Tom Holsinger sends this along, and it resonates with something I've been thinking over the last week as I watched the Dubai port deal debate play out. In an excellent article that brings in Mark Steyn, William Kristol, Ben Stein, the DLC, and Thomas Friedman, all feeling the same deep vibrations beneath the silliness, Jim Geraghty says, simply:
"This strikes me as the fallout of the Tipping Point™ - my sense that in recent weeks, a large chunk of Americans just decided that they no longer have any faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of the Muslim world."
That's pretty much the only conclusion one can take away from watching the past week's debate in America. The meta-message screams "Arabs/Muslims cannot be trusted," and even ultra-hawks don't think that's a smart idea. It isn't, of course; one of the most important abilities we need in this war is the ability to keep our cool and tell our friends from our enemies in the Muslim world.
But engaging the debate on that basis misses the most significant story.
Leave aside the complete lying hypocrisy inherent in a Democratic Party that goes ballistic over profiling in airports but does exactly that over this port deal. [add]Or their whole lying theme of "respect abroad," working with others, the value of allies, et. al., which always seems to go by the boards if there's a grain of domestic advantage to be had.[/add] Forget it. Just look at the fact that their belief in the resonance of "Arabs can't be trusted" was so strong that they chose to run with it as a major political campign. THAT is the story. And it matters. A lot.
There's a confluence of factors that have brought us to this point, and in many ways it's something we've done to ourselves.
Geraghty, and those he quotes, caught the same resonance I caught in Peggy Noonan's airport security article. Matt McIntosh had the right of it here:
"Precisely two things have made flying safer since 9/11: sealing off cockpit doors and passengers becoming aware that they will probably have to fight back against would-be hijackers. The rest has been a net negative."
People fly a lot in America, and most of them know this. That affects their perception of legitimacy, and also of the justice of the measures being applied. The resentment is real. As one RedState.org commenter put it:
"Big government has just been caught rubber stamping for Big Commerce at the ports while leather-booting the rest of us at the airports. The national wound has just had the scab ripped from it. Nobody should be surprised that it's bleeding."
That's in a GOP blog, folks, not Atrios' Eschaton.
Then there's the Cartoon Jihad and its fallout, which continues to echo in the West as well as in the Muslim World. One senses, as Tom Friedman does, a hardening of views on our side of the fence - a hardening well-characterized by David Blue in our own Mohammed Cartoon display post, when he said (comment #36):
"I also remember some time back - a couple of years ago now - a chant in a demonstration in Europe:
"Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas!"
I believe these people mean what they have said. If they had the power to act on what they have said, they would. To the extent that they are allowed power or influence, they will use it in the directions you would expect from what they have said. The election of Hamas, a terror group focused on the eradication of Israel and on atrocities against Jewish civilians, confirms that to me beyond doubt.
I don't like them.
They want a world without me or my friends or the things I like, such as cartoons and free speech. Men like Osama Bin Laden have their moral support in giving them what they want, and if it was not so these terrorist movements could never have been effective. Because of the Beslan school massacre, I do not believe that there is any refuge to be had in innocence or in being harmless. There is no stopping point to their malignity except practical limitations on their power.
I want less of them."
He's right. The next question, however, is the one that asks what the problem is. Is it a defined sect? Or is it a problem inherent in Islam and Arabs generally? Hence Geraghty's point re: "faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of the Muslim world." Once that sets as a "no" answer, the belief that "the only good Injun is a dead Injun" is a lot closer than it used to be. And so is a full-scale war, which now waits, primed, for subsequent events of sufficient magnitude to detonate it.
It doesn't help when media outlets openly bow and scrape in order to comply with a Shari'a religious law that most of us don't follow or believe in, as a result of threats abroad and also here at home. As Geraghty notes:
"Our MSM, with about four or five exceptions, just offered its unconditional surrender to jihadist standards of the press, and has seemingly agreed to lie to the public about the extent that threats and violence affected their decision making. The official line is, and will remain, "sensitivity to our readers/viewers."
But that line is a lie, of course - and some have at least had the guts to admit it. Even as nobody seems to be arrested or charged for clear incitements to violence.
Meanwhile, brave voices like Somalian-born Dutch Parliamentarian Hirsi Ali, under virtual imprisonment after criticizing the state of womens' rights in Holland's Islamic community, remind us of the stakes. So too, interestingly, does the Democratic Leadership Council. William Kristol:
"As Marshall Wittmann of the Democratic Leadership Council observed last week, "We are in the midst of a jihadist offensive. The bombing of [Iraq's] Askariya Shiite Shrine is another indication of the world-wide jihadist offensive against the West. From the cartoon jihad to the Hamas victory to the Iranian effort to obtain nuclear weapons to the attempt by al Qaeda to foment an Iraqi civil war — our enemy is taking the initiative. And the West is on its heels."
The Bush administration leads the West. If the West seems to be on its heels, it is because the administration seems to be on its heels. The fact that the left is utterly irresponsible, and some of the right is silly, is no excuse.
Wittmann continued, "Many mistakes have been made since 9/11. But at the end of the day, we should recognize that we are all Americans and part of the West that is under assault by a truly evil foe. Our bravest are on the front lines in this war. The least we can do at home is to demonstrate some moral seriousness that the moment demands."
Wittman is dead-on. The alternative to moral seriousness will be growing anger stemming from a correct belief that we are under attack, and facing a very real threat to our way of life here that will only end when our enemy does. But if the "sensitivities" (which is now read as "threats") of undifferentiated "Muslims" are all it takes to get the North American media to submit to religious edicts and lie by omission and commission about a major public controversy - then the source of the threat to our way of life isn't just al-Qaeda, is it? It's precisely the opposite of the behaviour the media had intended to mold, of course. But it's also completely logical, and completely their fault. As voices like Karim Elsahy are lost in the wind.
Then there's Tom Friedman:
"...The world is drifting dangerously toward a widespread religious and sectarian cleavage - the likes of which we have not seen for a long, long time."
Yes, it is. Friedman believes America has the power to stop it. Some of us aren't so sure that's true any more.
Here at Winds, we've talked repeatedly about the dangers of the slide from The Global War on Terror toward the Islamic War. A combination of spinelessness, half-measures, and opportunism is taking us step by step to exactly that destination, a road to hell paved with evasions, cowardice, and lack of seriousness or moral clarity every step of the way.
Last week we saw the "clash of cultures" ratchet slip a notch, and there will be consequences. There are several more notches to go before The Islamic War arrives - but the trends are not reversing, and events that would move the ratchet again are gathering.
No-one can predict the course of war, and there is much afoot that may give us cause to hope for a better outcome than perhaps we deserve. But until some of those trends do begin reversing, all one sees are the darkening clouds ahead.
Ah, well. In the words of the Duke of Wellington, at a place called Waterloo:
"Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let's see who will pound longest."
