Rerouting Brain Circuits with Implanted Chips

Rerouting Brain Circuits with Implanted Chips
A new brain chip being tested in monkeys could one day reconnect brain areas damaged by stroke or spinal-cord injury.
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By Emily Singer

A new, implantable and wireless brain chip can create artificial connections between different parts of the brain, paving the way for devices that could reconnect damaged neural circuits. Scientists say the chip sheds light on the brain's innate ability to rewire itself, and it could help explain our capacity to learn and remember new information.

"We have a chance of manipulating and repairing [specific] regions of the brain that might be damaged," says Joseph Pancrazio, director of the neural-engineering program at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, MD. "To be able to repair these kinds of lesions on a neuron-by-neuron basis is extraordinary."

In stroke and spinal-cord injuries, neural circuits may be damaged, leaving patients with profound problems in movement or speech. In recent years, scientists have begun developing brain-cognitive interfaces, which record neural signals and transmit them either to a computer, to another part of the brain, or to another body part in effort to get around the neural blockade.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Washington, in Seattle, showed for the first time in live animals that an implantable device could record signals from one part of the brain and transmit that information to another part, reshaping neural connections in the process. "We essentially set up an artificial-feedback loop between two different parts of the cortex," says Eberhard Fetz, the scientist who led the study.

The device, built entirely of off-the-shelf parts, consists of tiny wire electrodes surgically implanted into a monkey's motor cortex. (Neurons in this area are active when an animal makes a voluntary movement.) The wires record activity from these cells and send the signals to a tiny printed circuit board, which amplifies and processes the signal. That information is then sent to a neighboring circuit board and electrode, which uses the signal to stimulate cells in another part of the motor cortex. The entire apparatus is encased in titanium and attached to the monkey's head, allowing the animal to go about its normal daily activities.

According to research published online in Nature, the device was able to reshape the neural circuits that control muscle movement. At the start of the experiment, neurons at the recording sites triggered movement of the wrist in a different direction than when neurons at the stimulating site were activated. After running the record-stimulate sequence for 24 hours in freely behaving monkeys, researchers found that underlying neural circuits had changed: the wrist movement associated with neurons at the stimulating site more closely resembled the movement associated with neurons at the recording area, indicating that the neural connections between these two areas had strengthened.

The findings support a long-held theory in neuroscience: that activating different brain cells at the same time strengthens connections between those cells. Scientists believe this concept underlies our ability to both learn new information and recover some motor and cognitive function after strokes and other brain injuries. "The findings show that the current conception of long-term strengthening is very much on the right track," says Krishna Shenoy, a neuroscientist at Stanford who is also developing neural implants.


The findings also have implications for the development of neural prosthetics. For example, the device could be connected directly to the spinal cord or muscle rather than to another part of the brain. "If a person had a spinal-cord injury and the link from brain to muscle is impaired, this connection could bypass that injury and reconnect brain cells to the muscle," says Fetz. His group is currently working on this application.

Such a device might one day be used to boost the effects of rehabilitation therapy. Rehab exercises are designed to boost the brain's innate plasticity--in essence, they try to make the damaged brain develop a new neural pathway to control movement of specific muscles. Devices such as Fetz's chip may be able to speed along this process by strengthening connections between two different brain areas. "This study gives a preliminary indication that there are methods that can be used to almost engineer this rerouting," says Andrew Schwartz, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies neural prosthetics.

While the findings are exciting, there is still a long way to go before the technology can be applied to human beings. In terms of stroke rehabilitation, scientists would first need to figure out precisely which two parts of the brain should be reconnected. "In order to restore function, you can't just make more connections--you have to make the right connections," says John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University who is developing a different type of implantable prosthetic.

Donoghue's chip, which is already being tested in human trials, uses many recording electrodes, but it currently doesn't have the ability to stimulate other parts of the brain or body. (With his device, neural signals are sent to a computer, which decodes the information and uses it to move a cursor on a computer screen. See "Implanting Hope," March 2005, and "Brain Chips Give Paralyzed Patients New Powers.") However, Donoghue says he is currently working on stimulating capabilities as well.

Copyright Technology Review 2006.

POLITICALLY CORRECT WAR

POLITICALLY CORRECT WAR
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By RALPH PETERS
New York Post

October 18, 2006 -- HAVE we lost the will to win wars? Not just in Iraq, but anywhere? Do we really believe that being nice is more important than victory?

It's hard enough to bear the timidity of our civilian leaders - anxious to start wars but without the guts to finish them - but now military leaders have fallen prey to political correctness. Unwilling to accept that war is, by its nature, a savage act and that defeat is immoral, influential officers are arguing for a kinder, gentler approach to our enemies.

They're going to lead us into failure, sacrificing our soldiers and Marines for nothing: Political correctness kills.

Obsessed with low-level "tactical" morality - war's inevitable mistakes - the officers in question have lost sight of the strategic morality of winning. Our Army and Marine Corps are about to suffer the imposition of a new counterinsurgency doctrine designed for fairy-tale conflicts and utterly inappropriate for the religion-fueled, ethnicity-driven hyper-violence of our time.

We're back to struggling to win hearts and minds that can't be won.

The good news is that the Army and Marine Corps worked together on the new counterinsurgency doctrine laid out in Field Manual 3-24 (the Army version). The bad news is that the doctrine writers and their superiors came up with fatally wrong prescriptions for combating today's insurgencies.

Astonishingly, the doctrine ignores faith-inspired terrorism and skirts ethnic issues in favor of analyzing yesteryear's political insurgencies. It would be a terri- fic manual if we returned to Vietnam circa 1963, but its recommendations are profoundly misguided when it comes to fighting terrorists intoxicated with religious visions and the smell of blood.

Why did the officers in question avoid the decisive question of religion? Because the answers would have been ugly.

Wars of faith and tribe are immeasurably crueler and tougher to resolve than ideological revolts. A Maoist in Malaya could be converted. But Islamist terrorists who regard death as a promotion are not going to reject their faith any more than an ethnic warrior can - or would wish to - change his blood identity.

So the doctrine writers ignored today's reality.

Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have stated explicitly and repeatedly that they're waging a global jihad to re-establish the caliphate. Yet the new manual ignores religious belief as a motivation.

The politically correct atmosphere in Washington deems any discussion of religion as a strategic factor indelicate: Let our troops die, just don't hurt anyone's feelings.

So the doctrine writers faked it, treating all insurgencies as political. As a result, they prescribed an excellent head-cold treatment - for a cancer patient. The text is a mush of pop-zen mantras such as "Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction," "The best weapons do not shoot," or "The more force used, the less effective it is."

That's just nutty. Should we have done nothing in the wake of 9/11? Would everything have been OK if we'd just been nicer? What non-lethal "best weapons" might have snagged Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, where the problem was too little military force, not too much violence?

Should we have sent fewer troops to Iraq, where inadequate numbers crippled everything we attempted? Will polite chats with tribal chiefs stop the sectarian violence drenching Iraq in blood?

On the surface, the doctrine appears sober and serious. But it's morally frivolous and intellectually inert, a pathetic rehashing of yesteryear's discredited "wisdom" on counterinsurgencies and, worst of all, driven by a stalker-quality infatuation with T.E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia," who not only was a huckster of the first order, but whose "revolt in the desert" was a near-meaningless sideshow of a sideshow.

Lawrence is quoted repeatedly, with reverence. We might as well cite the British generals of the Great War who sent men over the top in waves to face German machine guns.

You can trust two kinds of officers: Those who read a great deal and those who don't read at all. But beware the officer who reads just a little and falls in love with one book. A little education really is a dangerous thing.

The new manual is thick - length is supposed to substitute for insight. It should be 75 percent shorter and 100 percent more honest. If issued to our troops in its present form, it will lead to expensive failures. Various generals have already tried its prescriptions in Iraq - with discouraging results, to put it mildly.

We've reached a fateful point when senior officers seek to evade war's brute reality. Our leaders, in and out of uniform, must regain their moral courage. We can't fight wars of any kind if the entire chain of command runs for cover every time an ambitious journalist cries, "War crime!" And sorry: Soccer balls are no substitute for bullets when you face fanatics willing to kill every child on the playing field.

In war, you don't get points for good manners. It's about winning . Victory forgives.

The new counterinsurgency doctrine recommends forbearance, patience, understanding, non-violent solutions and even outright passivity. Unfortunately, our enemies won't sign up for a replay of the Summer of Love in San Francisco. We can't treat hardcore terrorists like Halloween pranksters on mid-term break from prep school.

Where is the spirit of FDR and George C. Marshall, who recognized that the one unbearable possibility was for the free world to lose?

We discount the value of ferocity - as a practical tool and as a deterrent. But war's immutable law - proven yet again in Iraq - is that those unwilling to pay the butcher's bill up front will pay it with compound interest in the end.

The new counterinsurgency doctrine is dishonest and cowardly.

We don't face half-hearted Marxists tired of living in the jungle, but religious zealots who behead prisoners to please their god and who torture captives by probing their skulls with electric drills. We're confronted by hatreds born of blood and belief and madmen whose appetite for blood is insatiable.

And we're afraid to fight.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer.

Hamas Must-See TV

Hamas Must-See TV
America's so-called allies help spread terrorist propaganda.
Original here

By Clifford D. May

H amas may not have funds to pay the salaries of civil servants and improve social services for Palestinians. But resources to fund its propaganda efforts? That, evidently, is not a problem. This month, the terrorist organization that governs Gaza and the West Bank launched a satellite television station.

The new station will be broadcast by Arabsat, majority-owned by the Saudi government. Arabsat, along with Nilesat, owned by the Egyptian government, already distribute the programming of Al Manar, the television station of Hezbollah.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Manar have all been officially designated by the U.S. government as terrorist entities. Meanwhile, the Saudi government runs commercials in the U.S. claiming to be America's "ally" in the War on Terrorism. And the Egyptian government presents itself as our moderate Arab friend — in exchange for billions of dollars in American aid.

The Hamas television station is called "The Light of Al Aqsa." Thanks to the Saudi government, its broadcasts will be available throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe as well. A senior Hamas official, Fathi Hammad, was candid enough to say that its mission would be to challenge "the Western culture that has invaded our territory."

