Thomas Friedman's "Farewell to Geronimo": Again with His Head in the Sand

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Farewell to Geronimo" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html), Thomas Friedman would have us believe that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were repugnant to the Muslim Middle East and that the recent uprisings in the region sprang from a rejection of bin Laden's violent ideology. Friedman writes:

"There is only one good thing about the fact that Osama bin Laden survived for nearly 10 years after the mass murder at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that he organized. And that is that he lived long enough to see so many young Arabs repudiate his ideology. He lived long enough to see Arabs from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen to Syria rise up peacefully to gain the dignity, justice and self-rule that Bin Laden claimed could be obtained only by murderous violence and a return to puritanical Islam.

. . . .

Very few Arabs actively supported Bin Laden, but he initially drew significant passive support for his fist in the face of America, the Arab regimes and Israel."

. . . .

All we can hope for is that this time there really will be a struggle of ideas — that in a region where extremists go all the way and moderates tend to just go away, this time will be different. The moderates will be as passionate and committed as the extremists. If that happens, both Bin Laden and Bin Ladenism will be resting at the bottom of the ocean."

Wedded to a romantic theory, Friedman, however, ignores the facts.

According to statistics released by the Pew Research Center on December 2, 2010 (http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/), 19% of Muslims in Egypt expressed confidence in bin Laden. Moreover, 34% of Jordanians had a favorable view of al-Qaeda.

Whereas Friedman might regard 19% of Egypt's population of 82 million as "very few", I regard this support of bin Laden and al-Qaeda by millions of Egyptians as horrifying.

Also according to the Pew Research Center report:

"At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt . . . say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion."

Note, too, that according to this survey, 95% of Egyptian Muslims believe it is "good" that Islam plays a large role in politics. Excuse me, Tom, but where is the basis for pinning hope upon "moderates" in these numbers?

Declaring that "very few Arabs actively supported Bin Laden", Friedman additionally overlooks Hamas's reference to bin Laden on Monday as an "Arab holy warrior" (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/binladen-palestinians-hamas-idUSLDE74110O20110502).

Although Friedman would have us believe that a struggle for "dignity, justice and self-rule" comprises the common denominator of the "Arab Spring", he ignores the root causes for each of these uprisings, which in fact have little in common:

• tribal jealousy in Libya;
• Shiites opposing Sunni rule in Bahrain;
• a Sunni majority opposing Alawite rule in Syria, against the backdrop of a drought that has destroyed agriculture in that country;
• crushing poverty and unemployment in Egypt.

Sure, "dignity, justice and self-rule" resonate with many New York Times readers; however, they have little to do with the reality of the Middle East, where radical Islam persists.

Finally, I would observe that the use of Geronimo's name in the title of this op-ed is reprehensible. Any comparison between Geronimo and bin Laden is a travesty upon "dignity, justice and self-rule".

New York Times Editorial "The Long Awaited News": Identification Friend or Foe

Recently, I have rarely found myself in agreement with anything written by the editorial board of The New York Times. As such, I was gratified by their editorial "The Long Awaited News" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03tue1.html), which states:

"On Sunday night, Mr. Obama gave Pakistan faint praise for some unspecified cooperation, but the facts are damning: The most hunted man in the world was living in a $1 million compound, an hour’s drive from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, and close to both a military training academy and a large military base.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was doing the diplomatic thing, we suppose, by talking about how the United States is committed to its partnership with Pakistan. We hope that she and the president are a lot tougher in private with Pakistani officials and doing some very hard thinking about how they will manage this relationship.

After this, how can anyone keep a straight face — or keep from screaming — when Pakistani officials claim they have no idea where the Taliban’s Mullah Muhammad Omar or dozens of other extremist leaders are hiding?"

"Keep a straight face" or "keep from screaming"? No need to smirk or get angry. How about just withholding several billions of dollars in aid until the U.S. feels certain that it has Pakistan's cooperation in the war against terror? That should get their attention.

What about Obama? His decision to assault the compound on the ground was indeed courageous and could have ended disastrously if the U.S. team had encountered resistance from the Pakistani military, but has the president learned from this experience to distinguish between friend and foe?

Obama came to the White House with a coterie of leftist aides determined to prove that by showing kindness and understanding to the world's tyrannies, they could be brought into the fold. We can only hope that his experiences with Iran, Syria and Pakistan have brought some realism to the White House.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will be visiting Washington later this month, and it will be interesting to see whether Obama receives this democratically elected official from a trusted ally in a less frosty manner.