The fight is worth it.
UPDATE: John Brown raises, from the left, an analogy that Trent and Tom have also used before re: the progress of hostilities: America's Indian Wars. Ignore the poorly-done intro screed above, and follow along with what Brown himself wrote. Not comforting, but possibly true.
The official line is, and will remain, "sensitivity to our readers/viewers."
But that line is a lie, of course
Give me a break. Choosing not to offend several million Americans who happen to be Muslim is not cowardice. Just because you are not offended doesn't mean no one else has the right to be offended. If this was a racial caricature of blacks (which presumably you would find offensive), would you be calling for it to be broadcast over and over again? No.
The networks carefully measure just what they put out and what they don't. Why doesn't CNN air hard profanity/nudity/etc.? Because it would offend a significant number of viewers significantly. (People of all sort are slightly offended all the time - I'm talking about major offense here.)
What about images that offend Christians? Well, let's face it. Those on top (and white Christians as a whole are definitely on top) are not going to find offense in caricatures, art, and almost anything else to the same degree that the those on the bottom do. It's why racial caricatures of blacks are so much more offensive than a racial caricatures of a whites.
A different standard because it's a different situation.
The MSM understands this implicitly. After all, if they offend too many people too severely, they're in trouble. This is the real world - the squeaky wheel does get the grease. And the reality is that those caricatures mean a lot more to many Muslims than similar ones or even far more offensive cartoons could possibly mean to us.
Note, the violent protests have nothing to do with the decision. Decisions like this are based entirely on catering to the domestic audience.
That was a real load of "nuance", Tom.
First, all racial slurs — yes, against whites as well as blacks and anyone else — are pretty equally offensive, because they are a denigration of the target for who he is and what he cannot change about himself. The same applies to slurs against men, and homosexuals and many other categories.
Second, the difference in showing these cartoons and showing Serrano's Piss Christ is not in the level of offense, it's that offended Christians write letters, boycott organizations that show the work for a few months, and complain to their friends, while the offended (presumably) Muslims rioted, burned embassies, and called for the cartoonists to be killed. If it's OK to show offensive images to Christians and Jews, but not to Muslims, and the only difference is that Muslims kill people who offend them, the logical conclusion is that the newspapers have refused to run the cartoons out of fear.
Certainly, there is no evidence that the media wants to avoid inflaming Muslims. Pictures of the abuses at Abu Ghraib have been shown repeatedly for months on end. When new photos came out, they too were played up — at the same time that the news outlets were refusing to show pictures of the cartoons "in order to not be complicit in causing Muslim riots". Um, yeah, that must have been it.
They don't, as a rule, want to inflame Americans, which is why you don't see pictures of 9/11 much, even on 9/11 anniversaries. It's why you don't see the beheadings, the aftermath of torture, and the bloody bodies of dead children caused by the enemy, but you see those images if they're caused by an American ally.
Tom, I think you're full of it: the evidence and logic are vastly against you.
Maybe it is time to project this message, at least to the ME. We've been fighting this war the way we have to give the moderate Muslims a chance to step up to bat and reform their societies into something we can live with (not always like the results of, but that we can live with).
Yet, I've heard very little from them. Indeed, they've started to be more vocal recently, though they still tend to be drowned out by the shouting of the Islamofacists. I have to wonder if it may be because they are sensing that the US and the World's patience is starting to run out. If so, then maybe it's time to push the message that "Arabs can't be trusted" to the ME hard along with a warning to moderates that their oppertunity to change this is running out.
If these moderates are out there, and I believe they are, let's hear from them.
StargazerA5
Hmmm. Yesterday I published a post in very much the same vein, Joe. For those who've chosen to hew to the message that “Arabs can't be trusted” I ask, as AL has a number of times, “What then?”.
They leave us with, I believe, only two alternatives: isolationism and total war (referred to by some euphemistically as “full Jacksonian response”). What's your pleasure?
[sniff, sniff]
What's that? Hmmm ... smells like [sniiiif]
Yup.
Smells like 1938.
slide from The Global War on Terror toward the Islamic War.
President Bush has very quietly decided to begin supporting Hamas. His other efforts include cementing our alliance with our partners in the Global War on Terror, our allies in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Yemen and the UAE. All of these allies supported al Qaeda after it declared war against the United States, and they still support Islamism and Sharia laws.
Iran is willing to provoke us because they know we will not respond effectively. We never have.
Let's face it, there is no Global War on Terror. We're not fighting Islamist terrorism, and, apart from the war in Afghanistan, our government has no plans to fight Islamist terrorism. They plan to do what they've always done, appease it. We can't slide from a point that does not exist.
In Dave's post, he said:
Creating terror is not the only objective of terrorist attacks: an equally important objective is provoking a response—preferably a misdirected or disproportionate response.
If our government was interested in fighting terror, they would concentrate on this problem. They're not, but let's pretend that they are. How would we respond appropriately to terrorism?
First, we'd have to separate the terror-supporting Arabs/Muslims/foreigners/Euros/pundits from the moderate or indifferent crowd. The primary motivation for the Islamist movement is the spread of Islamist Sharia laws. Is a person, group or nation in favor of the sentence of death for apostasy? Do they think people should be murdered for saying the wrong things about Mohammed or Islam? Do they believe that offensive, military jihad against non-Muslims is a communal, religious obligation? If so, then they aren't our allies.
Our enemy is not 'all Arabs', all Muslims, all leftists or all commies. If we were fighting a war against Islamist extremism, our enemies would be the supporters of worldwide Sharia, and the supporters of the current Arab/Muslim campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Middle East and Africa. People who don't support this campaign include Arab Christians, non-Hezbollah Lebanese, the Kurds, secular Arabs, liberal Arabs and Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews, some communist groups and African Blacks.
But we're not fighting a war against terrorism. It's not clear what we're fighting. Are we using the Islamists as a bargaining chip with the Chinese? Are we afraid of these militarily weak nations? We can't respond to terrorism and we can't fight it until we decide who and what we're at war with.
You may be right about the Democrats' hypocrisy on this issue, but can you imagine the uproar from the Republicans if a President Gore or Kerry had proposed this same deal!
Uh, I think the tipping point this week was the crash of another chunk of Bush Base, that has decided the insurgency is not in its last throes. (Ha, ha, remember that one!)
As for the Democratic Party and the ports: the issue is not whether US Arab citizens in an airport queue can be trusted, but whether the government of the UAE (you know, the ones who recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rules of Afghanistan) can be trusted. As I wrote in another thread, I doubt if the UAE contract matters than much to American security, but it does put paid to oodles of "Just Trust Me" Bush propaganda, some of which was warmly received at this site.
