Publisher's Note: London Telegraph usually comes up with more details than most US papers. Probably relying on reporting rather than the AP.

 

By David Blair in Cairo
Last Updated: 10:36PM GMT 20 Feb 2009

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif: The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.

But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda's ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West.

Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. "Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl.

The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. "Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?" asks Dr Fadl. "That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11."

He is equally unsparing about Muslims who move to the West and then take up terrorism. "If they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum," writes Dr Fadl, then it is "not honourable" to "betray them, through killing and destruction".

In particular, Dr Fadl focuses his attack on Zawahiri, a key figure in al-Qaeda's core leadership and a fellow Egyptian whom he has known for 40 years. Zawahiri is a "liar" who was paid by Sudan's intelligence service to organise terrorist attacks in Egypt in the 1990s, he writes.

The criticisms have emerged from Dr Fadl's cell in Tora prison in southern Cairo, where a sand-coloured perimeter wall is lined with watchtowers, each holding a sentry wielding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Torture inside Egyptian jails is "widespread and systematic", according to Amnesty International.

Zawahiri has alleged that his former comrade was tortured into recanting. But the al-Qaeda leader still felt the need to compose a detailed, 200-page rebuttal of his antagonist.

The fact that Zawahiri went to this trouble could prove the credibility of Dr Fadl and the fact that his criticisms have stung their target. The central question is whether this attack on al-Qaeda's ideology will sway a wider audience in the Muslim world.

Fouad Allam, who spent 26 years in the State Security Directorate, Egypt's equivalent of MI5, said that Dr Fadl's assault on al-Qaeda's core leaders had been "very effective, both in prison and outside".

He added: "Within these secret organisations, leadership is very important. So when someone attacks the leadership from inside, especially personal attacks and character assassinations, this is very bad for them."

A western diplomat in Cairo agreed with this assessment, saying: "It has upset Zawahiri personally. You don't write 200 pages about something that doesn't bother you, especially if you're under some pressure, which I imagine Zawahiri is at the moment."

Dr Fadl was a central figure from the very outset of bin Laden's campaign. He was part of the tight circle which founded al-Qaeda in 1988 in the closing stages of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. By then, Dr Fadl was already the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an extremist movement which fought the Cairo regime until its defeat in the 1990s.

Dr Fadl fled to Yemen, where he was arrested after September 11 and transferred to Egypt, where he is serving a life sentence. "He has the credibility of someone who has really gone through the whole system," said the diplomat. "Nobody's questioning the fact that he was the mentor of Zawahiri and the ideologue of Egyptian Islamic Jihad."

Terrorist movements across the world have a history of alienating their popular support by waging campaigns of indiscriminate murder. This process of disintegration often begins with a senior leader publicly denouncing his old colleagues. Dr Fadl's missives may show that al-Qaeda has entered this vital stage.

 

 

Jeb Bush borrows from UK to take on president

America yields in battle for Nato troops

The Government and the Banks

Bank stocks plunged last week on fears that the government will have to take over battered institutions like Citigroup and Bank of America. That would wipe out the banks’ shareholders — hence, investors’ rush for the exits — and put the government in control of a swath of the financial system.

Americans have a visceral horror of the word nationalization. So call it restructuring or majority ownership. Or call it the taxpayers’ due after pouring in hundreds of billions of dollars in capital and guarantees and standing ready to pour in hundreds of billions more. We increasingly believe it is the least bad solution to a truly desperate situation.

Bank losses are mounting, leaving some institutions undercapitalized and — by credible calculations — insolvent. That is a disaster for taxpayers. They need the banks to function, and it is their money on the line to support banks that are too big to fail, like Citi and BofA.

Rescue measures have so far prevented a system-wide meltdown, but they have not reversed the downward slide or revived bank lending. That will not happen until investors have a firm grasp of the losses that everyone knows are on banks’ books — but that the banks are loath to acknowledge.

Done right, a takeover would be a once-and-for-all fix. The government would examine the banks’ holdings to get a realistic assessment of the toxic assets that are crippling the banks — and how much capital each bank needs, not only to survive but to begin lending again.

