchy is not sustainable since everybody will eventually shoot at everybody else. Hence there is a tendency to coalesce Type II splintered terrorists into Type I warring militias that are little more than street gangs at first. About all that can be done in the latter case is to treat such warring militias as criminals and hope that laws of the land and responsible police are strong enough to keep them somewhat under control and to keep weapons of mass destruction out of their hands. In Iraq at the moment all hope lies in building a responsible and formidable police force. President Bush intends, perhaps in vain, that it will be an Iraqi police force and not the Iranian army that eventually quells warring Sunni, Kurdish, and Shiite militias.
Iran begins to shell the Kurds in Iraq While Supplying Roadside Bombs to
the Shiite Militias in the South
Iran has begun shelling Kurdish bases ---
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8278
If Iran wins Iraq, which I think is inevitable given the current U.S.
war weariness, and carries on voraciously to wipe Israel off the face of the earth,
we're destined for devastating world war. We're increasingly willing to give up
Iraq, but Israel is a far different matter in the U.S. political arena. Iran is
probably bluffing in a plan to dominate oil revenues in the Middle
East without truly risking World War III by nuking Israel (which is probably the
only way to wipe Israel off the face of the map).
God help us if George Soros is correct in saying that fighting terrorism is self-defeating. If he's right then North Korea will be the Orwellian model of future generations. I'm glad that I will not live long enough to be squeezed under the thumb of a Big Brother like North Korean President Kim Jong-Il in his scary-looking sunglasses.
George Orwell in 1949 was probably correct even if his timing was a little off when
predicting totalitarianism without freedom in 1984 ---
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/NineteenEightyFour/index.html
But there is an even worse alternative --- nuclear, chemical, and biological winter
--- that eliminates all possibility of a return to democracy.
Make the world go away
And get it off my shoulders
Say the things you used to say
And make the world go away
Eddy Arnold, Make the World Go Away ---
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/arnold-eddy/make-the-world-go-away-8264.html
He thought he'd died and gone to heaven
A 21-year-old man was trapped in a tank of
chocolate for about two hours early Friday, police said. Capt. Randy Berner said
the worker said he got into the tank at the Debelis Corp. to unplug it and
became trapped waist deep in the chocolate. "It was pretty thick. It was
virtually like quicksand," Berner said, and co-workers, police and firefighters
were not able to get him out until the chocolate could be thinned out. "It's the
first time I've ever heard of anything like this," the police captain said. The
worker said his ankles were sore after the incident,...
"Man Is Trapped in Chocolate for 2 Hours ," Forbes, August 18, 2006
---
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/08/18/ap2958723.html
Jensen Comment
The only thing better might've been better is having at least 70 heavenly
virgins swimming with him in the chocolate.
Messages to America's Higher Education Faculty
You are the reason the colleges are proud of what
they do and your accomplishments represent the performance that colleges and
universities point to in developing and justifying their reputation. Reputations
are not developed in a vacuum. You, your parents, your children, your colleagues
and your peers are the living remnants of the college experience. Your success
justifies the massive resources poured by private Americans into supporting
colleges and universities. And your success validates the vocation that
characterizes the role of so many faculty members. There is something special
about American higher education, which continues to produce some of the world’s
greatest scientists and engineers, thinkers and scholars. There is something
unique in the education we offer, which provides a breadth, an intellectual
depth to accompany the skills and aptitudes of the specialist. And there are the
human successes in sectors whose mission is to produce an involved, thinking
efficiency... Not everyone agrees that American higher education is
characterized by success. Numbers are quoted indicating that the quality of
graduates is not what it used to be. But they forget that sometimes the numbers
go down as the numbers go up. As American higher education welcomes people less
prepared, less gifted and often less motivated, as the atmosphere at some
colleges becomes less rarified by the proliferation of remedial education, the
average accomplishment will go down.
