The death of Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), is an event of major historical relevance, not least for the Palestinians. Since taking control of the PLO in 1968, Arafat had been the only ‘national’ leader that the displaced, dispossessed and downtrodden Palestinians had ever known. His was the face and voice of the Palestinian struggle in the international media. Through all the political adversity that he faced in his own life, Arafat was also a potent symbol of Palestinian defiance. Although it is easy to fault Arafat for his shortcomings as a leader, he commanded awesome respect as a symbol of liberation. The prestige of years of struggle meant that, however divided in practical terms, he possessed the ability, had he chosen to exercise it, to unite a number of different factions under a common banner.

Unfortunately, Arafat’s life and political career were a litany of contradictions and tragic ironies. These stemmed largely from his inability to recognise his own human fallibility. But as much as these contradictions were part of Arafat’s own shortsightedness, various Arab regimes also contributed to his ambiguous stance. Born Abdul Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini in Cairo in 1929, Arafat realised early on – before the Zionist ‘war of independence’ or the 1948 ‘catastrophe’ that birthed Israel and displaced millions – that Palestinian Arabs had to arm themselves for an inevitable military confrontation with the Zionist militia pressing for a violent armed campaign. Indeed, as Arab armies invaded the fledgling state of Israel shortly after its declaration, the Egyptian army confiscated the weapons of Arafat’s group, impressing upon him that Arab regimes privileged their own agendas over those of a grassroots Palestinian struggle.

In spite of his failings, Arafat was a charismatic, tireless and significant advocate of the plight of the Palestinians. His death has given rise to the same polarised passions that accompanied the passing of leaders such as Lenin and Mao. Both are recognised as monumental historical figures and national heroes. But they are also maligned for being quixotic and tyrannical leaders whose failures to come to terms with domestic and international ground realities led to their hampering the causes that they championed.

With Yasser Arafat dead, a role is once again wandering in search of an actor. Few believe that anyone can play that role adequately. Ever since the founder of the Fatah movement shot into prominence after the battle of Karameh in 1967, Yasser Arafat had been like no other leader.

With the exception of Fidel Castro, Arafat straddled the world stage longer than any other leader. Many of the statesmen 75-year-old Mohammad Abdel Rawf al-Qudwa Arafat al-Hussaini interacted with during his military and diplomatic career had left this world long before met his Lord on the morning of Nov 11 in a Paris military hospital. As a Palestinian Authority spokesman put it: "He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God, but he is still among his great people."

Wife Soha was with him at his death bed, and with daughter Zoha she later attended the funeral that President Jacques Chirac gave her husband with the full protocol due to a head of state - much to the chagrin of Israel and its supporters.

True to form, Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon refused to let the Palestinian hero be buried in Jerusalem. Still, when he was laid to rest in Ramallah, Arafat had ensured that he was covered with soil from the holy Islamic city.

Under house arrest in Ramallah, weak with illness, unable to get fresh air, Yasser Arafat continued to inspire his people until his very last moments. The biggest blow to his hopes for peace came when President George Bush announced on April 14 that Israel would keep "some" West Bank land even after withdrawing from the occupied territories. This sabotaged a roadmap which Mr Bush had himself unveiled in April 2003. Crafted by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, the roadmap visualized the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state by 2005. However, the president went a step further and scuttled the roadmap by saying that 2005 was an "unrealistic" date. Disappointed but undeterred, Arafat said he would continue to fight for his people's freedom.

Israel also showed contempt for international law when, despite a ruling by the International Court of Justice, declaring the separation barrier illegal, it continued its construction.

Also, in keeping with its cloak and dagger policy, Israel murdered Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of Hamas, on March 22; and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rentissi, on April 17. On Nov 23, an Israeli officer pumped 20 bullets into Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, in Refah, Gaza.

The killings in the Gaza strip reached a new height when, in a matter of seven days in September and October, Israeli troops murdered 73 Palestinians. October 25 was another bloody one when the Israelis killed 16 more in a raid. By Sept 28, when the Intifada had entered its fifth year, 3,334 Palestinians and 1,017 Israelis had been killed.