If the administration hasn't exactly been serious on the GWOT, maybe it's because of all the domestic opposition from the Left, from the media, and from purported allies? That maybe it figured that two invasions was about the best it could do with the political capital available?
If a tipping point has been reached, and a majority of Americans have indeed hardened their hearts towards the ME, look for the next administration (I don't seriously think it matters which party it's nominally loyal to) to take a much, much harder line.
There are several more notches to go before The Islamic War arrives ...
What happens when we nuke Iran? Does that ratchet it up tighter, loosen it as the Arabs back off, or introduce the Islamic/West War in its entirety?
BTW, I'm not seeing any editorials or news stories in the Middle East about the "anger of the American street". They are all blaming the scuppering of the Ports deal on a "few politicians" trying to cause trouble.
Airport security is the public face of homeland security, and it is a bleeding wound - a constant, in our faces, reminder of how incompetent and politically correct the federal government is at protecting the American people from those who would murder us at home.
The Jacksonian uprising has begun.
I predicted this years ago in my Jacksonian & Giants of Flight 93 columns on Strategy Page, but I thought it would be triggered by another terrorist attack at home.
Instead it has come due to the Bush administraton being AWOL in the information war. President Bush is a big government Republican who does not believe in, let alone have a relationship with, the American people as an entity. Most Presidents draw strength from the American people, in varying degrees. Weak ones don't at all. Bush doesn't at all, but lacks most (or at least many) of the other common defining characteristics of weak Presidents - he is an odd mix of weak and average features as far as Presidents go.
President Bush is clearly a total disaster in the public relations department - he is both clueless and inarticulate. Furthermore he does not seem comfortable in his own skin. He is nowhere near as insecure as Richard Nixon, but he is clearly the most insecure President since Nixon, and that includes Carter.
His utter leadership failure as a war President has convinced the American people that they must protect themselves.
BTW, note how Mr. Medcalf assumes that I said the things Mr. Geraghty said. He reads hastily, makes erroneous assumptions and attacks people for what others said.
All of Mr. Medcalf's posts should be read in light of this.
Tom H. I believe Mr. Medcalf was addressing Tom West, the first commenter on this thread.
Sorry, Tom #1, I disagree entirely.
Yes, on a factual basis, you are correct, the various networks and publishers weigh their articles carefully so as not to offend their customers. That much is market forces at work.
But as was recently pointed out to me by a friend at work, when the decisions are made:
1) Not to publish cartoons that will offend a small domestic deme and large internataional deme of muslims, but
2) To publish more pictures (old, I believe) of the Abu Ghraib sickness, which will certainly inflame exactly those same demes, within just a few days of each other....
Well, I have to start questioning the purity of the publishers, here. Note, I am not at all saying that the Abu Ghraib photos should not be published, before I am accused of that. My calculus in these matters is simple: Both sets of images are news, neither are classified or sensitive material, therefore both sets of images should be published.
Offensiveness doesn't enter into the calculation.
I don't know what the media calculation, but it cannot be a measure of offensiveness. At best, it's simple fear. They know which sets of pictures aer more likely to cause reprisals launched against their own assets.
Joe, I've been in the same mood as you (or at least, as your post) for a few days now, and for much the same reason.
It's heartening, at least, that I'm not the only one who sees the inherent hypocrisy of the Democrats in demanding zero racial profiling in airports, but 100% racial profiling in business deals. In their defense, it's not that simple, really: One involves a violation of individual civil liberties of citizens, while the other is up at the national-corporate level. We've always had a bit of a societal glitch in trying to scale the concept of individual rights up to the ethnic and national level.
It's a half-hearted defense, though, because leaving the entire question of 'rights' aside, the more I think about this one, the more I come down (and still tentatively) on the side of letting the port deal go through. Not because of 'rights' but because if the UAE is actually an ally of ours (and they are) then this isn't the way to treat an ally. The strategic goal, I thought, was to integrate the Muslim world with the rest of the world, not isolate them.
As far as I'm concerned, the only rider we should put on the deal is a minimum but sizeable quota of jobs to be worked by UAE women.
(And #7 S. Gerber hits it dead on the nailhead. I doubt that most of the strident opposition to this deal have even bothered to think about the implications. It's political obstructionism. And the Republicans would be no different.)
But it's not just the port deal. It's the trifecta of the Cartoon Riots, the port deal, and the Shi'ite Mosque Riots that have me in this mood.
The cartoon riots, because nothing says "barbarian" to an American, I think, more clearly than riotting, burning and killing people over pretty mild cartoons published thousands of miles away, and taking out your hostilities on people who live thousands of miles further from the point of publication. Barbaric is a soft term for that behaviour, to a standard American mindset. The real word, I claim, is "insane." The longer things like that happen, the more that people will be convinced we really are in a clash of civilizations... but the more they will be convinced that this is because the other culture has a streak of serious insanity running through it.
Which is not good.
The Mosque Riots are similar. I haven't seen any boilerplate news stories put it in these stark terms before, but I don't think it's lost on the daily reader of news that, when Sunnis kill Shi'ites in Iraq, the Shi'ite response is comparatively mild. When Sunnis blow up a mosque with no casualties (indeed, in a way that seemed designed to avoid casualties) the Shi'ite response is halfway to a spontaneous civil war...! Again, from an American mindset, since we worry (most of us) more about flesh and blood and individual lives than symbolic landmarks, this is barbaric and insane.
And the Port Deal is just the reflection of that realization, I fear. When I was a younger man, I would have taken an unholy, eyes-gleaming delight in pointing this and other hypocrisies out to friends on the left. Now, it just makes me sad.
Call them all discovery points in the war. The fascists have discovered that they can do more with symbols than by actually killing people. The deocrats have discovered that there's a fault line in the American consciousness around the concepts of ethnicity, religion, freedom and security that mey-- may!-- be ripe for exploitation and polarization.
These are all discoveries of polarization points. And polarization is the strategy of the fascists. Zarqawi makes no bones about his desire to polarize the Muslim world into a Sunni/Shi'ite war, starting in Iraq. He expects the Sunnis to win, and to make the situatio so hot that America will withdrawl. Bin Laden makes no bones about his desire to polarize the world into Muslim vs everyone else-- apparently with the idea that he'll win.
The probelm-- the biggest problem-- is that Americans have a toolkit to deal with this sort of societal fanaticism.
Muslim history for the fascists starts back in 570 or 610 AD, depending on how they want to think about it. It lingers over every victory and defeat. American history for them seems to start in January of 1968. What they're missing is the American Civil War and World War II.
And that is what I fear in the mood, this month.
s gerber, Bush didn't "propose" the deal. The deal was made between two corporations. It required US gov't approval, which was given, because there was no reason not to do so, no reason to get Congress involved, no reason to create a controversy that just isn't there. Geraghty has it right -- the real issue is that the Democrats have decided to campaign on a position that assumes the untrustworthiness of one of our Arab allies just because the ally is Arab and Muslim. It is hypocritical, of course, but so what? There are worse things than hypocrisy, and stupidity is among them. The opponents of this deal are guilty of that, if not worse. Not only will killing the ports deal not enhance our security, it will impair it by hurting the international cooperation that is essential for port security.
