Month: October 2001

Daniel Pipes has an eloquent rebuttal to David Forte’s recent piece in the current National Review. My only quarrel with Pipes is that, from everything I have read these past few weeks, his notion that only 10 – 15 percent of Middle Eastern Islam is fundamentalist is, if anything, optimistic. Like Pipes, I agree that there is little propaganda value in this. But it’s important to know the enemy we are confronting. Fundamentalism is a deep and dangerous part of it. I wish this were not so, and have respect for sincere and moderate Muslims. But I also have respect for Germans. And in the early 1940s, the vast majority became Nazi criminals. The same process is at work today; and blindness toward the grim reality of it will help no-one.

Here is Australian boxer Anthony Mundine’s comments about the war on al Qaeda, as reported by an Australian news channel: “I really feel that it’s not our problem. They call it an act of terrorism but if you can understand religion and our way of life it’s not about terrorism. It’s about fighting for God’s laws, and America’s brought it upon themselves (for) what they’ve done in the history of time.” The article also states that, “Mundine’s stance is consistent with most Muslims in Australia, according to Dr Mohsen Labban from the Supreme Islamic Council.” Ok. This is the view of a Western Muslim thousands of miles away from the Middle East. How does David Forte explain that away?

What happened last week? And how should we respond? Check out my new piece opposite.

A simple question. What does my birthplace (England), sex-life (gay and active), or the medications I take for HIV (testosterone replacement therapy) have to do with my views on this war? Last time I checked, nothing. Still, David Talbot takes me to task on these grounds in Salon. Since it’s twenty years since I graduated high-school, I won’t respond to these slurs. The ad hominem attacks seem to me to be a sign of intellectual desperation, which in Talbot’s case, is understandable. Still, he makes a couple of points that are worth addressing. The first is the notion that I have criticized some individuals, including Talbot, for lack of patriotism. This is simply untrue. I challenge Talbot to prove it. Sure, I’ve seared some writers on the left for defeatism, illogic and escapism for not having anything constructive to say since September 11, and I have seized a chance to discredit their view of the world. I have also pointed out that there are enclaves on the decadent left whose nihilism runs so deep they want terrorism to win. Maybe Talbot should take a trip to Berkeley or Amherst to fact-check this. What I haven’t done is attack any named individual for lack of patriotism. I cannot look into someone’s soul and say she is not a true patriot. All I can say is that her version of patriotism is, to my mind, deeply misguided, foolish and immoral. That is my exercise of free speech – and in America, most do not say that immigrants cannot contribute to that free speech. When Talbot says, “It’s repellent to be lectured about my commitment to America, which is deep and true, by an arrogant and self-important Brit,” he is engaging not only in a fantasy – I did no such thing – but in a nativism that shames him.

THE CENSORSHIP CANARD: My second point is that this debate has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship – and the charge is a blatant attempt to change the subject. Talbot knows I’m a First Amendment fanatic, and I have more experience publishing and writing truly radical, dissenting views than he has. He also knows there is no chance of actual government censorship in this war, and that most of the attacks on free speech in recent years have come from his friends on the p.c. left. I have no ability or desire to censor anyone. What I’ve been trying to do is expose and ridicule the views of many on the far left whom Talbot still won’t take on, and whom he still fawns over (e.g. the ridiculous Sontag). Talbot further claims I have lumped everyone on the left into the same camp. Again, untrue. I have praised many liberals in these dark days – including several, like Jake Tapper, at Salon. I have commended the American Prospect, NOW, the NAACP, Hitchens, Rushdie, and on and on. I deeply respect liberals whose views about how best to defeat terrorism are different from mine. But I simply do not respect those, like Sontag and Pollitt and Moore and Chomsky, who have nothing to say except that it’s largely our fault that we are in this war, and that we should take no action against the enemy that has launched a brutal war against us. This is a contemptible position. It is not censorship to say this. It is a service to the truth.