On December 12, however, the Palestinians had a modest success when they detonated a tunnel in Rafah, killing four Israeli soldiers, and wounding more than a dozen.

By the time the year came to a close, there was no sign that the peace process would be revived. A lot of course depends upon who will succeed Arafat. Mr Mahmood Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Organization's nominee for the top slot, appeared headed for an easy win in the election scheduled for January 9, but Mr Marwan Barghouti, the fire-brand leader now in an Israeli jail, changed his mind. First he announced he would not run for the post of president of Palestinian Authority so as to maintain the Fatah's unity. Later, he reversed his position. Hamas, meanwhile, has announced its boycott of the polls.

It now remains to be seen whether America, which had shunned all contacts with Arafat and considered him the stumbling block to peace, would force Mr Sharon to revive the peace process.

Terrorism, meanwhile, continued to rock Saudi Arabia, where militants chose to attack government and American targets. On Dec. 6, gunmen stormed the highly fortified US consulate in Jeddah, killing 12 people and losing in that process three of their comrades.

Other developments:

TURKEY: Finally, Ankara heard the news it had been long waiting for. On Dec 17, the European Union summit in Brussels announced that it would open membership talks with Turkey in October this year.

At one stage, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to walk out of the summit over the demand by Greek-Cyprus that Turkey recognize the Nicosia regime in writing.

However, Mr Erdogan saved the summit from collapsing by promising he would initial the May document that extended the EU membership to 10 states, including the Greek-Cypriot republic.

Most observers believe entry negotiations are likely to be tough and long. In fact, European Commission Chairman Romano Prodi warned that the negotiations could be broken off if Ankara did not continue to advance on political and social reforms.

IRAN: Throughout the year, Iran remained under pressure from the US and Europe on the question of its nuclear programme, with Israel hinting it could strike Iran's nuclear installations.

The issue was Iran's enrichment of uranium. One intelligent move by Tehran was to hold indepth talks with the European Three - Britain, France and Germany. The Three promised to provide Iran with nuclear technology provided it stopped its uranium enrichment programme. Talks with the EU-3 meant that the issue would not go to the Security Council, where the US could have a resolution passed imposing sanctions on Tehran.

Tehran promised to suspend its enrichment programme, but said the decision did not mean an abandonment of enrichment. The EU-3 also went back on their promise to provide Iran with n-technology. No final agreement had been reached between the two sides by the time the year drew to a close.

Earlier in the year, the reformists lost their grip over parliament after elections gave a comfortable majority to the conservatives. The reformists alleged that the February elections had been rigged - a reference to the disqualification of over 2,000 pro-reform candidates, including some sitting MPs, by the Council of Guardians. This served to make the job of reformist President Mohammad Khatami more difficult.

__________________
"The race is not over because I haven't won yet."

Adil Memon
Police Service of Pakistan (P.S.P)
37th Common Training Program

The first time most Americans heard the name of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was when Colin Powell stood before the United Nations to make his case for invading Iraq.

While much of Powell's statement turned out to be fictional, Zarqawi is unfortunately quite real.

As is often the case with the terrorist underground, we know a lot about Zarqawi and yet not nearly enough. For instance, such basic details as his real name and the country of his birth remain obscure. He is believed to have been born in Jordan, possibly of Palestinian descent. His aliases include Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, Fadil al-Khalaylah, Ahmad Fadil Al-Khalailah and just Habib. One of the Fad'l variations is probably in the neighborhood of his birth name. He may or may not be missing a leg, which is a much more important issue than you might think.

Zarqawi hails from the town of Zarqa, Jordan, from whence his best-known alias is derived. He's thought to be a high school dropout. Zarqawi went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the late 1980s, which has been the ruin of many a poor boy. In Afghanistan, Zarqawi plugged into the al Qaeda terrorist network, at the time fighting the Soviet Union with the support of the CIA. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Qaeda ran training camps where angry young men met other angry young men and formed lifelong friendships.

