Iran

It is becoming clear from all of the headlines in the news that Iran is quickly becoming the number one foreign policy issue. Iran's support of terrorism has been evident for quite a while, with new revelations that most of the 9/11 hijackers passed through there. A number of top al-Qaeda leaders have been given sanctuary in Iran. Iran is listed every year as one of the top terrorist sponsoring sates in the world by the US State Department. Excluding 9/11 (which may also have an Iranian connection), more Americans have been killed by Iranian-backed terrorists than by anyone else (Marine barracks in Beirut, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia). Iran is also the major sponsor of Hizbullah and has given them thousands of missiles, and is trying to give them chemical weapons.

The question, then, is what should be done about this threat. And here again we can see the differences between the Bush position and the Kerry position. The Bush Administration a couple of days ago stated that in a second Bush Administration there would be a determined effort to overthrow the mullah regime. What this means is unclear since, as Michael Ledeen points out, the Bush Administration record up to now has been spotty at best. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a realization there that Iran is a danger that will need to be confronted.

Alternatively, the stated Kerry position is one of "engagement" and a willingness to talk to Iran. (This is also, by the way, the position of the State Department). In many ways, Kerry's approach to Iran mirrors Clinton's approach to North Korea (with Zbigniew Brezsinski playing the Jimmy "Peace in our Time" Carter). And we all know how well that turned out. Once again, this displays an utter lack of seriousness of the Kerry foreign policy, simply rehashing old and discredited ideas.

Undoubtedly, what to do about Iran is highly problematic, as Amir Taheri writes in this article. An Iraq type invasion would be significantly more difficult - Iran has a much better army, and its troops will probably fight. Additionally, an invasion would probably have the effect of alienating most Iranians whose support we would need. Unlike Iraq, however, Iran is much less repressive, and it would probably be possible to get people in there to help foment insurrection. Either way, Iran is an issue that needs to be at the center of any foreign policy discussion going forward. We have ignored it for far too long, at our own peril.

Lawfare

In an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal last week, Jeremy Rabkin describes the current attacks on Israel in the UN and ICJ as "lawfare", a new kind of attacks that are a result of the over-reaching of international institutions.

Maj. Michael Newton, a military lawyer who teaches at West Point, coined a new term earlier this year: "lawfare." It is the pursuit of strategic aims, the traditional domain of warfare, through aggressive legal maneuvers. Last Friday's decision by the International Court of Justice holding Israel's security fence in violation of international law is another milestone in the onward march of lawfare. The ICJ has now confirmed that lawfare and warfare can be pursued simultaneously.

The terror war against Israel, launched in the summer of 2000, has by now resulted in the deaths of nearly a thousand Israeli civilians. The security fence, by greatly impeding the movement of would-be terrorists into Israel, has helped to achieve a sharp decline in terror attacks over the past year. Nonetheless, the ICJ admonished that the nations of the world are obligated not to pressure Palestinians to abandon terrorism, but to pressure Israel to dismantle its security fence.

Worldwide Jihad

The War on Terror's main target has been deemed to be al-Qaeda. But what if al-Qaeda does not really exist in the way we think of it - a group of jihadis led by a Saudi named bin Laden? David Warren writes of al-Qaeda as something completely different:

It is, more precisely, only a name applied vaguely to one of several financing and logistical arms of the Wahabi branch of what could more accurately be called the "Islamic Jihad". Not an army, nor a disciplined network of underground cells, but an historical movement -- and thus more comparable to something like "the Enlightenment" in the West, than to any organized militia. Not to say the Jihad shares ideals with the Enlightenment -- far from it -- but rather, it is similar in being a vast idealistic movement, consciously advanced by men who co-operate as and where they think they can be most effective -- but taking their orders, ultimately, not from men but from "the zeitgeist", or "Allah".

The upshot of this is that the way we currently conceive of waging war on al-Qaeda is incorrect. A new "holistic" approach would be needed that would have to go against the current conceptions of political correctness.

For starters, it means we cannot draw neat, legalistic lines between who's in and who's out of the cabal. For instance, a journalist working for Al-Jazeera may be every bit as committed to the struggle as a man rehearsing the assembly of a mid-flight bomb. Each is advancing the Jihad by the means most available to him. And, exempting the one from prosecution while arresting the other is entirely obtuse.

Indications especially from the FBI are to expect a major terrorist hit on North America, sometime between now and the U.S. election in November. I think they are right to expect this. The political, economic, and social fallout from such a hit is unpredictably huge. But I am less and less confident that it can be prevented by anything resembling normal police methods. This is because, thanks chiefly to "political correction", we cannot look at the whole Jihad, and are in fact only looking for the pointy bits.

The Anti-Americanism of the Left

Over the last few years there has been an increase in anti-American sentiment. This has occurred not just in the Arab world and Europe, but also among the Left in the United States. The usual argument for this increase has to do with US policy in the Middle East, and the alleged "unilateralism" of the Bush Administration. However, this argument does not hold up under examination - anti-Americanism existed before the Bush Administration and as this article argues is the result of the end of the cold war and the triumph of capitalism over communism.

This is the font and source of the Left's rage and hate. The wrong side, the wrong ideas, the wrong attitudes and the wrong people had somehow contrived to win. And then, on top of the political and economic victories heralded by end of the Cold War, unsupportable enough in themselves, there came the USA's seemingly effortless military victory over Iraq in 1991 - in a war, as we remember, that the hard Left was unanimous in opposing, despite the fact it was unarguably just. The Left's fury and frustration boiled over. Who to blame for its immense, unimaginable defeat? To its question, "Why did the right side, the right ideas, the right attitudes and the right people not win?" the Left found a single, simple, one-word answer: Amerika. The rest, as they say, is polemics: the unending regurgitation of that helpless, futile response.

Indeed, America's victory in the Cold War seems to have opened a kind of psychic wound in the collective sub-conscious of the Left, poisoning its soul. Perhaps the anti-American pandemic represents the effluxion by which the Left hopes to purge its own pain, understand its hurt, and heal it.
[...]
The "facts" of American evil and the hatred felt for it are not argued from circumstance or evidence: they are derived from an intellectual horizon wholly indifferent to logic. The evil is pre-assumed, cosmic and all-encompassing. It impacts the very basis of our reality, evidenced by the philosophies by which we understand it. America's evil is inherent, insistent and inevitable. And it is intended, deliberate and engineered, out of a spirit of pure, unadulterated malignance towards the non-American world. To Sardar and Davies, America is not a country at all, but rather a poisonous psychic space, and an infectious effluvium.

At this point, if not before, one realises that Why Do People Hate America? is purely the invention of its own malevolence. It resembles a scene from German Expressionist cinema, with strange splashes of light and dark, foreshortened figures, distorted shadows and an eerie, sinister mise-en-scene. Its underlying psychological state is reminiscent of nothing so much as Nazi hate literature, where you will find the Jews huddled in the same livid half-light, viewed through the same pornographying prism of delusional paranoia. This is worse than superstition; it is superstitious hatred; worse yet, it is hateful superstition.

Communism was the defining cause of the Left. Once it died, through its own utter failure, the Left lost something to be for. The only way they can now define themselves is by what they are against. This seems to also be a description of the Democratic Party - the mainstream Left. As has been shown through numerous polls, the majority of Democrats are not "for" Kerry, they are simply against Bush - showing once again the lack of any new ideas on the part of the Democratic Party.

Global Warming Caused by Sun

The Washington Times reports that a new study has come out that further questions the human cause of global warming. Seems that the sun may actually be responsible for the warming that has occurred over the last century.

The sun is burning hotter than usual, offering a possible explanation for global warming that needs to be weighed when proceeding with expensive efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, Swiss and German scientists say.

"The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures," said Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research.

"The sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years," Mr. Solanski said.

This sunspot theory - more sunspots cause warmth, less cause cold - has been around for quite a while. Over the last few hundred years there has been a fairly good correlation between sunspots and temperature variation on Earth. Of course, these correlations are ignored because there is really nothing we can do about the number of sunspots, and the environmentalists couldn't really blame the US for increased sunspots. If this is really a factor in global warming all the doommongers would have to find other things to scare us with.

What Does Kerry Think?

John Kerry has been all over the place on his views on the War on Terror and Iraq. Depending on the day, he is either for or against both, one but not the other, or neither. As this article points out, Kerry may actually have a position on these two important issues, but as of yet, no one (including the candidate) seems to know what it is.

Kerry can’t dance this way forever and expect to win. Voters need some sense of his proposed direction. For all the brickbats thrown at Bush, at least folks know where he stands.

The same can’t be said for Kerry. Voters suffer migraines attempting to reconcile his criticisms that Bush should have submitted to the whims of France and Russia with Kerry’s supposed support for unilateral action. Ditto for endorsing preemptive action in between speeches where one of the biggest applause lines is, “In our Administration, we’ll never go to war because we want to; we’ll only go to war because we have to.”

