Leon Aron: Why the USSR Collapsed

Leon Aron credits a moral revolution led by Aleksandr Yakovlev

Unlike Khrushchev, who knew firsthand how precariously poised was the house that Stalin had built on terror and lies, the Gorbachev group appeared to believe that what was morally right was also politically manageable. There is hardly a better example of the primacy of the moral component in Gorbachev’s opening crusade than the campaign against alcohol consumption, undertaken and sustained in the face of obviously and extremely adverse political and economic consequences. In 1985, the state’s annual income from the sale of alcoholic beverages constituted between 12 and 14 percent of total budget revenues. (In 1990, Gorbachev disclosed that, alongside oil exports, the vodka trade sustained the Soviet Union between 1970 and 1985.) Between 1985 and 1988, the anti-alcohol campaign cost the Soviet Treasury 67 billion rubles--the equivalent of almost 9 percent of the 1985 GNP, 17 percent of that year’s revenue, and nearly four times the sum spent on health care. Yet when Ryzhkov objected to the campaign’s excesses he was overruled by other members of the Gorbachev “team” because, as they put it, he was “concerned about the economy instead of morality” and the “morals of the nation must be rescued by any means available.”

The closest approximation to a well-integrated vision of perestroika as a revolution of ideas and ideals--a normative, conceptual, even cognitive overhaul--is to be found in articles, interviews, and memoirs by the “godfather of glasnost,” Aleksandr Yakovlev, who died in Moscow last October, six weeks shy of his eighty-second birthday. When he returned to the Soviet Union in 1983 after a ten-year stint as Moscow’s ambassador to Canada, Yakovlev’s memory of what he saw was much the same as Gorbachev’s and Ryzhkov’s: "[T]he moment was at hand when people would say, “Enough! We cannot live like this any longer. Everything must be done in a new way. We must reconsider our concepts, our approaches, our views of the past and of our future.” There had come an understanding that it was simply impossible to live as we lived before--intolerably, humiliatingly."

Yakovlev makes clear that, for both himself and Gorbachev, democratization was the most urgent imperative, that it came far ahead of any economic objectives in the initial impulse forperestroika. In his remarkable final book Sumerki (Twilight), published in Moscow in 2003, Yakovlev refers to the upheaval a few times as the “March–April [1985] Revolution,” but far more frequently calls what happened a “Reformation” to underscore the moral and spiritual transformation. For him, perestroika was an “attempt to. . .end the amorality of the regime.”

In a secret memorandum that Yakovlev handed to Gorbachev in December 1985, a few months after Gorbachev had made him a secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Yakovlev argued, “The main issue today is not only the economy. This is only the material side of the process. The heart of the matter lies in the political system, that is, its relation to man.”[29]Hence, the “main principles of perestroika”: democracy first and foremost, understood as freedom to choose in multicandidate elections; glasnost, or freedom of speech and the press; judicial independence; and laws safeguarding key human rights--the inviolability of individual persons, property, and communications; freedom to travel, assemble, and demonstrate; freedom of religion; and the ability of a citizen to sue any official or official body in court. For Yakovlev, glasnost was the touchstone of perestroika. Soviet society was tormented by lies--“ubiquitous and all-consuming lies.” Without glasnost, he repeated to newspaper and magazine editors, perestroika would be “doomed.”

Francisco Gil-White: The Problem of Jewish Self-Defense

I found this essay by Francisco Gil-White by accident, while googling the Iranian hostage crisis for the article on Mrs. Palfrey's premiere. At first, I thought the site came from a Lyndon LaRouche organization, it seemed so strange. But then, I read an essay in which Gil White predicted that Bush's Iraq policy would lead to Islamist takeovers and a stronger Iran. Written before it happened. He has another essay predicting the Iranian nuclear crisis will end in the disarmament of Israel and victory of Islamist fundamenalism. Contra Walt and Mearsheimer, Gil-White believes that Islamism is the favorite religious lobby of the American Elite, and that Israel has few friends in Washington.

I'm somewhere in-between on this--believing that Israel has friends, enemies and people who don't give a damn--but it was interesting to see Walt and Mearsheimer turned on their heads.

So I read on.

I found his very long essay on "The Problem of Jewish Self-Defense" to be absolutely fascinating, not least because it deals with the case of Peter Bergson (aka Hillel Kook). He was the central character in my documentary, Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? He may be wrong about other things, but he gets Bergson right, IMHO.

What Gil-White has to say is summed up here, where he relates American tolerance of Islamic fundamentalism today to American acquiescence towards Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II:

There is a joke told of two Jews, right before they are killed:
“Sam and Irving are facing the firing squad. The executioner comes forward to place the blindfold on them. Sam disdainfully and proudly refuses, tearing the thing from his face. Irving turns to him and pleads: ‘Please Sam, don’t make trouble!’”

The structure of this joke is identical to what happened when Peter Bergson tried to pressure the US government to save Jewish lives in Europe, causing “some mainstream American Jewish leaders” to say to his protesting rabbis: “Please, don’t make trouble.” The joke makes fun of a pathology of reasoning but the extermination of the Jewish people is not funny; if we do not want more exterminations of the Jewish people, we must understand this pathology of reasoning....

Later he adds:

I am predicting that soon -- very soon -- there will be another antisemitic genocide. It will take place in the State of Israel, and it will be directly carried out by the antisemitic forces of the Muslim world. The Western world will look the other way. Later, it will build Holocaust museums and people will put on grave looking faces and shake their heads. Or perhaps they will celebrate. It all depends on which direction culture takes in the coming years. But though time may be running short, this genocide can still be prevented. In order to do so, good people in the West must understand what is at stake. They certainly don't understand it now. They have no clue why there is hatred of Jews, and they are utterly confused about their own antisemitic prejudices.

Another curious thing about Gil-White is that he has lived in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and shares an an interest in Central Asia.

Condoleezza Rice, Concert Pianist

Sunday's New York Times ran this article about the Secretary of State's music-making. She's partial to Brahms and Shostakovich. She'd rather play in a group than as a soloist (she accompanied Yo-Yo Ma at the National Medal of the Arts award ceremony in Brahms's Violin Sonata in D minor, see photo above). The Secretary of State's favorite opera? Mussorgsky's Khovanschchina.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

Last night, we attended a screening of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. It was held at the Canadian Embassy, a wonderful building that sits on land Ronald Reagan gave to Canada as a gift of gratitude for help during the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979--the Canadians sheltered Americans in their embassy and helped them to escape Ayatollah Khomeni's mobs using Canadian passports.

The event was a benefit for The Hospitality and Information Service, a Washington, DC charity. There were diplomats and lobbyists and lots of Washingtonian. We were seated in front of the Ambassador from Lesotho, H.E. Molelekeng Ernestina Rapolaki.

The screenwriter, Ruth Sacks Caplin, was there in person. She was as charming as any of the characters in the film. According to a Washington Post story, Ruth Sacks Caplin spent about a quarter of a century trying to make this film, based on a story by British novelist Elizabeth Taylor. She couldn't get the rights during the novelist's lifetime. Finally, she outlived her and got permission from the estate. Her patience paid off. It is charming, a vision of England as we Americans like to see it, full of colorful eccentrics quoting Blake and Wordsworth--the film is perfect entertainment for anyone who enjoys Masterpiece Theatre. Every actor has a moment to do a star turn. The cast does a magnificent job, especially Joan Plowright.

Conflict Resolution 101

Today I heard an interesting anecdote at a seminar on Russia. I think the story sums up the academic discipline of "conflict resolution."

The hostess and guest speaker had participated together previously at an international seminar on conflict resolution. Among the other participants was a couple haggling over a disputed territory in the former USSR. They brought up 1000 years of historical grievances. Stalemate. Tension. Unhappiness.

Up walks a Harvard University academic expert in peaceful conflict resolution.

"What you need to do," she tells the bickering couple, "is to forget your history and look to what you can do by working together in the future."

Hearing this, the disputants exploded in rage. For the conference luncheon, the organizers seated the two at separarate dining tables at opposite ends of the room.

Weekly Standard: Putin Knew About Saddam -9/11 Connection

Dan Darling's story can be found here:

IN JULY 2004, DURING THE COURSE of a little-publicized event while on a visit to Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some unusual remarks:

I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received . . . information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations.

Putin's remarks were little noticed by the American press, coming as they did so soon after the release of the 9/11 Commission's report. Moreover, despite his strong opposition to the war in Iraq, Putin was unabashedly in favor of Bush's reelection, having earlier criticized Senator Kerry for supporting unilateral action against Serbia while opposing it with regard to Iraq. Putin went so far as to claim in October 2004 that "The goal of international terrorism is to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term."

