America's Choice

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for this link toVictor Davis Hanson's latest:

Where will it all end? Our choices are threefold.

We can wind down -- essentially the position of the mainstream Left -- and return to a pre-September 11 situation, treating Islamism as a criminal justice matter or deserving of an occasional cruise missile. This, in my view, would be a disaster and guarantee another mass attack.

Or we can continue to pacify Iraq. We then wait and see whether the ripples from the January elections-- without further overt American military action into other countries -- bring democracy to Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf States, and eventually the entire Middle East. This is the apparent present policy of the administration: talking up democracy, not provoking any who might disagree. It may well work, though such patience requires constant articulation to the American people that we are really in a deadly war when it doesn't seem to everyone that we are.

Or we can press on. We apprise Syria to cease all sanctuary for al Qaedists and Iran to give up its nuclear program -- or face surgical and punitive American air strikes. Such escalation is embraced by few, although many acknowledge that we may soon have few choices other than just that. But for now we can sum up the American plans as hoping that democracy spreads faster than Islamism, and thus responsible government will appear to ensure terrorists and WMD disappear.

The above, of course, is what we plan, but gives no consideration to the intent of the enemy. As we speak, he desperately searches for new strategies to ward off defeat as jihad seems more likely to lead to ruin than the return of the caliphate.

For now Islamic fascist strategy is to make such horrific news in Iraq that America throws up its hands and sighs, "These crazy people simply aren't worth it," goes home, snoozes -- and thus becomes ripe for another September 11.

Starbucks in Moscow

It's about time. The first Russian Starbucks has opened in Moscow's Renaissance Hotel. Commerce secretary Andrew Somers was there, and told the assembled latte-lovers: "You are doing a lot more than opening a coffee shop. You are spreading values, and we are really proud of that."

My personal values include a skinny venti ice mocha--with whip...

From Olle Wastberg's Lips to the Nobel Prize Committees Ears...

In today's New York Times the former Swedish Consul General nominates former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the Nobel Peace Prize. One reason is that Rudy saved some 10,000 lives:

Or, in more human terms, it would appear that over the last 12 years the policies Mr. Giuliani put in place have spared New York perhaps 10,000 murders, 15,000 rapes and 800,000 robberies. This is clearly a humanitarian accomplishment of great magnitude.

Unlike my April 1st nomination of George W. Bush, this is not an April Fool's joke. I'm a native New Yorker who didn't believe the city could be saved--until Rudy Giuliani turned it around! I had the privilege of meeting Hizzoner at a Gracie Mansion reception for a UN photo exhibit dedicated to diplomats who saved Jews from Nazis during WWII (one of them, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, saved my mother's family), by granting visas, often against the policies of their own governments. It was at the same time of the Elian Gonzales showdown in Miami, and Hilary Clinton, who had been invited, did not attend, perhaps because she was deporting the child refugee back to Castro's tender bosom at the point of a semi-automatic weapon. In any case Giuliani quoted Winston Chuchill about there being a special place in hell reserved for those who see evil and do nothing about it. Then he shook hands with everyone in the room who wanted to. I rushed up. He had the warmest handshake that I ever felt, and I was almost overcome. This was before 9/11--when he showed such heroism at the World Trade Center.

Like Olle Wastberg, whose fellow Swede Raoul Wallenberg was honored the same day I met Hizzoner, I want Giuliani to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dutch Against EU Constitution, Too...

The Financial Times poll shows Dutch to join French in rejecting EU treaty. Remember, it's the constitution that they are rejecting, not the free-trade zone...

Deep Throat Outs Self

The news that Mark Felt, number 2 at the FBI in the Nixon administration, has come forward to reveal that he was "Deep Throat" is interesting. Some thoughts:

1. I really thought I would never live long enough to learn who "Deep Throat" was. The Nixon years formed me, Woodward and Bernstein and crusading journalists were heros, I fell for the whole thing. I demonstrated against Nixon while in high school. Only later did I see what a difficult job he had, how close the US came to losing the Cold War, and the myriad other things a teenager is unaware of. Still, Nixon did himself in--as he admitted.. Now it seems, ironically, that if Nixon had only promoted Felt to replace Hoover, instead of bringing in L. Patrick Gray, Watergate might have been avoided. Hell hath no fury like a civil servant passed over for promotion... Felt himself was convicted for doing "black bag jobs" and pardoned by President Reagan, so the actual Watergate burglary clearly wasn't the issue. As everyone said at that time, it wasn't the crime, it was the cover-up.