If the model for Al Aqsa is Al Manar, it will feature a steady drumbeat of vilification and dehumanization of Americans, Israelis and Jews. It also will glorify suicide bombing, help recruit terrorists, raise funds for terrorist operations and directly incite terrorism.

Why is Hamas doing this now? One strong possibility is that Hamas expects to soon be at war — with Israel, certainly, but also possibly with Fatah, the Palestinian organization it defeated at the polls early this year.

During the recent war in Lebanon, Al Mana proved an effective weapon for Hezbollah. Through its broadcasts — and with the help of its Saudi and Egyptian satellite providers — Hezbollah was able to drive its messages to the Arab world, into Europe and beyond. Among those messages: that Israel was intentionally targeting civilians, rather than Hezbollah fighters. That false charge diverted attention from the fact that Hezbollah was using Lebanese Christian and Muslim civilians as human shields, while also firing missiles at the Jews and Muslims who coexist peacefully in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Hamas wants to have the same communications capability, particularly if the conflicts it has been cultivating escalate. The relationship between Hamas and Fatah's leader, Palestinian Authority Chairman president Mahmoud Abbas, has been growing increasingly tense. Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayam has accused Abbas of planning a coup and has announced the deployment of a new, armed operational force in the West Bank where Fatah support is strongest. Abbas has reportedly ordered PA security forces to prevent such deployment.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is deciding what he needs to do to stop the Kassam missiles that have been raining down from Gaza virtually every day since the Israeli withdrawal from that territory more than a year ago. Also on his to-do list: blocking the smuggling of arms into Gaza through the Philadelphi route and Rafah crossing, destroying the anti-tank missiles and industrial explosives already smuggled into Gaza, and demolishing the tunnels that Hamas has been building in the direction of Israel's security fence.

In addition, Israelis would like to secure the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a soldier captured in June by Hamas combatants operating on Israeli soil. This week, Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, accused Iran of paying money to Hamas to make sure Shalit's captivity continues.

In these circumstances, Hamas wants the ability to deliver its spin directly to Arab audiences, to win their sympathy and support, to raise money and perhaps recruit volunteers. And it wants to use satellite television to reach deep into Europe to incite Arabic speakers — for example in the suburbs of Paris where French police are taking casualties daily in what they term an "intifada;" in London, where British security officials are desperately trying to track proliferating al Qaeda cells; and elsewhere in Europe where radical jihadist activity is on the rise.

The Europeans appear to be doing little to stop the Saudis and Egyptians from helping Hamas and Hezbollah incite terrorism. By contrast, it will not be surprising if — besides missile factories and weapons warehouses— the Israeli army soon targets Hamas television studios. And should a Palestinian civil war break out, it is not hard to imagine that Fatah might do the same.

— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.

The Dark Ages -- Live From the Middle East!

Real Clear Politics, October 26, 2006
The Dark Ages -- Live From the Middle East!
Original here

By Victor Davis Hanson

The most frightening aspect of the present war is how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages.

Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.

Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?

Over 400 years before the birth of Christ, ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.

It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.

Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity - and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.

Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans - in fear of radical Islamists - would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?

The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law - sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.

Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.

Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.

First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.

Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.

The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman - much less whether it was any better than the alternative.

Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?

To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need no so such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us - live almost daily from the Middle East.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

China's GPS: Military Threat?

China's GPS: Military Threat?
Original here

Defense Tech., June 2006
By Theresa Hitchens

Peter B. de Selding hit the front page of Space News (subscription only) the other day with a scoop about a Chinese plan to build a 24-satellite navigation network, called Compass, in roughly the same orbit as the American and European sat-nav systems, GPS and Galileo. But there’s more: the Chinese are apparently “threatening” to use an encrypted signal for military ops that would actually overlay – and maybe interfere with – "M-Code," the Pentagon's GPS broadcast. That's the signal that keeps everything from precision bombs to flying drones on track.

You might remember that the Pentagon had a right royal hissy fit when the Europeans proposed to overlay Galileo’s encrypted signal on the M-code, because under those circumstances the U.S. military wouldn’t be able to jam Galileo during any hostilities without blocking its own ability to access the GPS signal. So, you would figure collective hair would be on fire over at the five-sided building at the news of the Chinese plan, right?

Well, maybe and maybe not. Turns out this jamming biz is not as simple as it sounds. According to CDI’s resident techno-geeks, Haninah, Eric and Ryan, it seems that we could, at least theoretically, jam the Chinese satellites even if the GPS signals are overlain (over-layed? laid over?). It would be difficult, and we’d need a lot of jammers to ensure that enough satellites in the network were shut down to degrade the system’s functionality. But jamming the signals of individual satellites is a tough challenge, so we’d likely end up opting instead for “frying” – in that the easiest way to shut them off would be to them slam them with a pulse that would put the electronics permanently out of commission.

That's probably not an option we'd want to take with Galileo constellation -- which, after all, is costing the Euros a serious wad. Considering that the U.S. isn’t likely to be at war with Europe anytime soon (perhaps despite the efforts of the French), it’s probably safe to assume that we’d only be talking about stopping up Galileo if some bad guy was using it against us – and it is pretty unimaginable that under those circumstances that the U.S. would want to be faced with having to blow (electronically that is) Eurohardware out of the sky.

Instead, we'd probably want to use local jammers, to block out a given area's satellite receivers on the ground. GPS signals (and Galileo signals) are weak. So it's pretty dang simple to drown them out using an in-theater jammer putting out a stronger signal over a certain geographic footprint. But that only works if our M-code and their signals aren't crossed-up.

But the question of being able to jam the Chinese isn’t the only problem raised by the potential Compass signal overlay. The CDI techno-geeks, as well as one of my P-gon buds who actually knows a thing or two about satops, explained that the Compass constellation itself could be used by the Chinese as sort of a giant jammer in space to muck up GPS. The Compass sats could transmit garbage that disabled GPS, or transmit deceptive signals that would not disable it, but cause it to broadcast incorrect data. They could do this intermittently and sneakily – to undermine confidence in GPS/Galileo reliability (Beijing to Washington, “We’re so sorry, bugs in our system.”) Or they could equip the Compass satellites with high-powered transmitters linked to a big, red DISABLE GPS button at PLA HQ for use in any conflict with the U.S.

Before I get slammed for pretending to be Bill Gertz, it is worth noting, as Gregory Kulacki from the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out, that there isn’t any money in the current Chinese five-year budget plan for such a satnav system, and we’d be talking about big, big money. Nor could Gregory find any info in the Chinese-language technical literature in the public domain about the specs for such a potential system. So, maybe the Chinese just want to scare the Euros into letting them in on their signal? Stay tuned, we’ll know more next Monday when Space News will be publishing a follow-up story.

Foes See U.S. Satellite Dependence as Vulnerable Asymmetric Target

Foes See U.S. Satellite Dependence as Vulnerable Asymmetric Target
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Commercial Space Boom Comes with Risks, Absence of Public Debate Disturbing
By JINSA Editorial Assistant Jon Howland

The importance of space to U.S. security has shifted dramatically, one of the Pentagon's most senior military leaders declared at a security affairs conference held more than two years ago. Near space, just a few thousand miles above the planet within which all man-made satellites orbit is no longer a region from which mankind only takes pictures or through which missiles fly their ballistic paths but a "core" asset to America's war fighting capabilities. At the same time, however, the commercial space industry's explosive worldwide growth, including the booming market in imagery, communication, and navigation satellites as well as launch expertise, has called into question America's unfettered and unchallenged commercial and military access to space. Despite the fact that nearly every aspect of the commercial use of space has associated military implications if not outright uses, this urgent issue has been dangerously absent from the national debate.

Space is no longer an "enabler" but a "core" asset to modern war fighting capabilities, Army Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, the current deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, said at the 2001 Fletcher Conference, an annual meeting co-sponsored by the U.S. Army and Tufts University. Anderson contended that space has become a critical component in the United States' ability to conduct military operations. But the importance of space has not gone unnoticed by potential enemies and they are in turn developing indigenous space capabilities. The head of the U.S. Strategic Command Adm. James Ellis, told Defense News, September 15, 2003, "I guarantee you that our adversaries understand where the source of our technical prowess is." At the same time, according to a 2001 Space Commission report chaired by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, American space assets remain critically vulnerable to "those hostile to the U.S. [who] can acquire on the global market the means to deny, disrupt or destroy U.S. space systems ... nowhere else does our defense capability rest on such an insecure firmament."

While recognizing that the United States is "more dependent on space than any other nation," leaders within the Defense Department and Congress are debating whether or not to place offensive and defensive weapon systems in space in order to guarantee continued access to space while denying hostile nations the same luxury. The dissolution of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, renewed funding for "defensive and offensive counter-space capabilities" in the 2004 Bush Administration budget, and a growing global interest in anti satellite (ASAT) programs, are products of this concern. In turn, both foreign governments and strategic policy makers within the United States argue that placing weapons in space will lead to a costly and unnecessary "space war" while others believe the U.S. has no choice but to place weapons in space if it is to ensure continued American military supremacy and prevent a "Space Pearl Harbor," as the Rumsfeld report concluded.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Peter Hays, an expert in the field of space weapons and the executive editor of the National Defense University's Joint Force's Quarterly, has identified four camps in the debate over the placement of weapons in space. The first contends that the United States military cannot operate nearly as effectively as it has in the last decade without the unfettered access to space the United States currently enjoys. To some observers, most notably former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), the former Chairman of the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee, space dominance is essential and represents the "ultimate high ground" in warfare. Senator Smith has even suggested dissolving parts of the U.S. Air Force and creating a separate U.S. Space Force. Advocates of this premise strongly support the findings of a study designed to address the growing threat to American space control as directed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in 1996. Titled "Air Force 2025", the study declared that space is of such vital importance to the United States military that it "require(s) the placement of force application weapon systems in space ... Our national politicians need to recognize the critical nature of space systems, space vulnerabilities, and need to support pursuing space control and force application capabilities in space ... before an antagonistic nation either attacks or deploys the capability to destroy U.S. space assets and holds the nation hostage." On a somewhat lesser scale, a second camp holds that the weaponization of space is inevitable, as the Rumsfeld Space Commission concluded. Still, a third camp understands the importance of space to U.S. military projection and desires to preserve the status quo and refrain from an international "space arms race". In the fourth camp are those that Hayes refers to as "space doves". The "doves" believe that space should be off limits to military use and might even support the removal of current military navigation, communication, and imagery satellites.