Bernard Fryshman, "Grasping the Reins of Reality," Inside Higher Ed,
August 16, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/08/16/fryshman
Today the United States ranks ninth among industrialized nations in higher-education attainment, in large measure because only 53 percent of students who enter college emerge with a bachelor’s degree, according to census data. And those who don’t finish pay an enormous price. For every $1 earned by a college graduate, someone leaving before obtaining a four-year degree earns only 67 cents.
Jensen Comment
These income statistics are misleading. For example, the reasons that make a student drop out of college may be the same reason that dropout will earn a lower wage. In other words, not having a diploma may not be the reason the majority of dropouts have lower incomes. Aside from money problems, students often quit college because they have lower ambition, abilities, concentration, social skills, and/or health quality, including drug and alcohol addictions. These human afflictions contribute to lower wages whether or not a student graduates, and a higher proportion of dropouts have such afflictions versus students who stick it out to obtain their diplomas. Nations who rank higher than the U.S. in higher-education attainment do so because they have higher admission standards for the first year of college.
How to break the ice when meeting new students/parents in outdoor
gatherings:
Bring your dog!
“I thought, why not have a few days where the
‘threatening’ professors and staff could bring in their dogs to help new
students realize that we’re real people, too,” remembers Bradley. “My training
as a psychologist led me to believe, though, that everyone would see this as too
‘touchy feely.’” However, it turns out that “touchy feely” can sometimes be just
the right prescription. Bradley says that many students who had expressed
homesickness came to several sessions, which were planned during the first few
weeks of school. Several professors and staff members brought in their pooches,
and students were able to have conversations about classes and health concerns.
And the president of the institution, L. Jay Lemons, even got involved — helping
scoop up some left-over accidents.
Rob Capriccioso, Inside Higher Ed, August 16, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/16/dogs
Stanford's Online High School for Gifted Students
Stanford University is opening an online high school
for gifted students this fall,
The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The high
school will eventually enroll 300 students and Stanford officials hope to
provide an educational alternative and to have a lead on recruiting some of the
brightest students for college.
Inside Higher Ed, August 15, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/15/qt
Jensen Comment
Stanford also manages an onsite high school in East Palo Alto.
I had the following Tidbit in April 2006:
Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth will
launch a three-year, fully accredited, diploma-granting high school for gifted
students, thanks to a $3.3 million gift from the Malone Family Foundation. The
program will begin accepting student applications this spring and is scheduled
to begin classes in the fall.
"Stanford to offer first online high school for gifted students," Stanford
Report, April 14, 2006 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/april19/ohs-041906.html
A Remedial High School Alternative
PLATO Learning Inc. ( http://www.plato.com ) has announced the release of PLATO Courses, which are
semester-long online courses that provide schools and districts a way to deliver
rigorous credit-recovery solutions, alternatives for students not succeeding in
the traditional environment, credit-granting distance learning programs, and
home school curricula. The PLATO Courses cover math, science, and social
studies, and are aligned to national standards in each subject area. Each course
provides a comprehensive course curriculum, including exemptive assessments,
instructional content, cumulative final exams, and state standards coverage
reports. To promote the successful use of PLATO Courses, PLATO Education
Consultants provide both on-site and electronic professional development
sessions. Each PLATO Course also includes teacher support materials in the form
of a Teacher's Guide and an Implementation Guide. Pricing varies.
Bob Jensen's links to online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Pierre Trudeau had a closely-bonded friendship with Fidel Castro
On Castro's 80th birthday, an essay by Pierre's son Alexandre Trudeau.
Toronto Star, August 15, 2006 ---
Click Here
Congratulations to Zoe-Vonna ---
http://accountingeducation.com/index.cfm?page=newsdetails&id=143356
Zoe-Vonna Palmrose, the PricewaterhouseCoopers Professor of Auditing at the
University of Southern California's Leventhal School of Accounting and Marshall
School of Business, will join the Securities and Exchange Commission as its
Deputy Chief Accountant for Professional Practice.