Osama Bin Laden Dead: No Cooperation from Pakistan

Congratulations to President Obama and all those who participated in this operation, which made fish food out of bin Laden. My joy, however, is accompanied by anxiety: There will almost certainly be attempts to exact revenge upon American civilians.

Details of the operation remain scanty, yet it was clearly undertaken without the cooperation of Pakistan, and inasmuch as the U.S. government has given some $20 billion in civilian and military aid to Pakistan since September 11, 2001, this is indeed troubling.

Let's read between the lines of a CNN article entitled "How U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden" (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.raid/index.html?iref=NS1):

"When first built, the compound was secluded and reachable by only a dirt road, the officials said. In recent years, more residences built up around it, but it remained by far the largest and most heavily secured property in the area, they said.

The mission ordered Friday by Obama encountered outer walls up to 18 feet tall topped with barbed wire, with two security gates and a series of internal walls that sectioned off different portions of the compound, the senior administration officials said. The main structure was a three-story building with few windows facing the outside of the compound, and a third-floor terrace had a seven-foot privacy wall, they said."

This mansion was built five years ago in Abbottabad, only 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, where Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence ("ISI") is headquartered. Situated beside the villas of ranking Pakistani military officers, but eight times the size of the neighboring structures, the curiosity of the ISI surely would have been aroused. Even if they didn't trouble themselves to confirm who was hiding out there, they must have guessed, and the likely presence of bin Laden didn't trouble the ISI or bin Laden's neighbors from Pakistan's military in the least.

CNN continues:

"At some point, one of the assaulting helicopters crashed due to a mechanical failure, according to the officials. It was detonated as the U.S. team flew away to destroy it, they said."

The destruction of the helicopter confirms that Pakistan did not participate in the operation. More to the point, even if it was deemed wise to keep Pakistan out of the picture in order to improves the chances of operational success, why should there have been any need to destroy the helicopter if Pakistan is an ally?

CNN adds:

"Another senior [U.S.] administration official told reporters that Obama's administration did not share intelligence gathered beforehand with any other country -- including Pakistan -- for security reasons. The official said that only a small group of people inside the U.S government knew about this operation in advance.

However, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said members of Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, were on site in Abbottabad during the operation. There was no way to immediately resolve the apparent discrepancy."

A many-faced hydra intimately involved in Pakistani politics, the ISI is no friend of the U.S., as has been demonstrated on numerous occasions since 9/11. Most recently, covert U.S. security personnel have been forced to leave Pakistan (see: http://tribune.com.pk/story/124965/intelligence-assets-after-davis-arrest-us-operatives-leaving-pakistan/).

Should the U.S. continue to shower upon Pakistan military and civilian aid totaling billions of dollars, which reaps few rewards? Will chaos erupt in nuclear-armed Pakistan for the same reasons Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt, i.e. poverty and corruption? Stay tuned. It's not going to be pretty.

Nicholas Kristof's "Where China Outpaces America": Kristof Fails to Mention Executions

In an op-ed entitled "Where China Outpaces America" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01kristof.html?hp), New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof informs us:

"A child in Shanghai is expected to live 82 years. In the United States, the figure is not quite 79 years.

. . . .

[I]t’s extraordinary that among permanent residents of Shanghai, infant mortality is 2.9 deaths per 1,000 births. That is well below the rate of 5.3 in New York City.

. . . .

That Shanghai child enjoys a world-class education in a public school — the best school system of any in a recent 65-nation survey, although it’s also true that Chinese schools have their own problems such as widespread cheating and stifling of creativity."

Kristof fails to mention that among all the countries in the world, The People's Republic of China executes the highest number of people annually, although Iran has a higher rate per capita.

Kristof also fails to compare the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to U.S. citizens and Chinese citizens. Including the dubious award of a Nobel Peace Prize to Obama (it doesn't make much of a difference in the overall picture), U.S. citizens have received 270, while citizens of the Peoples Republic of China have received two.

Thanks, Nicholas, but I would prefer to live to 79 in the U.S.

Roger Cohen's "My Libya, Your Libya, Our Libya": Indeed, Let's Shine a Light

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "My Libya, Your Libya, Our Libya" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01cohen.html?hp), Roger Cohen describes his visit to Qaddafi's bunker in Bayda, Libya:

"I descended 55 steps into the labyrinth of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s mind. The glow of cellphones and a feeble flashlight lit a passage into the darkness. A netherworld unfolded — bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, even saunas — linked by tunnels with six-inch-thick metal doors agape at their mouths."