Maybe Kerry won’t deviate much on the War on Terror. Who knows? But that’s the point.

Cox&Forkum had a great cartoon of the position of Kerry and Edwards.

France's Jews

Over the weekend, PM Ariel Sharon stated that The Jews of France should leave France as soon as possible because of the rising anti-Semitism there, and come to Israel. France has taken umbrage to these remarks, and even disinvited Sharon from visiting. But given stories like this, why is Sharon's call so offensive to the French? Are they upset at the fact that someone has very publicly pointed out the situation there, despite French attempts to keep this quiet? As it stands now, Sharon is absolutely right - there is no place in France for Jews. Just one more reason to boycott France.

Iran's Nukes

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Israel has finalized plans and completed rehearsals for a first-strike against Iranian nuclear facilities before they come on-line.

Such a strike is likely if Russia supplies Iran with fuel rods for enriching uranium. The rods, currently stored at a Russian port, are expected to be delivered late next year after a dispute over financial terms is resolved.

An Israeli defense source in Tel Aviv, who confirmed that the military rehearsals had taken place, told the paper: "Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical."

Obviously this is reminiscent of the Israeli strike against the Iraq reactor in 1981. The differences, however, will be huge between Iran's potential reaction and Iraq's non-reaction. It is almost certain that if Israel destroys Iran's facilities, Iran will retaliate through the Hezbollah and the thousands of missiles that Iran gave them. At this point the only hopes of averting these events is if either Russia decides not to deliver the material, or if the mullahs are overthrown.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Today is the yahrtzeit (the anniversary of death) of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, one of the early Zionist leaders.  To commemorate this great leader of Israel, here is one of his most well-known essays, originally published in Russian in 1923.  Jabotinsky was significantly more prescient than most of Israel's leaders then, and more realistic than most of Israel's leaders now.

...That the Arabs of the Land of Israel should willingly come to an agreement with us is beyond all hopes and dreams at present, and in the foreseeable future. This inner conviction of mine I express so categorically not because of any wish to dismay the moderate faction in the Zionist camp but, on the contrary, because I wish to save them from such dismay. Apart from those who have been virtually “blind” since childhood, all the other moderate Zionists have long since understood that there is not even the slightest hope of ever obtaining the agreement of the Arabs of the Land of Israel to “Palestine” becoming a country with a Jewish majority...

"Knowledgeable" Academics

Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute has a pretty damning review of Rashid Khalidi's new book Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East.

Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi laments in the introduction to his critique of American policy in the Middle East, taking policymakers to task for listening to "ill-informed pundits rather than people who are actually knowledgeable about the rest of the world."

Rather than demonstrating why academics should be consulted by policymakers, however, Resurrecting Empire is a case study of why they are not. Khalidi's book, which examines the record of Western involvement in the Middle East and analyzes the likely outcome of the most recent U.S. incursions, rests on questionable sources, a tendency to favor polemic over fact and reflects little understanding of how policy is made.

Comparisons

Victor Hanson compares the errors made in the Iraq war to the errors surrounding the Allied D-Day invasion, and once again puts the events in Iraq in historical perspective. 

It becomes clear that our lapses could have been much greater if one studies the blunders of Eisenhower, Bradley, and Montgomery in 1944, not to mention the hare-brained ideas of great men like Churchill and Roosevelt — from being surprised at Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and the Philippines, to losing 50,000 casualties at Okinawa 90 days before the Japanese surrender, to allowing all of Eastern Europe to fall to the Communists. Yalta's terrible miscalculations make the present administration's foreign-policy slips seem minor in comparison.

But if in our war we look at the larger picture, we likewise come away with a different verdict from the one those details might lead us to. For all our Normandy-like mistakes, we are left with one truth that won't go away: A fascist, terrorist government is gone and something better is in its place, with a chance that it just might help alter the landscape of the region. Iraq was not Sicily, 415 B.C., when a democracy attacked an even larger democracy; this was not a 19th-century colonial march to steal resources; and this was not a Cold War coup to put in an anti-Communist thug.

Like Hitler, Saddam Hussein was a mass-murdering fascist, whom we had also appeased for years. For all his bluster, Hitler had not been in a prior shooting war with the United States, but after Pearl Harbor he had to be destroyed. In the same manner, after 9/11 there was no longer any margin of error in "boxing in" a rogue dictator that had struck four nations, violated most of the 1991 armistice agreements, ignored over a dozen U.N. resolutions, butchered tens of thousands, ruined the environment of Mesopotamia, constantly tried to recycle petrodollars to terrorists, attempted to assassinate a sitting U.S. president, and was in a stand-off with the U.S. Air Force involving 12 years, 350,000 sorties, and the control of two-thirds of Iraqi air space. Indeed, on September 11, 2001, American military forces were being fired on and firing back at the forces of just one nation in the world: Baathist Iraq.

Ostensibly, the mistakes made in 1944 were much greater, and cost many more lives than the mistakes made in 2003-4 in Iraq.  Yet, the opposition party did not go looking for whom to blame for these errors.  The reason for this is simple - in 1944 everyone recognized that we were at war and that defeat was not an option.  Sadly, we have not reached that realization in this current war. 

Polls

A number of polls released over the last few days have shown a bounce for Kerry after selecting Edwards as VP.  However, the bounce was significantly less than the 15% that was expected by many to come from this announcement.  A couple of the polls even show a tie or Bush lead, despite all the positive press that the Kerry campaign has received.  The Iowa Electronic Markets, where people actually bet real money on the outcome, have been a much more accurate predictor of elections (a similar betting site showing trading on the election is Tradesports.com).  It is interesting to see that right after the Edwards announcement, Kerry went up from around .45 to a little above .5 (1.00 is the winner), with Bush's numbers dipping to a little below .50.  However, just a few days later, Bush's numbers started going back up again, as this chart shows. Kerry is still unable to hold a lead.  It seems that any bounce that Kerry gets is incredibly short-lived.  It will be interesting to see what kind of bounce (if any) Kerry gets from the Democratic Convention, and how long that will last.
 
One possible interpretation of this lack of bounce is that, with the exception of around 10% of the population, people's minds are already made up as to who they will vote for, and the remaining 10% will probably stay undecided until the last week or two before the election. 

Israeli strikes on Iran?

Jane's Intelligence Digest writes today that Israel may be planning strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.  At least in the non-subscriber extract, there is not much new; it has been thought for quite a while that Israel might attack the nuke facilities.  One sentence, though, is interesting: "An Israeli strike could effectively end hopes of reaching any kind of peace deal" between Israel and the Palestinians.  This way of thinking about the Arab-Israeli conflict has proven itself a complete failure.  Not allowing Israel to "win" has only encouraged Arab rejectionism and violence.  More likely, an Israeli strike on Iran's nuke facilities could promote a peace deal, especially if this would speed the overthrow of the Mullahs and stop Iran's support of Palestinian terrorist groups.

Let America Be America Again

Is this the America that Kerry/Edwards want to take us back to?

More on the Fence

Charles Krauthammer blasts the ICJ for its travesty of a ruling on Israel's separation barrier. 

What makes the travesty complete is that this denial of Israel's right to defend itself because doing so might violate "humanitarian" rights was read in open court by the chief judge representing China, whose government massacred hundreds of its own citizens demonstrating peacefully in Tiananmen Square. Not since Libya was made chairman of the Commission on Human Rights has the U.N. system put on such a shameless display of hypocrisy.

Moreover, the court had no jurisdiction to take this case. It is a court of arbitration, which requires the consent of both parties. The Israelis, knowing the deck was stacked, refused to give it. Not only did the United States declare this issue outside the boundaries of this court, so did the European Union and Russia, hardly Zionist agents.

The court went ahead nonetheless, betraying its prejudice in its very diction.

Meanwhile, Saul Singer describes the legal contortions that the "Court" goes through to arrive at its judgement.  More interestingly, he thinks that the reason that the fence is not being built on the Green Line needs to be stated clearly, and without apology.

Perhaps this is so, but the more significant result is to amplify not only the necessity of the fence but of the decision not to build it on the Green Line. Even if Israel could have likely avoided the ICJ's black eye entirely by defending itself on what had become a quasi-border, that would have been a mistake.

The reason is that the objective of the fence had to be not just defending Israelis, but imposing a territorial price for the almost four years of unprovoked aggression the Palestinians have unleashed against us. Roughly speaking and as harsh as it may sound to say it, the more Palestinians feel that the fence is a "land grab," the more we are doing the right thing.

This is particularly true in the context of a disengagement plan which, we must admit, is susceptible to portrayal as a withdrawal under fire. The fence, and particularly where it is built, are the key antidotes to the sense that the disengagement plan is a net Palestinian victory.