Blackboard Lifts Up a White Flag
Blackboard’s Small, however, said that much of the
online anger is based on a misreading of Blackboard’s patent. The patent has 44
parts, he said, independent parts and dependent parts. The former are the
central claims and the latter parts only are relevant when applied to the
central claims. So a reference to chat rooms does not mean that Blackboard
claims to have invented them or has a right to royalties on their use — unless
they are part of a larger system that makes use of Blackboard’s patented
technologies, Small said. Much of the criticism of Blackboard is based on
reading the dependent patent clauses as if they were independent. “In reality,
the patent covers only specific functionality that was invented by Blackboard,”
he said. “This is not a patent on e-learning,” Small said. “We are not bullying
anyone. We are not looking to put anyone out of business. We are looking to
obtain a reasonable royalty for use of our intellectual property.”
Scott Jaschik, "Blackboard: Bully or Misunderstood?" Inside Higher Ed,
August 18, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/18/patent
Bob Jensen's threads on the history of eLearning technologies (including worries about Blackboard's patent) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm
Mrs. Kozlowksi's Divorce
August 16, 2006 --- Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]
I guess even a husband throwing $2 million birthday party for his wife won’t insure the loyalty of that wife if he is in the slammer.
Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
218 N. College Ave.
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674
http://faculty.rio.edu/campbel l
August 17, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
I wonder which gladiator will finally carry off Mrs Kozlowksi?
Jurors got to see an edited version of the $2 million party video which excluded naked moonings in front of the camera and a “scene in which Mrs Kozlowksi is carried around by models dressed as gladiators” --- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/28/1067233177998.html?from=storyrhs
My friend Jack up here in the White Mountains who was Dennis Kozlowski's bodyguard remains loyal to Kozlowski and thinks that what Dennis did for Tyco (in terms of share value) more than offset what Dennis stole from Tyco. Dennis sends Jack Christmas cards from prison. Makes me wonder whether shareholders will tolerate most any kind of criminal executives who keep pumping up share prices.
In fairness, some of Kozlowksi’s legitimate business acquisitions for Tyco were very profitable for Tyco shareholders.
Did you know that, before Tyco, Dennis Kozlowksi briefly worked for Enron? Maybe that’s where he learned how to loot a company while pumping up share values.
How often have we witnessed how agency theory is invalid for executive agents? This should make us wonder about all the accountics research papers built upon fictional agency theory assumptions.
We still need your support for Judy Rayburn’s TAR Diversity Initiative --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Bob Jensen
PricewaterhouseCoopers also fell prone to faulty
risk assessments. In July, the SEC forced Tyco, the industrial conglomerate, to
restate its profits, which it inflated by $1.15 billion, pretax, from 1998 to
2001. The next month, the SEC barred the lead partner on the firm's Tyco audits
from auditing publicly registered companies. His alleged offense: fraudulently
representing to investors that his firm had conducted a proper audit. The SEC in
its complaint said that the auditor, Richard Scalzo, who settled without
admitting or denying the allegations, saw warning signs about top Tyco
executives' integrity but never expanded his team's audit procedures.
"Behind Wave of Corporate Fraud: A Change in How Auditors Work: 'Risk Based'
Model Narrowed Focus of Their Procedures, Leaving Room for Trouble,' " by
Jonathan Weil, The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2004, Page A1---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on the dangers of risk-based auditing are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#RiskBasedAuditing
New Books in Electronic Formats
Electronic Book Update
Clearly, the movement toward digital content delivery
is gaining steam. And, as such, it is not surprising to read that the
technology’s more vocal enthusiasts are forecasting nothing short of a
revolution in academic research, teaching, reading, writing, and publishing once
it becomes ubiquitous.Over at
if:book,
the collective blog of the “Institute for the Future of the Book,” commentators
have had a great deal to say about the immense transformations that digital
delivery and online publishing will effect on the academy and academics.