One of the people Zarqawi is known to have met in the training camps was a young Pakistani explosives expert named Abdel Basit, who would later be known to the world as Ramzi Yousef. Other major terrorists were working in the camps at that time, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the big cheese, Osama bin Laden, who was more or less running the operation.

Jordan, like other Middle Eastern states, recognized the threat posed by Afghan mujahideen much earlier than the West. Jordan and Egypt, among other countries, responded to that perceived threat by arbitrarily imprisoning the mujahideen, usually without charge and often under brutal conditions. Not surprisingly, this treatment only increased their anger and radicalism.

Right or wrong, when Zarqawi returned to Jordan in the early 1990s, he was jailed and spent seven years in jail. When he emerged, he was a full-blown radical who (according to Jordanian authorities) immediately began plotting attacks on U.S. and Israeli tourists in Jordan. He fled to Pakistan soon after leaving prison.

From the start, intelligence officials believe, Zarqawi only worked with bin Laden to further his goal of setting up his own terrorist shop.

Zarqawi's original plan was to overthrow the government of Jordan, but when he was smoked out of the country and sentenced to death in absentia, he went traveling, first to Europe then back to the Middle East and South Asia. Zarqawi allegedly ran a semi-independent shop on the border between Afghanistan and Iran, teaching his students how to use poisons and chemical weapons in terrorist attacks. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Zarqawi had to make tracks. According to Colin Powell, that's when the trouble really began.

The Z-man found shelter in Iran for a while, but Colin Powell didn't care. According to U.S. intelligence, Zarqawi traveled to Iraq in early 2002, and allegedly began associating with Ansar al-Islam, an impoverished group of 600 to 800 Iraqi Kurds whose stated goal was to secede from Saddam's Iraq so that its tiny, ethnically exclusive clan could go hide out in the mountains.

Of course, there's room for a different interpretation of Ansar's role. For instance, if you're Colin Powell and you're desperate to sell an Iraq invasion to the international community, you could argue that Ansar was a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder."

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a nexus as "A means of connection; a link or tie." Whatever else Ansar was, it certainly wasn't a nexus.

Geographically stuck between Iran, Iraq and the mainstream Kurds, Ansar was not an effective force in the region. al Qaeda briefly cultivated a relationship with the group, because of its strategic location relative to Afghanistan. When bin Laden and his crew were forced to retreat to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, al Qaeda's interest in Asnar faded.

According to the U.S. pre-Iraq party line, Zarqawi used his "base" in Iraq to stage bombings and terrorist attacks in Turkey and Morocco. Powell told the U.N. that Zarqawi received medical treatment during a stay in Baghdad in May 2002. This was supposed to illustrate Saddam's alliance with al Qaeda. (No one ever talks about the fact that Ramzi Yousef received medical treatment from a hospital in New Jersey after a minor car accident in 1993. Did Bill Clinton personally fluff his pillow?)

As it turns out, the report of medical treatment wasn't even credible to begin with. According to U.S. intelligence, Zarqawi had a leg amputated in Baghdad. Except that most sources now believe Zarqawi is equipped with two working legs. As Newsweek colorfully put in in early 2004, "The stark fact is that we don’t even know for sure how many legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has, let alone whether the Jordanian terrorist, purportedly tied to al Qaeda, is really behind the latest outrages in Iraq."

The remainder of Powell's claims about Iraq were less than airtight, as we all know by now. There is virtually no evidence to support claims that al Qaeda and Iraq were working together. bin Laden openly advocated the overthrow of Hussein before the U.S. decided to invade. There may well have been al Qaeda operatives in Baghdad, but there were also al Qaeda operatives in New York, Madrid, Cairo, Fort Lauderdale and Norman, Oklahoma.