Hays also identified five trends that may contribute to the deployment of space weapons in the future. First, is the relatively cheap and low-tech threat of detonating a nuclear weapon in low earth orbit. The radioactive fallout would eventually destroy U.S. reconnaissance, communication, and early warning satellites and wreak havoc estimated in the tens of billions of dollars on U.S. commercial satellites. Second, is the increasing threat to the U.S. space assets through asymmetric warfare. Both China and Russia have been cited as a cause of concern in regards to this scenario. In July 2000, the Xinhua Hong Kong News Service reprinted an article by Wang Hucheng titled "The U.S. Military's Soft Ribs and Strategic Weaknesses." Wang, a People's Liberation Army defense analyst, wrote: "For countries that can never win a war with the United States by using the method of tanks and planes, attacking the U.S. space system may be an irresistible and most tempting choice." Third, is the Bush Administration's continued development of a boost-phase intercept ballistic missile defense system. Although this technology is geared primarily at destroying incoming missiles in early stages of flight, the same technology has an inherent dual use capability for targeting satellites. Continued funding and progress towards this capability, Hays argued, will likely result in other nations pursuing a similar capacity thus resulting in a space weapon race. Fourth, that Americans and allies alike will become so dependent on space assets that the military will be called upon to defend this new "economic and strategic center of gravity" just as the military provides the world with secure access to oil today. Finally, current treaties and international laws undermine the commercial growth of space by "denying sovereignty and derivation of wealth from space". This final premise advocates that the United States take a much more aggressive role in the development of commercial space. While this avenue may not result in the weaponization of space per say, it would afford the America an opportunity to become an effective yet "benign hegemon" thus ensuring a leading role for the United States in space dominance.

The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) predicts by 2010, 70 percent of all satellites will be owned and operated by private companies - a dramatic increase from the 30 percent of 1996. Moreover, the majority of space-based assets will be owned by multinational businesses and not independent nation states. In fact, a major transnational space bloc of China, Brazil, and Europe was announced in August 2003. NDIA predicts that by 2010, 80 percent of all communication satellites and 20 percent of all remote sensing satellites will be transnational owned and thus transcend government censorship and increasing access to space by hostile nations and terrorist groups. Worldwide revenues derived from all aspects of the commercial space industry were estimated at $117 billion in 2001, according to the consulting firm A.T. Kearney. Between 1999 and 2010, an estimated 1,700 commercial satellites will travel in earth's orbit. And the commercial use of satellites is predicted to become cheaper, faster, and more frequent. It is estimated that commercial geo-synchronous satellites are delivered 18 months after they are ordered. In contrast, the acquisition of national security satellites runs 10 to 15 years. The technology and desire for space-based assets is accelerating the proliferation of space technology and its inherent dual-use capabilities with regards to ballistic missile technology, reconnaissance, communications, and autonomous global positioning satellites (GPS).

The ballistic missile technology required for launching satellites is spreading. This constitutes an obvious concern, as missile platforms designed to launch satellites into orbit are equally effective as surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. The procurement of ballistic missile technology is primarily by Third World nations, including those with active chemical, biological, and nuclear programs such as India, Pakistan, and Iran. North Korea continues to lead the world in missile technology proliferation. Iran recently conducted tests on their new Shahab 3 missile design, which is based on North Korea's Rodong 1 prototype, CNN reported in August. China's Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation was sanctioned by the State Department earlier this summer for passing similar missile expertise to Libya. Missile technology purchased and developed under the guise of commercial space use affords Third World and hostile nations an increased, efficient, and relatively cheap asymmetric threat in anti-satellite capabilities against the United States and our allies, according to Thomas Mahnken, acting director of Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.

The commercial development and access to remote sensing satellite technologies has exploded in the last decade. Geared primarily towards the geological, environmental, and agricultural industries, commercial reconnaissance satellites have an inherent and perhaps unavoidable military application. Proliferation of space imagery for example, led to the 1992 Land Remote Sensing Act (LRSA). The LRSA sought to address the concerns of the scientific, military, and business community had regarding access to remote sensing technologies. Scientists demanded access to satellite imagery for environmental monitoring, business entrepreneurs sought the commercial benefits, and the intelligence community worried about sensitive imagery becoming publicly available. The LRSA promoted continued commercial access to U.S. imagery satellites including the Earth Observation Satellite (EOSAT) but required aggressive record keeping of who was looking where and why, along with licensing requirements from the Federal Government. The LRSA has not prevented independent national and international firms, however, from developing and acquiring their own indigenous high-resolution capabilities including businesses in India, Japan, U.S., and the European Union (EU). The Russian Soyuzkarta imagery satellite provides 5-meter resolution commercially while the American QuickBird, operated and owned by Colorado based DigitalGlobe, is reported to be capable of providing 0.61-meter resolution. France's SPOT satellite, a commercial precursor to the French military's Helios system, offers 10-meter resolution and has been in use since 1986. Moreover, autonomous commercial satellites do not avert other nations from seeking imagery from other space capable nations. Clients of Space Imaging Middle East (SIME) located in Dubai include Bahrain, Pakistan, UAE, Lebanon, and the Royal Jordanian Air Force, according to Defense News.

Retired Jordanian Air Force Brig. Gen Musa Qallab told Defense News, November 3, 2003, "Commercial satellite imagery has been of great value to civilian and military institutions in Third World countries, which seriously lack space technology and would likely never have it ... [it] has helped governments of the Arab world, and especially in the Gulf region, [with] enhanced information-gathering capabilities and [imagery intelligence] to the region's armed forces." Saddam Hussein was known to rely heavily upon commercial satellite imagery during his war with Iran. Despite being denied access to such information after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, France provided SPOT imagery to Saddam after 1991 while American troops were stationed in neighboring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, many nations including South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia enjoy direct and unfettered access to SPOT imagery because they host direct ground stations. Countries hosting satellite-receiving stations acquire and process imagery within minutes, as opposed to the usual seven-to-ten day turn-around other nations must tolerate.

India had entered into high-level discussions with Israel for access to their new (2002) Ofeq-5 satellite imagery, with a resolution thought to be less than a half-meter, Defense News reported September 22. Such a partnership would provide India not only super high-resolution imagery, but also time sensitive data, real-time targeting (for conventional and nuclear missiles), and unprecedented mapping capabilities of the Kashmir Valley. In 2000, the Clinton Administration labeled Chinese and Indian access to Israeli space capabilities as "potentially problematic," Defense News reported. Israel continues to strive for space power status and is aggressively seeking international partnership to alleviate the high costs involved. According to the Jerusalem Post, September 7, Israel has already agreed to cooperate in space technology advancements with South Korea at a meeting in South Korea held in August. In the complex world of commercial satellite proliferation and transnational cooperation and ownership, Israel is likely to build the imagery cameras, South Korea will provide the satellite (KOSMAT-II), and Russia will supply the launch facility.

The supply of commercially available space imagery will escalate. More countries are developing independent capabilities while technology in meter resolution; cloud, night, camouflage and tree canopy penetration, and imagery enhancement are advancing and becoming increasingly available on the commercial market. Managing Director Mohammad El-Kadi of SIME, quoted in Defense News, November 3, said, "our plan is to increase (imagery) capability (of the Middle East), whereby three years from now we would be able to acquire half-a square-meter high resolution, and in nine years we would be able to acquire 25-square centimeter high resolution." Businesses from the United States, France, Russia, Japan, Israel, and South Africa have all announced their ambition of launching commercially available high-resolution satellites with less than 5-meter resolution in the near future, according to Gerald M. Steinberg, a Senior Research Associate at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel's Bar Ilan University. The rising tensions on the Korean peninsula have prompted Japan to launch 6 high-resolution imaging satellites in space by 2005, autonomous GPS by 2008, and satellites specifically designated towards a "fully operational multi-tiered missile defense system" within the next two to three years, according to Defense News, September 8. Terrorist or rogue nation access to similar high-resolution space imagery has obvious implications. It is often said that had Saddam Hussein access to commercial space imagery during Desert Storm, the famous "left hook" maneuver, which took coalition forces around Iraqi positions, would have been impossible to execute.

It was widely reported that the U.S. government exercised absolute "shutter control" on commercial imagery satellites during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and Denver-based Space Imaging Inc., which operates the one meter resolution Ikonos satellite, reported that the U.S. government purchased the exclusive rights to all the regional imagery taken throughout the duration of both wars. Space Imaging also photographed the Al Udeid base, the new U.S. airfield in Qatar and a major staging area for operations against Iraq. GlobalSecurity.org posted images bought from ImageSat International, an Israel-based company whose motto is "high resolution satellite imaging for anyone, anytime, anywhere," of the Air Forces B-2 stealth bomber facilities on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia thus confirming the presence of American bombers within striking distance of Baghdad. NIMA has undergone a ten-fold increase (about $100 million) this year alone in purchasing exclusive rights to commercially available imagery and an estimated $500 million over the next five years.

According to a joint U.S. Space Command and NDIA estimate conducted in 1998, communication satellite revenues account for an estimated 70 percent of all space based assets. Approximately $40 billion dollars is invested in commercial communication satellites scheduled for launch throughout the next 10 years and the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee of the Department of Transportation predicts an average of 33 launches per year for the next decade as the demand for access to faster and more information increases. U.S. military operations over the last decade have demonstrated the importance of space-based communications including the MILSTAR satellites for providing timely information and command and control. Indigenous communication satellites have already been launched by 14 nations so far including China, India, Indonesia and it has been reported at least five more nations including Iran and Turkey plan to do so in the near future.

At a time when space-based communication is essential to the U.S. military, American armed forces are dangerously dependent upon commercial satellites for communications and that dependence is increasing. The Defense Department has committed to a strategy of relying more on commercial satellites during military operations rather than fielding its own independent systems because of high costs and the inability to match demand. During the Balkans conflict, the U.S. military leased a high-bandwidth commercial communications satellite to support intelligence, weather, reconnaissance, and ground operations in Bosnia. Eighty percent of all space borne communications during Operations in Kosovo traveled on multinational and commercially owned satellites, up from roughly 25 percent in Operation Desert Storm according to the Air Force Association's Air Force Magazine Online, February 2000. The resulting predicament prompted General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to state, "Clearly, our reliance on commercial space has created a new center of gravity that can easily be exploited by our adversaries."