First, all racial slurs — yes, against whites as well as blacks and anyone else — are pretty equally offensive, because they are a denigration of the target for who he is and what he cannot change about himself.
Um... garbage. Offensive is when offense is taken. As a white, Christian male, I can laugh off racial slurs against whites, men, and Christians without taking offense because I see them only for what they are: a statement of how pathetic the penner is.
The willingness to take offense at threats of such a nature really points to the insecurity of the person taking offense. (It's also why as a youth, I would have taken offense at caricatures of geeks and as an adult they're insignificant.) People who are absolutely secure in their power rarely take offense. And this is implicitly recognized by society. It's why it's okay to make fun of men while making fun of women in the same way would be offensive. Why? Because many more would actually be offended. (And why so many silently cringe when a white male find such things offensive - it simply reeks of publicly displayed insecurity...)
while the offended (presumably) Muslims rioted, burned embassies, and called for the cartoonists to be killed.
Okay, this makes me mad. What you are saying here is that the only ones truly offened were the Muslims in the politically stage managed demonstrations that most pointedly did not take place in North America.
Suprisingly enough, it's the sensibilities of the Muslims that didn't riot, threaten, and burned embassies that I (and the MSM as paying audience) care about. Or don't they count in your world?
Re: Marcus Vitruvius (#13)
Inflaming is quite different from not offending. The MSM doesn't mind inflaming if it will bring in viewers or make them seem more "breaking newsish". But seriously offended viewers go away.
More to the point, I sincerely doubt that the corporate decision to publish or not was influenced by the fear of some idiot extremist knifing a reporter. CNN is a big enough symbol of America to be a target simply because of what it is. Not publishing the cartoons avoids alienating viewership while at the same time allows them to claim themselves to be good citizens.
In the context of this discussion, I am surprised not to have seen a discussion of Francis Fukuyama's article, After Neoconservatism" that appeared in last week's NY Times Magazine (full text copies various places including here).
His comments seem to indicate a pretty dramatic tipping point in conservative thought about the conduct of the GWOT, as well as providing a good analysis of the situation in the Middle East.
Dave (#4): Isolationism is not an option - and the cartoon riots' attempt to impose Shari'a here make that crystal clear. My pleasure is to avoid the choice between total war and isolationism - but I'm becoming less sure this is possible. Fortunately, we've still a ways to go.
Marcus Vitruvius (#14) writes:
Not so sure. In defense of Iraq's Shi'ites, many Catholics have died at the hands of Islamic terrorism. Now imagine that Muslim terrorists blew up the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, but that no-one was killed.
What do you think the reaction would be? I imagine things would keep a lid on in America, which is kind of remote from it all in a number of ways. But imagine our civilized cousins in, say, Italy...
cartoon riots' attempt to impose Shari'a here
Come on. The cartoon riots were the attempt by certain powers to try and alienate their believers from the West. It is in their interests to see that their followers view the West as irretrievably hostile to Muslims everywhere. Due to a variety of factors, mostly due to massive insecurity, their followers are willing dupes.
However, let's not pretend that the organizers of these riots felt there was even the slightest chance (or in fact even desired) that their demands would be satisfied.
That's not to say that some wingnut might not be inspired to do someone harm, but that wasn't the organizer's purpose of the riots.
I don't know Tom West, I'm sure glad they didn't show the Rodney King beatings on the television, lest someone be offended and start rioting in some other city. I'm sure glad my local newspaper didn't print a photo of the Westboro Baptist Church's protest signs from a military funeral they crashed.
Wait they did.
At some point, its news. When people start rioting, people start dying, official trade boycots are started, and foreign policy decisions such as whether Turkey joins the EU seem to be waivering on the brink . . .
At some point, you got to ask yourself, what kind of cartoons are these anyway? How offensive are they? Would I be offended if my religious figure was depicted this way? Were they funny? Were they mean-spirited? What the @# is this all about?
If it helps you understand the events of the day, its news. Some MSM reporters have (off the record) agreed that its news, but have been refused permission to print the cartoons by higher-ups. I believe they understand that its another loss for big media when the "whole story" is on the internet, not in their pages.
Some people working in at least one newspaper that published the cartoons expressed outrage that their safety was not considered. The only real question is how much of the refusal to print the cartoons had to do with fear of violence versus fear of appearing politically incorrect versus fear of alienating Muslim consumers.
Tom, your insights into the minds of our enemies are impressive. Obviously, that ESP course got you your money's worth.
My characterization does not depend on such insights.
The grounds for the protest are that Shari'a law forbids depictions of Mohammed. The demand was that people who are not Muslims and therefore not bound by this rule comply with it. This is not a broad moral point either, but a narrow point of demanded conduct that is utterly specific to one religion.
Open and shut case.
The brownshirt fascist violence and open threats of terrorism are simply a comment on the nature of the theocratic project here. But behind it is, inescapably, a demand that Islamic Law be accorded deference and controlling status over the actions of non-believers.
And the same smug crew who are dependably quick to scream "theocracy" for the most trivial of reasons when Christians are involved are falling all over themselves trying to grovel, comply, and excuse it away.
After the murder of Ilan Halimi, a thousand Jews marched in Paris calling for revenge. Today, at the rally in the 'suburb' where it all started, hundreds of Jews wearing masks were calling for revenge, too. After five years of attacks by Muslims, at least some French Jews are fightin' mad. And that trend is only going one way.
Tom West, #16:
Didn't CNN say outright, right after the fall of Baghdad, that they had played soft with news of the Gulf region in general and Iraq in particular, because they feared for what Hussein would do to them and theirs in the region?
Joe Katzman, #18:
Obviously, I can't know for certain, but I think the response would be a call to isolation at best, through economic sanctions or some such, rather than a serious call to arms. It might become slightly easier for the Italy to support American activities in the region, but I would suspect very little more.
This is not intended directly as a denigration of Europe, although I could strongly wish it were otherwise. It's just a realization that the European experience of religious, ethnic, and ideological conflict has been far darker than ours. Europe has tended to be the battleground more often than America, and ahs been more recently. I'm thinking of the Thiry Years war, the series of struggles in the Napoleonic Era, and World War II, in particular. That, as opposed to the American Civil War.
It is entirely reasonable for them to fear the switch to Total War even more than America. The footprints on their homes are still within living memory.
The realities of European force projection are far different from America's as well. All of Europe-- rather generously including Russia-- cannot project power on anything near the scale of the United States. Individual European states (the correct metric, since the notion of a pan-European foreign policy died horribly in 2005) even less so. What, precisely, could Italy do in a period of less than five years if they found themselves sufficiently enraged?