Although they've stopped repeating the above claims, the U.S. government has not formally retracted its claims about Zarqawi, despite extensive media reports casting doubt on most of Powell's speech. But that doesn't mean the Z-Man's usefulness as a propaganda tool has ended. Far from it. The U.S. government has significantly upped the ante on Zarqawi's status since toppling Saddam Hussein. According to the Pentagon, Zarqawi has been a lightning rod for Iraq's resistance to the U.S. occupation force. U.S. intelligence sources speaking on and off the record now blame Zarqawi for virtually every terrorist attack seen in the last year, including the 3/11 Madrid train bombing and bomb attacks on Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq.

In February 2004, the U.S. claimed it had intercepted a letter from Zarqawi to al Qaeda, outlining his strategy in Iraq and asking for reinforcements. In addition to "proving" once and for all that Zarqawi was an al Qaeda evildoer, the letter further explained that Zarqawi was responsible for bombing the Shi'ites (most al Qaeda terrorists are Sunni Muslims):

We are striving urgently and racing against time to create companies of mujahidin that will repair to secure places and strive to reconnoiter the country, hunting the enemy –- Americans, police, and soldiers -- on the roads and lanes. We are continuing to train and multiply them. As for the Shi`a, we will hurt them, God willing, through martyrdom operations and car bombs.

Even MORE convenient than the al Qaeda link was the fact that the letter seemed like a sure bet to drive a wedge between the Shi'ites and Sunnis. If Sunni extremists were deliberately targeting Shi'ites, then obviously the two groups couldn't possibly join forces against the U.S. occupation and its hand-picked provisional government.

The letter didn't stop Sunnis and Shi'ites from doing just that, however. Unfortunately for our intrepid protagonists, the letter was quickly judged to be a forgery by just about anyone whose opinion mattered. Even Western journalists openly scoffed at the letter's authenticity, let alone the conspiracy-obsessed Arab world, which went to town over the incident. The U.S. didn't help matters by flatly refusing to discuss how it got its hands on the letter. "The important thing is that we have this document in our hands," explained Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt in February. "How it was found is not as important as the fact that we have it." Given the U.S. intelligence record to date, that's a pretty iffy proposition.

By now, you may be wondering what a reasonable person can actually claim to know about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and it's a good question. The piles of misinformation are so deep that it's nearly impossible to divine the truth. Shortly after the 3/11 bombing of a Madrid commuter train, pundits began speculating on a Zarqawi link, based on comments by French terrorism investigator Jean-Charles Brisard. The most compelling reason to think this might be true is that it didn't come from the U.S. government.

Despite all the laborious U.S. efforts to prove a link, most independent experts believe Zarqawi is not operating on behalf of al Qaeda, a conclusion which the U.S. military reluctantly conceded in early 2004.

In recent media interviews with captured Ansar al-Islam operatives, the terrorists said they never laid eyes on Zarqawi (the interviewees provided other verifiable information on Ansar activities). Ansar itself has been more or less made obsolete by the U.S. invasion, which spurred an influx of thousands of foreign fighters into Iraq (some al Qaeda-linked, but others not). In early 2004, some Iraqi insurgents claimed in a leaflet that Zarqawi had been killed. Not too many people believe this to be true.

A tape released in April 2004 appeared to be from the Z-Man himself. According to the tape, Zarqawi took credit for several bomb attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. He pointedly did not take credit for the attacks on Shi'ites, but he did castigate the Shi'ites as "idolators." He called on Iraqis to "burn the earth under the occupiers' feet." After the tape was released, the U.S. increased its reward for his capture to $25 million -- on a par with bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri before their recent increases to $50 million.

In May, Zarqawi made himself into a star of the Internet with a homemade snuff video that really got people talking. The video, released with the catchy title "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands" delivered pretty much as advertised, ending with a scene of Zarqawi brandishing the decapitated head of an American civilian named Nicholas Berg.

About the only evil act missing from the long list of charges against Zarqawi had been any use of the chemical weapons which are his alleged specialty. It was especially odd since (from what we hear) Iraq was just chock-full of evil chemicals waiting for such attacks.