Military dependence upon non-encrypted commercial satellites continues to escalate. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the London-based mobile satellite communication company Inmarsat, which was used by coalition forces, reported its busiest month in its history during the peak of the war in March, April, and May according to a September 2 article on Space News.com. Iridium and New Skies satellites also reported massive spikes in usage and were at times overwhelmed, requiring the system to be taken down for maintenance. Moreover, Inmarsat was unable to provide the military with encrypted data transmission at 128 Kilobytes per second (kps) but only at 64 kps - a speed far too slow for the military.

At the same time, commercial satellites remain critically susceptible to enemy jamming and intelligence interception. In the early 1990s, U.S. commercial satellites were subjected to weeks of radio interference emanating from a hostile Middle Eastern nation that has not been identified by the State Department to this day. Attempts at changing frequencies failed. This August, Telstar-12, an American communications satellite stationed over the Atlantic Ocean, was successfully jammed while attempting to broadcast a Persian news TV program into Iran under the stewardship of the State Department, WorldNetDaily, an independent online newssite, reported August 7, 2003. The orbital location of Telstar-12 is beyond the range of Iran-based jamming antennas. The U.S. government, however, was able to trace the jamming signal to Bejucal - the former Soviet signals intelligence base in Cuba located some 20 miles south of Havana. Despite protests from the State Department, Cuba continued to jam, or allow the Iranian diplomatic presence in Cuba to jam Telstar-12 for weeks while pro-democratic student protests were to take place in the streets of Iran. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., wrote on WorldNet Daily, August 7, 2003, "by successfully jamming a U.S. communications satellite over the Atlantic Ocean, the regimes of Cuba and Iran challenged U.S. dominance of space and the assumptions of free access to satellite communication that makes undisputed U.S. military power possible."

It has been widely reported that since 1999 Cuban leader Fidel Castro has allowed China to conduct signals intelligence interception and cyber warfare operations operation against the United States from the Bejucal facility. Cuban officials have vehemently denied involvement in the jamming and reported in August that they had located the jamming facility within an Iranian diplomatic facility and have since shut it down. Foreign policy experts doubt the veracity of this claim as the Castro dictatorship enforces a strict control over all aspects of Cuban life and would be quite aware of the operation of such sophisticated electronic transmission equipment. Non-state actors, including terrorists, have the capability to jam, intercept, and hack commercial satellites. In 2002, Reuters reported that the Chinese dissident group Falun Gong continues to successfully disrupt the Beijing government's television broadcast satellites with a flip of a switch from Taiwan. Nevertheless, according to a 1998 study conducted by the NDIA, there is little perceived threat from hostile attacks on communication satellites by the public or even the commercial space industry itself.

The United States has enjoyed a monopoly with regards to Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) for years. Public access to GPS after the KAL 007 incident in 1983, in which a Soviet fighter shot down a South Korean airliner that had drifted into Soviet airspace, has resulted in a profitable business. According to an article in the July/August 2003 Foreign Affairs penned by David Braunschvig, Richard Garwin, and Jeremy Marwell - all leading experts in science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations - revenues from GPS related sales have increased dramatically from $500 million in 1993 to an estimated $12-16 billion in 2002. However, GPS is equally beneficial for both commercial and military purposes. While the ratio of civilian to military users stands around 100:1, military weapons are increasingly reliant upon all-weather GPS technology. The most recent war in Iraq illustrates this in that 60 percent of all munitions used in Iraq were GPS-guided, up from three percent in the Serbian conflict, according to Braunschvig. Yet increased concern over America's dominance of such a critical system has sparked other countries to develop autonomous GPS constellations. Europe has announced its aspiration to begin launching the Galileo constellation, which has an ambitious operational date of 2008. President Chirac recently stated that Europe risked becoming "vassals" to American GPS if Europe did not develop an independent capability. China too, has just launched its third Beidou GPS satellite at the end of June, for "public security" concerns among other uses according to the official Xinhua news agency. While independent development of GPS is not necessarily a direct threat to the United States, it does empower foreign and potentially hostile nations with an increased military capability including long-range precision engagement.

In 1999, U.S. military spending in space accounted for 94.8 percent of the global military space budgets, a December 18, 2002 article by the Center for Defense Information on space weapons reported. According to a 2001 study conducted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. had 110 military-related space satellites. Russia had 40 and the rest of the world combined possessed 20. The United States government is continuing to outspend European countries by an average ratio of 6:1. Although the United States is said to have a commanding lead in space technology, other nations, both friendly and foe, are rapidly developing autonomous capabilities both commercially and militarily. As the commercial space market accelerates, the access to space based imagery, ballistic missile technology, communications, and navigation will progress. Recent wars have demonstrated how reliant the United States has become on space-based assets for conducting modern warfare. While these assets provide the United States with an unprecedented advantage, they also create an unacceptable asymmetric vulnerability. If the United States is to remain the leader in space, law makers and military planners within the U.S. government need to appreciate the inherent dangers involved in the continued proliferation of dual-use space technology under the guise of commercialization.

According to Frank Gaffney, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, "The more people learn how dependent we (U.S.) are on space, the more likely they are to figure out, as the Chinese and Russians have, that being able to interfere with our satellites is essential to their strategic interest. The threat to space assets is real and growing."

JINSA Online, December 04, 2003

A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare

A Dangerous Step toward Space Warfare
Original here

Experts say the new U.S. National Space Policy will push the world closer to a space arms race.
MIT Technology Review, October 27, 2006
By Brittany Sauser

The release of the U.S. National Space Policy (NSP) on October 6 has worried many experts, who say the policy marks a strategic shift toward a more military-oriented, unilateral approach to space for the United States. They fear that the policy, if followed, could begin an arms race leading to catastrophic space warfare.

The NSP reads, in part, "The United States considers space capabilities… vital to its national interests. Consistent with this policy, the United States will: preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests;

The policy clearly conveys that the United States considers itself accountable to no one for its military actions in space, says Michael Krepon, cofounder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank that promotes international security. It also rejects nonmilitary initiatives that include some form of arms control, even if such initiatives would improve the safety and security of U.S. satellites.

This is not the first time the United States has asserted what it terms an "unhindered" right to act in space. The 1996 NSP, drafted by the Clinton administration, had the same central theme. The difference, according to Theresa Hitchens, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information, is that the new policy not only dismisses the rights of other space-faring powers but is actively hostile to the concept of collective security. It signals that the United States no longer regards space as a cooperative environment, she says, undercutting 40 years of tradition that has kept competition and conflict in space at a minimum.

A paradox of the policy, experts say, is that it leaves U.S. satellites, which are indispensable to the nation's communications and security, vulnerable to attack and destruction by other nations. "Currently, the American military makes enormous use of space to help empower our forces on the ground at sea and in the air," says John Arquilla, a military expert and professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. "If we lose those satellites, it would simply level the playing field and take away the space element that gives American forces an advantage."

In September, DefenseNews.com, a reliable source of military news, reported that China had fired high-powered lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory. What the Chinese military's intentions were, and what effect the lasers had, is not known. Publicly, U.S. officials appeared unalarmed. But the idea that China may be testing, or is about to be begin testing, offensive space technologies may have been one factor in shaping the unilateralist language of the NSP.

"The simple problem is that it is a lot easier to knock things down from space than it is to protect them up there," Arquilla says. "Frankly, the kinds of weapons that can be used, like a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse, can be very, very destructive and cripple satellites."

The loss of satellites is not the only troubling possibility. The destruction of satellites creates orbital debris fields that can render regions of near space unusable. Some of those regions, like low Earth orbit, are where most manned space flights and space station missions have been conducted. The new NSP calls on government and nongovernment operations to "seek to minimize the creation" of such fields.

If satellites became targets, the only way for the United States to protect them would be to put defensive systems in space. But "weaponizing" space could lead other nations to follow suit, Krepon says.


The topic of weaponizing space is a sensitive one, and Arquilla, who is privy to much classified military information, would not comment on whether the U.S. plans to launch weapons into orbit. But he notes that many defensive methods don't require offensive capabilities--in particular, a proposed system called the Autonomous Nanosatellite Guardian for Evaluating Local Space (ANGELS), which will allow the United States to move its satellites to safer locations.

The new space policy does more than just re-assert America's freedom of action in space. It also calls on NASA and other agencies to gear up for technological innovation and "human and robotic space exploration programs."

"The policy is in its early stages, and at this point we are continuing to go forward with the programs currently in operation, such as the Mars Rovers and several of the long-term missions," says Robert Mirelson, a senior NASA official. "There are no real big 180-degree changes under the national space policy as it pertains to us, [and] the time line remains the same."

As part of that time line, which runs until 2030, NASA plans to complete the International Space Station and shuttle program by 2010 and to develop a new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) for a return to the moon. The CEV, named Orion, is part of the new Constellation Program, which is scheduled to be ready for testing in 2008. If all works well, Constellation will launch in 2014.

"We depend on Congress for our budget, and that affects programs," says Mirelson. "Until you see that in black and white, you can't talk specifics across the board. I mean, nobody is expecting any radical reductions and certainly not any radical expansions for [fiscal year] 2007."

Despite experts' concerns about the new NSP, most are also hopeful that the United States will collaborate and cooperate with other space-faring nations if technology, budgets, and policies permit. These experts hope that the use of space, as the NSP states, will continue to "enhance security, protect lives and the environment, speed information flow, serve as an engine for economic growth, and revolutionize the way people view their place in the world and the cosmos"--not just for the United States but all "hosts of nations, consortia, businesses, and entrepreneurs" that use space.

Copyright Technology Review 2006.

Veil war breaks out on Egypt university campus

Veil war breaks out on Egypt university campus
Original here

By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
Gulf News Published: 10/22/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

Cairo: Zeinab, a veiled student at the University of Helwan in Cairo, vows
to defy a controversial decision against female students who don the niqab
from staying at the university hostel. (The niqab is a veil covering the
woman's face except for the eyes).

