At least, that's what many of our old and deeply democratic friends seem to feel.

Now, it's hard to accept that the president of the United States would actually make that choice. He probably feels--but how do I really know? I actually don't--that the hooligans and especially the hooligans who produce our oil and the hooligans who buy our products are the folk we need court more than our historic allies. After all, what else can they do but stick with us? Tough darts!

Obama's initiatives up to now--with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia, China--have been failures. OK, it's hard to imagine, given how the trade deck is stacked against us with China, that this president would muster the courage to tell Hu Jintao a thing or two. Like screwing around with the openness of his visit. On the other hand, our weakness also gives us considerable strength: Beijing sinks with our dollar. So there.

I won't rehash the degrading courtship in Istanbul, Riyadh and Cairo. You can look these up in my previous treatments of them. How different would it have appeared had Obama flown directly from the pyramids to Jerusalem? How different would it truly have been had he done that? Plenty different. But this would not have fit with his self-designed and self-assigned mission to the Muslims. And, by the way, this is not just about cosmetics. His obsession, his fixation on new construction has forced the Palestinians into the crippling bind of not being less extreme and less fervent than the president on pre-conditions for negotiations. Why, by the way, if all of this is disputed land, which it is, shouldn't the Arabs also freeze construction? Well, that shows how absurd this skewing dogma is.

Enough of my daily lapse into writing about Israel.

There is also India, the largest democracy in the world. It is certainly not a perfect democracy, and its capitalism is quite rapacious--but not at all as rapacious as that of China. India has emerged as a trusted ally, which China is not. India is also a country bedeviled by jihadis, as we are reminded often on the news, as we are reminded this Thanksgiving weekend on the first anniversary of the Mumbai massacre in which 173 random people (except for the Jews among them, the chosen) were basically executed and literally hundreds of others wounded and maimed. In the first of his White House state dinners, the president has feted his counterpart Manmohan Singh. But, as nearly every serious newspaper has observed, the Indians are nervous and resentful, I believe, understandably so, even justifiably so.

Then there is the grumbling of Britain. Con Coughlin, an editor at the Telegraph, has an article in the Spectator, It is called "A Special Form of Disrespect." Coughlin does a narrative of the U.S.-British relationship from 9/11 on. Of course, he could have gone back to World War I. This has been an alliance steeped in common values, the values of democracy, liberalism and, pardon me, Christian civilization. Maybe that's where the troubles come in. These are not the values of the third world. "Being an American ally has never seemed so unrewarding." This little essay tells you why. 

These did not reach the intensity of the 100 hours war in 1969 between Honduras and El Salvador which was also over fought over World Cup soccer matches. After all, in that war, according to John Signoriello, 900 El Salvadoran troops and civilians met their maker and 100 Honduran combat troops plus 2,000 (!) just ordinaries met theirs. TNR's editor, Frank Foer, narrates many other such violent episodes in his book, How Soccer Explains the World, which is itself amazing.

But the Arab soccer wars are nothing to laugh about. You can read about them in the attached news reports, along with photos. Still, nothing explains the riots in France where thousands and thousands of mostly young and temper-torn French-born men and women who hail from Algeria took to the streets and ripped them up, broke shop windows, muscled non-participants and wrought general havoc. The provocation for one of these mob mutinies was the defeat of Algeria by the Egyptian team. Others were ... well, just others.

It was different in Cairo where the jacqueries seem to have been ignited by insults perceived across the usually rigid class barriers. As Jason Keller of the Associated Press reported: 

The troubles began when crowds in Cairo hurled stones as the Algerian team's bus before a first match here on March 14, injuring three players. Egypt won 2-0, forcing the playoff. And in the following days, mobs in Algeria ransacked the offices of Egyptian companies... 

“Barbaric attacks on Egyptian fans in Khartoum,” read one headline in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. “Algerians chase Egyptian fans with knives and machetes,” said another.

“Algeria: a legacy of blood, hatred and a history of violence” read another headline in an apparent reference to the civil war between Islamic extremists and Algerian government forces that killed up to 200,000 people in the 1990s.

One Egyptian TV program blamed the violence on ... who else? The Jews or, to be precise, Israel. Sure. Why not? Some Egyptians even claimed Algerians are not real Arabs or Muslims. Well, yes, many of them--perhaps 40% of them--are Berbers. But they're still Muslims.

And here entered one of Hosni Mubarak's sons. No, not the one being groomed for the succession to his father. But Alaa, a wealthy businessman. “It is impossible that we Egyptians take this. We have to stand up and say, ‘Enough,’ he said.” “When you insult my dignity ... I will beat you on the head.”

Then papa joined the mob, an “agitated” papa. The elder and visibly angry Mubarak told a joint session of the two houses of parliament: “I want to say in clear words that the dignity of Egyptians is part of the dignity of Egypt.”

Algerians, of course, retaliated. Retaliated mightily.

And, well, Sudan. You know of what it is capable.