Cohen proceeds to construct an analogy between his bunker visit and the need to illuminate the Middle East:

"So, having been in Tunisia and Egypt and now Libya during this Arab Spring, I say, Shine a light — into Qaddafi’s bunkers and everywhere. Let people out of their dark houses. Allow them to participate in the making of their societies."

These are indeed bold words from a journalist who spent some six months writing op-eds from Iran in 2009, yet never deigned to "shine a light" on the brutal oppression of Iran's Baha'is, while declaring that Iran is "not totalitarian".

Similarly, Cohen failed to "shine a light" on Iran's persecution of its Kurdish minority, its stoning to death of alleged adulterers (mostly women), or its hanging of homosexuals.

Yes, Cohen was recently in Egypt, but did he "shine a light" on the violence perpetrated upon Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, which has persisted even after the uprising?

Did Cohen "shine a light" on the brutal subjugation of women in Egypt, where 97% of its women have undergone female genital mutilation?

Did Cohen "shine a light" on the vile practice of honor killings perpetrated against women in Egypt and elsewhere throughout the Muslim Middle East?

Then, too, there are the statistics released by the Pew Research Center on December 2, 2010 (http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/), which also deserve scrutiny:

"At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt . . . say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion."

As per the Pew data, unshackled Egyptian "democracy" would see the ongoing brutalization of women, who are inevitably the primary victims of stoning, and hordes of limbless waifs. Also without freedom of religion, this brave new world, expressing the will of the majority emerging from "their dark houses" and actively "participat[ing] in the making of their societies," would be distant from anything approximating Western ideals.

Cohen writes:

"Take the disgruntled and give them opportunities."

But what of women, Baha'is, Kurds, Christians, homosexuals and so-called "apostates" (i.e. persons who have abandoned Islam) in Cohen's "evolving Middle East"? Don't they also deserve their freedom and dignity?

I have never understood why he has chosen to ignore them, and in order to arrive at the reason, perhaps we would need to descend 55 steps into the labyrinth of Roger Cohen's mind.

The New York Times: Obama in Retrospect "Naïve"

In a New York Times editorial entitled "President Assad's Crackdown" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/opinion/29fri1.html), the Gray Lady finally acknowledged that Obama had blundered in Syria and that his policy in retrospect "looks naïve", but not without peevishly alleging that Bush had done no better:

"President Obama came into office determined to engage Syria and nudge it away from Iran and toward political reform. Even after the violence began, Mr. Obama and his aides kept quietly nudging in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice.

In retrospect, that looks naïve. Still, we have sympathy for Mr. Obama’s attempts. Years of threats from the George W. Bush administration only pushed Syria further into the arms of Iran — and did nothing to halt the repression or Syria’s support for Hezbollah."

Nothwithstanding his faux pas, The New York Times editorial board attempted to present Obama in a positive light and to observe what measures could still be taken by the president:

"The president’s patience has apparently run out. Last Friday — the bloodiest day of the uprising — he issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough.

. . . .

What the United States and its allies can do (British, French and Italian leaders have also been critical) is rally international condemnation and tough sanctions. They can start with their own unilateral punishments — asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo."

There was no call by the editorial board for Assad's ouster, but why should this come as a surprise? Obama is also not calling for Assad's ouster. Nor is Hillary, who referred to this monster as a "reformer". Nor is Senator John Kerry, whose special relationship with Assad was recently scrutinized by The Boston Globe (http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-28/news/29483723_1_assad-senator-john-kerry-damascus):

"Kerry, a leading proponent of the Obama administration’s controversial attempt to improve relations with Syria, has publicly warned Assad not to kill his own people. But Kerry has not called for him to step down, as he did with embattled leaders in Egypt and Libya."

How charming of the man who wishes to be the next secretary of state.

But what about the sanctions sought by the editorial board of The New York Times? We are told by the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=218494):

"US President Barack Obama signed an executive order earlier on Friday imposing new sanctions against Syria's intelligence agency and two relatives of Assad in response to a crackdown on protests, senior US officials said.

Assad was not among those targeted for the sanctions, which will include asset freezes and bans on US business dealings, but he could be named later if violence by government forces against pro-democracy protesters continues, the officials said."