Scott W. Palmer, "If:book, Then What?" Inside Higher Ed, August 15, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/08/15/palmer
August 15, 2006 message from Ivy Banaag [ibanaag@ECNext.com]
Hello Robert,
My name is Ivy, and I work for ECNext, Inc. After reviewing your website, specifically the Links section, http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000aaa/ebooks.htm , I wanted to propose you consider adding a new online textbooks site, iChapters.com.
iChapters.com offers brand new textbooks, in electronic & print formats. Electronic versions of college textbooks, including individual chapters, are available for immediate download at affordable prices. Only at iChapters.com can you choose to buy just what you need at the price you want to pay.
Students who frequent your website, especially those with a tight budget, will surely benefit from iChapters. I am hoping that you can help them find us by including iChapters ( http://www.iChapters.com ) on your Links section.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me ( ibanaag@ecnext.com ) if you have any questions.
Ivy iChapters.com
Bob Jensen's threads on the history of electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free electronic literature are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm
Accounting Instructors Needed in Afghanistan
August 14, 2006 message from Daniel Lounberg [dlounberg@itasca.net]
Professor Jensen,
We need several graduate assistants and senior instructors to reach an accounting course in Afghanistan, for an accountancy training project in Afghanistan funded by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA), www.ustda.gov . I am writing to inquire whether you know of someone for us. Right now, the most urgent need is for graduate assistants.
I am assisting Pragma ( www.pragmacorp.com ) to identify several trainers for the project. The assignments have duration of one month, and will take place sometime during fall 2006 and early winter 2007.
Graduate Teaching Assistants
Qualifications:
· Undergraduate degrees from a U.S. university in accountancy (or a related discipline);
· He or she will preferably have prior experience as accountancy program teaching assistants.
· Teaching Assistants shall be either (1) graduate students presently enrolled in a U.S. University and engaged in post-graduate accountancy, business studies or related discipline; or (2) hold such other U.S. educational and/or U.S. professional qualifications and certification attesting to his or her ability to provide professional assistance to the Senior Instructor
· Each Teaching Assistant will be required to spend 1 month of residence in Afghanistan assisting a Senior Instructor in addition to providing other project assistance during the course of the Contract as determined by the Program Director and/or Senior Instructor(s)
Senior Instructors
The Senior Instructor shall have a post-graduate degree (or other comparable U.S. professional training and/or U.S. accounting certification) in a relevant discipline from a U.S. educational institution. This individual must be a U.S. trained accounting professional with a minimum of ten years in a U.S. GAAP or IAS accounting environment, experience in accounting sector and experience as an accountancy training instructor. He or she will preferably have overseas development experience and shall be responsible for designing and delivering the Training Program, supervising U.S. and Afghan Teaching Assistants and producing training materials. The Senior Instructor will be required to spend a four-week residence in Afghanistan.
If interested, we will need an updated cv. Alternatively, if you can think of anyone that might be interested, I would like to hear. My e-mail address is dlounberg@itasca.net, and telephone number is 703 243 9090. Feel free to post this announcement in any forum you choose.
Best regards,
Daniel E. Lounberg
Itasca International
Arlington, Virginia USA
office phone: (703) 243-9090
fax: (703) 243-1094
cell: (703) 785-8894
dlounberg@itasca.net
dlounberg@aol.com
August 15, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Daniel,
I will forward your request to my friends. I truly wish you well in this important effort. I receive many, many requests from students and instructors around the world to help with them with my various tutorials at my Website. Unfortunately, my tutorials were not really developed for elementary-level accounting students.
There are some free elementary accounting textbooks and other free tutorial materials linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Some links for my more advanced tutorials are as follows:
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm
Best of luck to you!
Bob Jensen
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Sometimes to Lose Means to Win:
Remember that
war in Viet Nam that was lost by the U.S. capitalists and won by the
communists?
We have updated our Vietnam Country Page with the
latest information about Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VASs), including a
list of VASs currently in force. VASs have been developed by the Ministry of
Finance (MOF) based on IASs issued prior to 2003. The MOF is considering a
proposal to grant rights to the Vietnam Association of Certified Public
Accountants (VACPA) to formulate and update Vietnamese Accounting Standards.