AND ANOTHER THING: Talbot’s deeper argument is that I should go easy on the left at a time like this because the pro-war hawks on the right are homophobes and would lock me up if they could. This is the kind of argument I have spent most of my career countering. A writer’s job is not to look around him and see which camp it is in his best interests to join. A writer’s job is to call things as he sees them, regardless of how many friends he loses or enemies he gains. When you’re an ideological hodge-podge like me, this makes for a difficult intellectual life. Your friends in some matters are your enemies in others and you get isolated pretty fast. But Talbot knows that I have never turned a blind eye to intolerance on the right, and have battle scars fighting fundamentalism in every form. My biggest contribution to this war debate so far has been an essay in the New York Times dedicated to the exposure of both Christian and Muslim fundamentalism. To describe my writing as Taliban-like is therefore simply loopy. And Talbot is blind if he does not also see that homophobia, nativism, prejudice and every other human failing are also present on the left. In some ways, I am encouraged that the most homophobic attacks on my private and public life have come from the left. It shows that ideas can matter more than simple identity; and that the resort to ugly prejudice is not unique to any politics. Talbot’s desperate smears are merely further proof of that.

AND NOW, FORTE: On a more pleasant note, I’d like to address the arguments of David Forte, who has written a critique of my piece, “This Is a Religious War,” in the current National Review. Forte wants to argue that Osama bin Laden’s extremist fundamentalism is not what he calls “essential Islam.” I don’t disagree. As I wrote, there is obviously a great and glorious past in Islam, and much within Islam today that could never be used to justify the massacre of thousands of civilians. But my point is that bin Laden’s appeal specifically blurs such distinctions, and that there is enough within mainstream Islam to help his effort. Whether we like it or not, this ideology obviously has wide appeal in the Islamic world and is gaining adherents daily. If bin Laden really were a complete crank with no real connection to Islam as a whole, then this simply wouldn’t be happening. Look at Doug Jehl’s piece in the New York Times today. What it tells us is that it matters very little what mainstream Islam says any more. The message has been overwhelmed by a culture of extremism and discontent in societies where there is no space for political opposition, and where a truly terrifying politicized Islam is on the march. Is this new form of Islam still Islam? In some ways, this is semantics. In a very basic sense, it obviously is – just as the Inquisition was a part of Catholicism and the Salem witch trials were a part of Protestantism. But my beef with Forte is not over religion. I am passionate about the importance of religious faith. My beef is about the fusion of politics and religion. Every time this happens, it’s dangerous. In many instances, the fusion has been truly terrifying. Forte disagrees and he wants to blur the distinction between politics and religion in the United States. That’s our deep disagreement. On the empirical question of what kind of Islam is now prevalent in the Middle East, we will soon find out. All I can say is that I’m far less optimistic than Forte.

But it could be. This is true. Well, as true as anything in the British tabloids can be. A janitor mistook a modern art exhibit for trash and cleaned it up and put it in the trash can. It was worth $8000. “As soon as I clapped eyes on it I sighed because there was so much mess,” the janitor comments. “I didn’t think for a second that it was a work of art – it didn’t look much like art to me. So I cleared it all into bin-bags and dumped it.”

Now, it’s official. The Syrian Defense Minister has endorsed the notion that Israel was responsible for the World Trade Center massacre. Another unreliable poll in Lebanon finds a plurality believing it. Abraham Foxman has called on president Bush to debunk this rumor. I agree, but in these circumstances, an American denial would merely prove the rumor to these crazy paranoiacs. Nor should we be surprised. The man making this statement previously wrote a pamphlet called “The Matzah of Zion,” whose arguments were summed up in the mainstream Egyptian newspaper al Ahram thus: “The bestial drive to knead Passover matzahs with the blood of non-Jews is [confirmed] in the records of the Palestinian police where there are many recorded cases of the bodies of Arab children who had disappeared being found, torn to pieces without a single drop of blood. The most reasonable explanation is that the blood was taken to be kneaded into the dough of extremist Jews to be used in matzahs to be devoured during Passover.” Yes, folks. This is the blood libel. And this text will shortly become a movie. The justification? According to the invaluable Middle East Media and Research Institute, “The producer stated that the primary goal of the film is ‘to respond to all of the Zionist films distributed by the American film industry, which is backed by the Zionist propaganda apparatus. Among these films is Schindler’s List, which supports the idea of the Jews’ right to the land of Palestine.'” We need to be clear here. We are dealing with the moral equivalent of Nazis. And these people now have a seat on the U.N. Security Council and are being considered possible allies in the war against terrorism. Who on earth are we kidding?