But it's interesting that the reason you give is that Christians don't "find offense" as much as non-Christians do. They certainly don't act out their offense the way Muslims are currently doing, but is that because they're confident of being "on top"?
First of all, most Christians probably have no such confidence. Political sensibility will not tolerate Christians who claim to represent the majority of Americans - though oddly, their critics are allowed to accuse them of being a majority culture.
And while it's doubtful that Christianity is the dominant culture of white America, it is most definitely the dominant culture of black America. Does that mean that blacks do not feel offended by attacks on their Christian identity, as they would feel by attacks on their racial identity?
M. Virtuvius (#23) asks:
1. Have riots aimed at Muslim areas.
2. Begin expelling Muslim immigrants and restricting further immigration from Miuslim countries.
3. If truly sufficiently enraged, build nuclear warheads and build/buy missiles to mount them on.
4. Then there's the Catholic Church's reaction. Which might be to "turn the other cheek." Which more likely would be option #2 of a twin track of demanding greater religious freedom in Muslim lands, and evangelizing Muslims. Which at its most extreme would re-found the Church Militant among, say, Africa's Christians, Indonesia's Christians, et. al. and take up collections throughout Catholicism to begin arming them so they could defend their homes against Islamic terror and bullying.
Note that even the most extreme reaction stops short of a crusade, and in fact parallels Sistani's option of local militias. Which makes sense if you're Sistani; after all, option #1 is un-Islamic and un-Arab (because guaranteed lethal in Arab culture), and option #2 useless too since disaffected Sunnis are NOT going to convert to Shi'ism.
Here is my thought as an american - I'm close to let god sort them out
Joe Katzman, #25:
1) Assuming you mean Muslim areas of Italy, that really doesn't qualify as power projection, and I fail to see what good it would do to curtail the behaviour of crazy fascists a thousand miles away.
2) Might be useful for Italy, but is of little impact to the crazy fascists.
Both of these, in fact, are polarizing responses, which is to say, would actually please the crazy fascists even while they're busy hamming it up for the cameras complaining about how horrible and bitterly unfair it all is.
3) Is a completely toothless threat. I think every sane person on the planet understands that the only way an Italian nuclear device would be launched anywhere toward an Islamic nation is if Rome itelf went up in a glowing mushroom cloud.
4) Might be useful in a long term sort of way, but I'm not sure it qualifies as an Italian response if it comes from the Vatican.
Marcus,
It wouldn't be about that. Just as the Shi'ite riots in Iraq weren't about curtailing the power of Saudi Arabia.
You opined that the Shi'ite reaction was barbaric. I explained that an analagous situation closer to home would also produce an equally unkind and probably riotous reaction, not to mention a hardening of attitudes, among people considered to be quite civilized.
And the reason I brought the church into your "what next" question is because the event you were talking about is (Iraq) or would be (Italy) also a religious event. There is therefore a religious community dimension to the response.
I think imputing barabrism to the Iraq mosque attack aftermath misses the mark. Misses it twice over, in fact. One, in that unlike the cartoon response, it is not evidence of barabrism and one could expect replicas in "advanced" societies under similar circumstances.
Second in that it is more than just a building - the clear meta-message is an intent to destroy the attacked religious community wholesale, and that nothing and no-one is immune from that destruction. It is, in other words, one step away from an open declaration of genocidal intent. Unclouded by facile declarations like "it's just a physical thing," the Shi'ites got that message and their response was, essentially, "try it and this is the smallest measure of what you'll get."
In an Arab culture, that's actually a good and useful response so long as it doesn't cotinue to spiral and the riots subside. Which they did, though the situation remains very tense and could explode again.
The Arab Sunnis are 20% of Iraq's population, and the other 80% do not like them. If they continue to play with fire, and the other 80% lose all faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of Iraq's Sunnis - then this will get very messy indeed, and the Sunnis will be taking most of the casualties.
Though there are parallels to the dynamic discussed in this post, I don't think we're at full war yet in Iraq, either. What we're more likely to see is the Kurdish solution described by Michael Totten in his Lockdown dispatch from Kurdistan, implemented on a neighbourhood basis around Shi'ite areas near Sunni dwellings. If you like, you can think of it as a human version of Israel's wall - and for similar reasons.
That's a wall which is beginning to rise, in various forms and at varying levels of strength, in many places around the world. It might have been better for everyone if it had started earlier, and driven the message home more clearly. But no matter how much planning et. al. you do, you always end up fighting the war you get, rather than the war you wish you had gotten.
Joe, I think we may be talking past each other, or trying to cover too many topics at once. I'll try to clarify my positions as best I can.
First, I think that the responses of the "Muslim street" (and I think this is the month where we can start taking that term seriously) appear barbarous to western eyes. That's not quite the same thing as just outright calling them barbarous. But it's important to my discussion because just the notion of judging a wide swath of the planet to be "barbarous" is a new and disheartening development if it's beginning to occur on the left end of the American spectrum.
From there, we get into the nature of responses if something similar happened. In part, here, we just have a fundamental disagreement: I think the bloodless destruction of major Christian historical landmarks in Europe would occasion some anger, but nothing at all on the scale of the near-instant war that the bombing of the Golden Dome created. I don't even think repeated bloodless destruction of that type would provoke war. I think that European culture values life more than symbols, and if the symbols are blown up without loss of life, that it would simply be borne.
I erred in discussing the effectivity of the response, because a side track of my discussion is that the European response would be different than America's because of the difference in power projection abilities. I'll rememdy that:
A spontaneous riot or demonstration might happen. I doubt they would be organized by the state, because the media backlash would be devastating. I doubt that blowing up the Basillica would result in mass deportations. Nukes? I very much doubt it. A cultural crusade, brought on by the Catholic Church? That's the only one I consider likely.
Fundamentally, for cultural differences, I just don't see it happening. (Nor do I want to find out who's right and who's wrong....) It will interesting, in a horrible way, to see if the crazy fascists understand the difference, and focus on causing thousands of deaths in the West, while focussing on the more symbolic gestures within Islam itself.
A cultural crusade, brought on by the Catholic Church?
I don't know if everybody has seen this, but the Vatican has taken the opportunity brought on by the cartoons to demand less killing of us please:
. . .
LINK (via Sensing)
#4 from Dave Schuler:
Hmmm. Yesterday I published a post in very much the same vein, Joe. For those who've chosen to hew to the message that "Arabs can't be trusted" I ask, as AL has a number of times, "What then?".
Since I do not agree that "Arabs can't be trusted" I do not reach the problem of "what then?"
And why do you keep mis-labelling this as about "Arabs" when it's about Islam?