Since the Palestinians say they are not afraid of, and in fact seek death, their punishment can not be corporal.  Since land is what they seem to care about, then that is where the pressure should be applied.

More on Kedwards's Unseriousness

Mark Steyn writes, in another great article, that he has not lost his belief in a Bush win. The reason is once again that Kerry and Edwards are simply not serious about the issues that matter, and even on the others they cant make up their mind.

Virtually every Democratic heavyweight from Al Gore down has the same kind of amnesia, accusing Bush of ‘lies’ and ‘deception’ for saying exactly the same things they were saying. My view of Iraq and the war on terror hasn’t changed since 2002. Nor has Bush’s, or Cheney’s or Condi’s. But Democrats have stood their own arguments on their heads so often that they now stand for nothing.

That’s Kerry’s and Edwards’s problem. Ask them about Iraq and they drone on about getting the UN back in there and bringing France and Germany on board by giving them ‘fair access to the multibillion-dollar reconstruction contracts’ plus ‘a leadership role’ in exchange for some troops. But all the UN’s done for Iraq is rip off its people in a $10 billion Oil-for-Food scam that’s bigger than Enron, Worldcom and every other corporate scandal combined. And bribing France and Germany with US tax dollars and Middle East meddling rights in exchange for vague promises of military resources they don’t have isn’t so smart, either. If the object is to cosy up to foreigners disenchanted with Bush, Patricia Hewitt is closer to the mark: Kerry-Edwards trade protectionism will offend far more allies than Bush ever did on Iraq.

The truth is that blathering about the UN and France is the equivalent of having no policy, no ideas. It’s the default position for sonorous phonies. And, as that survey suggests, that’s all anyone knows about Kerry. For example, the Senator recently flipped his position on abortion. He now says that he ‘personally’ believes life begins at conception. But he votes non-stop for abortion every chance he gets because he doesn’t believe in inflicting his deeply held personal beliefs on the country.

Huh? This is a first: a candidate who boasts that his conscience is at odds with his voting record.

The more that Kerry and Edwards are on tv, the more people know about him, and the less chance he has with anyone not living in Boston, New York, or San Francisco.

Another Alarming Story

Michelle Malkin links to this somewhat disturbing article. As Michelle mentions in her post, James Woods observed something similar a month before 9/11.

A Holiday From History?

The last three years, in terms of foreign policy have been very active ones for the US. Our entire worldview was changed (at least temporarily) by an attack and the concern about more and worse attacks. The Bush Administration decided to abandon a realpolitik policy towards the Middle East that had been unquestioned for years in favor of one that sought to radically alter the region. Undoubtedly there has been much "drama" in these past few years, and as might be expected, there is some desire to go back to "normalcy". Kerry clearly expressed this sentiment in his interview with Larry King: "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young American soldiers were not deployed?". Peggy Noonan has written about Americans' desire for dullness in history.

Lawrence Kaplan writes that we need to realize that no matter how much we want another "holiday from history" - like the one we had during the Clinton years - "history probably has other plans."

As for the international scene, Clinton reduced it to a simple narrative of material progress and moral improvement, the benefits of which would be glimpsed in a New Middle East, an African Renaissance, and a strategic partnership with China. This interregnum, too, came to a close on September 11.

We need to look to the past to see that this is not the first time we desired to escape from the world. And we need to understand that such an escape is not possible.

To paraphrase a memorable Trotsky quotation, Americans may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is definitely interested in them. As much as we might wish for a return to normalcy, the other side gets the final say.

Faux Populism

The "Two Americas" speech of John Edwards is once again a foray into populism by the Democratic party. Victor Hanson sees it as a faux populism that no longer sells among the "common people".

Finally, if these two blow-dried, athletic figures in designer suits are going to convince those in Fresno that they are down-home folks, then they are going to have to ask themselves why it is that most who work as secretaries or at the post office would more likely find George Bush, of a corporate, Ivy League pedigree, far friendlier and more accessible than a John Kerry. The heyday of FDR, Harry Truman, and George Meeney passed with enactment of Social Security, the Great Society, Workers Compensation, and Civil Rights legislation.

Now we are left with the much harder questions of an affluent society wrestling with guaranteeing an equality of result rather than ensuring an equality of opportunity. Perhaps that is why where I live bankrupt farmers and failed chemical salesmen are more likely to vote Bush/Cheney than are my tenured colleagues in Volvos and the local legal community who vacation in Europe. Go figure.

And as he also points out, Edwards's own life story contradicts the idea of the "Two Americas".

Alarming (and Probably Alarmist)

NewsMax has a story today about a new book by Paul Williams, a former FBI consultant. The gist of Williams's book is that al-Qaeda has smuggled into the US a number of suitcase nuclear bombs, and plans to detonate 6 or 7 simultaneously in various US cities.

Indoctrination

There has been clear evidence of the indoctrination of college students; virtually all professors in the humanities are significantly to the left of the mainstream, with many even describing themselves as Marxists or Trotskyites. This article from FrontPage describes the indoctrination that starts at an even earlier age, elementary school. Note the Democratic reaction to this.

More on the Fence

David Warren shows how the things the media leave out alter our perspective of a situation.

The U.S. and Israel have mortal enemies. Every living American, and Jew, is at personal risk because of it. That much is obvious. But airbrush that reality out of every picture, and a lot of American and Israeli behaviour becomes incomprehensibly malicious.

It becomes possible, for instance, to have an endless argument about whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq, based not on the obvious fact of Saddam Hussein (who wasn't exactly concealing his animus), but rather on various arcane aspects of the interpretation of pre-war intelligence data.

The obscene judgment against Israel handed down on the weekend by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, was built on the same media principle. Israel was instructed to immediately remove the Wall it has been building -- the one designed to prevent Palestinian terrorists from getting at defenceless Israeli civilians.

At the root of the Hague decision -- and the reason why I call it obscene -- was the splitting of a legal hair, down through skull and brain tissue. Israel does not have the right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists under international law, according to the majority of the judges, because Israel has not recognized Palestine as a legitimate state. Or in its own words, the Court contended that, "as the uses of force emanate from occupied territory, it is not an armed attack 'by one State against another' ."

To call this disingenuous would be too respectful. We won't go, yet again, into the reasons why the Palestinians don't have a state; only remind that they have several times declined a state, when one was offered.

Europe and Kerry

Perhaps the clearest part of Kerry's and the Democrats' argument against Bush and the Iraq war has been that Bush's "arrogance" or "incompetence" has led our European allies to abandon us, and has led to our isolation in the world. This is complete nonsense. The main issue of European opposition to the US was addressed by Robert Kagan in his 2002 essay Of Paradise and Power. Europe's hostility to the US did not begin with Bush, and it will not end with him. Tony Blankley quotes a Kissinger article from last week that basically brings up the issues that Kagan raises.

Thus he notes: "Differences between America and Europe are serious and substantive. But the reason the results of recent U.S.-European diplomatic encounters have proved so disappointing — despite serious efforts from both sides — is that the historical evolutions underway on the two sides of the Atlantic are different."

He goes on to argue that "the most important event in Europe is the progressive erosion of the nation-state," which is leading them to reject, as a matter of principle, the right of any nation to exercise national sovereignty, particularly when resorting to the use of military force.

Rather, as they spend most of their time on issues of European unification, "these non-state attitudes toward international relations are becoming deeply embedded in European public opinion." Mr. Kissinger doubts whether these building attitudes "can ever be again fully reconciled with the experience of a country driven by state concepts or with the notion of alliance as traditionally conceived." Meanwhile, "By contrast, America remains [with such other countries as Russia, China, Japan and India] a traditional nation-state, insistent on sovereign freedom of action."

So in effect, the only way that Europe will become less hostile to the US is if the US gives up some aspects of national sovereignty in favor of multi-national institutions.

Assuming Mr. Kerry is as smart, informed and nuanced of mind as he claims to be, he well understands this deeper reality.

He should level with the electorate and discuss just how much of our sovereignty and national interest he is prepared to barter away in the interest of regaining European friendship and cooperation. It has become a matter of principle with the Europeans that they will not diplomatically barter with us in the traditional sovereign manner. What they want is our acquiescence in the new international, de-sovereigned order they are trying to bring into being. Where does Mr. Kerry stand on this central international challenge?

Happy Bastille Day

Mark Steyn takes a look at the recent actions of our "ally" France.

You can’t beat the Americans on the battlefield, but you can tie them down limb by limb in the UN and other supranational bodies. If you make sure the embryo institutions of world government are built in France’s image, America’s strength will be as irrelevant as that of the class freak or the town misfit.