David Talbot’s interview with Susan Sontag, conducted, so far as I can tell, on his knees, starts with a preposterous amount of throat clearing and excuse making and silly swipes at alleged “censorship.” These pampered journalists, who have never seen a moment of real censorship in their lives, and who have marginalized conservative voices for their entire careers in their own organs and field of influence, take the occasion of the massacre of thousands of their fellow citizens to worry about themselves – and preen self-righteously at the same time. Then there’s the sheer pretentiousness of it all. I’m particularly fond of Talbot’s use of the word “texts” to discuss Sontag’s works. (I’m not the first weblogger to notice this). Not books; not pieces; not articles; not essays – but “texts.” Ooooh. That must mean she’s a real intellectual. The silver lining is that Sontag has now stated her belief in the notion that we are indeed confronting a jihad and that there can be no compromise with these murderers. But the rest of the interview completely belies this view. Item one: if there is no negotiating with these killers, what do we do? According to Sontag, we don’t bomb. The Taliban soldiers are just “a lot of kids.” We don’t even drop food packages, which, in her eyes, are a cover for an unholy war. In fact, you can read this interview again to see whether she has any practical recommendations for our response, and you will come up empty. Like Katha Pollitt, she has absolutely nothing to say, except that we all need to read the latest “text” by Stanley Hoffmann in the New York Review of Books. I’m sorry, but this is self-parody. Her only practical recommendations are that we should stop military action against the Taliban and urge a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. Gee, that will terrify the terrorists. They won’t dare murder us again after that. She dismisses out of hand the notion that the anthrax attacks could be the work of al Qaeda. She refers to them as “what I think are 99 percent certain to be just domestic copycat crazies on their own war path.” Why does she have such certainty? No reason given. When you’re that brilliant, why bother with reasons? She further complains that the media has “censored” pictures of grisly horror at the WTC site because it would demoralize the people. Is she kidding? Pictures of severed hands and tangled limbs would not demoralize this country. It would enrage this country. If such pictures have been held back, it is out of respect for the dead and their families, and precisely in order to restrain possible anger. That piece of loopy judgment alone should tell us all we need to know about what planet Sontag is living on. Throughout it all, she denigrates the Brits for their support of the United States and calls president Bush “ridiculous.” No, Ms Sontag. It is you who are ridiculous.

THE STRANGEST OF ALLIANCES: It didn’t take long for the activists who loathe the pharmaceutical industry to use the current crisis for their own advantage. Encouraged by Senator Charles Schumer, Jamie Love, of the Naderite Consumer Project on Technology, now has Bayer’s Cipro in his sights. He wants HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to break Bayer’s patent in order to address what Love sees as an anthrax emergency. “He’s the damn secretary of Health and Human Services,” Love tells Salon’s Anthony York. “He should be trying to protect the American people. He’s just afraid to break the patent. He says that the U.S. will respect the patent right, even if it means endangering public health. That’s a hell of a lot of respect, I must say. He seems to lack a little bit of guts. He’s not lacking any legal authority, but does seem to be missing a bit in the courage department. He’s afraid to say the truth — he doesn’t want to send the wrong signal on the patent issue, even if that means putting people in danger.” A few points. Cipro isn’t the only anti-biotic that can treat anthrax. Plenty of others can as well. If anything, public health experts worry that over-prescribing the great but strong Cipro could accelerate the emergence of an anthrax super-strain that truly would be immune to most anti-biotics. So retaining the patent for Bayer is in no way a real danger to public health. Second, Bayer is ramping up production as fast as it can. It seems to me that Love is engaging in a classic piece of opportunism. He wants to cripple the patent system in general and sees an opportunity to do it now. No doubt he’s sincere, and sees no future threat to research in wrecking pharmaceutical profits. But he’s wrong, and could do far more harm to public health in the short and long term if he succeeds.