It's guys like this nice Anglo boy, terror suspect Joseph "Jihad" Jack Thomas (link) that I want dead. Blue-eyed Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks should be dead too. And I want the Bali bombers dead too. They're Javanese, not Arab.
Now, ignoring the label "Arab" when that's not really the main problem...
In your post that you linked to (link), you said: "Americans have sent a message loud and clear: Arabs can't be trusted. That will have blowback."
They will inflict more "blowback" on us merely for an internal debate in which it was apparent that some of us don't trust them?
Then we shouldn't trust them!
George W. Bush is also telling us now, in effect, that we have to show we trust these people.
As far as I'm concerned, that message has gone into reverse in its effects.
The message from Mohammed plays like this: "Give me what I demand, again. Let me into that cockpit. Let me control those ports. Put me in a position where you'll always have to think in future, before you cross me, that here's a way I could really hurt you. Because if you don't, I'll take that as you showing a lack of trust in me. And I'll be offended by that. (As I am offended by so many other things - you know how I can fly into a deadly rage even over cartoons.) And I'll hurt you. Again. Like Marwan Yousef al-Shehhi and Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan al Qadi Banihammad did. Now you do what you're told."
The way I feel about that is: no. No more.
If that means it's time for the vaguely menacing consequences that will follow if we don't prove to your satisfaction that we trust you...
Bring it on.
But that's just me.
I think this game of proving (to the satisfaction of Muslims who are never satisfied) how much we love and trust Islam - because of the "terrible message" and the "blowback" and the "consequences" if we don't - is done. But George W. Bush still thinks this is a great game, and he's ready with implications that anyone who won't play any more is a bigot. So the mad game goes on. And George is the good guy. This is as good as it gets.
#27 Marcus -- WHY is the thought of nuclear weapons being used "an idle threat?"
Seriously, why?
You are IMHO projecting the old Cold War MAD dynamic of MAD and superpower leashes onto the present situation. These are gone with the Soviet Union.
The present situation brings home the costs of not having a robust military able to project force far away. I expect most of Europe to eventually re-arm and kick out most of it's Muslims. The long holiday from national responsibility enabled by Nuclear Umbrellas and super-power leashes is over. I don't expect more Suez expeditions but say, Chirac's responses to Iran's nukes with his own threats.
If Italy or France or Spain REALLY wanted to put together aircraft carriers, sea-lift, expeditionary forces they are perfectly capable of doing so. It just takes money and resources and those nations have that. Like that Joe Mantagena movie "Things Change."
Jim #32,
There have been four large scale terror attacks on nuclear armed nations since September of 2001. Those include the grenade attacks on the Indian Parliament, the Beslan school atrocity, the British subway attacks, and of course September 11.
None of these has generated a nuclear response.
Chirac can say anything he wants, but the world will regard talk of a nuclear response to terrorism as an idle threat right up until the moment one is actually used.
Marcus -- the argument for inertia is not IMHO a strong one. While I agree that Chirac is mostly posturing, there's enough threat in his words to be serious.
Russia is a weak state, the Byzantium of our time. India was deterred by Pakistan's nukes. The British were constrained at the time by Multi-culti nonsense and Bush by Saudi cronyism.
If Pakistan can get nukes so can Italy. It's my opinion that attitudes are hardening in the West and we are seeing the end of the multiculturalism consensus.
Jim #34,
Yes, certainly, Italy can build nuclear weapons. Let's even stipulate that they build nuclear weapons tomorrow, and that next week the Basillica is blown up with no casualties.
Even in those circumstances, the response to blowing up the Basillica would not be nuclear retaliation.
The West's attitude needs to harden a lot harder-- and this may be my understatement of this short, depressing month-- in order for there to be a nuclear response to anything except a nuclear provocation.
Marcus Vitruvius: Sure, a nuclear responce is not likely to be made lightly. That's a ridiculous opinion. But its an equally ridiculous opinion to assume that any nuclear threat made by the West is being made idly.
There is a threshold beyond which the West will seriously contemplate a nuclear responce. There is a threshold beyond which the West will demand a nuclear responce.
The 'large scale terrorist attacks' you describe are nothing of the sort, in that they generated no more than a few hundred casualties at most. It's ridiculous in this era and context to describe an attack generating only a few hundred fatalities as 'large scale'. In the context of a nuclear responce, even 9/11 was not 'large scale'.
But consider, in the first few hours of 9/11, the fear was that about 30,000 Americans had died. As it turned out, the dynamics of an educated herd created a very organized and successful evacuation and we ended up with less than 3000 dead Americans. That went a long way toward mitigating the desire for a nuclear responce - a desire which from my experience was the overwhelming demand of the 'American street' (your average working middle class American).
But suppose a Western nuclear armed nation suffers a true large scale terrorist attack at this point and doesn't get so lucky. Imagine Russia/France/Britain/Germany/India/USA sees 30,000 dead. My guess at this point, is that under such circumstances the odds of a nuclear responce is about 50/50 - especially if thier is a degree of traceable state sponsership, especially if there is a possibility that such an attack would be repeatable (something that isn't really a possibility with the 9/11 attacks).
And if the level of fatalities goes up another level of magnitude, to the 300,000 dead level then I think that a Western nuclear responce is inevitable. Let me just say that if 300,000 Americans die in a terrorist attack, and the government doesn't respond with nuclear force the 'American street' would erupt in such rage that it would make what happened in Iraq over the past 4 days look like a friendly scuffle.
I was working in the construction industry on 9/11. On 9/12, you would have had to talk to alot of blue collar Americans before you would have found one that didn't want to nuke someone.
I work in the defense industry, Celebrim, and on 9/12 I heard people seriously talking about the nuclear option, too. But it was hysteria. And the particular point under discussion was not, "Would we nuke for 30,000 dead?" but "Would we nuke for a destroyed cultural landmark?"
At this point, opinions on this matter are set. I'm not trying to convince anyone I'm right, but no one else has much fo a chance to convince me that they're right. We're a very long way, societally, from invoking the nuclear response as retaliation for damaged property.
"Big government has just been caught rubber stamping for Big Commerce at the ports while leather-booting the rest of us at the airports. The national wound has just had the scab ripped from it. Nobody should be surprised that it's bleeding."
Someone needs to explain to me why we are supposed to forget that Dubai aided Osama. As I point out today, that's not a minor point. It matters. Why are we supposed to forget about this on the port deal? Out here in the West it matters. It's not prejudice, it's practical. After all, we're not talking about JP World, as in Jordan Ports World. The UAE actually tipped off bin Laden when we wanted to hit him because he was with a UAE prince. Again, why shouldn't this still matter? With bin Laden still on the loose, causing trouble in the badlands of Pakistan, I submit that it does.
Someone needs to explain to me why we are supposed to forget that Dubai aided Osama.