In other words, this is the war, this is the real battlefield, not the sands of Mesopotamia or the Hindu Kush. And, on this terrain, Paris figures, Americans always lose. Either they win but get no credit, as in Afghanistan. Or they win a temporary constrained victory to be subverted by subsequent French machinations, as in the first Gulf War. Through it all France is admirably upfront in its unilateralism: It reserves the right to treat French Africa as its colonies, Middle Eastern dictators as its clients, the European Union as a Greater France and the UN as a kind of global condom to prevent the spread of Americanization. All this it does shamelessly and relatively effectively. It’s time the rest of us were so clear-sighted.

Clearly, the US needs to see that France is no longer (if it ever was) and ally, but a direct competitor - enemy may be too strong a word - and that we need to treat it as such.

The Cause of Anti-Semitism

In the past few years, as Arafat's Oslo war against Israel has progressed, there has been a dramatic rise in anti-semitism around the globe. Most of the expressions of anti-semitism have been in the Muslim countries where daily indoctrination of Jew hatred has always existed, but has increased. The more worrying aspect is the re-emergence of anti-semitism in the countries of Europe. Many have blamed the new anti-semitism on Israel's actions against the Palestinians, in effect blaming the victim for bringing hatred on themselves by defending themselves. Michael Freund, in this Jerusalem Post article, argues that the rise of anti-semitism is Israel's fault, not because of its actions but because of its inaction.

Anti-Semites, like bullies everywhere, prey on those they perceive to be vulnerable and defenseless. A weak and conciliatory Jewish state is seen as representing Jews everywhere, no less than a strong and assertive Israel once did in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War.

When people see an Israel taking blow after blow from Palestinian terrorists over the past decade, and yet responding with proposals of retreat and surrender, the message is clear and unequivocal: Jews are feeble and fainthearted, so feel free to take your best shot at us, wherever we might be.

Indeed, by seeking to withdraw under fire from parts of the territories, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has transformed Israel and the Jewish people into the equivalent of a high-school wimp, one who wanders the hallways wearing a sign that reads, "Kick me."

The image this projects only serves to inspire contempt, prompting bigots everywhere to vent their hatred at the easiest and most readily available target – the neighborhood Jew.

This is not to say the Jews are to blame for anti-Semitism. But if Israel is unable, or unwilling, to use the sovereign powers at its disposal to protect its own people against its foes, what is there to deter Jew-haters everywhere from picking on Jews?

This argument is comforting, but I think not wholly correct. The main problem has been in the horrible failure to address and counter the Arab propaganda which has now seeped into the rhetoric of Europe and the Left. In part, this is due to the bias of the media, something that has been well documented, and also to the general lack of knowledge about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel desperately needs to get this information out, even at this late date. Unfortunately, when the West Bank is referred to as "Palestinian land" and the compromises of Israel at Camp David II and Taba are forgotten, the propaganda battle may already be lost.

419 Scams

Pretty much everyone with an email account has received one of these scams promising money from someone in Nigeria. BBC reports on one person who decided to scam the scammers.

More Palestinian War Crimes

I wonder when the International Court of "Justice" will take up this blatant case of war crimes.

Don't Question, Just Submit

In the past few years, many world leaders have stated that Islam is the "religion of peace". Anyone claiming the opposite, on the other hand, (and backing it up with facts) is instantly attacked as a racist and Islamophobe. It seems that England is trying to enact "religious hate" laws that would make it a crime to criticize religions - mostly Islam, its still ok to criticize Christianity and Judaism. Mark Steyn takes a look at the issues that this raises, and the problems within Islam from its lack of self-criticism.

Meanwhile, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the Western world, but Blunkett wants us to pretend that it's a wee delicate bloom which has to be sheltered from anything unpleasant. The other week, the governor of one of those Nigerian states that now lives under sharia called for the burning of all Christian churches within his jurisdiction. Every Friday, on state TV and radio throughout the Arab world and in mosques somewhat closer to home, the A-list imams call for the killing of Jews and infidels. Well, good luck to them. But, if they can dish it out so enthusiastically, couldn't they learn to take it just an eensy-teensy-weensy bit?

One of the reasons Arab nations are in the state they're in is because of the inability to discuss Islam honestly. I was in Amman for the Jordanian election last year and one of the things you notice is that, although the city does a reasonable impression of a modern dynamic capital and its press is, by the standards of the region, free-ish, its stunted political culture is subordinate to its religious culture. That's why, for example, Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code - which effectively licenses "honour killings" - always gets renewed when it comes up in parliament.
[...]
In The River War (1899), Winston Churchill's account of the Sudanese campaign, there's a memorable passage which I reproduce here while I'm still able to:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Is that grossly offensive to Muslims? Almost certainly. Is it also a rather shrewd and pertinent analysis by one of Britain's most eminent leaders? I think so. If Blunkett bans the sentiments in that first sentence, the sentiments of the last will prove even more pertinent.

Confused and Confusing

John Kerry's position on the Iraq war has vacillated wildly over the past two years - first supporting it, then being both for and against it, and now against it (although as would be expected, this piece of news is not being reported by the mainstream media.)

John Kerry has finally spoken the words that make the November election an unambiguous choice. On "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, according to the official transcript released by CBS News, Kerry said: "I am against the - the war."

He tried to qualify them, to fudge them a bit, but no matter. The words are now out there and can't be taken back.

The possible future president of the United States opposes the war in Iraq now being fought by 130,000 American troops.

Yet even this seemingly unequivocal statement seems to be open to interpretation. Rich Lowry looks at the tortured and completely inconsistent logic of Kerry and the Democratic Party on one of the most important issues of the day. The position of the Democratic platform is that they have no position.

“People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq." — Democratic-platform draft language.

What to make of a political party that doesn't officially have a position on the biggest policy question in our politics? The Democratic-platform language on Iraq is almost meaningless. People of good will disagree about most everything, up to and including abortion and child labor — yet the Democrats manage to have positions on those issues. Iraq war, yes or no? The Democrats answer with a definite maybe.

This campaign will witness a stark battle of dueling strategic viewpoints. President Bush's radical new national-security doctrine is "preemption." John Kerry's is "cognitive dissonance." The Massachusetts senator is a dovish-hawk or hawkish-dove depending on which set of feathers might suit his particular political circumstance at the moment, molting on command to avoid following any given statement to what might reasonably be considered its logical conclusion.

Despite the months of criticism of George Bush and the Iraq war, John Kerry's official platform is that he has no opinion on this. This is just another glaring example of the complete unseriousness of the Democratic Party.

Under the US Constitution, the President has very few actual powers. As has been acknowledged for the past 200 years, the main power of the presidency is in being a "bully pulpit" - in being able to convince the American people by the strength of one's belief. "No opinion" is simply unpresidential.

The Fence

Two good op/eds today on the separation barrier that Israel is building and the ICJ's ruling on it. Benjamin Netanyuahu clearly explains why it is that Israel needs this fence and tries to debunk some of the Arab propaganda that has made its way into the debates about it.

First, Israel is not building the fence on territory that under international law can be properly called "Palestinian land." The fence is being built in disputed territories that Israel won in a defensive war in 1967 from a Jordanian occupation that was never recognized by the international community.
[...]
Second, the fence is not a permanent political border but a temporary security barrier. A fence can always be moved.
[...]
Third, despite what some have argued, fences have proven highly effective against terrorism.
[...]
Instead of placing Palestinian terrorists and those who send them on trial, the United Nations-sponsored international court placed the Jewish state in the dock, on the charge that Israel is harming the Palestinians' quality of life. But saving lives is more important than preserving the quality of life. Quality of life is always amenable to improvement. Death is permanent. The Palestinians complain that their children are late to school because of the fence. But too many of our children never get to school — they are blown to pieces by terrorists who pass into Israel where there is still no fence.

In the last four years, Palestinian terrorists have attacked Israel's buses, cafes, discos and pizza shops, murdering 1,000 of our citizens. Despite this unprecedented savagery, the court's 60-page opinion mentions terrorism only twice, and only in citations of Israel's own position on the fence. Because the court's decision makes a mockery of Israel's right to defend itself, the government of Israel will ignore it. Israel will never sacrifice Jewish life on the debased altar of "international justice."

Dick Morris, meanwhile, urges Sharon to continue building the "wall".

AS the Cold War waned, President Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and defiantly turned to the Soviet Union and said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Now, we should turn toward Israel and say, despite the recent decision of the International Court, "Mr. Sharon, build this wall!"
The contrast with Berlin is striking: Nikita Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall to keep people in; Israel has built its fence to keep terrorists out.

The 480-mile security fence is being erected by Israel to keep out Palestinian terrorists who have killed almost 1,000 civilians since their campaign of suicide/homicide bombings began. To put the Israeli losses in perspective with their small population, that death toll is the equivalent of 50,000 dead in the United States — slightly fewer than we lost in the entire Vietnam War.

More Bad News

I'm guessing the Europeans will blame the US for this also.