Mark Steyn on Bombing Iran

He's for it:

Perhaps it’s unduly pessimistic to write the civilized world automatically into what Osama bin Laden called the “weak horse” role (Islam being the “strong horse”). But, if you were an Iranian “moderate” and you’d watched the West’s reaction to the embassy seizure and the Rushdie murders and Hezbollah terrorism, wouldn’t you be thinking along those lines? I don’t suppose Buenos Aires Jews expect to have their institutions nuked any more than 12 years ago they expected to be blown up in their own city by Iranian-backed suicide bombers. Nukes have gone freelance, and there’s nothing much we can do about that, and sooner or later we’ll see the consequences—in Vancouver or Rotterdam, Glasgow or Atlanta. But, that being so, we owe it to ourselves to take the minimal precautionary step of ending the one regime whose political establishment is explicitly pledged to the nuclear annihilation of neighboring states.

Will Bush Bomb Iran?

That question is the talk of Washington right now. I just don't know. It's hard to believe. But someone I know thinks he will. She told me that Bush has no alternative because his credibility is shot, his domestic poll numbers are down, and his international stature is shrinking. It would be a "Hail Mary" pass. (Look at it as a possiblly real "October Surprise").

If such an attack worked, all would be forgiven and the Republicans might keep their majority in Congress. If it didn't--Bush could be impeached if the Democrats sweep 2006 elections...

Still, hard for me to believe he'll go through with it. Though as my friend pointed out, Bush has already invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. He's done it before.

An Overheard Snatch of Conversation...

Today I was in Au Bon Pain near George Washington University, sitting next to two undergrads about six inches away, and overheard a young man telling a young woman something I suppose he thought might impress her that I could not have made up:

HE: Well, my AP ceramics teacher was really great. He brought in some dildoes and we made a teapot.
SHE: That's...interesting.
HE: I'm taking this class now in cultural studies, and it's all about Jennifer Lopez's ass, how it's about identity, how she's not really Puerto Rican, she's a 3rd-generation American, and how her ass and what has happened to it reflects that identity...

"Tuition dollars at work, I guess," someone I know said to me, after we left.

Michelle Malkin on South Park and the Danish Cartoons

Here.

Libby v Bush?

Someone I know suggested that the latest news stories about "Scooter" Libby's legal case may indicate that the former staffer is not willing to fall on his sword for George W. Bush. Which might mean a crack in the famous "loyalty" of the White House staff. Which might lead to more interesting developments. I do remember that President Bush said something like he would investigate who leaked confidential information, and if he found out who, then he would fire the person. Well, if it was Bush--he really ought to resign...

UPDATE: Here are relevant quotes from WarandPiece.com:

Update II: Reader SS sends these quotes along:

"I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." [Bush Remarks: Chicago, Illinois, 9/30/03]


"The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." [White House Briefing, 9/29/03]
Uh huh.

Zorba's Wisdom

Saw Zorba the Greek with Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates last night. Was struck by the film's seriousness. Sort of grim. Tears under the laughter. Found this quote that sums it up, on an MIT Zorba page:

When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy-some call him God, others the Devil, seems to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.

Bush's "Sleaze Factor"

Bush promised to restore dignity to the Oval Office. Instead, his administration is making Bill Clinton look like Pollyanna. The latest sleazy news is of a Homeland Security p.r. official (I kid you not) arrested in a kiddie-sex internet sting. Before that, it was a domestic policy advisor in a fake-returns scam. Before that, Abramoff & Co. ripping off American Indians. Before that, "Heck of a job, Brownie!" Before that--torture memos. Not to mention Barbara Bush's donation to First Brother Neil's software company in the name of Katrina relief.

The resignation of Tom DeLay, like that of fellow Texan Jim Wright, puts a "Sleaze Factor" on the agenda for 2006 . If Democrats can't follow Newt Gingrich's playbook to retake at least one house of Congress by beating up on Republican arrogance and corruption--well, it doesn't bear thinking about...

Fallaci v. Rumsfeld

While browsing in a local Barnes and Noble bookstore today, I came across a copy of Oriana Fallaci's new book, sitting on a table. The Force of Reason,. I opened a page, began reading, and was struck at once by Fallaci's analysis of the current ideological conflict--one that differs from Donald Rumsfeld's point of view(scroll down):

I do not believe in moderate Islam. What moderate Islam? Is it enough not to cut heads off? Moderate Islam is another invention of ours.

There is not good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it...

The Paradox of Humanitarian Action

For research on an article about the role of NGOs in international relations, I've just started reading this interesting book by Fiona Terry, from Doctors Without Borders, called Condemned to Repeat: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action. I'll have more to say when I've finished it, but in the meantime, I thought that an interview with the author published on the organization's website gives some idea of the issues the author is wrestling with:

Q: What was your first experience in witnessing the manipulation or abuse of humanitarian operations?

At a political level, it was in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 when humanitarian action was deployed as the response to the terrible predicament of the Kurds at the hands of Saddam Hussein. The United States and its allies had encouraged the Kurds to rise up during the Gulf War but only offered them wheat flour as compensation for the violent repression that followed. Fearful that a massive influx of Kurds would destabilize Turkey, an important US ally, the would-be refugees were refused asylum and were lured back to their villages with humanitarian aid. Thus humanitarian action served as an alibi, giving governments an image of doing something to address the problem when in reality they did little to help the Kurds.

At a more direct level, it was in Somalia during the 1991-92 famine. While men, women and children starved to death, certain Somalis went to great lengths to steal food for their own use, including registering fictitious villages for distribution. Aid agencies were struggling to find the resources needed to feed hundreds of thousands of starving people, yet had to pay exorbitant fees to armed militias to protect them and their supplies.

But even at its worst, the abuse of humanitarian action in Somalia was not as bad as in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) when it was the aid - and only the aid - that sustained a regime and army responsible for perpetrating genocide.

Q: Would you please define what you describe as the "refugee-warrior" phenomenon in your book?

Refugees are generally fleeing some violence or oppression in their home country and seek asylum in a neighboring country. There some of them take up arms and use the refugee camps as rear-bases for guerrilla incursions against their home government. Although the notion of a refugee-warrior is a contradiction because combatants are not entitled to refugee status unless they put down their arms, in practice the refugee-warrior phenomenon has been widespread during the last 50 years. Refugee camps provide a good pool of potential recruits, many of who are understandably willing to take their future into their hands and try to return to their homeland by any means necessary. The camps provide protection against enemy reprisals as an attack on a refugee camp usually receives condemnation from the UN and its member states, and camps provide a whole host of resources such as food, money and medical supplies. The aid structures in the camps also provide mechanisms through which control can be exerted on the refugee population. And, by acting as interlocutors between the refugees and the aid organizations, combatants can gain legitimacy with the refugees as well as internationally by acting as the supposed representatives of the refugees.

Q: In your book you state that "do no harm," the common dictum among aid organizations, is an illusion. Why?

Because humanitarian assistance will always have some negative consequences even if these are not immediately visible to aid organizations. Aid will always generate some winners and some losers; in order to reach victims it is often necessary to work with and through rebel leaders or government officials who have blood all over their hands. Pretending that aid can actually be given without causing any harm is utopian. Moreover, it is counterproductive if we are to make hard-headed assessments about the relative good and harm of our actions and act accordingly.


Q: The 1990s term "complex emergency" with its implicit notion that humanitarian work is more complicated now than during the Cold War era is something that you discuss at length in your book. You feel that some humanitarian workers use this concept as an excuse for not learning (or wanting to learn) from past experiences, or more specifically, experiences that happened during the Cold War period. Why do you think that this is a mistake?

I think that too much emphasis has been placed on perceived changes in the context to explain the difficulties encountered in assisting victims of conflict, and not enough on the role of aid actors themselves. There are genuine changes in the nature of conflict in the post-Cold War world but these have coincided with the massive growth of the international aid regime, and the expansion of the field of intervention from the periphery of conflicts during the Cold War to the heart of conflicts in the 1990s. Aid is implicated in the dynamics of conflicts in most places but this is not a new phenomenon, and the dilemmas we face today are not more difficult than those of the past. I think that the choices aid organizations faced when trying to assist Cambodians along the Thai-Cambodian border and inside Cambodia in the 1980s were more difficult than most choices we have to make today. I think aid organizations too readily assume that what occurred in the "simple" past is not relevant to today's "complexities," and lament the complexities of contemporary crises as an excuse for their failings.

