“”The covetous, racist, and hated Jew Shylock, who cut the [pound of] flesh from Antonio’s chest with the knife of hatred, invades you with his money, his modern airplanes, his missiles, and his nuclear bombs. You must face a hard question: Do you, Christians and Muslims, wish to live, survive and fulfill your convictions? Or … Continue reading ARAB ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH
A very powerful piece by Richard Cohen today. It’s really a defense of anger – justified anger. “[A]s for myself and countless other Americans,” Cohen writes, “our anger is so pure, so clean, so clearly the product of what was done to us, that to shame us for it mocks our humanity. It comes not … Continue reading THE PLACE OF ANGER
I love reading Jonah Goldberg. He writes like an angel after a couple of bourbons. But I think he’s confused about my political philosophy, or how I think conservatism should adapt to modern liberal (in the good, old sense) society. In referring to my recent stab at portraying the problems of conservatism after September 11, … Continue reading FREEDOM THINKS
One theme of James Bennet’s otherwise excellent recent dispatches from Israel has been that the current conflict was in part caused by the Bush administration’s “malign neglect” of the peace-process. This ignores the fact that more Israelis have been murdered by terrorists since the Oslo Accord than in all the years since 1948. It is … Continue reading “MALIGN NEGLECT”
Here’s an op-ed by someone who ought to know on Bill Clinton’s negligence with regard to al Qaeda. It’s by one Mansoor Ijaz, the interlocutor between the Clinton administration and Sudan in 1996 and after. One devastating passage: “In July 2000–three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen–I brought the White … Continue reading CLINTON LEGACY WATCH
The lead Washington Post story by Woodward and Kaiser is a useful, if terrifying, wake-up call. The administration clearly believes that there is a small chance that al Qaeda has the wherewithal for a dirty nuclear bomb. The following sentence is priceless: “U.S. officials are very concerned that any nuclear detonation by al Qaeda would … Continue reading COMPLACENCY WATCH
Forget the broad coalition for action against al Qaeda. Forget the U.N., which has once again been shown to be essentially useless in a real crisis. Forget the E.U., which also dissolves into constituent parts at the first sign of gunfire. The only real alliance worth anything right now is a tripartite arc from Washington … Continue reading THE ARC
Out of fairness, here’s an actual full transcript of Clinton’s remarks to Georgetown. In context, the remarks aren’t as inflammatory as they first appear. They are merely platitudinous and, in some passages, thoroughly ill-advised rather than outrageous. It’s clear that he believes that America has been responsible for terrorism itself – and he absurdly equates … Continue reading CLINTON’S SPEECH
One of the oddities of the saturation coverage of the last few weeks has been a remarkable lack of real data on what kind of person Osama bin Laden actually is. He has become a cipher rather than a human being. I want to know more about his family, how he was brought up, how … Continue reading WHO IS OSAMA?
As each new story comes in about the scale of the intelligence failure before the September 11 massacre, the clearer it becomes that a large amount of anger is the appropriate response. Bart Gellman’s piece in the Washington Post actually shows that the Clinton administration had a chance to nab bin Laden as he was … Continue reading FRUITS OF NEGLIGENCE, CTD