The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.

Our "Allies"

In an excellent article, Victor Hanson examines our relationship with our allies. While much has been made of the fact that Europe doesn't like us, Hanson points out that what is even more important is that we no longer like them.

For all the mayhem in the Sunni Triangle, and for all our mishaps at trying to reconstruct a pathological society reeling from 30 years of mass murder, we are beginning now to see the emergence of new civilized beginning in Iraq. Sadly our allies are mostly neutral, if not hostile to this radically new world, mostly out of spite, narrow self-interest, and deductive anger and envy of the United States. In the process, they have done the near impossible: lost the good will of the American people, a development that will have radical repercussions in the years ahead.

Yet Kerry & Co. want us to grovel before these very same "allies", as if that will in any way help make them like us again.

Mr. Kerry thinks he can woo these critics back on board. He cannot; but by trying he surely can win the wage of obsequiousness in addition to the present envy and irrational pique. It is banal and monotonous to keep insisting that Kerryesque charm will restore what Texas braggadocio threw away - and entirely ignorant of the radically changed post-Cold War world.

For now the Europeans are gleeful, assuming that America is in lockstep with Al Gore, Michael Moore, and George Soros. Maybe, maybe not. We will find out in November. But if they are wrong and Mr. Kerry thus loses - then most Americans between New York and Los Angeles will have a long, long memory.

French Anti-Semitism

French anti-Semitism is now turning to non-Jews.

Friday morning on a Paris commuter train, the infernal cycle of anti-Semitism, silence and fear appeared once again. Six Arab youths attacked a twenty-three-year-old young mother with her thirteen-month-old baby.

They started by stealing her hand bag and then, looking at her wallet, found out that she had an address in a posh section of Paris, the 16th district. One of the Arabs yelled, “The 16th -- all the Jews live there.” Assuming that she was Jewish, they became wildly aggressive. They pulled knives, slashed her T-shirt and trousers, and cut her hair for a souvenir. They then drew three swastikas on her belly with black pens, and before getting out, overran the stroller, so the baby fell over.

The whole attack lasted about ten minutes, and was witnessed by over twenty people sitting in the train coach at that time. But nobody did anything, not even pulling the emergency signal. As of today, no witnesses have come forward to help the investigation.

Of course, all the outrage today in most French newspapers and in the political class is that the woman was not Jewish. These kinds of “incidents” have been numerous in the past four years, but did not make headlines because they were targeting real Jews. And in a way, it is "excusable" to attack Jews because they represent Israel and the Arabs are just helping their Palestinian brothers….

France has been demonizing Israel through its foreign policy, its media and intellectuals. By fueling so much hatred, they are now reaping what they sowed.

Perhaps what is most stunning and appalling is the complete lack of reaction by any of the other riders. Can anyone imagine a similar thing happening in any US city and people not getting involved to try to help the woman? It seems that the cowardliness of the French extends not just to their government but to their people. All I can say is to hell with them. They have chosen dhimmitude, and undoubtedly will at some point need the US to rescue them again. Maybe the US should then just stand by and watch, like all those train riders, and let the Arabs do to the French what they will.

Spiderman and the War on Terror

This review of Spiderman may be stretching things a bit, but there are a few interesting comparisons.

Which "Two Americas"

Mark Steyn takes apart Edwards's standard and now well-known stump speech about The Two Americas.

It is standard on the Left now to insist that Bush's "war" is a fiction cooked up by Dick Cheney to enrich his pals. But Edwards's two Americas are the real fantasy. Take that 10-year old girl, hungry and coatless. In America, poverty doesn't mean hunger, it means fat - it's harassed moms shovelling 99-cent cheeseburgers into their kids because it's cheap and quick. Nor does poverty mean coatlessness.
[...]
In the meantime, Edwards has nothing to say on foreign policy except a pledge to end "war profiteering by Halliburton". Once he discovered that you can't sue al-Qaeda, he seems to have lost interest in the subject, and his shallowness was embarrassing in some of the primary debates. As I wrote here in February, "His basic pitch is that the entire electorate are victims, and his candidacy is the all-time biggest class-action suit on your behalf." John Edwards's approach - the American people are helpless children - is the wrong message for dangerous times.

Still Living in the Past

The foreign policy pronouncements of the Democrats, and their presumptive leader JFKerry, continue to exhibit either a cluelessness regarding the present situation or an intentional attempt to deceive. Bill Kristol looks at some recent statements from Kerry and the Democratic leadership.

LAST THURSDAY, CNN's Larry King asked John Kerry whether he would want former President Bill Clinton to campaign on his behalf. Kerry said yes. "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed?"

Kerry's answer is revealing. We were, in fact, at war. The Clinton administration, with the exception of a few cruise missiles, had simply chosen not to fight back. Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of the United States, had launched attacks on our embassies and on a warship of the U.S. Navy. Saddam Hussein had defied U.N. weapons inspections, repeatedly threatened America, and attempted to assassinate former President Bush.

Kerry does not believe that we were at war in the '90s. That may be excusable, since most people did not see the numerous attacks on US interests as part of a larger war. What is inexcusable, however, is the fact that Kerry still does not see that we are at war. He and the Democrats have repeatedly stated that the risk of terrorism is overstated and that, anyways, this is more a police matter than a war. One wonders what needs to happen before they do consider us at war?

There are many issues in this election campaign, but there is one that is more important than all others - the fight against global Islamic terrorism. And on this issue, the Democrats repeatedly demonstrate that they are simply not serious.

Europe's Response to the Fence

Last week's International Court of Justice ruling on the separation barrier that Israel is building is legally meaningless - kangaroo justice from a kangaroo court. The only place where it could seem meaningful is as an additional weapon to attack Israel in the court of public opinion. The US response to the ruling has been that it is invalid and that the US would veto any resolutions stemming from this ruling in the UN Security Council. Europe's reactions, on the other hand, have been decidedly more mixed. While in the runup to the "Court" hearing on the matter Europe was opposed to the "Court" even considering the issue, after the ruling Europe seems to support it. This editorial of the Jerusalem Post suggests that the crisis emanating from this ruling is not one for Israel, but for Europe itself.

Europe will have to think carefully about how far it wants to travel down that road vis-a-vis the Jewish state. Is it ready to make good on its anti-fence instincts by voting for UN sanctions, as the ICJ ruling advises? Does Europe place a higher value on Palestinian property than on Jewish lives? The game here is clear. Like adolescents who rely upon parental restrictions they claim to abhor to set limits to behavior they know is irresponsible, Europe is relying upon an American veto to protect the international system from a decision it knows is wrong and should not be implemented.

Israel has made its choice to protect its citizens from terror. Soon Europe will have a choice, too. Whatever choice it makes will be usefully clarifying for the rest of us.

John and John

It seems that John Edwards is already sick of Kerry's public displays of affection.

After a mere two days on the campaign trail, the first signs of tension between John Kerry and running mate John Edwards emerged today as Sen. Edwards requested, firmly and unequivocally, that Mr. Kerry stop grabbing his ass.

“I think Sen. Kerry has made it very clear in our joint appearances that he is happy to have me on the ticket,” Mr. Edwards told reporters. “He really doesn’t have to prove it by repeatedly grabbing my ass.”

At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania today, Mr. Edwards was in the middle of a speech when he emitted a high-pitched yelp, apparently in response to yet another unexpected display of affection from Sen. Kerry....

ICJ and the Fence

I'm not sure what to write about this since it was expected by pretty much everyone that the "International Court of Justice" would decide that Israel's security barrier was illegal. In making this decision, the Court violated its own rules on what cases it can decide, but of course that isn't important if there is a chance to rule against Israel. This is just another in a long line of examples of the UN's hypocrisy and malfeasance. Undoubtedly now that there is precedent on fences the Court will also decide the issue of the fence India is building, or the fence Saudi Arabia is building, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for those decisions. This is a perfect example of why the UN and its "Court" need to be disbanded. Democracies are more than able to protect the rights of their citizens themselves, without the diktats of an institution dominated by the agenda of tyrannies and terror supporters. As Martin Peretz wrote in this New Republic article(registration required)

And, of course, there is the unfinished fence, which has already stemmed the flow of slaughterers into Israel. As for the fence's trajectory, Israel's Supreme Court has just ruled that it must be shifted to limit the damage to local Palestinians--whose needs sometimes outweigh considerations of defense. In the same week, then, the highest courts of our country and of Israel have limited what the executive may do in pursuit of security. How many other countries, having suffered what Israel and the United States have at the hands of terrorists, would have been so scrupulous?

Anti-Israel Propaganda

In the last few years, Israel has been vilified on college campuses across the US. One of the reasons has been the extreme left-leaning nature of college professors. Another reason has been the admittance and support of professors like Rashid Khalidi, who is now the Edward Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. As this article describes, Khalidi was a member of the PLO when it was designated a terrorist organization, and continues to support the Arafat thugocracy.