Q: In your book, you focus on four contexts where aid was manipulated to the benefit of combatants: the Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan (1980s), the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras, the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, and the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire (DRC). Do you think that there are similar situations happening now?

Absolutely. The Liberian refugee camps in Guinea are used as a base for opponents of Charles Taylor's government in Monrovia, and the Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania have long hosted rebel fighters.

But the worst case of the manipulation of humanitarian assistance in the world today is not taking place in a refugee camp but in a huge open prison that is called North Korea. Refugees who have managed to flee the country and hide in China say that food aid meant for famine victims is not getting to those who need it but is going to citizens deemed to be loyal to Kim Jong-il's regime. Refugee testimonies suggest that three million people died from starvation and related illnesses in 1995-1998 alone, and many continue to die today. I think it is scandalous that aid organizations continue to work in North Korea when the government does not allow them to conduct an independent needs assessment, freely distribute their aid or monitor and evaluate the impact of the aid. These are the minimum conditions necessary to assure that aid is reaching those in need and not those chosen by the regime. To participate in such discrimination opposes the fundamental idea of humanitarian action. It is terrible to think that North Koreans are starving to death while North Korea is the second largest recipient of food aid after Afghanistan. Until last year, it was the largest recipient. Aid organizations have a responsibility to know what is happening to their aid for the sake of the people in whose name they intervene. In North Korea they are collaborating with the regime, channeling aid through the same regime that is responsible for causing and perpetuating the famine.

You can buy a copy of Fiona Terry's book from Amazon.com.

Blogger Wins Blooker

This 'n That has this story about Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen from the London Telegraph:

The organisers of the Blooker Prize, Lulu.com, an American online print-on-demand publishing company, says it wants its prize - which is worth $2,000 (£1,140) to the winner - to become better known than the £50,000 British Booker Prize within five years.

By coincidence, Powell has a connection with the Booker. "The first-ever recipient of the Blooker Prize is the former nanny of the first-ever two-time recipient of the Booker Prize. I think that's kind of neat," she said yesterday

Eight years ago, Powell worked for 12 months as nanny to the family of Peter Carey, the Australian novelist, when they lived in Manhattan.

Carey's Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker in 1988 and he became a double-winner in 2001 with his novel, True History of the Kelly Gang. Powell, whose success has allowed her to buy a better New York apartment, said that the time and cost of her cookery marathon had put great strain on her marriage.

Child's recipes are elaborate, so working outside the house and then cooking often meant that dinner was not ready until after midnight. And the financial strain meant that she was grateful when several fans of her "blog" tracked down her address and sent small sums of money or ingredients through the post.

Powell said: "It was enough to get me through some quite tough times paying the rent. There are 12 recipes requiring a whole leg of lamb. Legs of lamb in New York are not cheap."

America's D/D+ in the Battle of Ideas

The Secretary of Defense graded himself on March 27th. From the transcript:

QUESTION:  Inaudible]. My question has to do with the war on terror as a war of ideology. The National Defense Strategy, QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review), talks about the war on terror having a significant component as a war of ideology. What do you think we're doing well with respect to the war of ideology, and what do you think we could do better?

            SECRETARY RUMSFELD:  If I were rating, I would say we probably deserve a D or D+ as a country as how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but we have not found the formula as a country.

            It's basically a struggle not between the West and Muslims. It's a struggle within the Muslim faith. There are a relatively small number of violent extremists and a very large number of moderates who do not believe in violent extremism in that faith. We're going to have to find ways that we can encourage and support those moderate voices because they're the ones who are in the struggle...

The Art Czar

Just got my review copy of Alice Goldfarb Marquis' new biography of critic Clement Greenberg. Full disclosure: Alice is a friend of mine, thanks to her book on the history of the NEA, Art Lessons. She has visited me in Washington and in Moscow, and I've visited her in San Diego. She mentions of my name in her acknowledgements. So, I'm biased.

That said, I already finished Chapter One. For a scholarly biography published by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, it sure is juicy... Love poetry, broken homes, drinking, Mary McCarthy dancing in a black leotard. Who knew?

I can hardly wait to see the movie. My pick for Greenberg: George Clooney.

Mark Steyn: Learn From the Australians

Mark Steyn explains why he thinks Australia is the country to follow (ht LGF):

If I had to propose a model for Western rhetoric, it would be the Australians. In the days after Sept. 11, the French got all the attention for that Le Monde headline -- "Nous sommes tous Americains" -- "We are all Americans," though they didn't mean it, even then. But John Howard, the Aussie prime minister, put it better and kept his word: "This is no time to be an 80 percent ally."

Marvelous. More recently, the prime minister offered some thoughts on the difference between Muslims and other immigrant groups. "You can't find any equivalent in Italian or Greek or Lebanese or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad," he said, stating the obvious in a way most political leaders can't quite bring themselves to do. "There is really not much point in pretending it doesn't exist."

Unfortunately, too many of his counterparts insist on pretending (at least to their citizenry) that it doesn't exist. What proportion of Western Muslims is hot for jihad? Five percent? Ten, 12 percent? Given that understanding this Pan-Islamist identity is critical to defeating it, why can't we acknowledge it honestly? "Raving on about jihad" is a line that meets what the law used to regard as the reasonable-man test: If you're watching news footage of a Muslim march promising to bring on the new Holocaust, John Howard's line fits.

Is it something in the water down there? Listen to Howard's Cabinet colleagues. Here's the Australian treasurer, Peter Costello, with advice for Western Muslims who want to live under Islamic law: "There are countries that apply religious or sharia law -- Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind. If a person wants to live under sharia law these are countries where they might feel at ease. But not Australia."

You don't say. Which is the point: Most Western government leaders don't say, and their silence is correctly read by a resurgent Islam as timidity. I also appreciated this pithy summation by my favorite foreigner minister, Alexander Downer: "Multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator." See Sudanese slaughter, Iranian nukes, the U.N.'s flop response to the tsunami, etc. It's a good thing being an Aussie Cabinet minister doesn't require confirmation by John Kerry and Joe Biden.

My worry is that the official platitudes in this new war are the equivalent of the Cold War chit-chat in its 1970s detente phase --when Willy Brandt and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter pretended the enemy was not what it was. Then came Ronald Reagan: It wasn't just the evil-empire stuff, his jokes were on the money, too. In their own depraved way, the Islamists are a lot goofier than the commies and a few gags wouldn't come amiss. If this is a "long war," it needs a rhetoric that can go the distance. And the present line fails that test.

Tom DeLay Resigns

Today's Washington Post has the story:

The decision came three days after Tony C. Rudy, his former deputy chief of staff, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges, telling federal prosecutors of a criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices. Rudy's plea agreement did not implicate DeLay in any illegal activities, but by placing the influence-buying efforts of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff directly in DeLay's operation, the former aide may have made an already difficult reelection bid all but out of reach.

The Immigration Crisis

I haven't blogged on this, because I really can see both sides of the dilemma. The issue of immigration has been a perennial source of conflict in American history. Probably whatever compromise is worked out by Congress will need to be revisited in a few years. Both Democrats and Republicans are divided, for good reasons.

There are no easy answers to the immigration problem, only tradeoffs.

Gators 73, Bruins 57

The better team won...

March Madness: Gators v. Bruins

USA Today favors Florida over UCLA. I don't know enough about basketball to have an opinion.

But I'm a Bruin alumnus, and the family of someone I know are all Gators...

So, I'll just say: "May the best team win."

Cuban Rhumba Queens!

Our friend Agustin Blazquez just released his new movie:

RUMBERAS CUBANAS/ CUBAN RUMBA QUEENS
directed & edited by Agustin Blazquez
produced & distributed by www.CubaCollectibles.com

Rumberas Cubanas Vol 1.

 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS.

This is a compilation of 40 musical numbers (1942-1959) and is an homage to the memory of this great star of Spanish language films.

Born Maria Antonieta Pons in Havana, Cuba, on June 11, 1922, she was discovered by the Mexican film producer, Juan Orol, who became her first husband. Her debut was in the made-in-Cuba film "Siboney" (1938). Soon she became a famous star participating in 53 more films until her retirement in 1965. She was one of the stars that helped to define the "rumbera films" genre. Characteristic of this genre are melodramatic stories about seductresses, fallen women and especially the musical numbers they performed in cabaret scenes. Pons was one of the stars that with her extravagant costumes and wild rumba dancing earned the nickname "Tropical Queens" and created a style that lasted into the 50s. Her second husband was Ramon Pereda who produced and directed some of her films.