However, that oversight was rectified in late April 2004, when Jordanian officials named Zarqawi the mastermind of a foiled plot to kill 80,000 people with a chemical attack. (Bear in mind that this estimate may be a trifle high. Ramzi Yousef planned to kill 250,000 people in his 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The actual death count was six.)

And just how many legs does Zarqawi have anyway? We're going to have to get back to you on that, but we can definitively state the answer is no more than three and no less than zero. Probably.

__________________
"The race is not over because I haven't won yet."

Adil Memon
Police Service of Pakistan (P.S.P)
37th Common Training Program

Like Lesane Parish Crook or Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre, Karol Jozef Wojtyla will be remembered by the name he adopted rather than the one he was born with.

Wojtyla was born in 1920 near Krakow, Poland. His father was a retired soldier in the Polish Army (insert your own joke here), and his mother was a teacher in the Polish school system (insert your own joke here). His mother died when Karol was nine years old (no joke here, you heartless bastard).

Contrary to what you might have thought to look at him in his final years, young Karol was a robustly athletic young man, who skied, hiked, swam and played soccer. His indefatigable physical prowess slowed a bit when he was hit by a truck in college, leaving him with a slight hunch, but by every account, he was a pretty healthy guy.

Indeed, by the look of him, there was nothing that said "future pope." Of course, for the past 400 years, all popes had been Italian, so there wouldn't be. Even putting that factor aside, Wojtyla led a fairly secular life of the day. He went to college, studied theater and singing, then worked as a stone cutter after the Nazis invaded in 1940.

In 1941, deep into the German occupation of Poland, Wojtyla's father died. Dad had always wanted Karol to be a priest, and the death of a parent under duress will do things to your mind. Wojtyla took up the quest, although he had to study secretly under the Nazi regime. He became a priest in 1946, continuing his studies and eventually earning two masters' degrees and two doctorates.

As a priest, his studies were facilitated by his posting as a Krakow university chaplain. Unfortunately, Poland's post-Nazi era saw the rise of Communism, which was even more unfriendly to the Church. Wojtyla climbed the ladder to become archbishop of Krakow, and then rose to the rank of cardinal in 1967.

As a Catholic working in an occupied land, Wojtyla generally followed the traditional Catholic practice of appeasement. He fought just enough to keep the Church meaningfully intact, but not enough to significantly piss off the Commies.

Wojtyla played an integral role in the reforms of Vatican II, which dispensed with the Latin Mass and encouraged Catholics to get involved with their religion. He also wrote a series of academically well-received books and papers on topics including the relationship between religion and philosophy, and a Catholic concept of sexuality.

The latter was seen as a positive thing, in the context of the religious tradition which preceded it, acknowledging a role for sexual urges in healthy lives. His reputation for progressiveness on sexual issues would be short-lived, however.

In 1978, in an election shocker, Wojtyla was chosen to succeed Pope John Paul I, who had died under what must be described as reasonably suspicious circumstances after barely a month in office. For a variety of reasons, the cardinals had determined that it would be good politics to take the papacy away from the Italians, and Wojtyla made for a politically interesting selection at the height of the Cold War.

Wojtyla took the name John Paul II, perhaps as a message to anyone who might allegedly have done away with John Paul I. He made a triumphant victory tour through Poland, where he was greeted by incongruously adoring Communist crowds, which in turn made the leaders of the Soviet bloc very nervous.

In addition to his unprecedented Polishness, he was also one of the youngest popes in recent memory, and he soon became wildly popular among Catholics, inasmuch as the phrase "wildly" could be associated with an increasingly tepid Roman Catholic institution.

John Paul's iconic status was cemented in 1981, when he was the subject of an assassination attempt. A little more than a week before the attack, a Trappist monk hijacked an airplane full of passengers and demanded that the Vatican release the Third Secret of Fatima, a prophecy supposedly delivered several decades earlier by the Virgin Mary. The relevance of this incident may not be immediately apparent, but stick with us here.

