It's About Time...

The BBC experimented with free podcasting of Beethoven Symphonies, which might boost podcasting for classical music lovers. Although their Beethoven website says the experiment is now completed, perhaps it will lead to something permanent at the BBC. Meanwhile, they provide a link to other classical music downloading sites, for example, AMClassical.com. (Hat tip to artsjournal.com)

What Is To Be Done (About Uzbekistan)?

The neocons pondered the question just two days before the Uzbeks publicly kicked American troops out of the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) airbase. Here's a summary of the presentations on the AEI website--note that none of the assembled pundits predicted the dramatic rejection of America's leadership in the Global War on Terror (Uzbekistan controls access to northern Afghanistan) that actually took place. The Karshi-Khanabad air base dispute is not even mentioned in the official AEI summary, a significant omission.

That said, the AEI webcast showcases a fascinating, passionate debate between William Kristol and Fred Starr, an interesting presentation by Chris Seiple that quotes E.H. Carr, and Martha Brill Olcott's attempt to find a middle way--as well as a lively question-and-answer session.

Leon Aron should be congratulated for bringing this panel together.

Russia's Future Prosperity Demands a Latin Alphabet

Sam Vaknin used to contribute interesting articles about politics and economics to my web publication, The Idler. Now he makes the case for Russia switching to a Latin alphabet, from Cyrillic, in order to fully enter the computer age--and he makes a good case, citing Ataturk's precedent in Turkey...

To the Moon, Alice...

Ralph Kramden had a cheaper alternative in mind, but the Russians will fly you to the moon for $100 million--without a space shuttle!

JamesBowman on Islamism

At JamesBowman.net.

Bush No Longer Alone, Blair Now Like Hitler, Too...

According to a British Muslim leader. Of course, it was the Nazis who specialized in terror attacks to come to power--the night of the long knives, kristallnacht, the burning of the Reichstag, etc.--and then terror to achieve their ends in war, from blitzkrieg to the extermination of European Jewry, to an alliance with Islamic fundmentalists and support of the Muslim Brotherhood that is behind today's wave of fundamentalists.

There is indeed a Nazi connection, but not to Tony Blair. . .

Guts & Glory

A the 60th Anniversary of V-J Day approaches, I thought this link to Lawrence H. Suid's website might be interesting. I met him for lunch before our vacation, at the suggestion of Alice Goldfarb Marquis, author of numerous books about culture. She did me a real favor to put us in touch. I learned a lot, just at one lunch at the Woodside Deli. He's written ten books, and is the foremost historian of the US Military in Film and Television. Most interestingly, Suid explained why there weren't more films about terrorists after 9/11. Suid pointed out these type of films were already made before 9/11--movies like the 1997 Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford. Apparently, as Oscar Wilde said, life does imitate art.

These days, Suid is busily working on a biography of Fred Zinneman, who made Day of the Jackal, about an earlier incarnation of terrorism.

Victor Davis Hanson on Hiroshima

He calls his article 60 Years Later. (Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for the link).

Russia Sees America Losing Allies

Because, RIA Novosti argues, Bush is not serious about the war on terrorism...

From the "You Read It Here First" Department...

On June 21st, this was our blog entry about John Bolton:

Bolton Will Go to the UN
Although he is having a hard time getting through the Senate, Bolton will go to the UN, possibly as a recess appointment this July.

The date was just a little off--Bush appointed Bolton on August 1st.

Why is the US Government Aiding Terrorists?

That's the questions Russians are asking in thisRIA Novosti article about ABC TV's broadcast of an interview with Shamil Basayev, the Chechen Islamist terrorist responsible for the Beslan school tragedy and other attacks. His interview with a Radio Liberty reporter was broadcast by Ted Koppel. The Russians noticed, as Koppel did not, that Radio Liberty is a US government-funded propaganda operation. But the Russians are mistaken to complain about ABC, which has been soft on terrorism in the past (ABC's sympathy for the late Yassir Arafat was documented by media watchdog groups such as CAMERA). They don't pretend to be allies in the Global War on Terrorism.

The Bush administration does claim that it is against terrorism. However, by providing a platform for Basayev through Radio Liberty (ironic, considering Basayev would eliminate most liberties that Americans take for granted, should he come to power and establish an Islamic state governed by Sha'aria), the US is giving aid and comfort to the terrorist cause in Chechnya.

The Russians have a point, and are also making a threat--if the US doesn't stop supporting the likes of Basayev, they may very decide to pull out of the American campaign against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (who are Basayev's ideological, political, and military allies). Something to think about...

Uzbekistan evicts United States Air Base

According to Yahoo! News, Uzbekistan is kicking the US military out of the country in the next 180 days.