Without a doubt this can be one of the most unique DVDs in your collection.

Price: $19.75
Click: http://www.cubacollectibles.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=C&Product_Code=108-RC1

Are Freelance Writers Expendable?

David Paulin blogs that one underreported angle of the Jill Carroll story is about Big Media exploitation of freelance writers (ht LGF):

The public hasn't a clue about what's going on. The average reader would never suspect Carroll's freelance status by looking at her byline in The Christian Science Monitor or other publications for which she wrote. Most would assume she was part of the paper's foreign staff.

In Iraq and elsewhere, Carroll was part of what might be called a three-tier system of news gathering; it enables news outlets to cut cost and boost profits, all while delivering a credible product.

Staff reporters are in the top tier. They earn decent salaries and get a variety of benefits. Next are freelancers along with "contract" reporters. Freelancers are paid per article; contract reporters get a salary but one that's probably below what a staff reporter gets. There are no benefits. And as many editors will tell new contract reporters, they're responsible for paying their taxes when living abroad (wink, wink). I say this based on my own experience as a contact reporter in Jamaica for the Associated Press. I worked there for a few months in 2001, until leaving after a row with a news editor.

On the bottom rung are news assistants or "fixers" who, in places like Iraq, are Iraqis. They may set up interviews and help with translation; they'll serve as guides and may even do a bit of reporting despite limited journalism training. In Iraq, they've become vital. That's especially so for the Associated Press, whose staff reporters tend to stay holed up in the safety of their offices in the U.S.-controlled "Green Zone."

Not surprisingly, Iraqi fixers are taking the bulk of the risk, and doing most of the dying. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, more than 20 news assistants have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq since 2003(www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_stats.html), including 20 Iraqis and one Lebanese. During the same period, 55 journalists have been killed in the performance of their jobs -- 65 percent or 36 of whom were Iraqis. Only two were Americans. Nine were from Europe and the rest form other countries including the Middle East, according to SPJ

That Iraqi fixers or news assistants are dying in the greatest numbers is another of the news media's dirty little secrets. Like freelancers and contract reporters, they generally work without benefits or insurance; there are just a handful of exceptions. Yet they are at the greatest risks because of Iraq's sectarian and political violence; not to mention widespread Internet access, which exposes fixers to retaliation when stories they played a part in are posted on media web sites.

Last August, Steven Vincent, an American freelance journalist who wrote for several conservative publications, was kidnapped with his translator, Nour Itais. Vincent was shot to death; Nour shot and left for dead. The incident occurred just three days after Vincent had published an Op-Ed in The New York Times criticizing the increasing infiltration of the Basran police force by Islamic extremists.

When put within a certain context, there is more than just a little hypocrisy here. What, after all, would happen if the news media in Iraq learned U.S. military commanders were sending Afro-American and Hispanic soldiers on its most dangers missions -- while keeping white troops confined to secure bases? Such a revelation would ignite a journalistic feeding frenzy. On the other hand, there's little if any public soul searching by the media in respect to its relationship to its fixers and freelancers.

Pollyanna

I missed Pollyanna on Masterpiece Theatre, when it aired in 2004 and 2005. But I caught it last night, and it really was a masterpiece...

Interestingly, it seemed to have a lesson about how to deal with depression, something I never heard about in discussions of the story. Of course, I never read the book, nor did I see the Disney version with Haley Mills. But last night, Pollyanna appeared like a psychotherapist for a number of depressed, isolated, and lonely people. There was nothing "Pollyanna-ish" about the her. She was serious, thoughtful, and moving.

This production for Carlton television, written by Simon Nye, directed by Sarah Harding, and produced by Trevor Hopkins was well done in all respects. The acting was just right. The whole cast played their parts to perfection: Amanda Burton as Aunt Polly, Kate Ashfield as Nancy, Kenneth Cranham as Mr. Pendleton, Aden Gillett as Dr. Chilton, et al. And most wonderful of all was Georgina Terry as the little girl who had to cope with life alone after her mother and father had died. Her courage, pluck, and determination to overcome whatever obstacles life threw in her path were inspiring.

"I laughed, I cried..." is an old cliche. But in this case, true.

Five stars.

Russia Fears American Nuclear Attack

Today's Washington Post runs reporter Peter Finn's account of Russia's fear of a new Cold War, sparked by comments from President Bush about nuclear first-strikes, and an agressive Council on Foreign Relations report:

MOSCOW -- In this city, it's beginning to feel like a new Cold War, driven by what many people here see as an old American impulse: to encircle, weaken or even destroy Russia, just as the country is emerging from post-Soviet ruins as a cohesive, self-confident and global power.

The specter of a U.S. nuclear first strike even resurfaced this month. An article in Foreign Affairs magazine, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that the United States could hit Russia and China without serious risk of retaliation. That sent heads spinning here with visions of Dr. Strangelove.

"The publication of these ideas in a respectable American journal has had an explosive effect," former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar wrote in an article in London's Financial Times newspaper. "Even those Russian journalists and analysts who are not prone to hysteria or anti-Americanism took it as an outline of the official position of the U.S. Administration."

I wonder whether provoking confrontation with Russia, while America is bogged down militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan--as well as diplomatically in Iran--is a smart move at this time...

Jill Carroll's Statement

Her written statement retracting earlier videotaped statements, in The Christian Science Monitor:

During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.

More info at Wikipedia.

April Fish!

The French call April 1 Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish." French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered...

What Does Russia Want?

That seems to be the $64,000 question these days, as US-Russian tensions appear to be growing.

At last as far as Central Asia goes, there's at least a partial answer in a recent article in Moscow's English-language foreign-policy journal Russia in Global Affairs, by Stanislav Chernyavsky, Deputy Director of the 1st Department of the CIS Countries of the Foreign Ministry of Russia:

Russia’s strategy in Central Asia must take into account not only the increased differentiation of the post-Soviet space, but also potential conflicts of interests between Russia and other actors in the region. The worst-case scenario of developments may include the destabilization and breakup of the existing secular regimes, the coming to power of religious extremists, and the emergence of interstate conflicts.

The transformation of the region into a new field of confrontation is not in Russia’s interests. Gien the specificity of the present level of Russian-U.S. relations, Moscow must pursue a reasonable and clear-cut foreign policy and require that Washington make its military actions transparent and predictable. Considering the two countries’ common struggle against terror, Washington must share its plans with Russia in advance. Russian businesses would benefit from their joint participation with U.S. companies in the development and implementation of large economic projects.

Another major foreign-policy reserve for Russia is the further development of its interaction with China on Central Asian issues. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for example, whose organizational and legal formation is approaching the final stage, allows for Russian-Chinese cooperation to play a restraining role with regard to U.S. actions that are against Russian interests.

The Russian strategy must rest on sound pragmatism stemming from the country’s relatively limited foreign-policy resources. These resources must concentrate on key areas, above all, on security, the creation of favorable conditions for economic growth, and the protection of the rights of Russian citizens and ethnic Russians living in the region. Therefore, mutual readiness for cooperation and genuine respect for each other’s interests must become a major criterion of relations between Russia and its Central Asian partners.

From the above, it seems clear that Russia says that it seeks partnership with the United States in Central Asia, not confrontation.

Remembering Jill Carroll's Translator

A statement by Christian Science Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim:

I hope you'll pause with me also to think of Allan Enwiyah, Jill's translator, who was murdered when Jill was kidnapped. Over these past months his life has been honored by many, and a special fund exists to give support to his family.

Will the Christian Science Monitor now demand that Allan Enwiyah's killers be brought to justice?

BTW, Editor and Publisher has something on the question of ransom and negotiations with Jill Carroll's kidnappers, including this quote:

"There are indications that [the demand] was for money, but we don't know if any changed hands," said Steve Butler, Knight Ridder foreign editor who had been in touch with his reporters in Baghdad today. He said learning too much about what occurred behind the scenes could be harmful. "These things are sometimes better left unresolved," he added. "It could harm the next one or close off options in the future if too much is known."

Knight-Ridder, defending the American public's right not to know...

Jill Carroll Speaks

If this report from Middle East Online is true, what Jill Carroll told Arab audiences sounds different from what she is telling the American media:

In a late Thursday video footage, whose authenticity could not be verified, Carroll in an interview with her kidnappers before her release was seen praising Iraq's insurgents and even predicted their victory over the coalition forces.