Institutions that are healthy enough to raise the needed capital from private investors would remain in shareholders’ hands. Those that are too weak would be taken over by the government and recapitalized with taxpayer money. The government would be in charge of restructuring those banks’ finances and operations. Current management would be fired — an appropriate end for executives whose failures have brought their companies and the country to this dark and dangerous point. Because taxpayers would be the owners, they would benefit from the gains to be had when the banks recover.

Critics will charge that government bureaucrats do not have the skills to pull this off. But the United States has a successful history of seizing insolvent banks through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The takeovers contemplated here are larger in scale and would be more complex than those that have generally fallen under the F.D.I.C.’s purview. But the notion that the government totally lacks the know-how to nationalize insolvent banks is not valid.

Safeguards must also be built into the process to curtail political meddling in lending and other decisions.

The aim is to clean up the banks efficiently, rather than allow the problems to become bigger, and then — as soon as possible — to sell the banks back to private investors. They will be smaller institutions. And there will be proper regulations in place to ensure that this catastrophe does not happen again.

Taking over big failed banks will be very difficult politically. But technically it could be easier than many of the elaborate rescues that have been tried and proposed.

On Friday, President Obama’s spokesman tried to calm the markets by reaffirming the administration’s preference for a sound privately owned banking system. We share that preference. But it looks as if the best way to get from here to there is for some of the banks to spend some time in the government’s hands.

Brown flies to meet President Obama for economy crisis talks

Mini-summit announced as George Soros says ‘the world financial system has disintegrated’

By David Randall and Jane Merrick

he ground for April’s G20 meeting in London, which is intended to draw up concrete measures for international economic recovery. Mr Soros, whose words and actions have moved entire markets in the past, told attendees at a conference dinner at Columbia University: “We witnessed the collapse of the financial system. It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support.”

His words are stronger than his previous statements: at Davos a month ago, he said the financial system was merely “dysfunctional”. He now compares the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union and added: “There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.” Another speaker, Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Fed and now adviser to President Obama, said that, while he felt capitalism would survive, “I’m not so sure about financial capitalism”.

The announcement by Washington of the visit brings to an end speculation over whether Mr Brown would be beaten by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, or the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, for an audience with the world’s most popular politician. Mr Brown will meet Chancellor Merkel in Berlin today as he continues with preparations for April’s G20 summit in London.

Momentum is now building for more than hand-wringing and fine words to come out of the London summit. President Sarkozy said yesterday: “I will not associate myself with a position that does not give an ambitious response to this deep crisis.” Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has already called for the summit to make “strong and concrete” proposals to fight the financial crisis.

Guiding Mr Brown and, he hopes, the other leaders at the gathering will be the 74-page document he unveiled last week called The Road to the London Summit: The Plan for Recovery. It calls for eight “concrete commitments” to be agreed at the meeting. They include a review of measures so far taken to stimulate demand; an increase in the IMF’s resources to make more loans; immediate action to ensure banks are adequately capitalised; an international renunciation of protectionism; reform of financial regulation; and reform of international financial institutions.

In his New York speech, Mr Volcker delivered judgements unimaginable a few months ago. He began by saying the financial system we have known would never return. “Too many weaknesses and flaws have been exposed,” he said. He added that banks had gone from a system based on relationships with customers to “a very impersonal kind of market where everything was a deal”, often at arm’s length, with loans packaged, repackaged, and resold, often several times a day.

Mr Volcker insisted that banks should be barred from sponsoring hedge and equity funds, and engaging in any high-risk activity, and incentive schemes should be completely overhauled. He said he found no evidence that the huge sums made by bankers “penetrated down to the rdinary person”.

A more distributive US economy has had to await the advent of Barack Obama, and yesterday the President said Americans will start to reap the benefits of a $787bn stimulus package in a matter of weeks. “Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans,” he said. He added that in six weeks a typical family will start taking home at least $65 (£45) more every month, part of plans that will, he insists, benefit 95 per cent of working families.

And yesterday word began to leak out of the budget that President Obama is finalising. He wants to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term, mostly by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and streamlining government. Obama's proposal for the 2010 fiscal year that begins on 1 October projects that the $1.3 trillion deficit he inherited will be halved to $533 bn by 2013. He has pledged to wind down the Iraq war by withdrawing most combat troops within 16 months of taking office. He also has said he would letting the Bush tax cuts expire for people making more than $250,000 a year, effectively raising taxes on those people.