By the way, “more than 40 percent of Egypt's nearly 80 million people live on less than $2 per day,” according to various reports of the United Nations. Human dignity, indeed.

There were two high points in the career of Tony Blair. One was 2003 when Hugh Grant played the British prime minister in Love Actually.  The second was in 2006 when Michael Sheen played him in The Queen who was herself portrayed by Helen Mirren. Frankly, it's been downhill ever since. Of course, he had been the longest serving Labour prime minister in history. But he was also a victim of the Iraq war which he had supported basically against the wishes of his party and certainly of its rank-and-file. On the very day he told his monarch that he was stepping down and moving out of 10 Downing Street he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, the quartet being the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. A more motley group of intruders into the almost century-old Israel-Palestinian dispute could not be imagined, let alone invented. Anyway failure was its destiny and so also was it the destiny of Blair, poor bloke.

Well, not exactly poor. Like his great friend Bill Clinton he was adept at making cash cling to his fingers and also putting a varnish of philanthropy over his clammy enterprises. In any case, his successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, pushed Blair as the first full-time president of the European Union. For weeks, fate seemed to be on his side. But the traumatic decline of Labour's standing with the British electorate, which goes to the polls in May, must have made the Europols think twice or thrice about putting Blair at the head of a quarreling and cumbersome government of Europe. It must have also occurred to these pols and to their colleagues at home that Blair had achieved exactly zero--and not a whit more--in his droopy venture with the Israelis and their Palestinian foes. 

But, then, there was the crisis of European identity and character. Saturday's Financial Times has a sobering response, "Leaders turn their backs on Giscard's vision," by George Parker and Joshua Chaffin to their own question: "Does this all signal a death of European ambition?"

It is instructive that the person the Euroleadership chose as the chief executive of the continent's political economy was somebody whom nobody knew: he is Herman Van Rompuy who has been prime minister of Belgium for nary a year. Now, Belgium may be a fine setting to learn  to deal with fratricidal impulses. You see, Belgium is not exactly a country, what with its deep-rooted cleavage between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. As far as I can tell all that unites them is their common anxieties about the fast-growing Muslim population. In any case, Rompuy seems a perfect pick for a regime without ambition.

Lady Ashton, the new diplomatic head of the E.U., is not less unprepossessing.

I have always thought that the idea of Europe was a fantasy which would continually struggle with the idea and the reality of nations on the continent. This idea and this reality were what assured the survival, even the vibrancy of democracy. I hope that the obvious depression that emanates from Brussels will deepen and cut off at the knees the bureaucratic monster of one Europe.

There have been preludes to this fracas between the Roman Catholic bishop of Providence, Thomas Tobin, and Representative Patrick Kennedy, Teddy's son and the last of the dynasty in public life. It is, of course, a fracas about abortion and the view of the church that Kennedy's (what shall I say?) insufficient opposition to it in public law excludes him from the rites of the faith, especially communion.

Now, the church in this case means the particular bishopric in which Kennedy usually worships. Another bishop elsewhere might not--and most bishops do not--push the matter as far as this. But the Catholic hierarchy in the United States is now enmeshed in a grand mobilization to keep abortion out of the health care legislation. Still, not many diocese have gone as far as Tobin's.

It is almost impossible to conceive of this excision of Kennedy from the community happening in, for example, Massachusetts. Would the archdiocese of Boston have prevented Senator Kennedy from communion or, worse yet, last rites? You can bet it wouldn't.

But, since in America, religion is a matter between individuals and their God the Providence diocese is fully within its rights. This does raise, however, a social issue for all of us. Should the Church, to which most of us have no ties, be able to discipline in whatever way the diocese can those who are "disobedient" to it?

No, it's not President Obama. It's President Shimon Peres of Israel.

No sooner had the Israeli ministry of defense released a statement--actually a plea for silence!--saying that speculation about the coming quick release of Gilad Shalit "does not help" than Peres announced in Cairo, no less, that the captive soldier was about to be freed. This is characteristic of this blabber-mouth who cannot make do with shutting up on public policy, which is essential to the definition of his job, and stick to symbolics, which are also essential to his job.

On Sunday, also in Cairo, Peres prophesied that, once Israeli-Palestinian talks begin,  Jerusalem will halt all construction of settlements. This is Barack Obama's wet-dream. And, although I'm not at all privy to such secrets, I doubt that Peres knows much more than I do.

Peres, of course, has been living in "the new middle east" of comity and peace for almost two decades. But that middle east exists only in his fantasies which are lurid and false.

A New York Times dispatch tells us that "a suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a crowded marketplace in a relatively peaceful part of western Afghanistan, killing at least 15 people." No one important among the dead (and the 35 wounded) except mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children. Why in God's name would an Islamist want to do such a thing? And, anyhow, why do we call the cyclist a terrorist? Maybe he's just disturbed. Moreover, rest assured, The New York Times doesn't call any of these types terrorists.

In any case, I suspect "Opus Dei" to be behind the murders. So there!