"I think the mujahideen are very smart and even with all the technology and all the people that the American army has here, they still are better at knowing how to live and work here, more clever," Carroll said in answer to a question posed by one of her kidnappers.

Asked what she meant, Carroll, who was snatched from a Baghdad street on January 7, answered: "It makes very clear that the mujahideen are the ones that will win in the end."

The video showed her dressed in the same baggy clothes she was seen wearing after her release.

The interviewer then asked Carroll if she had a message for US President George W. Bush.

She smiled before saying: "He needs to stop this war. He knows this war is wrong ... He needs to finally admit that to the American people and make the troops go home."

Carroll then said she felt guilty being set free while many women remained imprisoned at Baghdad's US-run Abu Ghraib prison.

"It shows the difference between the mujahedeen and the Americans, it shows the mujahedeen are good people fighting an honourable fight while the Americans are here as an occupying force treating the people in a very bad way," she said.

PS I see there's more on this at littlegreenfootballs.

John Fund on the Yale Taliban (cont'd)

From Opinion Journal.

Jill Carroll Freed

Was a ransom paid, or other deal made, for her release? This news story doesn't say.

Blogging will be spotty for a while..

My apologies, but due to having to take care of some personal business, I'm not able to blog quite as much as before. I'd like to post every day, but it may be every few days for a little while...

Andrew McCarthy on Abdul Rahman

Via Benador Associates:

You reap what you sow. What is happening in Afghanistan (and in Iraq) is precisely what we bought on to when we actively participated in the drafting of constitutions which — in a manner antithetical to the development of true democracy — ignored the imperative to insulate the civil authority from the religious authority, installed Islam as the state religion, made sharia a dominant force in law, and expressly required that judges be trained in Islamic jurisprudence. To have done all those things makes outrage at today's natural consequences ring hollow.

We can pull our heads up from the sand now and say, "No, no, no! We're nice people. We didn't mean it that way. That's too uncivilized to contemplate." But the inescapable truth is: the United States made a calculated decision that it wasn't worth our while to fight over Islamic law (indeed, we encouraged it as part of the political solution). People who objected (like moi) were told that we just didn't grasp the cultural dynamic at work. I beg to differ — we understood it only too well.

Islamic law does not consider conviction, imprisonment, or death for apostasy to be an affront to civilization. That's the way it is.

Mark Steyn on Abdul Rahman

Via SteynOnline:

Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book Islam And The West, Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Koran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid."

Or as the shrewd Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those blood-curdling imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.

I can understand why the president and the secretary of state would rather deal with this through back-channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies.

Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet. What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

Amir Taheri: Iran Need Not Be Israel's Enemy

After watching Syriana this afternoon, through a link on Wikipedia I found Amir Taheri's review of the film at Benador Associate's website, which led to finding this interesting analysis by the Iranian-born writer and editor:

Yes, the anti-Israeli discourse of Iran's rulers is as virulent as that of Hamas and other Palestinian radical groups. But that discourse is partly prompted by the regime's desire to hide its Shiite identity so that it can claim the leadership of radical Islam, both Shiite and Sunni.

In fact, regardless of who rules in Tehran, Israel and Iran have common strategic interests.

If Israel had never appeared on the map, the energy of pan-Arab nationalism movement, which dominated Arab politics in the post-war era, would have been directed against two other neighbors: Turkey and Iran. To a certain extent, it was anyway. Even today, the Arab League claims that the Turkish province of Iskanderun is "usurped Arab territory" and regards the Iranian province of Khuzestan as "occupied Arab land."

And Arab Sunni Islamism is an even more deadly threat to Iran. It was Arab Sunni Islamism that destroyed the Shiite holy shrines in Iraq in 1802, and returned last month to do so again in Samarra. The same movement is behind the cold-blooded murder of several thousand Iraqi Shiite men, women and children since 2004.

To Arab Sunni Islamists, Iranians are gabrs (Zoroastrians); Shiites, including Arab ones, are rafidis (heretics) who must be "re-converted" or put to death.

Both pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Arab Sunni Islamism are as much mortal foes for Iran as they are for Israel. Neither nation will be safe unless the twin monsters are defeated and the Arab states democratized.

For me, Syriana was an intersting film because at least it was about something serious, so I'm prepared to forgive its flaws, of which it has many.

The biggest credibility problem with Syriana's storyline appears to be that the CIA missile aimed at the Emir hits its target--something that didn't take place in the case of Mohmmar Qadaffi, Saddam Hussein, or Osama Bin Laden. As Taheri says:

The CIA masters, for their part, would be pleased with "Syriana" if only because it claims that they can do anything at all!

Some Good News at the State Department

Ukrainian websites report that US Ambassador John Herbst has been promoted to head the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization at Foggy Bottom. Herbst was ambassador to Uzbekistan while I was in Tashkent, and I thought he did a good job. Of course, I could be biased, because he met with my students twice--once in my apartment and once at his home. Still, I was impressed that he appeared to listen to what they had to say, and respond intelligently to their criticisms of American policies.

Herbst served as American ambassador to Kyiv during the Orange Revolution, and I think it may be at least in part thanks to his efforts that "color revolution" did not result in bloodshed, looting or chaos--something that can't be said for other American "democracy promotion" efforts...

Michelle Malkin on the Abdul Rahman Rally

On MichelleMalkin.com.

Madeleine Albright on the Clash of Civilizations

Her LA Times Op-Ed reads like she's channelling Samuel Huntington (though his name is never mentioned):

In the long term, the future of the Middle East may well be determined by those in the region dedicated to the hard work of building democracy. I certainly hope so. But hope is not a policy. In the short term, we must recognize that the region will be shaped primarily by fairly ruthless power politics in which the clash between good and evil will be swamped by differences between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Arab and Kurd, Kurd and Turk, Hashemite and Saudi, secular and religious and, of course, Arab and Jew. This is the world, the president pledges in his National Security Strategy, that "America must continue to lead." Actually, it is the world he must begin to address — before it is too late.

Who Is Lukashenko?

Konstantin's Russian Blog paints a different portrait of the president of Belarus and his opposition:

1. Opposition in Belorus has nothing to offer to an ordinary person. They can only appeal to "capitalists" so to say who could make much more money without Lukashenko or to youth who sincerely believe that only Lukashenko is guilty they cannot become filth rich "capitalists" right now.

2. Lukashenko always points an accusing finger to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgystan or Moldova saying, "Look! Those idiots believed in a Western-type democracy! What did they get? Total chaos, poverty, inequality, corruption and wars. We are poorer economically than Russia but we live better." Opposition has no arguments here.

3. Opposition in Belorus is anti-Russian. Actually Western NGO's all over post-Soviet sphere subsidize ONLY anti-Russian opposition. No exceptions. This is a great mistake. The same as being anti-Semitic in Israel.

Even More on the Yale Taliban

From the Wall Street Journal(ht Roger L Simon):

In 2002, Yale received a letter from Paula Nirschel, the founder of the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women. The purpose of the organization, begun in that year, was to match young women in post-Taliban Afghanistan to U.S. colleges, where they could pursue a degree. Ms. Nirschel asked Yale if it wanted to award a spot in its next entering class to an Afghan woman. Yale declined.

Yale was not alone. Of the more than 2,000 schools contacted by Mrs. Nirschel, only three signed up right away: Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, Notre Dame College in New Hampshire and the University of Montana, Missoula. Four years later, the program enrolls 20 students at 10 universities...

FDR's Four Freedoms

FDR's own words, from January 6, 1941from Libertynet.org:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look
forward to a world founded upon four essential human
freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere
in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his
own way-- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world
terms, means economic understandings which will secure to
every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants
--everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into
world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to
such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation
will be in a position to commit an act of physical
aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the wold.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite
basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and
generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of
the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators
seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

By my count, Islamist extremism violates three of the four freedoms by definition. Therefore any support for Islamist individuals, parties or organizations is not compatible with expanding freedom or democracy.

Obviously, Islamism is the latest "'new order' of tyrrany which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb," to use FDR's eloquent turn of phrase.

Here's a link to Norman Rockwell's pictures of the Four Freedoms.