"Professor" Rashid Khalidi has been shilling for terrorists since the early 1980s. Neither his vocabulary nor his agenda has changed, except that he now oversees a major university's interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

No Time for Terror

Yesterday, The Dept. Of Homeland Security warned that al Qaeda was intent on striking the US before the November elections in order to try to influence the outcome (thank you, Spain). But JFKerry, the candidate who insists that he is so serious on security, apparently is too busy to even get a briefing on the threat. Of course, he wasn't too busy to attend this event. At least we know where his priorities lie.

Cynthia McKinney

It is amazing that only two years after being thrown out of office, Cynthia McKinney is once again running for Congress and has a very good chance of winning. She is, of course, the one who wrote a letter to Prince Alwaleed bin Tallal asking for his $10 million that was rejected by Rudy Giuliani after the Prince happened to mention that 9/11 was caused by our own actions. This article highlights some more of her terrorist connections: GEORGIA'S HATEMONGER RETURNS

How Quickly We Forget

It has been less than three years since Islamist terrorists attacked the US. In the initial aftermath, we were shocked into the realization that the goal of a sizeable segment of the Islamic world was simple - to kill us. At that point, it was obvious to all that an even worse attack - an attack using WMD - was a distinct possibility and that it was imperative that we do everything possible to prevent that possibility. But now, after all the Leftist anti-American chants, we seem to have sunk into a complacency from which only another attack will wake us. This complacency has extended to the Democratic party, as exhibited by Kerry's own statements on his belief regarding the true nature of the threat. Charles Krauthammer points out how we have been convinced that the threat has been "overblown".

The new idea, expressed by Blix representing the decadent European left, and recently amplified by Michael Moore representing the paranoid American left, is that this existential threat is vastly overblown. Indeed, deliberately overblown by a corrupt/clueless (take your pick) President Bush to justify American aggression for reasons of . . . and here is where the left gets a little fuzzy, not quite being able to decide whether American aggression is intended simply to enrich multinational corporations -- or maybe just Halliburton alone -- with fat war contracts, distract from alleged failure in Afghanistan, satisfy some primal masculine urge or boost poll ratings.

We have come a long way in three years. The idea that Sept. 11 was a historic turning point, a wake-up call to a war declared by our enemies but ignored by us, has begun to fade.
[...]
What is so dismaying is that such an obvious truth needs repeating. The passage of time, the propaganda of the anti-American left and the setbacks in Iraq have changed nothing of that truth. This is the first time in history that the knowledge of how to make society-destroying weapons has been democratized. Today small radical groups allied with small radical states can do the kind of damage to the world that in the past only a great, strategically located and industrialized power such as Germany or Japan could do.

It is a new world and exceedingly dangerous. Everything is at stake. We are now deeply engaged in a breast-beating exercise for not having connected the dots before Sept. 11. And yet here we are three years after Sept. 11, with the dots already connected, and we are under a powerful urge to ignore them completely.

Our Ally

Charles Krauthammer thinks that the US is on a collision course with our "ally" France. France's recent refusal to consider sending NATO's rapid deployment force to Afghanistan was another example of its antipathy to any part of the US foreign policy. France is basically trying to court the Muslim world in the hope that it will not end up a target. Appeasement lives on.

The Left Knows What's Good for Us

George Will reviews "What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" by Thomas Franks, and shows the standard way of thinking of the Left - they know what's good for all of us and are stunned that we common people refuse to acknowledge their superiority and go along with their prescriptions.

The Big Picture

Throughout this campaign season, and especially with the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, two different worldviews have emerged. One worldview says that we are engaged in a global war against a new menace, Islamist terrorism, that seeks to destroy the Western way of life. This war, which has been going on for at least 10 years but was only joined by the US after 9/11, is the result of the Islamists desire to impose their beliefs on the infidels and is to be waged until they succeed in their goal. Many have compared this to the Cold War and acknowledge that it is likely to last many years. The obvious consequence of this worldview is that we must fight back and triumph over this ideology if we want the West to survive. And in order to triumph, we must affect a wholesale change in the political and social structure of the Muslim world. This has been the worldview of the Bush Administration and its supporters and is a serious, forward-looking, and progressive ideology.

Alternatively, the other worldview that has emerged, as Mark Steyn explains, is "its Bush's fault". According to this worldview, all we need to do is get rid of Bush and everything will once again be great in the world.

Whatever the question, the answer is Bush. The message of Moore's film is: Get rid of Bush this November and all the bad stuff will go away. That's why its starting point is the 2000 election and the Florida recount. On the face of it, dimpled chads don't seem to have much to do with Afghanistan and Iraq. But, for Moore, this is where it all began, and this is where it will end: Topple Bush, and the world will once again be full of happy smiley people as it is in the slow-motion scenes of laughing children gaily flying their kites in idyllic Saddamite Iraq.
[...]
Americans, Moore told The Daily Mirror in London, are "the dumbest people on the planet. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing." Yet he's the one who's come up with the hickiest, most parochial thesis imaginable: that the horrors of the age are just some screwy distraction got up by a chad-wangling moron fratboy's creepy neocon viziers.

This is the real difference – between those who see the big picture and those who insist there is no big picture to see, that Michael Moore's small hick picture is the answer to everything. In the days after September 11, the fringe Left were fond of lecturing us that we needed to address the "root causes." Well, they got tired of that. If it's a choice between some big socioeconomic geopolitical root cause or Dick Cheney, they'll take Cheney.

Which is a great pity. I look on 9/11 as the sudden revelation of the tip of a vast iceberg. It's all been there under the surface for some time, but we never grasped the size of it. At one level, it's about the mainstreaming of the fringe. I don't mean in the sense that pre-9/11 Michael Moore was regarded as a kook by the Democratic Party establishment and now he's the toast of the town.

I mean that troublesome groups on the far horizons of the superpower can now strike at its heart.
[...]
So we're living through a period of extraordinarily rapid demographic and cultural change that broadly favors the Islamists' stated objectives, a period of rapid technological advance that greatly facilitates the Islamists' objectives, and a period of rapid nuclear dissemination that will add serious heft to the realization of their objectives. If the West – and I use the term in the widest sense to mean not just swaggering Texas cowboys but sensitive left-wing feminists in favor of gay marriage – is to survive, it will only be after a long struggle lasting many decades.

Now go back to watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and kid yourself that this will all go away if Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are thrown out this November.

This is the key issue in this election, and John Kerry and the Democrats consistently fall back to the simplistic Moore worldview. Serious times call for serious thinking, and the Democrats are simply not serious.

Edwards Roundup

Andrew Sullivan delivers a brutal fisking to John Kerry's speech announcing his VP choice.

It's perhaps the first national stump speech given by Kerry now that the primaries are long over and the national campaign is beginning. And it was dreadful. It failed on almost every count. It was tedious; it was vacuous; and it was hyper-liberal.
[...]
You can hack away at this kind of verbiage for a very long time and the weeds of blather just keep growing back.
[...]
And it's about the future, and children, and the future of children and ... who writes this crap?

I disagree with Sullivan that Edwards was a good choice; he brings no experience, no extra electoral votes, and a slew of soundbites that the Republicans will be thrilled to use.

William Safire writes today (along with others) that Edwards was the choice of a candidate who is not confident in his election prospects - Kerry chose someone who would help him in the campaign, but would not help him governing.

In my view, he failed that test. In the choice between the Democrat most ready to be president and the Democrat who would enliven a stalled campaign, Kerry played it safe and chose the political hottie, Edwards.

Not, as South Carolina's Graham says, "the confident pick."

Meanwhile, Tony Blankley thinks that the choice of Edwards makes absolutely no difference. Between the conventions, the Olympics, and The World Series, people won't start to really pay attention to the race until a month before the elections, and that only one thing will matter then.

Finally, the public will pay attention to the campaign. With a short month left, the undecided likely voters, 5 percent to 10 percent of the electorate, will look up and see who they want to vote for. If Iraq looks to be going to hell in a hand basket, they will vote for the other guy. If things seem OK in Iraq, they'll vote for the guy currently in the White House. Thus is history made. And nobody has come up with a better way yet

Iranians in Iraq

In a piece of news missed by virtually everyone, FoxNews is reporting that 2 Iranian intelligence agents were captured in Baghdad yesterday. The two were carrying explosives to make a car bomb. Why has no one else reported this story?

Clearly national security issues will play a large part in this election. So far the largest aspect of this issue has been Iraq. This is backward looking; Iraq is, for all intents and purposes, stabilized. Undoubtedly there will still be bombings and meddling by foreign powers. Nevertheless, Iraq is moving towards a consensual government that has strong support among Iraqis. The issue going forward, one that many want to ignore at this point, is Iran. Iran's meddling in Iraq, its nuclear weapons program, and its support for terror organizations - including Hezbullah and al Qaeda - will need to be confronted. This will be the next front of the War on Terror.