Dubai aided Osama? Give me specifics. Because what I know is that the UAE operated a "wide open" banking system that allowed all kinds of criminals and non-criminals to deposit and withdraw money with little government oversight. Osama wasn't the intended beneficiary of this laissez-faire system. If the UAE banks are to be blamed for this, it seems to me that U.S. banks were equally to blame for allowing most of the 9/11 money to be deposited and withdrawn as well.
Its also true that prior to 9/11, UAE maintained a relationship with Afghanistan as a safeguard against Iran with whom it had been in conflict for decades. These diplomatic relationships included falcon hunting trips, one of which Osama joined. Two things seem to get left out on the background of this. One is the absolute fanaticism Arab monarchs have for the sport of bustard hunting and the second is that Osama (being of similar background) had used his time in Afghanistan to corner the market on falcons (much to the local's displeasure). I don't necessarily buy the assumption that UAE princes set off to meet with Osama or that hunting was a pretext for planning to destroy America.
I sift through this information and conclude that UAE is not a flame-carrier for Islamic jihad, that its motivations are largely mercantile and security oriented. I've yet to see any significant complaint about their post 9/11 actions.
I'll echo Taylor, and point out that IMHO the legitimacy of the elites is suspect to most Americans.
Yale admitted the Taliban spokesman as a Freshman, he still has the same problem with women as he did before, and doesn't regret his actions or the Taliban.
To most average Americans, a deep-seated anger is growing. Against an elite seen more in the pocket of a petro-oligarchy and PC-Multiculturalism and moral relativism. At a time when people hunger I think for traditional Jacksonian responses.
I don't think people have forgotten the 79 Embassy takeover. Or the various unending terrorist attacks against the US culminating in 9/11. Despite the elite trying to "massage" anger away. As Muslim minorities in the West are more and more aggressive in expecting their rules to apply first to themselves in exclusion of Western Law and then to Westerners as a whole in their own country (Cronulla in Australia being a prime example) you will see a willingness to escalate conflict very rapidly to Western advantage.
The advantage of Western societies is that our complexity and technological advantage allows us to kill more quickly and ruthlessly than our adversaries. Sadly, I think this will be demonstrated as the conflict dynamic escalates out of control. That Dems have over the Port issue alone an advantage on National Security makes my point. They didn't have it over Iraq, but anger over DPW and general widespread anger IMHO over the lack of aggressive Jacksonian measures against what are considered America's enemies.
"Someone needs to explain to me why we are supposed to forget that Dubai aided Osama."
I guess they did in the sense that the Caymans aid the drug cartels and the Swiss aid the mafia.
Marcus, the digression into the likelihood of nuclear weapons' use is an unnecessary sidebar.
Dude, you are the one who specifically asked the question "what COULD Italy do?"
I said they COULD, if they felt sufficiently threatened, build and deploy nuclear weapons on long-range missiles. In addition to experiencing many of the same sorts of riots et. al. we've seen in Iraq after the Samarra mosque bombing (inside job, too, looks like).
You replied: "but they wouldn't use them." Yet I had never said that they would. Having built them, however, the implicit threat that "we could use these if you gave us what we considered at any point to be enough of a reason" would come through loud and clear.
Communities under threat will react, and they will react in many ways. As I've pointed out earlier, symbolic attacks can, in some circumstances, carry as much weight as mass casualties because of the clear message they send. This is not a concept that is confined to the Middle East, though it is more intense there.
I think we can all agree that a Western nuclear response (or even a Russian one) will not come lightly. I think we can also agree that there is a point at which acceptance a total war scenario plus the right situation could lead to one (indeed, as is true for any nuclear-armed power). This is one of the reasons that a slide toward "The Islamic War" is worrying.
Joe #42: Marcus, the digression into the likelihood of nuclear weapons' use is an unnecessary sidebar.
Dude, you are the one who specifically asked the question "what COULD Italy do?"
Well, the context there was, "What could they do that is meaningful and effective?"
I said they COULD, if they felt sufficiently threatened, build and deploy nuclear weapons on long-range missiles. In addition to experiencing many of the same sorts of riots et. al. we've seen in Iraq after the Samarra mosque bombing (inside job, too, looks like).
You replied: "but they wouldn't use them." Yet I had never said that they would.
But... doesn't that underscore exactly my point that these hypothetical Italian nukes are exactly what I said they are? A toothless threat? Just like the nuclear weapons that Russia, Britain, India and the United States already have?
I just don't get it.
I think Holsinger and Rockford are on to something. We've not seen the Jacksonian vein of the American body politic in a long time, but maybe that's what we're seeing in the visceral reaction against the ports deal. Let's face it, something very deeply populist and "street level" has arisen when LGF and Kos are in agreement on something. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the deal, the Bush clan's (relatives, friends, and pets like Bandar) eliteness and its closeness to the Arab elites is on display and is just not playing well. Maybe he if he was a better communicator this could have been avoided. But from what I understand, Presidents Pierce and Buchanan were decent communicators, but utter failures at dealing with what was impending (and obvious to everyone but them), and the country had to wait until Lincoln. So maybe it's something deeper. But in any event, you can't have a Jacksonian movement with a Jackson, and does anyone see a Jackson anywhere? I don't.
And if the level of fatalities goes up another level of magnitude, to the 300,000 dead level then I think that a Western nuclear responce is inevitable. Let me just say that if 300,000 Americans die in a terrorist attack, and the government doesn't respond with nuclear force the 'American street' would erupt in such rage that it would make what happened in Iraq over the past 4 days look like a friendly scuffle.
Well, there's a dilemma. Assuming there's no obvious grinning villian sitting in a desert saying "you don't dare nuke me", the president is faced with murdering say 3,000,000 to 30,000,000 (if you include aftermath, starvation, etc.) people who had no direct (and hardly any indirect) bearing on the incident or losing his office to rioters demanding nuclear payback.
I'm no fan of Bush, but I don't think that even he would countenance the more or less random murder of millions simply to stay in office.
But in any event, you can't have a Jacksonian movement with a Jackson, and does anyone see a Jackson anywhere? I don't.
Rudy Giuliani?
Or, someone even tougher. Wafa Sultan, from Los AngelesTom (#45), do us a favour. Open a good history book, preferably military history. Read it. You may find more utility in more modern histories from the 17th century onward.
We'll talk when you get back.
Joe, might you be thinking of some random period of modern history ... oh, say to pick a couple of years out of the air ... 1941 through 1945?
#36 from celebrim
And if the level of fatalities goes up another level of magnitude, to the 300,000 dead level then I think that a Western nuclear responce is inevitable.
I don't think it's inevitable or necessary. Our conventional forces are so overwhelming they can cause casualties of this magnitude at will. The reason they haven't in Afghanistan or Iraq is our POLICY to minimize collateral casualties.