"I won't give up this attire, which makes me feel decent and secure. Why
should they target veiled female students, while tolerating scantily clad
girls on the campus," said Zeinab, aged 20.

A few weeks ago the Provost of Helwan University Abdul Hayy Ebeid infuriated
Islamists in Egypt when he ordered that niqab-wearing students should not be
allowed into the dormitories of the institution unless they agreed to be
checked by security women to verify their identities. Students are
accommodated in these hostels for very low fees.

The decision has drawn protests from students and human rights groups, who
have slammed it as an infringement on personal freedom.

Officials at the university say the decision was taken on security grounds.

"The university will not rescind this decision because it would be blamed if
a man, veiling his face behind the niqab, walked into the female-only
dormitories," Mahmoud Refaat, a director at the University of Helwan, said
in press remarks.

"The niqab has been grossly misused by criminals and even terrorists," said
another university official, who asked not to to be named.

"We should not forget that over a year ago two veiled women were involved in
a foiled attack on a tourist bus in Cairo," he told Gulf News.

Last week, a female Muslim preacher was threatened with death after
declaring the niqab was not an Islamic duty. Suad Saleh, a famous TV
preacher and a former dean of the women's college at the religious
University of Al Azhar, told the private satellite channel TV Dream that it
was wrong to consider the niqab an obligatory item of the Islamic attire.
"There is no unequivocal text in the Holy Quran that women must cover their
faces," she argued.

Islamists have filed a lawsuit against Saleh and Dream TV over the remarks.

"The niqab was common in the Arabian Peninsula centuries before Islam and
was not imposed by this religion," said Amnah Nousir, a professor of Islamic
philosophy.

"The face is one's mirror. So why should the woman hide herself behind this
black veil?" she told Gulf News.

Her argument is supported by Jamal Al Bana, a liberal Muslim thinker, who
said in a recent interview that "the niqab is an insult and he who calls for
it is backward".

MP Ebrahim Zakaria of the Muslim Brotherhood has filed a complaint with the
Prosecutor-General demanding investigations into alleged exclusions of
veiled students from government-run universities.

In recent years the hijab (headscarf) and the niqab have become popular
among Egyptian women.

The Wonders of Hindsight

The Wonders of Hindsight
Looking back is a sure way to stumble.
Original here

NRO October 23, 2006, 6:09 a.m.
By Victor Davis Hanson

Most of the blame game being played over the Iraqi occupation — and always with the wisdom of hindsight — is now irrelevant.

Should more or fewer soldiers be in Iraq?

That's basically settled: There will be no sizable increases in our troop presence, but gradual downsizing, as more provinces must come under Iraqi control and we seek to avert Iraqi perpetual dependence. Debating how many soldiers should have been deployed in the three-week war of 2003 and its aftermath is about as helpful in the present as fighting over culpability for the surprise at the Bulge.

But who disbanded the Iraqi army?

It doesn't matter now — the new army is nearing 300,000 strong and growing. It will either rise to the occasion or fail. The decision of 2003 to leave it scattered is ancient history.

Still, wasn't de-Baathification far too sweeping?

Perhaps, but three years later that's not an issue any more either, now that former Hussein government officials have long been welcomed back into the military and civilian bureaucracy.

Weren't we slow in turning over control to the Iraqis?

Absolutely, but now, after three elections, Iraq is autonomous, and American proconsuls are not on television hogging the news of someone else's future.

Wasn't it terrible that Tommy Franks left in the middle of a long theater campaign, as if he sensed that Centcom's three-week victory might well devolve into his three-year messy aftermath?

Yes, but so what? He can no longer do a thing either to save or to lose Iraq.

It used to be blood sport to blame the supposed flawed architects and implementers of the Iraqi war and occupation — neocon advisers to President Bush, the proconsul Paul Bremer (whose blazers were emblematic of his out-of-touch, unrealistically optimistic, rather than workable and good enough, solutions), or the nice, but deer-in-the-headlights Gen. Sanchez.

Even if these purported scapegoats have been accurately portrayed, and their mistakes account for the current pessimistic Iraqi prognosis — neither of which I grant — what are we to say about those currently in charge? Even critics of the war have praised the Middle Eastern Ambassador Khalizad, the savvy Gen. Petraeus, the Arab-speaking Gen. Abizaid, and the best and the brightest fighters in the field, such as a Lt. Col. Kurilla or a Col. McMaster. All of these players are not only in, or about to be back in, Iraq, but are pivotal in crafting and adapting American tactics and strategy there.

Many wars metamorphize into something they were not supposed to be. Few imagined that the Poland war of 1939 would within two years evolve into a war of annihilation involving the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, Germany, Japan, and Italy. So too with the third Iraqi war of 2003 (following the first 1991 Gulf War, and the second, subsequent 12-year no-fly zone stand-off) that has now become a fight against jihadists for the future course of the entire Middle East.

What matters now is not so much what the war was or should have been, but only what it is — and whether we have learned from our mistakes and can still win. The answer to both questions is yes. We have the right strategy — birthing (through three elections already) an autonomous democracy; training an army subject to a civil government; and pledging support until it can protect its own constitutional government.

Few American officers are talking about perpetual occupation or even the need for more troops, but rather about the need for a lighter footprint, bolstered by teams of Special Forces and air support, to ensure Iraqi responsibility for their own future,. And the key to success — a diplomatic squeeze on the Sunnis to suppress terrorists in Nineveh and Anbar provinces in exchange for Shiite guarantees of more government inclusion — is now the acknowledged goal of both the Iraqi and American governments.

Thousands in Iraq accept that they have crossed the Rubicon, and they must either make their own democracy work or suffer a fate worse than that of the boat people and the butchered in Southeast Asia when the Americans left.

As for how to ensure against this disastrous outcome, multilateral talks are no magic bullet, as we see from the failed EU3 efforts with Iran and the stalled six-party negotiations over the North Korean problem. The "more rubble/less trouble" solution that the Russians employed against the Chechnyans in Grozny is out of the question for a humane United States. The U.N. is no answer as we have seen from serial genocides from Rwanda to the present killing in Darfur.

No, only the United States, and its superb military, can stabilize Iraq and give the Iraqis enough time and confidence to do what has not been done before, and what apparently no one any longer thinks will be done: a surviving, viable democratic government in the heart of the dictatorial Middle East. Though the necessary aims are clear, they are not quickly and easily attained. Everyone understands that there is no single military answer to Iraq, but rather that the political solution depends on soldiers providing enough security long enough for free commerce and expression to become established. So rather than agonize endlessly over past perceived errors, we must realize that such lapses are not unprecedented in our military experience and focus on whether they are still correctable.

By the standards of Grenada, Panama, and Serbia — where few American died and some sort of tenuous consensual government emerged fairly quickly — Iraq is indeed messy. But if we grant that the effort to replace Saddam with democracy in the heart of the ancient caliphate is a far formidable enterprise, and thus akin to the challenge, and cost, of taking an Okinawa or saving a Korea, then our losses and heartbreak so far are not extraordinary.

For all the Democrats loud criticism, if they do regain Congress, they would probably rely on the present expertise of a Khalizad, Abizaid, or Petraeus, and not the often quoted wisdom of three years past of a Gen. Shinseki or Zinni. I doubt they will bring back Gen. Wesley Clark to fix the "mess." They will either have to cut off funds, ensure a pull out before the end of the year, and then watch real blood sport as reformers are butchered; or they will have to trust that our present military and civilian leadership has learned the hard lessons of three years in Iraq, and can find a way to stabilize the nascent democracy.

How do we define success in Iraq, in the context of a dysfunctional Middle East where elections in Lebanon and Palestine bring turmoil, the "correct" multilateral NATO war in Afghanistan is still raging, and we still can't do much to find bin Laden in a "friendly," but nuclear and Islamic, Pakistan? No mention is necessary about an Algeria still reeling from a horrendous bloodbath in the 1990s, the nightmare that was Qadhafi's Libya, perennial Syrian roguery, the theocratic disaster in Iran, or all the other butchery that passes for the norm in the Middle East.

We can only ask: Are the tribal leaders of the troubled Anbar province now more likely to join the government or the insurgents? Are the old controversial barometers of Iraqi wartime electrical production, GDP, and oil output currently falling or stable? Is the successful Kurdistan seceding or in fact still part of Iraq? Is the Shiite leadership now de facto a pawn of Iran, or still confident about its role in a democratic and autonomous Iraq? Do the communiqués and private correspondence of al Qaeda in Iraq reflect cocky triumphalism or worry over losing? Do Iraqi elected leaders praise us or damn us and ask us to leave? In a global war against Islamic jihadists, who have killed thousands of Americans here at home, should we lament that we are now fighting and killing them as they flock to distant Iraq?

As we head for the November elections, most politicians have renounced their paternity of the now-orphaned American effort in Iraq. And pundits of summer 2003 have not just had second thoughts about Iraq in the autumn of our discontent in 2006 — but very public third thoughts about whether they ever really had their enthusiastic first ones.

The odd thing is that, for all the gloom and furor, and real blunders, nevertheless, by the historical standards of most wars, we have done well enough to win in Iraq, and still have a good shot of doing the impossible in seeing this government survive. More importantly still, worldwide we are beating the Islamic fundamentalists and their autocratic supporters. Iranian-style theocracy has not spread. For all the talk of losing Afghanistan, the Taliban are still dispersed or in hiding — so is al Qaeda. Europe is galvanizing against Islamism in a way unimaginable just three years ago. The world is finally focusing on Iran. Hezbollah did not win the last war, but lost both prestige and billions of dollars in infrastructure, despite a lackluster effort by Israel. Elections have embarrassed a Hamas that, the global community sees, destroys most of what it touches and now must publicly confess that it will never recognize Israel. Countries like Libya are turning, and Syria is more isolated. If we keep the pressure up in Iraq and Afghanistan and work with our allies, Islamism and its facilitators will be proven bankrupt.