From many of John Kerry's utterings, it seems clear that he is in the accomodationist camp. As Jonah Goldberg points out, his choice of VP along with many of his statements, confirm that he does not view the War on Terror as a primary issue.

Simply put, if Kerry really thought the war on terror was as big a deal as Bush does, there's no way he would pick John Edwards. Edwards is simply not qualified to be one heartbeat from the presidency in the world George Bush describes. Indeed, during the primaries even Kerry asked his aides about Edwards, "What makes him think he can be president?"

Clearly, Kerry has answered that question to his own satisfaction. And that answer has to be that the war on terror isn't that big a deal. We've had hints to this effect for a while. Several times he's suggested that he considers the war on terrorism a "law enforcement issue." And, in February, Kerry was asked at the Minnesota Democratic debate if he considered himself a "war president" the way Bush does. Kerry responded: "I'd see myself first of all as a jobs president, as a health care president, as an education president and also an environmental president. So I would see myself as a very different kind of global leader than George Bush."

Kerry and Edwards are still living in a September 10 world, and this should be a major issue of the Presidential campaign.

The Global Culture War

Herbert London looks at the Present Global Culture War between the West and the Muslim world.

What the world now faces is the dark side of Hegel, the side Marx contemplated when he turned Hegelianism on its head. For many Islamicists western evolutionary thought is flawed. They prefer a backward glance at the wreckage of the past and conclude that freedom unrestrained by rigid religious laws inevitably results in debauchery. So passionate are these Islamists that they are willing to kill any who deviate from their theocratic musings.

Rather than embrace the Socratic dialogue of questioning, they insist on doctrinal recitation. Truth is not elusive, a matter to be pursued. For the Muslim true believer truth is already known, written on the tablets of the faith. One merely turns the page to know what is true and what must be pursued. This is not a culture of doubt, but one of assurance and insistence.

For those who embrace this religious ideal, there isn't a dialectic. How can there be when truth is already determined? Perhaps this explains why new pharmaceutical or software products do not emerge from the Islamic world. Scientists cannot question or doubt. Hence they cannot engage in real science.

How this conflict between freedom and orthodoxy unfolds is already evident. If the idea of freedom prevails civilization, despite ebbs and flows, will prosper. If, however, Islamic extremism manages to capture the imagination of those who find freedom too hard to ingest, a dark ages may be in our future. That in the bluntest of terms is the present global culture war.

MAD Again

One of the perceived problems in the War on Terror has been the idea that we can not battle terror militarily because there is no one to respond against after an attack. This idea has mostly been pushed by the "anti-war" Left. The problem is that it is simply untrue. Terrorism and terror groups do not exist in a vacuum; they need the active support of governments to be able to operate. Victor Davis Hanson proposes that these should be the addresses for retaliation.

What to do? The key for the United States - in very quiet and deferential tones, in private, and to the albeit illegitimate leaders of these relevant countries - is to convey the message that if there should be a repeat of 9/11, the United States will hold any countries responsible who are proved to have aided or sheltered any of the guilty. Now what does that overused and near-meaningless phrase "hold responsible" really mean? A repeat of Afghanistan and Iraq in places like Iran or Syria?

We should be clear about a proper response now and inform the appropriate parties exactly of the real damage that they should expect - and it won't be moral fuzziness about guilt over endemic poverty, ancient support for the shah, past Aramco antics, the misery of the Arab Street, and all the other bottled causes and complaints that the Middle East counts on for its accustomed pass from a supposedly neurotic, decadent, and self-loathing West.

Perhaps it would be best to inform hostile countries right now of a (big) list of their assets - military bases, power plants, communications, and assorted infrastructure - that will be taken out in the aftermath of another attack, a detailed sequence of targets that will be activated when the culpable terrorists' bases and support networks are identified and confirmed. We would have to draft a formal declaration of war - as we should have against the Taliban, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein - against those countries that harbored or even aided the next 9/11-like cell. Both sides should anticipate the consequences should another 3,000 Americans be incinerated at work.

We know which governments support the terrorists. The only thing holding us back is the lack of will to act against them.

The Court and the Fence

Caroline Glick has an excellent article on the ridiculous decision by the Supreme Court of Israel on the separation fence.

The Supreme Court made it clear that it places higher value on the convenience of Palestinians and on the wellbeing of their olive trees than it does on Jewish lives. As it stated in its judgment, "the state must find an alternative [route for the fence] that may give less security but would harm the local population less." Such views arise from two sources: the first, Soviet-inspired, is that Arab hostility to Israel is a reaction to Israeli "crimes." Second is the historical ambivalence of Jews to the notion that we have a right to protect ourselves and assert our rights as a nation.

It is the height of absurdity that Israelis are put in danger because the fence might inconvenience some Palestinians. It seems that the Supreme Court still does not recognize that there is a war going on. So in effect, the Court is saying that Israel shouldn't inconvenience the people who are waging war on her. What would it take for the Court to allow this inconvenience? How many have to be killed before the Court realizes that the Palestinians are waging a war against Israel?

Another Kerry Flip-Flop

The Boston Globe is reporting today that John Kerry has released a new policy paper that outlines his position on Israel. Realizing that his initial position wasn't very popular, Kerry changed it. He now supports the separation barrier (as opposed to earlier when he referred to it as a "barrier to peace"), calls Arafat a "failed leader" (as opposed to the previous "statesman"), and no longer talks about appointing James Baker or Jimmy Carter. While his new positions are certainly better than his initial positions, one has to wonder what his real views on this are. Clearly the change in his position was another example of his naked political opportunism; American Jews have been turning more to George Bush and the Republican Party because of their staunch and real support of Israel in the war against Islamofascism. Kerry, based on his positions on other foreign policy matters, is Clinton without the political skill or charisma. And Clinton's Middle East policies, despite his own and liberal Jews' protestations, did more damage to Israel than the policies of virtually every other US President since Harry Truman. My suspicion is that Kerry will be more of the same.

The Media and Iraq

The New York Post today reprints an email from Eric Johnson, a Marine in Iraq. Johnson identifies one of the leading causes of media disinformation on Iraq as Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post. He points to, as others have done, the fact that most of these journalists sit in their hotels and use stringers to actually report on what is happening. Many of these stringers are former Ba'athist media minders who can not be considered trustworthy to report what is actually happening/

The grizzled foreign-desk veteran — who until 2000 was covering dot-com companies — now sits in judgment over a world-shaking issue, in a court whose rulings echo throughout the media landscape.

He finds the Bush administration guilty. Such a surprise. Before major combat operations were over, Chandrasekaran was already quoting Iraqis proclaiming the U.S. operation a failure.

Reading his dispatches from April 2003, you can already see his meta-narrative take shape: Basically, that the Americans are clumsy fools who don't know what they're doing, and Iraqis hate them. This meta-narrative informs his coverage and the coverage of the reporters he supervises, who rotate in and out of Iraq.

How do I know this? Because my fellow Marines and I witnessed it with our own eyes. Chandrasekaran showed up in the city of Kut last April, talked to a few of our officers and toured the city for a few hours. He then got back into his air-conditioned car and drove back to Baghdad to write about the local unrest.

Meanwhile Diane West writes about the Battle of the Humvee and how US forces are battling not only the terrorists and insurgents.

Ever hear of the Battle of the Humvee? That's what I'm calling a May skirmish fought by soldiers of the 37th Armored Regiment's 2nd Battalion in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. In what became a six-hour firefight, Americans battled militiamen of Muqtada al-Sadr to secure the hulk of a burning Humvee. It's not that our soldiers fought because the flaming wreck amounted to a tin can's worth of military value. They fought,as Capt. Ty Wilson of Fairfax, Va., explained to The Washington Post, because "we weren't going to let them dance on it for the news. Even [with] all the guys they lost that day, that still would have given them victory."

European Dhimmitude

In an excellent presentation to the French Seminar a few days ago, Bat Ye'or outlines the development of dhimittude in Europe, and its effects on Europe's relations with the United States and Israel. She asserts that European submission to Islam is significantly worse than the capitulation to Hitler at Munich:

At Munich war had not yet been declared. Today the war is everywhere. And yet the European Union and the states which comprise it, have denied that war’s reality, right up to the terrorist attack in Madrid of March 11, 2004. If there is a danger as Europe proclaims urbi et orbi, that danger can only come from America and Israel. What should one understand? For can anyone seriously maintain that it is the American and Israeli forces that threaten us in Europe? No, what must be understood is that American and Israeli policies of resistance to jihadist terror provoke reprisals against a Europe that has long ago ceased to defend itself. So that peace can prevail throughout the world, those two countries, America and Israel, need only adopt the European strategy of constant surrender, based on the denial of aggression. How simple it all is…

This strategy is less worthy than even Munich’s connivance and cowardice. At Munich there was some sort of future contemplated, even if war, or peace, were to determine the future. There was a choice. In the present situation there is no choice, for we deny the reality of the jihad danger. The only danger comes, allegedly, from the United States and Israel. We conduct a propaganda campaign in the media against these two countries, before entering into a yet more aggressive phase; it’s so much easier, so much less dangerous…And we conduct this campaign with the weapons of cowardice: defamation, disinformation, the corruption of venal politicians.