On 13 May, 11 days after the hijacking, the pope was shot by a would-be murderer. John Paul was hit, but not killed, by the assassin's bullet. Recovering in the hospital, J.P. was purportedly divinely inspired to realize that the Virgin Mary had saved his life. He immediately summoned the third secret from the Vatican vaults and read it. According to the official church position, which is less than unassailable, the secret foretold the assassination attempt which had now been averted. It's not clear why the Virgin Mary would be wrong, but there it is.

The shooter was a Turkish Muslim named Mehmet Ali Agca. Many initially suspected Agca was involved with the Soviets in some way, but the allegation proved untenable and no wider conspiracy was proven at the time. Years later, documents unearthed from Eastern bloc intelligence archives indicated that the Soviets may indeed have sponsored the attack, but the details remain unclear.

In contrast, there was absolutely no question that the next attempt on the pope's life was the product of a wide conspiracy. Uber-terrorist Ramzi Yousef crafted a plot to assassinate the Pope in 1995 during a trip to the Philippines. This attempt, funded by Osama bin Laden through his brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, never got to the point of a shot being fired, but when local police broke up the al Qaeda cell they discovered that Yousef had stocked up priestly costumes and rented an apartment with a view of the pope's parade route. It was another close call, Virgin Mary notwithstanding.

John Paul II was often touted for attempting to restore a church fragmented by battling liberal and conservative branches around the world, trying to update church teachings to deal with the rapidly expanding ethical issues created by technological advances. But his early successes were largely lost in the later years of his papacy.

In his role as the architect of Catholic dogma, John Paul II adamantly rejected any movement on several key social issues of the day, rejecting changes in social climate in favor of the church's traditional positions on abortion (against it), the pill (against it), homosexuality (agin' it), condom usage (ain't gonna happen), divorce (nope, but please we don't talk about the soaring number of annulments), pornography (ain't havin' none of it), stem cell research (fugheddaboutit), women as priests (yeah, right) and the marriage of priests (no way no how).

John Paul made one last bid for relevance as he attempted to dissuade the U.S. from invading Iraq. The effort backfired, as the pope's plea for peace barely edged out headlines about the search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Most of these positions played particularly badly with an American audience, to which John Paul responded by pointing out that the Church is not a democracy.

"It's a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth," John Paul observed. While he may have had a point as far as the latter statement, the former statement rang hollow at the opening of the 21st century, when the American church plunged deep into crisis over the issue of priests who love boys too much.

It wasn't exactly a big shock that Catholic priests were diddling the altar boys. When the first sordid tales began trickling out of the Boston Archdiocese in January 2002, the idea had already been lurking at the edge of the zeitgeist for a long, long time.

The surprise wasn't even how many priests had diddled how many altar boys, as well as just plain boys, and even a few girls, although the numbers that began to emerge were truly shocking. In the U.S. alone, hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children, and those were just the documented cases.

But for most Catholics, the over-the-top unacceptable revelation was that the church had actively covered up the pattern of pedophilia among priests working with children. In Boston, the archdiocese had been tracking cases of unsanctified molestation for decades. More stories began to emerge from around the United States. It became painfully clear that Cardinal Bernard Law, the archbishop of Boston, had done more than his fair share of covering up his subordinates' sins of emission.

After an agonizingly long year under a media microscope, Law did the American, democratic thing and tendered his resignation on 13 December 2002. Rumor had it that his first attempt to resign was flatly rejected by the Vatican.

John Paul accepted the resignation -- but only reluctantly, according to a million anonymous Vatican insiders, who insisted that the pope believed the church could not be held to account for thousands of cases of pedophilia, even if the church itself had authorized hiding the crimes from local law enforcement.

A 2002 story in the Boston Globe reported that: "For an institution that measures time in centuries, not network news cycles, Vatican insiders said it was an extraordinarily swift and forceful response and a profound recognition that the Vatican had finally come to understand the depth of the crisis in the American church." But the definition of "swift and forceful" understood by Vatican insiders came into question, as Cardinal Law was transferred to a cushy pre-retirement posting in Rome.