In contrast, if we should withdraw from Iraq right now, there will be an industry in the next decade of hindsight exposés — but they won't be the gotcha ones like State of Denial or Fiasco. Instead we will revisit the 1974-5 Vietnam genre of hindsight — of why after such heartbreak and sacrifice the United States gave up when it was so close to succeeding.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute

Reproduction revolution: Sex for fun, IVF for children

Reproduction revolution: Sex for fun, IVF for children
Original here

20 October 2006
Jo Whelan

In the science fiction movie Gattaca, the hero, Vincent, is an "In-Valid" - someone whose only crime is to be conceived in a moment of passion rather than in a Petri dish. His brother, by contrast, is a Valid, created by a process designed to ensure the optimum recombination of his parents' genes. In-Valids are condemned to a life of menial jobs and discrimination. To realise his dream of becoming an astronaut, Vincent has to buy a Valid's identity.

It's a scenario that is difficult to imagine from today's viewpoint. Yet could we be moving towards an age in which entering nature's genetic lottery is no longer seen as a desirable way to bring a child into the world? Might natural conception even come to be thought of as irresponsible, as bad as smoking while pregnant?

Reproducing the traditional way is undoubtedly flawed. Worldwide around 1 child in 16 is born with a mental or physical disability due to a genetic defect, and most of us probably carry gene variants that predispose us to serious illnesses later in life. How much safer it would be to go along to the fertility clinic, have some embryos created and pick the one or two that will produce the healthiest baby.

IVF has become commonplace, and top clinics boast pregnancy rates of more than 30 per cent for each cycle - better than the 1 in 4 chance of conceiving the natural way and likely to improve further. Until recently, though, IVF was only for those with fertility problems. The rapid development of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is starting to change this. Increasing numbers of fertile couples with a family history of a serious disease such as cystic fibrosis are opting for IVF with PGD so they can be sure any child will not inherit it. Others are resorting to IVF-PGD so they can choose their child's most basic characteristic: sex. Women who freeze their eggs to ensure they can have children later in life (see Methuselah moms) may soon swell the ranks even further. Could IVF-PGD one day become the preferred method of conception?

"It is technically possible," says Simon Fishel, a member of the team responsible for the birth of the first IVF baby in 1978, who now runs the Care Fertility group of clinics in the UK. There are, of course, huge obstacles, not least of which is the cost. "You have to pay per cycle," points out Fishel. "You can attempt to conceive naturally over 12 cycles in a year and it costs you nothing."

If the benefits were clear, though, many couples might save up to give their children the best start in life, just as many now pay for private schooling. In some countries, state healthcare systems or medical insurers might foot the bill, at least for those who risk passing on severe diseases. New Zealand is leading the way, providing limited funding of IVF-PGD for couples whose children risk inheriting serious diseases. It remains to be seen how many countries will follow suit, but there is a strong ethical argument for offering prospective parents this option and, given the huge costs of treating many genetic illnesses, a strong financial case too.

The other big obstacles are the inconvenience, pain and risk involved. Women have to inject themselves for weeks with expensive hormones that stimulate their ovaries to produce more eggs than normal and then have the eggs extracted, with only a 1 in 3 chance of getting pregnant. It's an emotional roller-coaster ride.

In up to 10 per cent of IVF cycles the extra hormones trigger ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, in which fluid leaks from blood vessels, causing symptoms such as bloating and pain. Around 5 per cent of cycles cause moderate or severe OHSS, with a risk of disabling strokes or even death. For every 100,000 women undergoing IVF, about six die.

While the hunt is on for ways to prevent hyperstimulation, it would be best to avoid ovary-stimulating drugs altogether, not least because there are fears that they might slightly increase the risk of some cancers. One alternative is in vitro oocyte maturation, or IVM. Early in the cycle the ovaries contain many eggs that are nearly mature, but only one completes development each month; the others degenerate. Instead of relying on drugs to force all these eggs to reach the ovulation stage, IVM involves harvesting nearly mature eggs and incubating them for one or two days to complete their development.

Several hundred children have already been born after IVM, and follow-up of the children has so far not revealed any ill effects. As well as being less risky for women, IVM is cheaper. "It is impossible to say if IVM will replace conventional IVF; its efficiency, efficacy and safety are still far from certain. But it could happen," says Fishel.

What about the health of the children? The greatest threat is the practice of implanting several embryos to boost the chances of a pregnancy, resulting in more twins and triplets, who face far greater health risks than singletons. They are more likely to be born prematurely or have a low birthweight, with all the lifelong problems these can entail, and to die soon after birth.

Even singleton IVF babies are around twice as likely to be premature or low birthweight. Again, however, multiple embryos could be to blame, because many IVF pregnancies start out as twin pregnancies. When single embryos are transferred, the differences in health vanish (New Scientist, 25 June 2005, p 14). Many countries limit the number of embryos that can be implanted and single embryo transfer could eventually become the norm.

An IVF baby is also three times as likely to be born with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which can lead to growth abnormalities and cancers. There are just 4 cases per 15,000 births even after IVF, however, and the higher risk might be due to parents' fertility problems rather than to IVF.

Despite these issues, by the time IVF children are 8 years of age they are indistinguishable from those conceived naturally. Other problems may emerge in old age, but it will be decades before we find out. There is a similar situation with PGD, which usually involves removing one or two cells from an eight-cell embryo for testing. Studies of children born after PGD have found no ill effects, but many experts question whether we can yet be certain the procedure is safe.

For the 1 in 6 couples with fertility problems, or those who know their children risk inheriting a serious genetic disease, IVF and PGD are already well worth the cost and risk. For the rest of us, of course, they are not. However, this balance looks certain to change as IVF becomes safer and more affordable and as PGD offers ever more possibilities.

Imagine if you could be almost certain that your child would be free of any known genetic disease. Not only that, you could choose your baby's sex and perhaps even select aspects of their appearance or intellectual and physical capabilities. Given these options, millions more people may be prepared to go down the assisted reproduction route.

"Any genetic defect that has been identified can now be screened for," says Alan Handyside of London's Bridge Fertility Centre, who led the team that pioneered PGD in 1989. As the genetic basis of ever more disorders is pinpointed, and more and more families discover that they harbour harmful mutations, the attraction of PGD will grow.

For the moment, though, with the exception of major chromosomal disorders, PGD can only detect mutations already identified in the would-be parents. It cannot detect unexpected mutations that arise spontaneously in the sperm or eggs of individuals who do not carry the mutation themselves. This will become possible, however, as our knowledge grows.

Part of the problem is that only one or two cells are available for screening. Until recently this greatly restricted the tests that could be done. However, new ways of amplifying DNA are making it possible to do hundreds of tests. That means clinics will be able to screen for a much wider range of harmful mutations - and for desirable variants too.

It is already easy to determine sex, and thousands of fertile couples are now choosing to have IVF-PGD for sex selection, as it is more reliable than competing methods such as sperm sorting. A recent survey found that 9 per cent of PGD in the US is for sex selection (New Scientist, 30 September, p 15), and the phenomenon is not restricted to western countries: in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, more and more fertility clinics are offering this service, says fertility expert Osato Giwa-Osagie of Lagos Teaching Hospital in Nigeria.

Needless to say, the issue is contentious. One of the main objections to sex selection is that it could skew the balance of the sexes. In many parts of Asia and Africa, male children are sought after. However, in western countries, the opposite seems to be true. "The vast majority of patients who come to us request girls," says Trina Leonard of the Genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, which offers a sperm-sorting technique and PGD.

Many countries, including the UK and Australia, do not allow sex selection for non-medical reasons. Where it is allowed, some clinics restrict sex selection to family balancing, meaning a couple must already have a boy if they request a girl and vice versa. "You can't come here and say 'I want a family of five boys'," says Leonard. But half of the clinics in the US that carry out PGD for sex selection do not insist on family balancing, and many of their clients are couples from countries where sex selection is banned.

In the long term, it may be hard for regulatory authorities to continue to deny access to sex selection. "The reality is that the technology is available, and people want access to it," says Fishel. John Harris, a bioethicist at the University of Manchester, UK, sees no moral or ethical objection to sex selection. He suggests that a trial number of procedures should be allowed to see if fears about the social impact are justified.

How much further can selection go? What of that object of tabloid hysteria, the "designer baby"? Will we one day be able to ask for a tall, musical, blue-eyed boy or a dark-haired girl? Even if regulatory authorities allow us to use PGD to select desirable gene variants, there are major snags. For starters, IVF typically generates fewer than 10 embryos per cycle. This means parental choice will be very limited. "I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever go through IVF to select the hair colour of their offspring," says Yuri Verlinsky of the Reproductive Genetics Institute, Chicago, one of the pioneers of PGD.

"The only way to increase choice would be to generate larger numbers of eggs," says Handyside. It might become possible to do this by maturing early-stage eggs taken from the ovaries in the lab, or by generating eggs from stem cells (see The egg and sperm race). Even then, the options will still be limited. "Unless we interfere with the genes of an embryo, children are going to resemble their parents," says Handyside. "The genes for particular characteristics may not be there."

What's more, predicting which of 100 embryos will turn into the most intelligent child or the greatest athlete will require enormous advances. "If tomorrow there was a publication saying that we have managed to identify all the genes involved in intelligence, then screening for it would be available in a few years," says Fishel. "But until there is a breakthrough in our knowledge it looks improbable that we could screen for amorphous traits like that, because we do not really know what they involve."

And the choices will not always be easy. Would you opt for gene variants that boost creativity if they also increased the risk of mental health problems, for instance? For would-be parents, simply understanding the information available will be difficult and the weight of decision-making will be far heavier. Even the decision not to screen will be a fraught one. It would be sad if this burden came to overshadow the thrill and wonder of bringing a new life into the world.

On the other hand, if screening for IQ does become possible there could be huge demand for it. Like it or not, we will be faced with new reproductive options - if societies choose to allow them. "We are going to have the technical ability to look at a very fine scale at the genetics of embryos in vitro and in pregnancy," says Handyside. "There are huge challenges for society to adapt and to work out where we should draw the line, what we should be looking for and what we should do with this information."

The battle over how this technology is used will shape the way future generations reproduce. The ethics of embryo selection will be pitted against the ethics of denying it to people who want it. Yet according to Harris, this is a false dilemma. "No embryo has a right to be implanted, and a woman has no obligation to have any embryo implanted if she does not want to," he says. "She makes a choice about which embryo, if any, to accept. I cannot see any justification for her being denied the information to make that choice rationally."

"There should be no restriction on using PGD for diagnosing disease," says Verlinsky. "Everyone wants to protect their children; nobody wants to see them go through the same horror that someone else in their family did."