2. I'm glad there really was a "Deep Throat." By now, I'd gotten a little too cynical about the press, and sometimes doubted that he existed. It makes me feel a little better about the myth/reality ratio in the world.

3. One man can make a difference. Really.

4. Warning to President Bush: You can't even trust the FBI (I think Clinton already learned this...).

Wake Up, the West is Losing...

Sarah Baxter's articleWake up, the West is losing in The Sunday Times caught my attention during my British stopover. It is a profile of David Selborne and his new book The Losing Battle with Islam. Here's a sample:

When David Selbourne flew into America recently, he had good reason to feel he had arrived in the land of the free. His new book, The Losing Battle with Islam, was featured at New York's Book Expo, the US publishing industry's trade fair last week, after it failed to find a British publisher.

One glance at the title and it is easy to see why. The Losing Battle With Islam is a blistering critique of the West's response to Muslim militancy. Publishers in London were far too pusillanimous and PC to take it on, says Selbourne indignantly. But in America, a nation with greater intellectual vigour, Prometheus Books stepped into the breach and it will be published in September.

The manuscript has already been circulating in intellectual circles in samizdat form and it may yet find a British publisher now the Americans are leading the way. But the big brush-off is a prime example of Selbourne's thesis that westerners are displaying a misplaced and muddle-headed sensitivity to Muslim feelings that is not always reciprocated.

I caught up with him in Washington, where he was meeting think-tankers, policy makers and opinion-formers. "It's a relief to talk to people who are engaged in this matter," he sighed. "This is the front line of what matters in the world." He feels the non-Muslim world is ignoring at its peril the challenge posed by a resurgent Islam.

What Good Are The Arts?

Here's a review by British novelist David Lodge of What Good Are The Arts? by John Carey, in the Sunday Times. I couldn't buy the book at Manchester Airport's Waterstone's while delayed changing planes for seven hours. But the review really makes me want to read what Carey has to say. Here's Lodge's plug:

The fact that some of the worst Nazi war criminals, including Hitler (fascinating evidence for this coming from a book by Frederick Spott), were connoisseurs of music, visual art and architecture demonstrates that high culture does not necessarily have an ennobling effect on those who appreciate it. The writer George Steiner, who wrestled long and hard with this paradox, came to the conclusion that ultimately art cannot be justified by purely secular criteria — that it is essentially a religious activity, since the artist seeks a kind of immortality through his work. Carey will have none of this: “talk of the immortality of art, in the absence of a belief in God, is childish and self- deceiving”.

I hope they put out an American edition, soon...

Khodorkovsky Convicted

The New York Times says he's been sentenced to 10 years, minus 19 months for time already served, ending in 2012.

It would certainly have been better for business if Bush had publicly pressed Putin on Khodorkovsky's case at Moscow's V-E day celebrations, perhaps with a speech at my university there--the Russian State Humanitarian University, founded by Khodorkovsky. Bush's strategy of bloviating in Latvia and Georgia, plus silence in Moscow, now seems weak and cowardly.

The thought of Khodorkovsky rotting in jail for 10 years will no doubt make investors think twice about doing business in Russia. Bush might recover this situation a litte by asking Putin to pardon Khodorkovsky, offering to admit the convicted tycoon to the USA as a political refugee. Putin could strip him of Russian citizenship, a shameful thing to proud Russians, and be rid of a political rival--yet improve the business climate by letting Khodorkovsky go.

The French "Non!"

France's vote against the European constitution may have resulted from electoral tactics on the part of the "Oui" campaign, which mailed a copy of the proposed EU constitution to every voter, accompanied by a slick PR blitz by celebrities. Its incredible length--over 200 pages--would have been enough to convince anyone to vote against it. If the EU tries this trick again, they might want to limit their revised constitution to the length of the US model, and precede the election with something like our "Federalist Papers" debate, featuring actual intellectuals arguing the pros and cons in the press, a true debate, which is what the French used to be famous for, at least when I went to college a generation ago...