Nah, you can pretty much start from the 30 Years War. Though there are also more ancient histories that would still be useful, if one can abstract the principles from the technological base level and reach issues.
True, Joe, one sees the foundation of much of modern war in the Thirty Years War
A little late, but you might find this interesting for comparison of British with American opinion: some figures from a You.gov poll in the UK from 12 February in the Sunday Times :
86% of people think Muslim protests at cartoons "a gross overreaction".
56% agreed that cartoons should be published, in the interests of freedom of speech
76% said the police should have arrested those carrying offensive or provocative banners at the anti-cartoon protests in London.
58% were angered by the protests.
80% agreed with the statement "In general, British police and politicians are too tolerant of Muslims in Britain urging extreme acts"
67% agreed that "The attitudes of senior policemen ... are too `politically correct' to deal properly with Islamic extremists."
61% think British Muslim leaders could do much more to condemn unacceptable acts by extremists
67% believe Abu Hamza should have been arrested and charged much sooner.
69% think his sentence insufficient.
88% think further terrorist attacks either very or fairly likely.
81% think undesirables should be deported regardless of likely treatment in home countries.
52% were now less tolerant of Muslims
63% believed relation between Muslims and others would grow worse
62% expect violence by non-Muslims against Muslims
45% believe the West can never co-exist peacefully with mainly Muslim nations.
Caveat - this is a relatively small sample base at 1,600. But it pretty much fits with conversations I've had touching this. There is a lot of feeling of patience running out on these subjects.
On the nuclear issue, I agree with everything Marcus Vitruvius has said.
On the specific issue of the port deal - since Tommy Franks says it's OK, it's OK. Even though I don't see why it's OK. At some point, we should consult the experts and trust them. Tommy is an expert. I trust him.
But trusting the UAE globally, generally, the way we trust Great Britain our "parent" country when there's no reason not to trust the British in a given case? No.
And trust Islam? No. Never again.
#32 from Jim Rockford: "I expect most of Europe to eventually re-arm and kick out most of it's Muslims."
I think that's a fantasy.
#32 from Jim Rockford: ... "Like that Joe Mantagena movie "Things Change."
Yes things do change. We are watching old Europe go bye-bye.
John, thanks for the excellent contribution. On point, relevant facts, important contribution. Muchos gracias.
Re: #52 from John Farren - yes, good post. Thanks from me too.
I would have liked to see the whole thing - what were the alternative answers on offer, for example?
But you can't provide what the story doesn't.
There comes a point in war where the enemy transfigures from human to inhuman, as in beast or inanimate object. Many large wars have polite, tentative beginnings -- crowds of civilians with lunches and blankets gathering on safely distant hills to watch the afternoon's activities at Gettysburg, same crowds witnessing the 'phony war' aspect of euro hostilities in 1914-15 period.
Ultimately,to prevail in modern and most other wars the victor must be capable of seeing his enemy as a sub human and mortal threat, or an agent of same. For myself, I could not imagine actually killing an enemy soldier unless I thought at least this little of him.
Could any of us ever imagine the US prevailing against the Japanese in a 'war against surprise attacks'? For the moment things look dark and indecisive. GW is getting to sound and act more and more like his PC, UN fetishist father...
IMO,the apparent level of elite, leftist/moderate oppostion to the UAE deal tends to indicate we have finally taken a serious, national step toward accepting the identity and nature of the enemy.
Back to the Port deal: Why did this get to be prejudice against Muslims (a religion, not a race..just sayin'). This is a war against infiltration, not armies. To win the enemy needs to infiltrate our country and blow stuff up. If they are working right smack dab inside of good places to blow up, which political side is going to make the best excuses after the explosion? Who cares? Let's just not have Muslim countries running major industries for now, we can always change our minds later.
This is not a private company. I don't know why people aren't more alarmed by that. You are putting a lot of trust in the future stability of a Muslim kingdom. There is a history of the US doing that in the region (Shah of Iran anyone?).
And what's all this business about hurting their feelings? Are we dealing with teenagers here? Cartoons hurt their feelings, western culture insults them, they boycott Israel so I guess Jews hurt their feelings. I know, let’s sell our Ports franchise to grownups (Can you imagine Tony Blair pouting about his feelings over a business deal?)
Let’s see the statements and activities of the royal family over the past few years, newsclips and video. How moderate or modern they are within the palace is the question, not the efficiency of the port operations. Every media reporter should be swarming to UAE, there is where the real story is. Americans are nice people, show us who these new “friends” are and we’ll embrace them soon enough. Until then, let’s just pass. No offense intended.
Ultimately,to prevail in modern and most other wars the victor must be capable of seeing his enemy as a sub human and mortal threat, or an agent of same. For myself, I could not imagine actually killing an enemy soldier unless I thought at least this little of him.
#56 from Ron Proby on February 28, 2006 05:29 PM
The mortal threat is all that counts, Ron. My thought at first exposure was, "That little MF is shooting at me! He's going to die!"
"...sell our Ports franchise to grownups..."
#57 from BETH MCNEELY on February 28, 2006 05:44 PM
Beth, they are leasing a few terminals at each of 20-some ports. A Brit company is selling out to a UAE (yes, state-owned) company. Nothing changes from today's ops. All the port employees will be the same. Y'all are buying the hype. Such a pity.
We'll talk when you get back.
In the absence of an obvious state sponsor to a terrorist attack, just who are you going to bomb? It'd be like like nuking the the Mid-West as payback for Timothy McVeigh! Most of the places that harbor terrorists are American allies. Nuke Canada if the terrorists sneak in from Canada? Nuke Pakistan if they're hiding in Pakistan? Nuke Afghanistan? Nuke Saudia Arabia? Nuke Egypt?
You might invent some justification for nuking Iran, but any president is going to have to think about how the United States is going to look after it's liquidated a few million people and it hasn't made any difference. No "winning the war" to justify any action. Simply a WWII-esque "you killed some of us, so we'll execute 10 times as many". Who wants that as a legacy?
If there's a state sponsor, I can see reprisal, but if not, just what are people suggesting would happen? Genocide? Seriously? What about the few million American Muslims?
It's like having your child murdered. You might be ready to commit bloody murder, but absent the guilty party, most people don't start shooting random possible suspects.
I just love it when conservatives tell liberals not to be prejudiced. Have you ever read what the most revered conservative philosophers have to say about prejudice? It's one of God's gifts! It's a virtue! And inequality is a good thing!
(see e.g. Burke, Kirk, Rossiter).
One might expect conservatives to be praising liberals for their candidness and forthrightness. But in the Bizzaro World we call politics, the liberals express their true prejudices against the Muslim world, and they get called on it by the people who would ordinarily be the first to ramp up racial profiling at the airports, DMV, and even the census bureau.
Who? Conservatives? Play politics? No. Who would have thought!?!