If people continue leaving childbirth ever later in life, there is no doubt that increasing numbers will have to resort to IVF. The growing advantages of PGD may persuade more and more fertile couples to join them. So will old-fashioned sex ever fall out of favour as a way of making babies? It is certainly not going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years, but in the next 50 or 100 - who knows? After all, who would have predicted how common IVF would become back in 1977, when Louise Brown was just a speck in a Petri dish?

Jargon buster

IVF

Used here to refer to any form of fertilisation outside the body. Doctors, however, distinguish between conventional IVF - placing sperm with an egg in a dish and leaving them to it - and ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), where a single sperm is injected into an egg.

PGD

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. The testing of IVF embryos before implantation by removing one or more cells for analysis. Also refers to the testing of eggs before fertilisation. Not to be confused with prenatal testing during pregnancy.

IVM

In vitro maturation. A new method that involves collecting immature eggs and maturing them outside the body, instead of using drugs to stimulate women to produce many mature eggs. Its safety is not yet clear.

In vitro figures

30,000 IVF children were born worldwide in 1989 and at least 200,000 in 2002

Well over 3 million children worldwide have been conceived by IVF since 1978

In Denmark and the Netherlands 1 in 25 babies are conceived in a dish

A window on the womb

You don't have to resort to IVF-PGD to screen for genetic disorders. Tests can also be carried out during pregnancy. Obtaining fetal cells involves invasive procedures that can trigger miscarriages, however, so such tests are usually done only if scans reveal an abnormality or if there's a high chance of a child inheriting a serious disease. Prenatal screening is also routine to confirm the results of PGD, which will never be 100 per cent reliable.

Most tests look for major chromosomal disorders, such as Down's syndrome. In Europe more than 90 per cent of fetuses with Down's are aborted, so fewer and fewer children are born with the disorder, despite the rising number of older mothers (see "The egg and sperm race").

More wide-ranging prenatal genetic tests are becoming available. Art Beaudet's team at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, now offers screening for more than 150 different genetic abnormalities, using a technique called array-CGH to look for parts of chromosomes that have been duplicated or deleted.

Safer, non-invasive methods, such as isolating fetal DNA or cells from a mother's blood, could lead to prenatal genetic screening becoming more common. However, some geneticists say we do not yet know enough to routinely apply tests such as Beaudet's: the amount of information such tests can yield is growing faster than our ability to interpret it. And an abnormal result will always confront parents with the agonising decision of whether or not to terminate the pregnancy.

From issue 2574 of New Scientist magazine, 20 October 2006, page 42-45

One on One: 'Our rejection of Israel is our demise'

One on One: 'Our rejection of Israel is our demise'
Original here
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Ruthie Blum, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 19, 2006
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'Like it or not, Islam has 1.3 billion adherents around the world,"
says businessman Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of
Syria, a Washington, DC-based organization whose aim is as its name.
He is responding to the question of whether reforming the increasingly
politicized religion is any more realistic than rejecting it
altogether.

Ghadry, a Sunni Muslim who escaped his native Syria and immigrated
with his parents and siblings to the United States from Lebanon at the
age of 21, knows he's got his work cut out for him. In fact, the
52-year-old father of four says that the "wave of extremism" that has
swept across the Arab world "has been going on for 30-40 years, and it
will probably take another 30-40 years to reverse it."

But Ghadry and his reform party - established by a core group of five
former Syrians a few days into the war in Iraq, and "which has since
mushroomed to include people from Europe and the Arab countries" -
have a grand plan: to wrest the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from
the Saudis and "vaticanize" them under an international council of
moderate Muslims.

Plausible? Listening to Ghadry's quietly passionate and openly
humorous outline of future Middle East scenarios over cappuccino at a
Dupont Circle coffee shop, one is tempted to think so. Or at least
hope that he is right in his conviction that many, perhaps even most,
Muslims support extreme Islamist organizations for lack of an
alternative. And it's an alternative Ghadry says he is working very
hard to provide.

During an hour-long interview with the Syrian-American activist - who
writes and lectures on the need for Islam to transform itself - one
finds it hard to believe that he was raised to hate Jews. He points to
an article he wrote in October, 2004, for example, entitled: "Israel
Builds for Nobel Prizes, Arabs Destroy with Suicide Bombers."
One is also struck by his take on the current Syrian regime in
general, and on President Bashar Assad in particular, whom he calls
"untrustworthy," and against whom he warns Israel about signing peace
agreements.

Why did your family emigrate from Syria?

We didn't emigrate; we escaped, because of the political turmoil
following the [Arab socialist-nationalist] Baathists' gradual taking
over of the country. My father became a political refugee in eastern
Europe, where he remained until Lebanon - through the Maronite
Patriarch Paul Maushi, who at the time was the highest Christian
figure in the country - took him in. And then he sent for us. We were
in Aleppo, and then went to Damascus to await instructions from him.

So, we went to Lebanon in 1964, when I was 10, and I attended a
Christian school. It was an early lesson for me in acceptance - in how
Lebanese Christians behaved. It was wonderful of them.

Your family are Sunni Muslims. What pushed your parents to abscond?
My father was a journalist. He was also a Communist and a Nasserite
[supporter of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser], and the
Baathists opposed him. Then he became adviser to King Faisal of Saudi
Arabia, and we were given Saudi citizenship.

Where does Saudi Arabia come into the picture?

After the union between Syria and Egypt, which faltered around 1963-4,
my father turned against Nasser. This was because he saw that Nasser
wasn't actually interested in brotherly rapprochement [with Syria],
but rather wanted to swallow it up. During that period, Nasser and
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia were at each other's throats. When Faisal
heard about my father's shift, he invited him to Saudi Arabia. As a
result of that visit, Faisal asked my father to join the palace as one
of his advisers - under Dr. Rashad Pharaon, a Syrian who was the
king's main adviser. My father accepted and joined the cadre, and
commuted between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

Were you devout Muslims?

Our household was secular, but traditionally Muslim. We fasted during
Ramadan. We paid the Zakat [charity given on a regular basis]. I did
the Umra, the miniature Hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca], in 1972. In other
words, we did not adhere to the strictest rules of Islam, but we were
religious enough to go to Mecca. Those were days when Muslims
conducted their social lives openly, and if they wanted to be devout,
it was a personal matter, not for public consumption. I upheld
tradition as I saw fit, but it was a personal choice. No institution
or mosque or imam or other high authority told me to do it. This is
what is missing in the Arab countries today.

When did that start changing?

Not while I was there. It began after our family moved to the United
States. [His family immigrated in 1975; he has three sisters, the
youngest of whom was born in America.]

What caused your family to leave Lebanon, if life was so good, and
your father was dong so well?

The civil war that erupted there in April 1975 [which lasted until
1990]. My father wanted to go somewhere he'd never have to leave
again. He wanted to live in a totally calm place, void of political
turmoil. And Washington was it.

How did you become involved in reforming Syria?

That's a long story that begins with two incidents in my life that
changed my perspective. The first occurred when I was 13 and living in
Lebanon. My father was tasked by King Faisal to go to the Dachau
concentration camp in Germany to find out if rumors he had heard about
Egypt's having laid a memorial wreath there were true. And my father
took me along on that trip.

What was King Faisal's purpose in finding this out?

It was a political maneuver on his part. He wanted to highlight the
issue of Egypt's mourning of the Jews, in order to portray a negative
picture of Nasser to the Arabs.

Was there indeed a wreath from Egypt there?

Yes, and my father took pictures of it to show to King Faisal.
What happened to you on that trip with your father to Dachau?
I had a kind of awakening. Though by that time I was living in
Lebanon, I had received my early education in Syria, where I was
taught that the Jews were monsters with horns. I had never met a Jew
in my life. At Dachau, I saw a discrepancy between what I had been
taught and what I saw.

You're referring to learning about the Holocaust?

Yes, the horrors of the camps. I remember walking through a black
alleyway. I had never seen streets that color. A cousin of mine who
was living in Munich at the time was accompanying us, and I asked him
why the alleyways were black. His answer still resonates. He said,
"This is because of the ashes of the dead."

Astounded, I kept repeating, "Ashes of the dead! What do you mean,
'ashes of the dead'?"

Then I saw the ovens. It was a life-changing experience for me to
discover that there was more than one side to the story - and that
just because someone tells you something, it doesn't mean you have to
accept it without question.

What was the other experience that changed your life?

When I was 32, in 1985-6, I was in Riyadh. One night, during prayer
time, instead of going to a mosque, I was walking around shopping. I
was wearing jeans, and my Saudi passport was protruding from my back
pocket. All of a sudden, a mutawa [a member of the religious police]
started caning me on the back of my legs. I had been an American for
several years already. I was married. I had a kid. I'd built a
company. And yet, here I was being caned for not being in a mosque
during prayers. I realized then that no matter how much you accomplish
in life, it can all be taken away from you in seconds.

How did you respond?

I gave him an angry look and ran away. After that, I started thinking
that this is who we are. This is the Arab world. That's when I began
contemplating what we Arabs have done with ourselves. This eventually
resulted in discussions with other people, which led to my involvement
in the political arena.

Yet you are now a reformer for Syria, not Saudi Arabia. Why?
Well, the Saudi experience gave me a perspective on where we Arabs are
today as a whole.

As Arabs or Muslims?

At that point [I was thinking in terms of] Arabs. Extremism was there,
but you couldn't feel it; you couldn't see it. Now, it's so out in the
open that you can say "as Muslims" as well. Now we can ask where Islam
- not just the Arab world - is going. In any case, that's what got me
started. Then, in the early 1990s I helped some Saudi dissidents,
because I wanted to see change effected there. But in 1996, the Saudi
Embassy in Washington got wind of my activities, and took away my
passport and revoked my citizenship.

Were you still a Syrian citizen?

If you're born in Syria, you will always be a Syrian. You don't get
stripped of that right.

So, now you have dual American-Syrian citizenship?

Correct. And in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, some Syrian friends
came to me and said that [the World Trade Center and Pentagon
bombings] were going to change the map of the Middle East - that the
US was going to start examining the situation and concluding that the
root of this extremism was the oppression taking place within Arab
countries. These friends said they wanted to do something about Syria
and asked if I would join them in the effort.