As the resignations mounted, one Vatican-appointed replacement bishop himself had to resign after being implicated in yet another sexual scandal. The Vatican also scaled back reforms proposed by a committee of American bishops. Meanwhile, documents uncovered by the press showed that the Vatican's guidance had encouraged the cover-ups in the first place.

John Paul's response was further muted by the slow but steady deterioration of his health. Since the late 1990s, every public appearance made the pope was inevitably followed by the echoes of a couple billion people simultaneously sighing, "Man, he looks bad."

Starting in the early 1990s, J.P. was stricken with a series of health setbacks that would have killed any 10 other men. He had a tumor taken off of his colon, and shortly thereafter he broke a leg and dislocated a shoulder in two separate falls. His slight hunch became more and more pronounced, until he looked like he was about to topple over at any given moment. He began canceling events due to flus, fevers, intestinal problems and even an inflamed appendix, which he had removed at the age of 76.

By the time the priestly pedophila scandal reached its height, the pope's public appearances were increasingly grim and dominated by the frailty of his voice and appearance. The message about the scandal was half-hearted in content and barely a quarter-hearted by the time it had passed through the filter of John Paul's failing body.

In early 2005, John Paul II was entered his final days. After another case of "the flu," he began an extended hospital stay on 1 February, while the world watched and wondered. At an unhealthy 85, things were looking pretty grim, sparking a lot of speculation that he might take the unprecedented step of resigning for health reasons.

But that speculation was driven by the American, democratic-style concept that someone who is physically incapable of performing a job should not be performing the job. John Paul II informed his flock that he didn't and would hang in there until the bitter end.

That end came on April 2, 2005. The pope had spent weeks in and out of the hospital, and he missed most of his traditional Easter observances as his health hit disastrous new lows.

Ironically, the Vatican had become embroiled in the right-to-die case of Terry Schiavo, an American vegetative brain-damage patient kept alive by a feeding tube, even as John Paul himself was fitted with a similar tube when he became unable to eat. Unlike Schiavo, John Paul did not linger long after the tube was inserted. The world kept vigil by his hospital bed for the final 72 hours.

John Paul's legacy is mixed at best. He left behind a church wallowing through profound troubles. Even before the not-yet-counted damage inflicted by the pedophilia scandal, it was estimated that by 2020 about half of all priests would be older than 70. The communities rocked by pedophilia scandals are getting the old one-two, as soaring church settlements with sexual abuse victims leave more and more parishes struggling with bankruptcy. The number of students in Catholic schools, predictably, is plunging. All around the world, for a number of different reasons, the number of Catholic adherents is on the decline relative to the population.

The selection of John Paul's successor will determine whether the Church can extricate itself from these troubles. If the Vatican returns to the typical elderly Italian insider cardinal for leadership, its relevance could slip away. A younger pope might make changes, especially if he hails from the West or from Africa, as some have speculated.

John Paul II might not get his security deposit back on the Vatican. It's tough to argue that he left the Church in the same condition as when he moved in. But he was the pope, and not many people can say that. Many Catholics felt a powerful attachment to the man himself, if not his management skills or theological positions. Can sainthood be far behind? We think not.

__________________
"The race is not over because I haven't won yet."

Adil Memon
Police Service of Pakistan (P.S.P)
37th Common Training Program

Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, assassinated on 14 February at the age of 61 years in the center of Beirut, submitted his resignation in October in what was viewed as a defeat in an arm wrestle with Syria. Hariri governed as Prime Minister from 1992 to 2004, except for a brief interval between 1998 and 2000.