Ann Coulter on Bill Moyers

Couldn't resist linking to this item at AnnCoulter.com:

As the extra little cherry on top, all Moyers' nut conspiracy theories were being broadcast on PBS, subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. Not only that, but Moyers takes a cut of every video of his show sold, and he has family members on the payroll. Let's see now: a corrupt, partisan demagogue and his family caught feeding at the taxpayers' trough. Let's just hope he never took a free golfing trip to Scotland!

When Ken Tomlinson, chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, suggested that PBS was maybe a smidgen left of center, Moyers began his lengthy public nervous breakdown. Already well-known as an insufferable jerk, it turns out Moyers is also a crazy megalomaniac, too.

In a recent speech to the the National Conference on Media Reform -- a conference dedicated to increasing liberal representation in the media from 94.6 percent to 99.8 percent -- Moyers responded to his critics by reading from his fan mail, reading favorable news articles about himself, and comparing himself to Jesus Christ or, as he put it, 'one of our boys.' If it were possible that he actually believed in God, PBS would be doing a special report on Moyers after a remark like that.

Only thing Ann missed was a plug for my PBS book.

Special Offa: Walking the Offa's Dyke Path

Before we left on vacation some two weeks ago, I was thinking about writing a book about our walking holiday. Then, at a farmhouse in North Wales, I came across Bob Bibby's Special Offa: Walking the Offa's Dyke Path. I read the chapter on the bit we had just walked, a description of climbing up and down hills on hands and knees in rain and mud.No one could do any better than Bob Bibby, so I ordered this book from Amazon.co.uk...

Copenhagen's 'Pusher Street' Closed

In Copenhagen for a conference, discovered that Christiana's famous 'Pusher Street'--where drugs were openly traded--was closed by the government last year, a new conservative coalition. That, plus the fact that Danes have been targeted in a 'fatwa' calling for jihad issued by the local chapter of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (anyone want to blame this on poverty?) a few years ago, makes Wonderful Copenhagen seem more like a real-world place. Of course it is still weirdly perfect-seeming, beautiful canals, bicycles, driverless metros. And very expensive. Even the conference-goers from Germany find the prices here sky-high. Dinner last night at a Mexican restaurant near the Fredriksberg Shopping Center. The owner joked that he got here after being kidnapped from his Mexican village by a Viking. Actually, he comes from Mexico City. So the menu featured authentic Mole but not inauthentic Fajitas or Burritos.

The new glass and steel Opera House donated by Maersk SeaLand looks nice on the waterfront, though Danes apparently all hate it (who knew they hated anything?), and the Little Mermaid statue has been fully repaired, after past decapitations and amputations.

Denmark doesn't use the Euro, rather their own Kroner, and is suspicious of the EU. It is expected that the Danes will vote against the new EU constitution in an upcoming referendum, especially if France votes 'Non' on Sunday.

Just when you take a vacation...

Uzbekistan explodes.

Luckily, while we've been off on a walking holiday in Wales, Nathan Hamm's excellent Central Asia website Registan.net has been keeping up with the ever-changing news.

Docents, 1--National Gallery of Art, 0

Jackie Trescott's excellent Washington Post story on the docents recent victory over Earl "Rusty" Powell's inept administration of the National Gallery of Art in Washington isn't available online as text, but you can read it as an image file here, under the headline "Gallery's School Tours to Continue:Art Museum Officials Apologize to Docents."

Trescott deserves praise for reporting this, the docents for standing up to the bureaucrats, and the Post for running with the scandal. (Note to Pulitzer Prize Committee: Give an award to Jackie Trescott!)

Andrew Ferguson Predicts: PBS To Become More Boring . . .

Article in the Washington Post today about Democratic Congressmen calling for an investigation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS. When Senator Pressler did this a decade back, with some help from yours truly, the mainstream media called asking questions about taxpayer funded programs "McCarthyism" and "intimidation." the investigation shut down, and I published "PBS: Behind the Screen."

Now, if the Democrats really want to do this, let's actually investigate CPB, have public hearings, and let the American taxpayers find out who is really politicizing public broadcasting (HINT: it's not the Republicans). As Ronald Reagan said in another context: "Make my day."

In any case, adding his amusing two cents to the controversy over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is Bloomberg.com's Andrew Ferguson:

Public broadcasting producers and bureaucrats aren't happy. A forum for producers in New York last year erupted in shouts and general rancor against the Tomlinson regime. One producer even complained that a new documentary series on terrorism amounted toCPB asking him to ``do the bidding of the Pentagon.''