Then the issue of Iraq surfaced. A few days after the war began, we
announced the establishment of our group - the Reform Party of Syria -
which began with five people in Washington, and which has since
mushroomed to include people from Europe and the Arab countries.
Do you have people inside Syria working for reform?

Yes. But some of them were caught and have been in prison for the past
eight months. Nevertheless, we have students, Kurdish groups and other
liberals who support what we're doing.

Are you establishing ties with your supporters inside Syria mainly via
the Internet?

No, by phone. We also convene meetings in Europe. There's one coming
up in November in Istanbul, in fact.

How do dissidents manage to get away to attend these meetings?
When we have a meeting in Turkey, for example, they can come as
"tourists," without anybody knowing what they're really up to. When
they return to Syria, it is as though they have been on vacation.
We've also had meetings in Amman, which they attend the same way - as
"tourists."

At one point, we convened in Lebanon, but then Lebanon became too
dangerous, because it was crawling with Syrian infiltrators. So we
decided it was no longer safe to meet there.

Are these dissidents predominantly young people?
Many of them are young. In Syria, 60 percent of the population is
under 25 and hungry for a way out [of their oppressive conditions].
They watch TV, and see how people live in the rest of the world.
How does the regime allow this?

The regime says that they can see anything they want, as long as they
don't emulate it. They obey out of fear. Yet, they wonder why they
can't live freely, like other populations of the world.

At the same time, however, Syrian TV is virulently anti-American,
anti-Jewish and pro-Arab nationalism - which also has an effect.
Are most of the people who support your ideas secular?

Yes, but recently we've made some headway with [religious] Muslims.
The reason we need to reach them as well is because we feel that the
liberal Muslim movement within the Arab countries has been
marginalized. The message of the Islamic extremists has been firmly
implanted in the minds of young and old alike. But the only way to
reach such people is to reassure them that they do not have to forsake
being devout Muslims, but that it is not in their interest to
incorporate Islam into their government.

This message is beginning to resonate, because the majority of Syrians
don't want to achieve things through violence. The problem, as they
see it, is that there is no alternative.

Take the extremist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, for example.
We have been contacted by many of its ranks, who tell us that they
don't approve of the way the Muslim Brotherhood behaves, but that
there is no other organization that is both Muslim and moderate. These
people claim that if they had such an organization, they would join
it.

We thus decided to form one. We already have six sheikhs in and
outside Syria running it. The Web site is being completed as we speak,
and will be available online within a couple of weeks. The idea behind
it is to convey the message to Muslims in Syria that they can be
devout and peaceful at the same time; that they can go to the mosque
without bringing the mosque into politics; and that they can be
conservative without imposing [their conservatism] on others.
I believe that this organization is going to attract a lot of the
Muslim Brotherhood people, and provide them with the alternative
they've been seeking.
What will be the fate of an imam who gets up in a mosque in Syria and
preaches tolerance over jihad [holy war]?

I know one sheikh who has a mosque - and followers - whose message is
one of peace, not resistance. He started out with 60 people and today
he has 200. We're trying to get him a bigger mosque. Right now he's in
Tripoli, Lebanon. But he's a Syrian, and he's connected to other
sheikhs inside Syria.

In that case, I have to repeat my question. Are such sheikhs not going
to be targeted by the regime?

The Syrian regime will target moderates who become increasingly
influential. A good example of this is the Syrian-Kurdish cleric,
Sheikh Muhammad al-Khaznawi, who was kidnapped and killed last year.
We don't want to endanger such clerics by making them famous. We want
to plant the seeds of reform quietly and extensively. Moderate Muslims
need a home, and we can provide it for them by stripping Islam of
extremism. Doing so would also endanger [Syrian President Bashar]
Assad and his regime.

Why would stripping Islam of extremism endanger Assad?
Assad sees himself as the last bastion of pan-Arab nationalism. If he
turns against the extremists - such as the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine and its ilk - they will have no place else to
go. Lebanon is not a haven; nor is Jordan; certainly not Iraq today;
nor Egypt; Yemen is not going to accept them; [Libyan President
Muammar] Gadaffi has turned around. All that's left for them is Assad
and Syria. If he were to revoke his backing - as Israel is demanding -
it would mean the end of pan-Arabism. Furthermore, unlike his father
[the late Hafez al-Assad], Bashar Assad has proven to be
untrustworthy. I've been told by many reliable sources that when
[Hafez] made a commitment, he stood by it. Assad junior doesn't do
that. He tells you one thing and then does something else. He lies and
he cheats.

When you combine these two elements, you can see why there's no way to
make a deal with this guy. Anything he relinquishes will be too much
for him. And anyway, what's in it for him? He realizes that his
minority rule can only survive through chaos and playing people
against each other.

Divide and conquer?

Exactly. Which he has done successfully both inside and outside Syria.
Nothing Assad is doing - none of the promises he's making - are
conducive to any form of peace down the line. Israel needs to forget
about making peace with Syria for the time being. Israelis deserve
better than striking a deal that involves the withdrawal from
strategic territory with a dictatorship. Assad would only use such an
agreement to get further concessions from Israel in the future or to
threaten Israel militarily. And, even if he doesn't threaten Israel
militarily, he'll still be spreading the message of non-acceptance and
hatred of the Jews and the Jewish state. Look at the experience with
Egypt. In spite of the peace treaty with Israel, the Egyptians are
still teaching their people to hate the Jews.

Peace is not achieved through the signing of a piece of paper which
allows politicians to go to bed feeling satisfied that they're not
going to be attacked militarily. Israelis deserve better than that.
They deserve to be accepted the way they accept others.

Since its inception, Israel has been opening its arms to the Arab
countries, and the Arab countries have been backing away. There's got
to be a democracy in Syria before Israel can make peace with it.

Because whomever you make peace with in a democracy is accountable to
his own people. Like Israel. The leadership in Israel is accountable.
You don't have that in Syria. If Israel makes a deal with the
dictatorship in Syria, the culture of hate will continue, and Israel
will never really have peace. What would prevent Assad from signing a
treaty that grants him the Golan Heights and continuing to support
Hizbullah?

You said your organization is mushrooming. Do you have contacts in Israel?
We have contact with journalists and Americans living in Israel, but
not with the Israeli government.

No contacts with Syrian Jews?

In the US, but not in Israel. I hope one day, when Syria becomes
democratic, we'll have true peace with the Israelis and open borders.
There's a lot for us to learn from Israel, and I hope that Israel has
something to learn from our tradition and history.

Speaking of open borders, did you know that there is an Israeli folk
song whose lyrics are: "When peace comes, we'll ride the train to
Damascus"?

That's wonderful. Since I hope one day to play a role in Syrian
politics, I promise to lay the first track on the railroad to Israel.
Now let's talk about Islam. Unlike some Arab moderates, who claim that
violence is inherent in the Koran and the hadith, you are of the
school of thought that the religion has been abused by extremists. Can
you elaborate on that?

The answer to extremist Islam is not a departure from the religion.
Like it or not, Islam has 1.3 billion adherents around the world.
To illustrate that the problem is in the interpretation of Islam, not
in the religion itself, I'll give you two examples.
The Koran says, "You shall protect your woman."

Wahabbis [fundamentalist Muslims, currently dominating Islam in Saudi
Arabia] have turned this into meaning that you should imprison your
woman. I interpret it to mean that I have to make sure my wife has new
tires on her car.

The more dynamic example relates to jihad. When Islam was a rising,
nascent, embryonic religion, the tenet of jihad - according to which,
if Islam is in danger, you have the right to kill to protect it - had
a purpose. We didn't want to see Islam eliminated in its womb. Today,
Islam isn't going anywhere. It's a strong religion. What would it take
for an imam to say that that interpretation of jihad no longer applies
in today's modern world? There's a way to get around these issues.
Just as Christianity did.

Look, why is democracy in Syria so important for Israel? Because Syria
is the stronghold from where Sunni Islam emanated. Today, our biggest
problems come from having the Wahabbi-Sunni extremists on one side and
Iran on the other.

If you were to bring democracy to a country where Sunni Islam rules -
and build a moderate university that teaches the Koran in a different
light to counter [such institutions as] the Azhar University in Egypt
and King Abdel Aziz University in Saudi Arabia - you would create an
environment conducive to moderate Islam, which would attract moderate
Muslims from other Arab countries.

Isn't university age a little too late? Look at Palestinian children,
whose text-books are filled with violence and hatred.

No, because it is from the universities that the next generation of
imams will emerge. And from them will come new education and new ideas
through which you reach the children. The wave of extremism has been
going on for 30-40 years, and it will probably take another 30-40
years to reverse it. Meanwhile, it's up to us Muslims to fight
extremism. The best way to do that is to "vaticanize" Mecca and Medina
- to separate them from the Wahabbis - under an international council
of moderate Muslims.

How can Mecca and Medina be "vaticanized"? Surely the Saudis won't
allow that to happen.

Well, how the Saudis got control of them in the first place was kind
of coincidental. First of all, under the Sykes-Picot Agreement [forged
between France and Britain in 1916 to divide up the Middle East], the
British took Mecca and Medina away from the Hashemites and delivered
them to Saudi Arabia. And though it's true that the Saudis will fight
tooth and nail to keep them, if there's enough critical mass behind
the idea, ultimately they won't be able to withstand it. Eventually it
will happen, because Muslims cannot go on like this. It's impossible
to compete in today's world when you don't have the most basic
technology or advancement.

But the Saudis are richer than everybody else without competing in the market.
Yes, but you cannot buy Nobel minds. You have to create them. That's
how a nation survives. Look at Israel. It's an amazing country - and
we're trying to eliminate it? Look at where we are. Look at who we
are. Look at how dark. And instead of learning from Israel - which is
a blessing to have in our midst - we try to wipe it out. This is where
we are so dumb. This is what makes me, as an Arab and as a Muslim,
very angry. Our rejection of Israel is our demise, and Arabs don't see
it, because they are smothered by their oppressive regimes. We have to
give them the opportunity to see things clearly. This is why
reformists like me have to come to the surface.

As for Israel, Israel's survival needs to be built around the idea
that it's not enough to have peace; you have to have acceptance - and
peace of mind.