THE BANALITY OF BAGHDAD:

Iraqis Call Shuttle Disaster God's Vengeance (Reuters, February 01, 2003)

Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew -- including the first Israeli in space -- was that its was God's retribution on Americans. [...]

Car mechanic Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini noted Israeli air force Colonel Ilan Ramon was among the dead when the shuttle broke up shortly before its return to earth.

"Israel launched an aggression on us when it raided our nuclear reactor without any reason (in 1981), now time has come and God has retaliated to their aggression," Tamini said.

It's not even original. You'd think they could at least have the imagination to say something like: "We have no grudge against the Americans. We too mourn their loss."

UPDATE:
Even the Palestinians have that much sense:
Arafat aide praises Ramon as 'courageous' (LAMIA LAHOUD, Feb. 2, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

The Palestinian Authority praised Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon on Saturday as "a courageous man" and offered condolences to his family.

The condolences were conveyed in a statement issued by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

In a separate interview with The Jerusalem Post, Bassam Abu-Sharif, an adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, called the disaster "very sad."

He went on to describe Ramon as "a courageous man who dedicated his life for the prosperity of mankind."

"Anyone who dedicates his life for better life for human beings is dedicated to peace," Abu-Sharif added.

MEANWHILE, TALK ABOUT NOT GETTING IT:
Israeli, US astronauts die in shuttle blast over "Palestine" (Barbara Ferguson, 2 February 2003, Arab News)

All seven crew of the American space shuttle Columbia, including the first ever Israeli astronaut, were killed yesterday when the craft disintegrated in flames just minutes before it was scheduled to land.

In a tragic irony, the Columbia exploded with its Israeli astronaut on board over a city named Palestine in the state of Texas.

The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear, but residents in north Texas heard a loud boom as Columbia passed overhead. [...]

Whatever the cause, the accident dealt a powerful shock to American confidence and throws into doubt the entire manned space program.

Who could possibly live in the same universe that contains America and think this would stop our manned space program?

APPARENTLY SHE COPIED HER ARTICLE FROM THE TIMES:
Disaster Stirs Already Unsettled Feelings Across the Country (TODD S. PURDUM, February 1, 2003, New York Times)

To sleeping Texans who heard the "boom-boom," it was the sound of the sky falling. To the clinical-voiced controller at NASA's Mission Control, it was a "contingency." To Americans already grappling with a confluence of threatening events, the instinctive reaction was, "What next?"

Like the space shuttle Challenger disaster 17 years ago this week and the attacks of Sept. 11, the breakup of the Columbia unfolded in real time before a nationwide television audience, sparking many of the same unsettled feelings. Only because the crash began some 40 miles above the earth could the instinct to think of terrorism be repressed.

But to a nation still struggling with the aftermath of the most devastating terrorist attack in its history and the abiding threat of another, plus a sluggish economy, nuclear tension with North Korea and the prospect of war with Iraq, this morning's tragedy fell as an especially harsh blow.

"We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun," Ronald Reagan told the nation on Jan. 28, 1986, when the Challenger exploded on takeoff. "I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave."

President Bush will surely need to summon all the courage he can muster — and more important, summon the nation's — in the days and weeks ahead. For even as he tries to rally an anxious nation and doubting allies for a war, he will face a new, if predictable, challenge: public demands for answers and political demands for accountability.

The mourning will come first, of course. Like the Challenger, whose crew was a multiracial, multiethnic American mosaic, the Columbia had a diverse crew, including the first Israeli astronaut. One member was from Iowa and another was born in India.

Of course, at the Times all three of those "I" places are considered foreign lands.

MORE LIKE IT:
Editorial: Columbia crash (Arab News, 2 February 2003

The destruction of the NASA space shuttle Columbia is a tragedy which affects us all. The reason why, other than common humanity, the burden of grief should be shared across the world is that
space is a frontier across which all peoples of the globe must push, not just a handful of countries with leading technologies. [...]

The immediate lesson remains, however, that this is a tragedy for everyone, not just the United States, India and Israel. We have all lost in this disaster. A technological challenge has been thrown down
and once again, a warning given that in the unforgiving region of space, nothing can be taken for granted. The solutions may be a long time coming.

They will come. The struggle to conquer the space will go on. All that we can hope for is that, when the battle is won, the knowledge gained in the process will add to human happiness, not to human
misery.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 1, 2003 3:24 PM