 

I understand why the universe of cons and neo-cons has pounced on the Obamae for prosecuting K.S.M. in civilian proceedings in New York. And I find Charles Krauthammer's particular indictment of the venue and legal envelope of the proceedings strong, if not (entirely) persuasive.

But I actually think that a public trial several blocks from the scene of the atrocity will etch into (much of) the world's consciousness the intrinsic brutality of the whole ideological system that inspired and brought discipline to that day of terror. It will also remind the great public that the same system still brings near-daily bloodshed to innocent populations virtually everywhere. 

This is also likely to evoke from the millions and millions of enthusiasts of true jihad demonstrations of fidelity and enthusiasm. That is also a good thing. Otherwise, we will still be stunned every time Muslim terror strikes. A very bad thing, indeed.

Travesty in New York

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, November 20, 2009 

For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Click here to read the rest.

Please read this.

And if you care to know another reason why Major Doctor Hasan is not a terrorist at all please read John Judis arguing this irrelevant case in TNR, of all places.  

These are Christopher Hitchens' words (in Slate), and so you are not surprised to find them sharp, even cutting. Doubtless, some of you are provoked. But please don't repair to the self-righteous. Self-righteousness is an awkward response to the truth.

Given the "seven salient facts" about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan easily assembled by Hitchens I doubt that even President Obama would want us to withhold judgement on the killer. He, too, as clearly made his own. Even unto grasping the justice awaiting the culprit in the hereafter. Understandably, as Philip Elliott of the Associated Press wrote on Saturday, Obama would prefer that Senator Joe Lieberman and Representative Peter Hoekstra not press for hearings in their respective Senate and House committees. But I believe there is zero chance for that restraint to hold. And why should it? 

Hitchens' salient facts illumine the propensity of government agencies (and respectable journalistic institutions) to avert their gaze from realities that would get them into murky places they have learned to avert. For example: the point at which you have to admit "that an alarmingly high proportion of terrorists are Muslim." Or that "political correctness" now subverts domestic and military intelligence from doing their jobs.

The Obama administration has announced that immigration reform is next on its legislative agenda. I am personally disposed to a rather open Emma Lazarus-inflected policy: "I lift my lamp beside the golden door." We cannot simply dispose of immigrants we've decided, after years and years of winking at them, to call "illegals." But we also don't know how to keep unwanted--by whom, by the way?--aspirant immigrants out.  We do not know either how properly to judge asylum cases. 

And then there is the protection of liberal values with regard to civil freedoms, religion, family policy and violence in the home, sexuality, education. Does a society have the right to insure the safety of its virtues that are distinctly American or western? Some of you, I assume, are already furious. Well, go ahead and cancel your subscription.

Here's another way of posing this dilemma. Has Holland the right to remain Holland? England the right to remain England? France the right to remain France? And what about Rotterdam, Manchester, Paris?

"Alleged" is one of those awkward words with which hypocrisy pays tribute to the hypocritical formalities of the law.

But the case of Major Hasan seems to have brought our tolerance for what are really lies to a new low. At dinner the other night, someone at the table actually uttered the phrased "alleged killer" and everyone pounced on him. The lady to his left, a politically incorrect person already for several years, asked him, "don't you mean the Muslim shrink murderer?" I don't think anyone was shocked. And everyone laughed, even the guy who'd uttered the phrase in the first place.

Brian Palmer had an article in Slate on Friday discussing this very matter. Freeing us from several compunctions he binds us to others. Alas.

There is nothing intellectually sharp in Louis Farrakhan's apologia for Major Doctor Hasan.  In fact, he follows mostly in the footsteps of the psychobabblers.  I just thought you'd want to know what the ayatollah of black Muslims in America thinks about this group lynching.

Well, yes, of course, you've read about the lecture Major Nidal Malik Hasan, M.D., delivered at Walter Reed Hospital in 2007. Hasan's ostensible topic was "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military." It might as well have been titled, as the scholar Barry Rubin suggested, "Why I Intend to Murder 13 American Soldiers at Foot Hood." But, since nobody in the higher-up military actually noticed that a very shaky psychiatrist, indeed, gave an official medical rounds talk--maybe even grand rounds--on Islam, Hasan did, in fact, go on to kill 13 men and women and wound another 28. Had two police not brought him down he would have gone on to shoot (how?) many others.

I assumed, presumably like you, that the text of the now notorious lecture had been deep sixed by the authorities after the event. Not at all. So who unearthed it? The Washington Post, on whose web-site it has been (virtually unnoticed) for a few days. Dana Priest, a Post correspondent covering the case, has written about Hasan's power point presentation and even did a question-and-answer colloquy on the site.   

The lecture is hard evidence on what everybody has been pondering about, pondering sympathetically like poor Joe Klein who, I am afraid, has lost his bearings. 

Yesterday, I also happened to listen to "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook on NPR. David Gergen held up the sensible side. But, well, you can imagine the mental pyrotechnics Jack Beatty and Ellen Goodman put themselves through to lift the pall that has now fallen over militant Islam. Apologists always sound pathetic.