In the time of Munich, one could envisage that there would be battles that might be won. There was at least the Maginot Line for defense. In Europe today, dominated by the spirit of dhimmitude – the condition of submission of Jews and Christians under Muslim domination – there is no conceivable battle. Submission, without a fight, has already taken place. A machinery that has made Europe the new continent of dhimmitude was put into motion more than 30 years ago at the instigation of France.
[...]
At Munich, in 1938, France had not renounced its own culture, its own history becoming German; it has not proclaimed that the source of her own culture was the German civilization. The spirit of dhimmitude which today blinds Europe springs not from a situation imposed from without, but from a choice made freely, and systematically carried out, in its political dimensions, over the course of the last 30 years.

More Chemical Weapons

In another story virtually ignored (or hidden) by most of thre press, Polish troops yesterday disclosed that they had found 2 mortar shells and 17 rockets filled with Sarin gas in Iraq. All of these munitions were still usable, and are another very clear example of the WMDs that supposedly don't exist. It may sound cynical, but my feeling is that we will hear more and more stories of found WMD as the election approaches. A big announcement during the Democratic National Convention would not be surprising at all.

Show of Force

Despite Clinton's, and the current Democrats' desire for "strategic engagement" with China, it is clear from China's actions that it is not a future partner for the US, but in fact, a strategic threat. China wants to be the hegemon in the Asia-Pacific region, in effect pushing the US out. Recently China has been making threatening statements towards Taiwan, moving missiles closer to their coast, and conducting military exercises that were clearly meant as a signal to Taiwan. Now the Bush Administration is responding to China's gestures with its own gesture, deploying an unprecedented (in peacetime) seven aircraft carrier strike groups (CSGs) for exercises off the Chinese coast.

From past deployment patterns, the US usually despatches one CSG to a trouble spot as a reminder of its presence.

It did so several times in the past when tension was high in the Taiwan Strait.

It sends two to indicate serious concern, as was the case when China test-fired missiles over the strait in 1996.

In a combat situation, it deploys three to four, which was what it did in the Gulf War in the early 1990s and the recent Iraqi war.

But never before has it sent in peace time seven CSGs to the same theatre.

The implications for China are grave.

According to Kanwa Defence News, which specialises in Chinese military matters, Beijing can cope with just one CSG currently.

ISM Terrorsymps

Lee Kaplan recently attended a "training session" of the International Solidarity Movement, the group that sends human shields to Israel and the territories to protect terrorists and smuggling tunnels. It is clear from the article what the goals of the ISM are; they have nothing to do with peace or "non-violence", as the group likes to claim. Instead, its mission is to help terrorists infiltrate Israel to kill innocent people. And if their own members are killed (i.e. Rachel Corrie, and Tom Hundall), so much the better since they can then vilify Israel.

Civility in Politics

Last week the Washington press was abuzz, caused by VP Cheney's cursing out of Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy for his accusations of impropriety regarding Halliburton contracts in Iraq. For the most part, the press was full of statements saying that this is an example of the lack of political civility of Washington politics. As Charles Krauthammer points out, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article is how this same press notices this incivility, but gives a pass to the almost daily incivilities hurled at the Bush Administration by the Coalition of the Wild-Eyed".

Ah, but the earnest chin-pullers are not amused. Cheney's demonstration of earthy authenticity in a chamber in which authenticity of any kind is to be valued has occasioned anguished meditations on the loss of civility in American politics. Liberals in particular have expressed deep concern about this breach of decorum.

Odd. The day before first reports of Cheney's alleged indiscretion, his Democratic predecessor, Al Gore, delivered a public speech in which he spoke of the administration's establishing a "Bush gulag" around the world and using "digital brown shirts" to intimidate the media. The former vice president of the United States compared the current president to both Hitler and Stalin in the same speech -- a first not just in hyperbole but in calumny -- and nary a complaint is heard about a breach of civility.

If you suspect that this selective indignation may be partisan, you guessed right. But here's an even more important question. In the face of Gore's real breach of civil political discourse, which of the following is the right corrective: (a) offer a reasoned refutation of the charge that George Bush is both Stalinist and Hitlerian; (b) suggest an increase in Gore's medication; or (c) do a Cheney.

The correct answer is "C." And given the circumstances, go for the deuce.

Reagan, Thatcher and Bibi??

After the last election in Israel Ariel Sharon appointed Benjamin Netanyahu Finance Minister, as opposed to the Foreign Minister, as was expected by many. One possibility for that move was Sharon's recognition of Bibi as a political threat. Israel's economy was doing terribly because of the Palestinian Oslo War, as well as the structural problems that inevitably accompany a socialist economy. The thinking was that Bibi would have to make many unpopular economic changes, and thus be hurt in his expected run for Prime Minister. However, it did not turn out that way. Bibi did have to make may structural changes in the economy, and many were indeed unpopular. Yet because of those changes (and because of the IDF's success in the war), Bibi is now being hailed as the savior of the economy, and being compared by Citibank to Reagan and Thatcher.

A Lawsuit Against Kerry

Andrew Sullivan linked to an interesting article about a lawsuit against John Kerry. In itself, a lawsuit would not be surprising given the litigious nature of our society. This one however, is a little different.

A Catholic lawyer has filed heresy charges against Sen. John Kerry with the Archdiocese of Boston, accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of bringing "most serious scandal to the American public" by receiving Holy Communion as a pro-choice Catholic.
[...]
If the Boston Archdiocese, which is refusing comment on the case, decided to press heresy charges, the Massachusetts senator could be excommunicated.

The Coalition of the Wild-Eyed

Ann Coulter, shrill but smart, attacks the Democratic "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed".

And then there's Howard Dean, who thinks Bush was in cahoots with the Saudis – and he's the centrist of the bunch. I'm looking forward to Dean's address at the Democratic Convention this summer. Rumor has it he'll end with a squeal so high-pitched only dogs will be able to hear it.

I admire their savage energy, but these people want to run the country. Even with all their money and power, I don't think they could get the Haitians to let them govern. But Soros and company think they should be running the United States of America.

Apart from the fact that Kerry won't come out of hiding while allowing the nuts to attack Bush for him, these aren't random nobodies popping up to endorse Kerry. Howard Dean was considerably more likely to be the Democratic nominee for president than Joe Lieberman ever was.
[...]
Come to think of it, it's no surprise they want Saddam Hussein back. He made the Democrats seem moderate by comparison.

Amazing Technology

An Israeli company has developed technology that makes it possible to "see" through walls using a special kind of radar.

But now, a small, Herzliya-based company called Camero is offering a solution: a radar system, based on UWB (ultra wideband) technology, that can produce three-dimensional pictures of what lies behind a wall, from a distance of up to 20 meters. The pictures, which resemble those produced by ultrasound, are relatively high-resolution. Although the figures are somewhat blurred, the system enables the user to follow what is happening behind the wall in real time.

Science and Politics

Recently, a group of Nobel-prize winning scientists endorsed John Kerry, saying in part: "And by ignoring scientific consensus on critical issues such as global warming, they [Bush administration] are threatening the earth's future." As David Douglass points out, their statement goes completely against the nature and purpose of science.

To arrive at such a conclusion these scientists are either knowledgeable about the science of global warming or they are relying on a "consensus." Most of these scientists do not work in climatology and cannot have first hand knowledge of this field. As a physicist, I can state that none of the 18 physicists who signed the Statement works in this field; nor to my knowledge has ever published a paper on this subject. It must be concluded that they have relied on what they have read about a "consensus".

Whether the above quote is true or not, I conclude that they have forgotten or ignored one of the most important premises in science: Scientific knowledge comes from observations and not from consensus.

Indeed, scientific truth by consensus has had a uniformly bad history.

UN Anti-Semitism

Two weeks ago the UN held its first conference on anti-Semitism. The highlight of the conference seems to have been the speech given by Anne Bayefsky. Today, Joel Mowbray gives his assessment of the conference and what it could actually accomplish; according to him, not much.

The UN hosting a conference on anti-Semitism is like the Ku Klux Klan holding one on racism: It can produce some interesting discussion, but at the end of the day, a profoundly bigoted organization is not likely to change its core nature.