Still More on the Yale Taliban

John Fund isn't dropping the ball:

Mr. Hashemi probably won't be attending Ms. Joya's lecture tonight. He has dodged reporters for three weeks, ever since his presence at Yale was revealed in a cover story in the New York Times Magazine. Some claim he has fully repented his Taliban past, but in his sole recent interview--with the Times of London--he acknowledged he'd done poorly in his class "Terrorism: Past, Present and Future," attributing that to his disgust with the textbooks: "They would say the Taliban were the same as al Qaeda." At the same time, Mr. Hashemi won't explain an essay he wrote late last year in which he called Israel "an American al Qaeda" aimed at the Arab world. When asked about the Taliban's public executions in Kabul's soccer stadium, he quipped: "There were also executions happening in Texas."

Given his record as a Taliban apologist, Mr. Hashemi has told friends he is stunned Yale didn't look more closely into his curriculum vitae. "I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay," he told the New York Times. So how did he end up in the Ivy League? Questions start at the State Department's door. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee's border security panel, has asked the State Department and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to explain exactly how Mr. Hashemi got an F-1 student visa. Yale's decision tree is clearer. Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions until he took the same post at Stanford last year, told the New York Times that Yale had another foreigner of Mr. Hashemi's caliber apply but "we lost him to Harvard" and "I didn't want that to happen again." Mr. Shaw won't return phone calls now, but emails he's exchanged with others offer insights into his thinking.

The day after the New York Times profile appeared, Haym Benaroya, a professor at Rutgers, wrote to Mr. Shaw expressing disbelief that Mr. Hashemi, who has a fourth-grade education and a high school equivalency certificate, could be at Yale. Mr. Shaw replied that he indeed had "non-traditional roots [and] very little formal education but personal accomplishments that had significant impact." Mr. Benaroya was stupefied; did Mr. Shaw mean accomplishments that had a "positive impact, not terroristic and totalitarian impact"? Mr. Shaw responded: "Correct, and potential to make a positive difference in seeking ways towards peace and democracy. An education is a way toward understanding the complex nuances of world politics."

Richard Pipes on Russian Conservatism

Just saw Richard Pipes' book on Russia reviewed in the UK Spectator. It looked interesting, but the Spectator is password protected--so here's a link to the Yale University Press catalog description:

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: "Beginning with an insightful study of the origins of Russian statehood in the Middle Ages, when the state grew out of the princely domain but was not distinguished from it, Russian Conservatism and Its Critics includes a masterful survey of Russia?s major conservative thinkers and demonstrates how conservatism is the dominant intellectual legacy of Russia. Pipes examines the geographical, historical, political, military, and social realities of the Russian empire--fundamentally unchanged by the Revolution of 1917--that have traditionally convinced its rulers and opinion leaders that decentralizing political authority would inevitably result in the country's disintegration. Pipes has written a brilliant thesis and analysis of a hitherto overlooked aspect of the Russian intellectual tradition that continues to have significance to this day."

Michelle Malkin: Rally for Abdul Rahman

Noon tomorrow, at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, DC.

Daniel Pipes on Bush's National Security Strategy

Daniel Pipes says George Bush's strategy is missing something:

The report minimizes the threat of radical Islam via the fiction that a "proud religion" has been "twisted and made to serve an evil." Not so: Islamism is a deeply grounded and widely popular version of Islam, as shown by election results from Afghanistan to Algeria. Reliable opinion polls are lacking from majority-Muslim countries but repeated surveys in Britain give some idea of the harrowingly extremist attitudes of its Muslim population: 5 % of them support the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London and say more such attacks are justified; 20% have sympathy with the feelings and motives of the July 7 attackers and believe that suicide attacks against the military in Britain can be justified. These results are probably typical of Muslim populations globally, as recent polls of Indonesians and Palestinian Arabs confirms.

The NSS omits any mention of Turkey and Bangladesh and it refers to Saudi Arabia only in passing, suggesting that the Islamist leadership in these states poses no particular concern. The administration's grievous error in helping a terrorist organization, Hamas, reach power in January 2006 is glossed over with soothing words ("The opportunity for peace and statehood … is open if Hamas will abandon its terrorist roots and change its relationship with Israel").

Thus does the NSS accurately reflect the yin and yang of the Bush administration's Middle East policy: a much-needed, relentless focus on the region's sick political culture and the threats it poses to Americans, mixed with an insouciance that current policies are just fine, thank you, everything is on track, and problems – Iraq, terrorism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular – will soon enough be resolved.

More on the Yale Taliban

From John Fund, in the Wall Street Journal.

Anatol Levien: Stop Bashing Russia

From The Los Angeles Times (ht Johnson's Russia List):

To ordinary Russians, Western-sponsored "democracy" meant watching helplessly while "liberal" elites looted the country and transferred vast fortunes to Western banks, to the profit of Western economies.

Harvard University, for example, is very belatedly investigating the conduct of professor Andrei Shleifer, who allegedly profited corruptly from a U.S. government-sponsored Russian privatization project on which he was an advisor. Shleifer was long protected by Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who as President Clinton's Treasury secretary himself helped push Russia's monstrous variant of privatization. If U.S. scholars are — rightly — outraged by the Shleifer case, imagine how ordinary Russians feel.

Because Putin is seen as having ended the post-Soviet decade of chaos, looting and national humiliation; because he has presided over rising living standards; and yes, because he has stood up to the West, he currently has the support of a large majority of Russians.

By contrast, the Russian "democrats" Washington favors have no chance whatsoever of winning a free election. Moreover, the more ardently we support them, the more unpopular they become. Excessive Western criticism of Putin, far from strengthening Russian democracy, angers ordinary Russians and risks driving them further toward chauvinistic nationalism.

Yet Washington still seems to not understand the consequences of its disastrous Russia policies of the 1990s. Hypocritical and extreme anti-Russian attitudes are not confined to old-style Cold Warriors such as Cheney but are widely held among the nation's foreign policy elite. They are on display in a report on the U.S.-Russia relationship just issued by a bipartisan task force of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 76 pages of hectoring criticism of Russia, there is not one suggestion that any U.S. action toward Russia has been in any way wrong or harmful.

The American Thinker on Walt & Mearsheimer

Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky take apart a recent article by Harvard and University of Chicago professors of political science published in the London Review of Books (ht LGF)

But guilt by association is part and parcel of the Walt approach.  For this noxious paper is designed above all to taint the efforts by any Americans to support a strong US-Israel relationship, a bipartisan effort that has won overwhelming American support for many decades.  Much as they try, this article will be unpersuasive in convincing Americans that our real national interest lies with cozying up with Saudi Arabia, and abandoning Israel. And much as they claim their approach is motivated only by the national interest, something uglier is at work here. When something walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, usually it is a duck. Walt and Mearsheimer have decided to navigate the waters of the Israel-hating, Jew-hating  conspiracy theorists.  There is a good reason for this. They seem comfortable in these waters.

A Belated Happy International Women's Day

We missed this celebration--my second favorite in the former USSR--because of our personal crisis. Konstantin's Russian Blog has a good post on its meaning, here. This paragraph about Russian educational theories might make interesting reading to former Harvard president Lawrence Summers:

One of the things that surprised me greatly at American universities was that so few women (almost all of them foreigners) study engineering, accounting or medicine. I thought that American women, being so feministic, would love to study engineering. At school we were always told by our teachers that girls are better at mathematics and chemistry than boys.

Happy Navruz!

It was my favorite holiday in Uzbekistan: Navruz--the Zoarastrian New Year, a legacy of the Persian Empire. Here's a website devoted to the annual festival of rebirth at Orexca.com. The green mixture seen in the cauldron above is made from new green grass and sugar, and symbolizes a sweet new year...

Integrate the Military and the Academy

Sick of Red v. Blue?

Will Marshall of the Progessive Policy Institute argues that a nation divided against itself cannot stand, and calls for putting more Democrats in the miliitary as well as more Republicans in the universities:

Since the draft ended in 1973, the U.S. military has become one of the nation's most conservative and rock-ribbed Republican bastions. Around the same time, New Left activists began storming the ramparts of higher education, moving universities sharply to the left. As a result, these two ostensibly nonpartisan institutions now define opposing poles on the contemporary political spectrum.

Each institution harbors a particular set of mores and beliefs that doesn't mesh easily with the other's. The U.S. military is the repository for the stern martial virtues of honor, valor, nationalism, discipline, and self-sacrifice. The academy is the wellspring of the postmodern values of personal autonomy, self-expression, cultural diversity, and profound skepticism of authority of any kind.

In the barracks, where televisions are usually tuned to Fox News, military personnel are socialized to view liberals as unpatriotic twits. On campuses, anti-war and anti-military attitudes remain de rigeur. More than three decades after the Vietnam War ended, some elite colleges still ban ROTC programs. And a coalition of law schools has gone to court to keep military recruiters off their campuses, as a way of protesting the Pentagon's policies toward gays.