This news has provided inspiration--it's been six years since I published my last book--and a title for something I'm working on now, based on my Fulbright experience teaching in Uzbekistan.

Working title: WHO LOST CENTRAL ASIA?

IMHO, There's plenty of blame to go around . . .

The Daily Ablution

Scott Burgess's The Daily Ablution exposed a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Dilpazier Aslam, who reported on the London bombings for The Guardian. Since that fact was published by Burgess, the reporter was fired. In the aftermath, Alsam threatened to take the Guardian to court. (Hat tip to Tom Gross)

Real Life Space Drama

I can't stop thinking about those astronauts in the Space Shuttle. If it were me, I wouldn't get back in that thing, I'd demand they send up a nice, safe Russian Soyuz capsule to take me home. It's what they were using for the International Space Station while the shuttle problems were being fixed the first time. Old, clunky, but so far, reliable...

War Between Democracies

Matthew White has posted this great list of War Between Democracies, beginning in the 5th century BC and running up to the present day, as a rebuttal to the claim that no two democracies have gone to war against each other. They have, they do, and they will...

August Recess

It's the time of year when Congress goes on holiday, and so do we. Blogging may be sporadic for a little while...

British Soldiers Face War Crimes Charges in Iraq

Reuters reports three British soldiers will be tried as war criminals for the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

Canadian Islamists Apologize to Daniel Pipes

For personal attacks that compared Pipes to Hitler:

On June 10, the CIC published an apology and retraction: 'The Canadian Islamic Congress and Ms. Valiante apologize without reservation and retract remarks in the column that suggest that Dr. Daniel Pipes is a follower of Hitler or that he uses the tactics of Hitler or that he wants to ethnically cleanse America of its Muslim presence.' The CIC also sent funds to cover my legal expenses and made a donation in my honor to a Canadian charity.

The CIC's action is, to the best of my knowledge, without precedent.

Of course, Canadian libel laws are stricter than American ones . . .

How the US Nurtured Islamist Terror

Rachel Bronson's article in The National Interest explains that America is being bitten by our own dog, that Islamist terrorists--as well as political Islam--are the beneficiaries of decades of American patronage:

The confluence of U.S.-Saudi anti-communist interests manifested itself most obviously in Afghanistan, where the United States and Saudi Arabia spent no less then $3 billion each, channeling assistance to armed anti-American Islamic fundamentalists. But the shared anti-communism embedded in the U.S.-Saudi partnership, and the proselytizing it spawned, was not limited to Afghanistan; it stretched from Somalia, Sudan and Chad to Pakistan and beyond. Countries where the U.S.-Saudi partnership was strongest are areas where today the Islamist threat is particularly vexing. After September 11, both Somalia and Sudan were considered likely targets in any American operation to eliminate terrorism.

Other American allies, such as Egypt, Tunisia and Israel, supported indigenous Islamic movements in order to counter local nationalist opponents, many of whom were Soviet backed. In turn, the same leaders who underwrote local Islamist groups in the 1970s and 1980s later used their very presence to justify a resistance toward democratization.

In contrast to the support Islamist groups received in America-friendly countries in the Middle East, religious organizations suffered a crueler fate in Soviet-supported countries. The Syrian regime exterminated 20,000 citizens in 1982 for being associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Saddam Hussein's Iraq massacred religious leaders, especially among the Shi'a population. Egypt provides the best example of how Cold War ideological struggles shaped today's politico-religious landscape. While receiving Soviet aid, Gamal Abdel Nasser persecuted the Muslim Brotherhood. American-supported Anwar Sadat, on the other hand, heavily backed the Brotherhood in order to counter local Nasserite opposition.

The politicization of Islam is thus a direct outgrowth of the Middle East's Cold War experience. Given this history, it should come as no surprise that in today's post-Cold War Middle East, the major constituency-based organizations in the Arab world that are best placed to organize politically are Islamist ones.

Brave New World

On the way up to Glimmerglass, we listened to Peter Firth's books-on-tape version of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I had read it in High School, or maybe college, as a science fiction book about the Utopian--or rather, Dystopian--Future. But hearing it read aloud, for some eight hours, as a middle-aged person, it seemed to have another meaning as a social satire of England's chattering classes. It wasn't about the future. It was about now. And laughing out loud funny in parts, smiling most of the rest of the time--until the sudden end of his savage. I had thought of Huxley mostly as a 60s hippie, Timothy Leary, Indian mysticism type (we went on a family pilgrimmage to his home in Ojai when I was young), so this was a fresh perspective. Plus, it seems almost everything in the book has come to pass in this age of Prozac and cloning--even the "hatcheries"...