Read Today's Articles 

Sunday, February 22, 2009; B03

To borrow from the old quip on giving up smoking: Fixing public schools is easy -- we've done it hundreds of times. Even with the billions of dollars in economic stimulus aid, public schools stand no chance of getting better until we dispel some empty theories about how to help them.

1. We know how to fix public schools; we just lack the political will to finish the job.

Wrong. For the past 25 years, K-12 education has been at or near the top of most politicians' domestic agendas. Candidates vie to become the "education" president, governor or mayor. The public cries out for better schools and is even willing to pay higher taxes to get them.

There is no shortage of strategies for education reform, either. The most famous (or infamous) is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with its federal mandates for rigorous student testing. School districts across the country have been flooded with other initiatives, too. Conservatives generally advocate breaking up teacher unions and privatization, while liberals call for more money, less testing and greater teacher autonomy. But nothing has succeeded. In 2006, experts at the Harvard-based Public Education Leadership Project concluded that all these efforts, including NCLB, "have failed to produce a single high-performing urban school system."

2. Teachers know best how to teach kids; policymakers should leave them alone.

Not necessarily. Sure, teaching can be an art. But educators should also approach their profession as a science when empirical evidence proves certain methods to be more effective than others.

Many teachers "subscribe to an extremely peculiar view of professionalism," as school management expert Richard Elmore has written. When the Council of Urban Boards of Education surveyed American teachers in 2007, more than two-thirds said that they didn't need more professional training. An education professor in Maryland criticized the state board of education's expectation that local school districts should use more state funding on teacher training: "I am sorry," she wrote in the Baltimore Sun, "that the board doesn't seem to recognize that our teachers are educated professionals, not 'trained' laborers."

This resistance to research is drummed into educators at teacher colleges, which devalue scientific findings. Coursework often encourages teachers to do their own thing in their own way -- and even presents the decision about how to teach reading "as a personal [one] to be decided by the aspiring teacher," according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

But if we set boundaries on what and how teachers teach, won't we slide down a slippery slope to the nationalization of research-backed practices? Yes, we might. But that isn't a bad thing -- see Myth No. 3.

3. The federal government meddles too much in the affairs of local schools.

Actually, the feds don't go far enough. Even NCLB, attacked as an effort to wrest power from local government, allows all 50 states to set their own standards. But really, why should a passing math score vary from one school district to another? Because of NCLB's loopholes, many states have dumbed down tests to make their schools look better than they are.

The United States is one of only a few developed nations clinging to the idea of local control over education. Most European countries, as well as Japan, have national standards and curriculums. Their schools also rely mainly on national funding, while ours receive less than 10 percent of their revenue from the federal government. With the stimulus package, that share will probably top 15 percent by 2011 -- a sizable increase, but not one that will eradicate the "savage inequalities," as author Jonathan Kozol called them, between the opportunities available to impoverished children in large cities and those offered to kids from richer communities. U.S. education officials need to use federal funding to reward districts that raise standards and help put American schools on a par with their international competitors.

4. Teacher unions are the enemy.

Okay, they're not without fault. But neither are they the villains in the tale of school failure.

Many politicians and educators would have you believe that unions are politically powerful institutions that protect incompetent teachers. Former U.S. education secretary Rod Paige went so far as to call the National Education Association, the largest teachers union, a "terrorist organization." Political conservatives are attracted to charters, vouchers and privatization in part because they would break the unions' power, and even some liberals have grown critical of the groups' influence; Barack Obama mildly rebuked the unions during his presidential campaign for their opposition to merit pay for teachers and limits on tenure.

But the evidence doesn't support the harshest allegation: that union contracts make it nearly impossible to fire unsatisfactory teachers. School administrators have plenty of disciplinary authority, but surveys of principals show that they often don't exercise it -- not because of union rules, but out of a sense of collegiality and because of bureaucratic inertia. Last year, the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute analyzed the contracts in the nation's 50 largest school districts. For most of them, the institute concluded, "the depiction of [collective-bargaining agreements] as an all-powerful, insurmountable barrier to reform may be overstated." What's needed is less scapegoating of unions and more gumption on the part of education policymakers and administrators.