Yet there is nothing natural or inevitable about antagonism between the military and the academy. Before the tumult of the 1960s, many U.S. universities were staid places more likely to be roiled by fraternity pranks than sit-ins. Mass conscription, begun in World War II and continued through the first half of the Cold War, ensured that the military faithfully mirrored U.S. society, with its dominant New Deal coalition and "natural" Democratic majority.

The Battle of Lookout Mountain

Our drive home took us through Chattanooga, home of NY Times publisher Adolf S. Ochs' Chattanooga Times and Lookout Mountain, where we visited the site of the "Battle Above the Clouds" that turned the tide of the Civil War in favor of the Union Army in November, 1863. From Craven's house, you could see the strategic significance of Chattanooga, and understand the city's role as General Sherman's supply and logistics center for his famous "March to the Sea."

The Pensacola Opera

On a lighter note, during our absence we attended a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Pensacola Opera in Pensacola's historic Saenger Theatre, originally built as an "Opera House" and vaudeville stage. The staging was good, the singing terrific, and the orchestra didn't hit a wrong note. We had a wonderful time, and can recommend it to anyone visiting the Gulf Coast. Bravo!

Afghan Faces Death Penalty in Conversion Case

Michelle Malkin says this news story deserves more attention.The case of an Afghan Christian facing the death penalty for apostasy--required under Islamic law--exposes some problems Islamism poses for democracy.

One of FDR's Four Freedoms was Freedom of Religion. Another was Freedom from Fear. Yet Islamic law prohibits free exercise of religion, and enforces this under penalty of death--that is, only through fear.

Still Offline...

Looks like it might be another week or so...

Offline

FYI, I'll be offline for a while, for personal reasons. Check back in a week or so...

Condoleezza Rice's Fitness Video

Watch it here.

Bush Will Go To Pakistan

Despite the recent bomb blasts that killed an American diplomat:

"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Bush told reporters. His national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said there was evidence the U.S. diplomat had been targeted.

Pakistani officials said the bombing could have been timed for Bush's two-day visit.

Was Iran Behind Tashkent Rabbi's Murder?

Judith Apter Klinghoffer says, on History News Network, that there may be an Iranian connection to the recent murder of a rabbi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan:

The International Sephardic Leadership Council's official response blames IRAN:

The destruction of the Tajikistan synagogue last week was the most disgraceful act committed by a sovereign state toward its Jewish population since the end of WWII. Now, a suspicious murder of the leader of the sister Jewish community, only 4 hours away, raises concern that the Jews may be being targeted. We have heard, through official channels, that Iran may be involved with stirring up trouble in the region, and to that extent, we hope a full and fair investigation will be opened.

That is, indeed, the very least we should insist on.

Russia Demands Berezovsky From UK

Bloomberg News says he's charged with plotting an armed coup against Putin, based on statements he made in an Echo Moskvy radio interview. On the eve of the G-8 summit, it looks like Russia is playing "hardball" with the industrialized nations. It is doubtful that Her Majesty will turn over the former Oligarch:

Berezovsky celebrated his 60th birthday in January with a party at Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill's birthplace, outside London, Kommersant reported. The extravaganza featured an ice sculpture representing St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, coated with black caviar.

The guests included fellow Russian millionaire exile Vladimir Gusinsky, the newspaper reported.

The Railway, A Novel From Uzbekistan

NewEurasia.net reports on Hamid Ismailov's new novel, The Railway, written in the tradition of Chingiz Aitmatov's The Day Lasts More Than a Thousand Years

Set in Uzbekistan between 1900 and 1980, The Railway introduces to us the inhabitants of the small town of Gilas on the ancient Silk Route.

Their colourful lives offer a unique and comic picture of a little-known land populated by outgoing Mullahs, incoming Bolsheviks, and a plethora of Uzbeks, Russians, Persians, Jews, Koreans, Tartars and Gypsies.

Rich and picaresque, The Railway is full of colour. Fusing literary sophistication with a naive delight in storytelling, it chronicles the dramatic changes felt throughout Central Asia in the twentieth century.

AEI Discusses Russian NGO Law

Yesterday, Leon Aron moderated an all-star panel at the American Enterprise Institute on the implications of Russia's new NGO law. No one actually defended the law. Ntalia Bourjaily and Andrew Kuchins (below) detailed problems the new law posed for American-supported NGOs working in the former USSR. On the other hand, Nikolas Gvosdev (below) said the letter of the law was not as significant as how the Russian government would interpret the law, and that NGO concerns were not pressing at this time for a rising Russian middle-class just beginning to enjoy personal freedoms of travel, consumption, and lifestyle. He predicted that many non-political NGOs would not be affected, so that the impact of the law would be mostly felt by political activists, and attention must be paid to how they are affected. Maureen Greenwood (below) presented dramatic examples of NGOs targeted by the Russian government today.Unfortunately for Amnesty International, Greenwood's chosen example of a victim of the Russian NGO crackdown seems to be the case of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, now hbeing arrassed for publishing articles by the late Chechen terrorist leader Aslan Maskhadov in its magazine. Although Greenwood described his articles as "non-violent," Maskhadov is to Russia what Osama Bin Laden is to the USA. It is doubtful that an "American-Al Qaeda Friendship Society" would be permitted to operate in the context of the War on Terror (any more than the German-American Bund was permitted to operate during World War II). If Amnesty International, once known for a commitment to non-violent prisoners of conscience, has now decided to champion violent Islamist terrorists like Maskhadov, one would have to question why anyone in America--let alone Russia--would want to to support its efforts. And led this observer to question why Maureen Greenwood, who edited the 250-page report Anti-Semitism in the Former Soviet Union, 1995-1997, didn't discuss the existence of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism among Islamist Chechens--examples such as this 2002 report by Lev Gorodetsky of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A leaflet distributed recently in Chechnya stoked Jewish concern with the comment: "The Chechen people are continuing their great jihad by clearing the fatherland from Russian occupiers, servants of the world's Jews."

You can watch a video of the event, here.

Roger L. Simon's Oscar Picks

Picture - Brokeback Mountain
Actor - Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Actress - Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Director - Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Original screenplay - Paul Haggis - Crash
Adapted screenplay - Larry McMurty & Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain

More picks here...

Vladimir Bukovsky: EU May Become New USSR

The Soviet dissident told Brussels Journal that the EU project is dangerous and should now be stopped:

It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes – two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb]. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes. I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.

Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures. Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up.

It looks like we are living in a period of rapid, systematic and very consistent dismantlement of democracy. Look at this Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. It makes ministers into legislators who can introduce new laws without bothering to tell Parliament or anyone. My immediate reaction is why do we need it? Britain survived two world wars, the war with Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, not to mention the Cold War, when we were told at any moment we might have a nuclear world war, without any need for introducing this kind legislation, without the need for suspending our civil liberaties and introducing emergency powers. Why do we need it right now? This can make a dictatorship out of your country in no time.

Patrick Ross: Empower Artists to Aid Culture

Patrick Ross of the Progress and Freedom Foundation takes Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture. to task for his campaign against author's rights, such as copyright:

Now it may be in the self-interest of the Type C downloader to obtain "niche" content at no cost. But the vast majority of artists on Anderson's curve are on the "long tail" not at the head of the demand curve. Free Culture defenders like to cite how the Internet has changed things. Here is an example of true change resulting from the Internet; the ability of niche artists to profit from their work, even when it isn't mainstream. For respected scholars to argue that depriving a creator of potential revenue for her work is "harmless to the artist" shows a true disrespect to all artists, and a dangerous compulsion to put the desires of the masses ahead of the rights of individuals.

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USSR Plotted Pope's Murder

Drudge headlines this Reuters story on Italy's finding that the USSR was behind the attempt on Pope John Paul II.

They might have added that Pope John Paul II--more successfully--plotted and executed the end of the USSR.

In the end, the Pope won (with a little help from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher), and the USSR lost.

Something we can celebrate today.

Ann Coulter's Oscar Predictions

Ann says Brokeback Mountain's a favorite for almost everything, then adds:

As a final prediction, for the second year, there will be no mention of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was brutally murdered by an angry Muslim a little over a year ago on the streets of Amsterdam. (Now that's blacklisted!)

Cat Curfews in Europe

To fight the bird flu epidemic, European countries have passed restrictions on the freedom of cats, reports the London Times.