POLITESSE: I have heard from some that I was too aggressive in my discussion with Katha Pollitt, even uncivil. I feel bad if I was rude. But I want to make the following point about civility. It’s not everything. Sometimes, it’s corrupting. When thousands of people have been murdered, biological warfare has been launched, and American soldiers are putting their lives on the line, I don’t find cozy twittering about how hilarious it is that a woman had a fight with her daughter about flag-waving to be appropriate. I don’t find condescending disparagement of other people’s patriotism as somehow mindless appropriate. In fact, this kind of denial in the face of this horror strikes me as deeply wrong. It angers me. I reserved my anger for Pollitt’s arguments, not her person. And fierce criticism is not the same as censorship or intimidation. I’ve long enjoyed Katha’s company; have had pleasant encounters with her; and have no reason to doubt that she is a kind and genuine person. But I find her insouciance toward these events and inability to come up with a coherent response to them appalling. At some point, acquiescence in civility is a surrender of moral seriousness. I know many people are having similar confrontations in less formal settings, and they must know what I mean. I’d rather be remembered for losing friends in this conflict than going along to get along, while the threat deepens. Sorry, but it’s the only way I can live with myself.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “[O]f all the forms of foreign disturbance suffered by Syria in these new days of change, Zionism is the most violent and the most detested by the native population. That hatred may be called ineffective; the Jewish advance is bound to continue so long as there is peace and so long as the English are in undisturbed possession. The Jews bring with them a much higher material civilization, trained scientific experts, a largely increased exploitation of the land, and of all natural resources…. It [Zionism] has behind it what none of the other forces intruding upon the Syrian world can boast — a strong moral motive, not technically religious, but having the force of a religion. The Jewish race as a whole, in spite of certain dissidents, and certainly the Jewish immigrants pouring into Palestine, are inspired by as strong a motive as can move men to action. But this strength alone would not maintain the Jews against the fierce hostility of the Moslem world which surrounds them. That hostility is another moral force with which the future cannot but be filled. We in the West do not appreciate it because we do not hear its expression, we are not witnesses of the gestures nor partner in the conversations which fill the Near East; but if we ignore it we are ignoring something which may change our fate.” – Hillaire Belloc, “The Battle Ground” (1936).

A very helpful primer from Seth Stevenson in Slate on the debate about how violent Islam inherently is. My own view (after an admitted crash-course in the subject) is that violence is one deep strain in Islam, deeper than in Christianity or Judaism. This doesn’t mean that peaceful Islam doesn’t exist; it doesn’t mean that violent Christianity hasn’t existed. It does mean that we ignore the violent tendencies in Islam at our peril, and that the linkage between this violent propensity and fundamentalism and anti-Semitism makes for a truly dangerous ideology. Let’s drop the Oprah nonsense about Islam being Episcopalians in turbans. It’s intellectually flabby and deeply condescending.

LETTERS: A great new batch. Two left-wingers return from Damascus; time to drop all references to Clinton; reviews of the Pollit-Sullivan mud-wrestle; etc.

Here is the best left-wing attack on visceral, knee-jerk anti-Americanism I’ve yet read. Gitlin gets it. And he’s brave to take this canard on.

I didn’t think I’d read such an editorial in the newspaper that has become ground central for appeasement. But here it is in the Guardian, exhibiting solidarity with the United States and admiration for the American people. In the end, people get it. Our best weapons against appeasement are the terrorists themselves.

MORE BELLOC: I have some qualms reprinting Hillaire Belloc. He was a complicated fellow, a bigot, a genius of a writer (A.N. Wilson wrote a memorable and sadly out-of-print biography of him), and an anti-semite of spectacular proportions. He was also fiercely intelligent. Here’s an extract from his 1938 book, “The Great Heresies.” Worth a re-read: “May not Islam rise again? In a sense the question is already answered because Islam has never departed. It still commands the fixed loyalty and unquestioning adhesion of all the millions between the Atlantic and the Indus and further afield throughout scattered communities of further Asia. But I ask the question in the sense: ‘Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world which will shake the dominion of Europeans – still nominally Christian – and reappear again as the prime enemy of our civilization?’ The future always comes as a surprise but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing in the future is the return of Islam. Since religion is at the root of all political movements and changes and since we have here a very great religion physically paralysed, but morally intensely alive, we are in the presence of an unstable equilibrium which cannot remain permanently unstable.”