His obsession with security, which motivated him to travel only in an armored automobile equipped with sweepers for phone signals and with carbomb detectors, did not save him from the bomb that was set off by the transit of his convoy composed of several limousines and SUVs. A multimillionaire with excellent relations with Arab monarchs and European leaders, Hariri, starting from humble origins, made himself an immense fortune. His connections influenced him to enter Lebanese politics and in 1992 he was elected Prime Minister, an office which he held until 2004, except for a brief interval in which Salim Hoss was Prime Minister between 1998 and 2000.

Rafik Hariri was born into a modest household in Sidon in 1944. His father was a farmer and his mother ran a fruit stand. Hariri began his university education in 1964 only to abandon his studies to emigrate to Saudi Arabia because of insufficient economic resources to continue. In Saudi Arabia he worked as a Math teacher and as an auditor for an engineering company. In 1969 he started his own firm, Ciconquest, which grew unstoppably during Saudi's oil boom. He began to win contracts from private and government customers for the construction of office buildings, hospitals, hotels and palaces. A workaholic, Hariri built Riyahd's Hotel Massara in a mere six months. By the beginning of the 1980s, Hariri was among the 100 richest men in the world.

Following the civil war in Lebanon, he made himself conspicuous in war-torn Beirut as he engaged in the reconstruction effort. With his building supply and construction companies, he began to remodel Beirut with the desire to turn it into a New Singapore. Between business and politics he was able to start up his own television network, Future TV, a general entertainment network which became hugely popular in a country enjoying the one of the most vibrant media markets in the Arab world.

Hariri had his ups and downs with the Syrian régime, the real political arbiter in Lebanon, but his relations with Damascus did not deteriorate until 2004 when he opposed a constitutional amendment which would grant an additional term to President Emil Lahud, slated to retire. However, after a mysterious trip to Damascus, Hariri changed his mind and announced that he would support the reelection of Lahud for which he was roundly criticized.

In October 2004, just after consenting to the reelection of Lahud, Hariri resigned as Prime Minister saying that Lebanon needs a orderly and unified government in order to carry out its responsibilities in facing challenges from within and without; I was unable to manage those challenges because of obstacles with which you are all familiar.

Amidst his clamorous resignation (a politician closely identified with Syria replaced him), Hariri became a member of parliament and moved increasingly closer to a heterogeneous group of MPs who demand the end of Syrian tutelage of Lebanon, although Hariri himself never criticized Damascus openly.

***

The reaction of the Lebanese swings between blaming Syria and blaming Israel. Here are some comments from a Lebanese forum.

* This crime is ignoble, reprehensible and on many levels a crime intended to destabilize the already unsettled domestic political situation in the approach of legislative elections and above all relating to the controversial and thorny issue of UN Resolution 1559. Rafik Hariri was not free of reproach but he was a first-class politician and was very solicitous of his duties despite his wealth. He was incontrovertible player on the political stage but above all, a Lebanese. His assassination will have nefarious consequences on Lebanon, the Near and Middle East, and the world. This assassination also weakens Syria and places it in a very fragile sitution. The crime is grist for the Israeli mill. What a disaster, I'm afraid for my Lebanon, it's no use telling myself that Lebanese are used to war; I know they want an enduring peace and to live in a country which is not under threat.

* May Rafik Hariri rest in peace. He drank from the poison Syrian chalice of Lahud's term extension. I'm very sorry Hariri did not run for President in 2004. But who profits from this crime? Syria?

* I'm French. This evening, I wanted to write a letter to the Syrian ambassador to France. I needed the address. But then I found out that the Syrian Embassy doesn't have a web site. I looked in the phone directory and it wasn't listed. I took the next step and looked for a website for the government of Syria. Damascus does not have one. Now that's pretty odd that a nation that's on every world atlas, a nation we all know exists, is so unfindable. I've known for a long time what kind of country Syria is--I mean politically--but this is beyond all limits. I'm a friend of Lebanon--it's obvious. But don't worry, Lebanon is eternal. It will triumph over tyranny.

__________________
"The race is not over because I haven't won yet."

Adil Memon
Police Service of Pakistan (P.S.P)
37th Common Training Program