New Sisyphus: Bush's PC War

The retired US State Department official who blogs as New Sisyphus explains the failure of the Bush Doctrine:

Bush lied. Not enough people died.
When President Bush made the case for the War on Terror, it was made in the context of the two main speeches quoted at length above, which constituted the beginning of what has become to be known as the Bush Doctrine. Conservatives signed on to that war effort because conservatives were persuaded that Bush's diagnosis of the problem and intended solution was correct.

From the beginning, I've had reservations about Bush's commitment to the so-called Bush Doctrine. While the initial job--dismantling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan--was approached properly, it also seemed to me that the Administration wanted to win that war on the cheap, expending other people's blood. Conservatives may shake with anger when Senator Kerry charges that Bin Laden got away because we sub-contracted out the fighting at Tora Bora, and I understand that. Kerry is not the man to carry such a charge. However, I think the real reason it resonates so badly is because it is true.

Afghanistan should have been invaded and occupied by a very large all-American army. Unlawful combatants, including Taliban spokesmen, should have been summarily shot, as is proper under both international law and the law of warfare as it has evolved. The war should have gone through Pakistan, laying to waste a government and a country that was the Taliban's main enablers. The entire area should have been laid to waste, destroyed completely and utterly; and then, having delivered the short, sharp punic lesson, we should have withdrawn en masse.

I thought so then, I think so now. Instead, what we got was PC cant about how we were "liberating" the Afghans. What was sold as an unrelenting war instead became a long-term occupation, with us playing at teaching a traditional, hide-bound Muslim society about multi-culturalism, tolerance, love, peace and harmony. We installed a government and backed it with power so weak its writ barely carried into outer Kabul, let alone the badlands. We issued press releases patting ourselves on the back about how many women attended the constitutional convention, as if such a thing would be happening were we not there with guns. Worse still, we then sub-sub-contracted the security work out to NATO, thereby exposing ourselves to every left-wing political party in Europe, who now hold our policy hostage by withholding their consent to new military deployments.

Still, I held my tongue. Look on the bright side: the Taliban are gone, Al-Qaeda is scattered and if the Afghans can salvage something out of the peace that follows, well, that's a good thing isn't it? It's not a perfect world, and the U.S. is acting under great constraint, so maybe this is the best we can hope for. Basically, at its root, the Bush Doctrine still appeared solid to me, though I disputed the tactics employed.

Iraq followed. Unlike the paleo-conservatives, I thought this was generally in line with the Bush Doctrine. For all the reasons Bush set forth (ignore the leftists and their "where is the WMD?" talk-they've lied so much that they themselves now believe their own lies), Iraq was a logical next step in the War on Terror.

While the planning was on-going, we made the politically fatal and totally self-made error of taking the issue to the United Nations, at the behest of the Hamiltonians/Wilsonians of our own foreign policy institutions and, largely, the British, whose support and whose military we did not and do not need. This decision was fatal because it focused the War on Terror on unimportant, minor concerns. (Did the inspectors receive full and complete access on March 19 or limited access or should they be there at all...blahblahblahblahblah). It also handed the keys of victory to our enemies. Not surprisingly, they promptly hid those keys, where they remain today in between award ceremonies to Michael Moore and shouts of "Abu Ghraib" on the hour.

What political correctness and a squeamishness about all matters religious did to Islamism, the approach to the United Nations did for European and international leftism. Now, thanks to the Bush Administration, all of our actions were to be judged by a Islamist and a Leftist. Every day we ask them if we are winning and every day they say "no;" the news headlines gleefully report our continued failure.

By turning what was an American war against an American enemy into a popularity contest, the Administration surrendered control over the victory conditions, ensuring our failure, which would then further erode popularity, etc. etc. until you just want to throw up.

The American Thinker: Islamism Not Democratic

Andrew J. Bostom says it is delusional to imagine that states governed by Shari'a law can be anything other than totalitarian:

The great 20th century scholar of Islamic Law, G. H. Bousquet, wrote in 1950,

“Islam first came before the world as a doubly totalitarian system. It claimed to impose itself on the whole world and it claimed also, by the divinely appointed Muhammadan law, by the principles of the fiqh, to regulate down to the smallest details the whole life of the Islamic community and of every individual believer….the study of Muhammadan law (dry and forbidding though it may appear to those who confine themselves to the indispensable study of the fiqh) is of great importance to the world today.”

Bousquet’s admonition to study Islamic Law (Shari’a), or at least recognize the profound importance of its influence on basic Muslim conceptions, has perhaps even greater urgency more than a half-century later, in 2006. While electoral processes in the Islamic Middle East may have further enfranchised the Shari’a-based understanding of hurriyya, it is delusional to equate this conception with the freedom espoused by John Stuart Mill in “On Liberty.”

Andrew McCarthy: Investigate Dubai's Links to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

I have so many links to Michelle Malkin that I am going to link straight to the Andrew McCarthy piece in National Review she quotes in her rebuttal to Bush administration mouthpieces on the Dubai Port Deal:

It cannot be gainsaid that the UAE was an al Qaeda booster before 9/11. Nor should it be minimized that, ever since, the country has vastly improved, giving valuable assistance to our military overseas. Of course, on the latter score, it is worth noting that — the port deal aside — a good relationship with the U.S. is where the UAE's interests lie. Its hospitality to American forces and its billions in purchases of American arms are precious insurance for a tiny autocracy that has sometimes tense relations with menacing Iran. Still, proponents of the ports deal understandably emphasize that the UAE's strides are a welcome development. It is one we should cultivate to the extent we can do so without compromising core principles.

But that means not at the expense of making a mockery of our laws — particularly the laws essential to our security. The ports transaction will be under review for the next 45 days. That probe must include an assessment of the UAE's ties to Hamas and PIJ.

If there is to be anything left of the Bush Doctrine, the United States cannot allow a country in violation of our counterterrorism laws to play a critical role in admitting, storing and transferring shipments into our country. Nor can we abide a lucrative financial arrangement for a country that uses its wealth to underwrite organizations our law designates as terrorists.

If the Bush administration showed "wilfull blindness" to terror links in this case, it might be worse than negligence, at a time of war it just might constitute an impeachable offense...

It's Official: No US Plan For Iraq

So says this article from the Republican-friendly Washington Times(ht War and Piece):

The Bush administration never drew up a comprehensive plan for rebuilding Iraq after the March 2003 invasion, which contributed to a severe shortage of skilled federal workers in Baghdad and to the mismanagement of the country's oil money, according to a new government report.
"There was insufficient systematic planning for human capital management in Iraq before and during the U.S.-directed stabilization and reconstruction operations," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, in a new "lessons learned" report released yesterday. "The practical limitations ensuing from this shortfall adversely affected reconstruction in post-war Iraq."
The Pentagon's initial plans for reconstruction crumbled when it encountered an unexpected foreign and domestic insurgency that looted the country, sabotaged electric and water service, and killed hundreds of Americans and Iraqis in 2003 after the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.
The administration reacted by quickly establishing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), directed by L. Paul Bremer, and pumped billions of dollars of United Nations-held oil cash into Baghdad.
But, Mr. Bowen concluded in a report focusing on the CPA's staffing, "[t]he unanticipated post-war collapse of virtually all Iraqi governing structures, substantially hindered coalition efforts to develop and rapidly execute an effective reconstruction program."

NYC Stand Up For Denmark! Rally on Friday March 3rd

Michelle Malkin has posted this announcement from Snarksmith:

There is no way that a city like New York should neglect to stand up for free speech, democracy and secular cosmopolitan values. So I am pleased to inform you that the rally for Solidarity With Denmark is indeed on for this week.

It will be held outside the Danish consulate at One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 885 Second Avenue, on FRIDAY, MARCH 3RD, FROM 12:00 PM TO 1:00 PM. (A fitting an emulation of the hugely successful D.C. version.)

I've been in touch with the consul-general himself, and he has graciously welcomed us. I promised the event would be as civilized and dignified as this noble cause demands, and in order to obviate a city permit, please note that NO electronically amplified sound equipment or bullhorns may be used. But signs and placards -- the cleverer the better -- are of course highly encouraged. Relevant cheeses, plastic toy building blocks and Shakespeare allusions also kosher...

Spread the word.

Manifesto: Islamism's Totalitarian Global Threat

From Denmark's Jyllands-Posten(ht lgf):

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

How come I didn't see this manifesto in today's Washington Post? Censorship or self-censorship?

More on this topic at MichelleMalkin.com