Where will it end? Some press critics, most recently Jack Shafer of the online magazine Slate, have revived calls to privatize public broadcasting once and for all. But that's unlikely: We've been there before. Even those Republican congressmen fretting about bias like having CPB dollars flowing into their districts.

Others, me included, predict confidently that public broadcasting will survive, though perhaps a bit more boringly than before, if such a thing is possible.

Actually, a thorough congressional investigation might persuade Congress to reprogram CPB's entire appropriation to pay for armor American troops in Iraq need to protect them from terrorist attacks...

Moscow Times on Russia's V-E Day Parade

Nabi Abdullaev, one of the best writers, has a good account of Putin's Parade in Moscow:

As an orchestra struck up a triumphant march, the parade started on the square with a procession of cadet drummers and standard-bearers. They were followed by formations of soldiers wearing World War II-style uniforms and carrying insignias symbolizing the different military units that fought in the war. The formations included sappers carrying mine detectors and leading sniffer dogs on leashes; tank men in black uniforms and padded headsets; and infantrymen brandishing long Mosin rifles with bayonets.

As the cavalry passed by the viewing stands, the orchestra muffled its music to avoid scaring the horses, although some still shied nervously on the granite cobblestones.

A total of 7,000 soldiers participated in the parade.

When legendary wartime polutorka trucks entered the square, thousands of war veterans wearing shiny medals leaped to their feet in the reviewing stands. Veterans sitting in the trucks waved red carnations as tears ran down their cheeks. Putin smiled back at them, his own eyes red with tears. Ivanov, his eyes also watery with tears, applauded and pressed his hands over his breast.

Of the foreign dignitaries, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cheered the veterans most enthusiastically. Japan's Koizumi was most reserved. 'His stern face meant that he was expressing respect,' a spokesman for the Japanese delegation, Akira Chiba, explained later.

As the trucks rolled through the square, 12 fighter jets -- in two formations of nine and three planes -- screamed overhead, painting the sky with red, blue and white smoke to form the national flag.

The Moscow Times also has a nice online photo essay.

German Jewish Leader Criticizes Holocaust Memorial

From South Africa's News24.com, comes this account of an attack on Berlin's newest public art project by Paul Spiegel, head of the Central Council of German Jews (thanks to Roger L. Simon for the link) : "Spiegel said any abstract work attempting to depict the Holocaust, such as Berlin's memorial, was fated to lose out in the bid to prevent people from forgetting past horrors. He underlined that the real Holocaust memorials - aside from Yad Vashem in Israel - were the former Nazi concentration camps, the mass graves and the burned-down synagogues in Germany and across Europe."

Indeed, Spiegel has a point. Perhaps all of Continental Europe might be seen as a Holocaust Memorial for the dead--and Israel as a Holocaust Memorial for the living...

Georgia: Torture Still Goes Unpunished

Some background for President Bush's visit to Tblisi from a recent report by Human Rights Watch

(Tbilisi, April 13, 2005)--Since the 'Rose Revolution'that brought a new government to power in 2003, the Georgian authorities have failed to end widespread torture of detainees in the criminal justice system, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.The government hasn't adequately grappled with torture...The 27-page briefing paper, 'Georgia: Uncertain Torture Reform' describes the ongoing impunity for torture, a problem that persists despite some government measures taken to combat it.

The briefing paper documents how the new government's campaigns against corruption and organized crime led to new allegations of due process violations, including torture and ill-treatment. It also details the measures the government has taken to combat torture. These include outside monitoring of police stations and steps to improve police professionalism, particularly in the collection of evidence.

The briefing paper details several cases of torture, including cases that highlighted problems associated with the new plea-bargaining system that the current government enacted last year. Law enforcement officials used the plea-bargaining system to cover up allegations of torture, promising lower penalties to defendants who agreed to the officials' version of events, which did not include the allegations of police abuse. Officials asked for monetary payments in exchange for releasing the defendant from custody.

Another Picture Moment for President Bush

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: Bush Wrong on Yalta

Writing in The Huffington Post, JFK's favorite historian says Yalta was a realistic deal based on the military balance-of-power on the ground in Europe.