IAS Plus, August 15, 2006 ---
http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
Jensen Comment
58,226 U.S. soldiers died in the Viet Nam War and the casualty count was 211,529
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Casualties
Center for Public Integrity --- http://www.publicintegrity.org
Global Policy Forum --- http://www.globalpolicy.org/
Forget Iraq! Here's the new Democratic Party formula for winning elections
in Alabama
Alabama Democrats barnstormed the state Tuesday
promising bills that would require Bible classes in public schools, remove the
sales tax on food, and other popular causes including tougher immigration laws
and stricter reporting requirements for lobbyist spending on politicians.
John Peck, The Huntsville Times, August 16, 2006 ---
Click Here
A Professor's Lawsuit Against Ohio University
Jay Gunasekera, a professor who supervised the work of
some of the 37 Ohio University master’s graduates found to have plagiarized
parts of their theses, is suing the university for defamation, saying that his
role has been distorted, the
Associated Press
reported. University officials — who
have released detailed reports on the alleged
plagiarism — told the AP that they would contest the suit.
Inside Higher Ed, August 14, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/14/qt
Question
Will these engineering graduates take down their diplomas and return them to
Ohio University?
Ohio University has sent letters to more than 50
people who earned master’s degrees with material believed to be plagiarized,
asking them to return their degrees, rewrite their theses, or demand a hearing,
The Athens News reported. In May the university
found
“rampant and flagrant plagiarism” among some graduate
students in its mechanical engineering department.
Inside Higher Ed, July 19, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/19/qt
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism in academe are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm
Harvard Study: Copyright restrictions limit the spread of digital
learning tools
Copyright restrictions limit the spread of digital
learning tools in schools and colleges, according to
a new report from the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard University.
Inside Higher Ed, July 19, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/19/qt
Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of the DMCA are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
At last editorial boards are protesting rip-offs of monopoly publishers
Another journal declaration of independence is in
progress. The entire editorial board of Topology has resigned to protest
Elsevier's refusal to lower the subscription price.
University of Illinois Issues in Scholarly Communications Blog, August
14, 2006 ---
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/
Bob Jensen's threads on how scholarly journals are ripping off libraries --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
"A Closer Look at the Hispanic Population," by Hubert B. Herring, The New York Times, August 13, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/business/yourmoney/13count.html
Amid all the (immigration) controversy, though, the nation is preparing to celebrate many of its immigrants with Hispanic Heritage Month. (It starts Sept. 15.)
To mark that occasion, the Census Bureau has offered up a grab bag of statistics, like these: as of July 1, the estimated Hispanic population was 42.7 million, nearly twice the 1990 level; by 2050, it is projected to hit 102.6 million, which would constitute 24 percent of the population. There were 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses in 2002, generating $222 billion in revenue.
The difficulties facing that population, though, can be seen in other bits of data: 32.7 percent of Hispanics lacked health insurance in 2004, 21.9 percent lived in poverty, and just 12 percent of those 25 and over had college degrees.
France sticks to immigrant expulsions
The French interior minister has defended his decision
to expel thousands of illegal immigrants this year, saying France needed an
uncompromising immigration policy following recent rioting in its suburbs . . .
Some 4.5million immigrants live in France, official data shows, and the interior
ministry estimates that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 illegal immigrants
in the country.
"France sticks to immigrant expulsions," al Jazeera, August 16, 2006 ---
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B3D9764E-B5A9-4BF1-8799-DF52D6A8470B.htm
Resources for Writers: George Mason University --- http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/resources/index.html
Writing Center Resources from Princeton University ---
http://webware.princeton.edu/sites/writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm
Writing Center Resources from Purdue University ---
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
English Tutorials (included "Ask-a-Teacher option)
UsingEnglish.com ---
http://www.usingenglish.com/
From Rutgers University
Literary Resources — Theory ---
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/theory.html
Yotophoto is the first internet search engine for finding free-to-use photographs and images --- http://yotophoto.com/
The site has a unique set of categories for different types and levels of writing.