In short, Obama is still seeking to mollify Assad. Meanwhile, at least 62 more civilians were shot dead by Assad's security forces yesterday (see: http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=218480).

This is no longer "naiveté" on Obama's part. This is "immorality".

Compugen Discloses Splice Variant Based Program to Discover Superior Oncology Drug Targets for mAb Therapy

On Wednesday, Compugen issued a press release which disclosed a splice variant based program to discover superior oncology drug targets for monoclonal antibody therapy. The press release stated in part:

"Compugen . . . announced today that it is utilizing its proprietary in silico human transcriptome and proteome and additional computational systems to discover splice variants of known drug targets of high industry interest and of other known proteins with potential to become cancer targets for mAb therapy. This program has resulted so far in the discovery of four novel splice variant proteins predicted to be superior oncology targets compared with the previously known proteins. These four splice variants have entered Compugen’s Pipeline Program and are at various stages of validation.

. . . .

Dr. Zurit Levine, Compugen’s VP of R&D, stated, 'We first selected a list of known proteins and drug targets that meet industry therapeutic criteria. Challenging traditional experimental discovery methods, we then utilized our in silico predictive human transcriptome and proteome, and additional proprietary discovery tools, to systematically discover previously unknown splice variants, which, although expressed by the same genes as the known proteins, have a unique epitope within their extracellular region which would allow the development of specific mAbs. Next, we tested their predicted expression, function and certain other properties compared with the known proteins. For example, several of these candidate targets exhibited a potential unique expression pattern, while others exhibited a potential superiority in their functional or structural characteristics. To date, this process has resulted in four candidate targets with predicted superiority compared with the existing proteins.'”

By way of explanation, over a decade ago it was believed that for every protein in the human body, there was a corresponding gene. Accordingly, we haughty humans believed that our more evolutionarily advanced bodies contained a far greater number of genes than, for example, mice or worms. However, it was also known at the time that in extremely rare instances, a gene could give rise to more than one protein by means of "alternative splicing".

Alternative splicing is a process by which exons of messenger RNA (mRNA), produced by the transcription of a gene and which encode the blueprint for proteins, are reconnected in different ways, resulting in multiple mRNA transcripts and ultimately multiple proteins from the same gene. Alternative splicing had been considered the exception and not the rule, but then along came Compugen.

Based upon its computerized analysis of the data available at the time, Compugen told the scientific world that they were wrong. Compugen initially claimed to the bemusement of experts that alternative splicing occurred in some 30% of human genes. Lo and behold, the Human Genome Project determined that fewer genes exist in the human genome than previously believed, and Compugen was proven correct.

Today, it is thought that more than 90% of multiexonic genes are alternatively spliced, and it is also known that abnormally spliced mRNAs are found in a high proportion of cancerous cells.

The significance of Compugen's announcement on Wednesday? As a result of its decade-long research involving biological phenomena on the molecular level and its mapping of the transcriptome and proteome (all mRNAs and proteins present in the human body), Compugen is saying that it can predict in silico (by computer) and discover splice variant proteins of known monoclonal antibody therapeutic (mAb) targets. In addition, Compugen can predict those splice variants having a unique extracellular epitope, a prerequisite for mAb therapy. Thus far, four of these Compugen-discovered splice variant proteins have been predicted by Compugen to be superior to known protein targets.

Superior mAb oncology targets can mean better specificity, with resultant higher efficacy and fewer side effects.

Monoclonal antibody drugs, which primarily target cancer and autoimmune disorders, today amount to more than 30% of the global biologic drug market and could have total sales of some $50 billion by 2013. Without mAb targets, one of Compugen's areas of expertise, there can be no mAb therapeutics. (For an explanation concerning mAbs, see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/monoclonal-antibodies-mabs-for-dummies.html)

What significance might this hold for pharma companies developing mAb therapies? Compugen believes that it can provide the pharma industry with multiple mAb target candidates. Moreover, before spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars developing a mAb therapy based upon a potential target, pharma companies can consult with Compugen and learn whether there might be splice variants or protein family members that could result in better therapies.

[As noted in prior blog entries, I am a Compugen shareholder, this blog entry is not a recommendation to buy or sell Compugen shares, and in mid-September 2009 I began work as a part-time external consultant to Compugen. The opinions expressed herein are mine and are based on publicly available information. This blog entry has not been authorized or approved by Compugen.]