5. There's no place in education for politics.

In fact, politicians are exactly the people who should take charge of struggling public schools. Historically, mayors have hidden behind elected or appointed school boards, afraid of being blamed for the dreadful condition of their cities' classrooms. But the school boards' "non-political," insular governance has been a disaster. The system must be changed, with mayors put in charge and school boards abolished.

That is what has happened under mayors Michael R. Bloomberg in New York City and Adrian M. Fenty in Washington. They were behind legislation eliminating or weakening the local boards and assumed hands-on leadership, bringing in non-traditional superintendents and challenging teacher unions. It's too soon to say whether their school systems will be transformed. But things are changing fast, and the mayors are getting good marks for overturning the status quo. That's the first step toward replacing myths about school reform with real success stories.

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Kalman R. Hettleman is a former commissioner on the Baltimore City school board.

Nation’s Governors See a Dismal Economic Outlook and a Slow Recovery

WASHINGTON — The nation’s governors said Saturday that passage of a $787 billion bill to stimulate the economy might help them avert draconian budget cuts, but that they did not expect to see signs of an economic recovery until late this year or early 2010.

The officials, arriving here for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, said that state revenues were coming in far below their projections and that the new federal measure, while helpful, would not be a panacea.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah, where the economy is better than in most states, said the revenue figures were “still dismal.”

Asked when the recovery would start, Mr. Huntsman, a Republican, said: “We were hoping in the fourth quarter of this year. But I think many are pushing it now into 2010.”

Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, said: “If the experts are correct, next year may be even worse than this year. I think very probably they are correct.”

The stimulus law cuts taxes and provides billions of dollars to the states for education, transportation, Medicaid and energy and environmental projects.

Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington, a Democrat, said: “The recovery will be very, very slow. We are the most trade-dependent state in the nation. Since November, I’ve lost $4.2 billion of projected revenues in a $32 billion budget. We fell off a cliff.”

The chairman of the governors association, Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said he had not seen any hint of a recovery, “not yet.”

Based on revenue estimates in the middle of last year, Mr. Rendell said, he had expected a $1.6 billion deficit. But because of plunging state revenues, he said, he increased his deficit forecast to $2 billion and then last month to $2.3 billion. Likewise, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri, a Democrat, said, “We’ve seen a huge dip in revenues.”

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, a Republican, said his state would receive $12.2 billion over three years as a result of the stimulus law. But Mr. Crist added, “We still have declining revenues and have to cut the budget.”

Mr. Nixon said the economic crisis had created an opportunity. “We will use the new federal money to transform the economy,” he said, “to build not just roads and bridges, but also human capital, investing in education and job retraining.”

Some Republican governors, like Mr. Crist, Jim Douglas of Vermont and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, supported the stimulus bill. Some, including several possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, denounced it as a bloated behemoth. A handful of Republican governors have caused a stir by saying they would turn down some of the federal money.

Two such Republicans, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, said they would accept federal money for transportation projects but would not take money linked to an expansion of eligibility for unemployment insurance, because it would lead to an increase in taxes on employers.

“If you want more people to work, you don’t tax job creation,” Mr. Barbour said. He criticized the stimulus law, saying: “It’s filled with social policy and costs too much. You could create just as many jobs for about half as much money.”

Mr. Jindal said he would take advantage of another provision of the new law to increase unemployment benefits by $25 a week, financed entirely with federal money.

Mr. Douglas, the vice chairman of the National Governors Association, played down the split among Republicans. He predicted that most Republican governors would, in the end, accept most of the federal money.

Democrats taunted the Republicans, saying they should support the economic recovery plan or reject all federal help.

“You can philosophize in D.C. all you want, but we in the states have to get things done,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. “A governor’s job is to deliver for people: to create good jobs, to keep criminals in prison, to educate children, to make sure we have decent roads. This recovery package does that.”

Moreover, Mr. Schweitzer said: “It’s a little late for Republican governors to get high-minded about accepting federal dollars. This recovery legislation represents only a small share of all the federal money states receive.”

Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said, “If Republican governors do not want this money, Democratic governors will put it to good use.”