Month: November 2001

My chat last week with Karl Rove – posted opposite.

One obvious victim of this weekend’s news: the notion that the Northern Alliance is a useless military entity. This was one of the many arguments used by those who don’t really want us to fight this war. In defense of the usual “we-can’t-win” rhetoric, allegedly hard-headed experts told us that the U.S. military strategy was way too slow and clumsy, that mere air-power wasn’t enough, that thousands of American ground-troops were necessary, and so on. As with every single recent prediction of the inadequacy of American airpower in the last few years, this nostrum is now looking a lot less cogent. Yes, the war has only just begun. Sure, the Northern Alliance doesn’t solve every problem. But by shifting the momentum of the war decisively against the Taliban, they have made victory much more reachable than a few days ago. I can see why the administration, so dependent on Pakistani intelligence, doesn’t want to alienate the Southerners in Afghanistan. But their extreme caution in assessing what is a smashing military victory disturbs me. Why not let the Northern Alliance re-take Kabul? The psychological impact on the Taliban will surely be profound. We can fix the city’s governance later. I suspect too much State Department micro-management here and not enough go-for-it military strategy. I was, as usual, dismayed by Colin Powell on Meet The Press. Why is this man declaring that we’d never contemplate using nukes against bin Laden? Why limit ourselves in any way? Why, in their public pronouncements, do the Bushies seem almost dismayed by their success rather than buoyed by it?

A VINDICATION FOR BUSH: Poring through the various media accounts of the mega-media-recount, one obvious fact remains. Here’s how the New York Times puts it: “[I]f Florida’s 67 counties had carried out the hand recount of disputed ballots ordered by the Florida court on Dec. 8, applying the standards that county election officials said they would have used, Mr. Bush would have emerged the victor by 493 votes.” Given what happened last November and December, this amounts to a re-re-recount of all the votes Gore and his allies wanted re-re-recounted. You could infer from this a further piece of evidence that Bush v. Gore was poorly decided, that the Supreme Court’s credibility was needlessly undermined by such a divisive and unsatisfying opinion. Or you could infer that it was entirely justified given the fact that no-one at the time could have known what the final result would be; that the methods for recounting were manifestly inconsistent with equal treatment of equal votes; and that the result was so statistically close, it was almost meaningless to give either candidate a technical victory and so the results of the first recount should stand. Either way, as the Washington Post succinctly puts it, “Gore’s election was not blocked by the high court, whatever one thinks of that intervention. Instead, Gore’s unrealized victory exists only under a controlled set of circumstances that even he was not seeking with his strategy of recounting votes in selected counties.”

A VINDICATION FOR GORE: At the same time, it’s clearer now that, by the slimmest of margins, in an ideal world in which voting intentions were immaculately reflected in actual votes, Gore would have eked out a win. Given the fact that there’s no way of knowing whether an actual state-wide recount of under-votes and over-votes in the practical circumstances of last December would have produced an identical result to the consortium’s, this is still a probability rather than a certainty. But it must comfort Gore that, in his own mind at least, he came about as close to being president as it’s possible to get without actually being president. No-one should begrudge him a small amount of satisfaction on that score. But it will come as no great comfort that his failure was ultimately of his own doing. It was his cynical and self-interested desire to count only undervotes in counties where he thought he could win that doomed him. Of all the options he could have picked after the election, he chose the sleaziest and ultimately the least effective. There’s some irony, isn’t there, in the fact that Gore was ultimately too hardball for his own good. He lost the presidency just as he lost the campaign: by an excess of guile. He was too clever by half – and lost his soul in the process.

BEAUTY AS A DRUG: Another blow for the notion that beauty and sexual attractiveness are entirely socially constructed comes in a study published in the Boston Globe. The sight of a sexy woman triggers all sorts of chemical responses in a heterosexual male brain, responses that are hard-wired and similar to those prompted by various drugs. ”This is hard-core circuitry,” [study author Hans] Breiter said, comparing its basic job to the same function found in lizards. ”This is not a conditioned response.” He went on: “‘These guys look like rodents bar-pressing for cocaine.” And this is a surprise? Has he been to a strip-bar in his life, I wonder? Now, the study I really want to read is whether similar responses in female brains can be found for male beauty. I bet it’s a much weaker response.

IS IT UN-ISLAMIC TO KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN?: We’ve been told many times that it is. We’ve also been told that only nutcases like OBL believe such random murder is permissible under Islam. So it’s worth looking at a pre-9/11 piece from the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Watan, which discusses the issue. The conclusion? It’s OK to kill such civilians if they are implicated in any war effort, especially if they’re Jews. Such implication extends to voting for a government. Another case “when the killing of civilians and women is permitted is when Muslims must launch a comprehensive attack against their enemies or shoot them from afar. If civilians, women or children are to be killed in such attacks – although they must not be deliberately targeted – there is no blame on those who kill them, as these things happen in wars when bombs are fired at military posts situated between residential buildings, especially when these are the posts of the occupying army situated on Muslim lands. In such incidents civilians, women, and children are unintentionally killed, but Muslims get killed as well.” So because civilian workers in the WTC were involved in financial or economic affairs that support the American military through taxes, they are fair game. The only exception is a child-care center, if adults are reliably absent. All in all, according to this writer, Islam permits the murder of almost anyone and anything. I’m not sure whether it’s encouraging or dismaying that this piece was written before September 11. But it’s disturbing nonetheless.

YES, THERE IS ISLAMIC HUMOR: A heart-warming little piece in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, where the Egyptian satirist Ali Salem muses about setting up a terrorist-training kindergarten. The message to send to the little ones? “”Dear children: ‘Hate the beaches. Hate the flowers and the roses. Hate the wheat fields. Hate the trees. Hate music. Hate all manner of artistic, literary, or scientific endeavor. Hate tenderness. Hate reason and intellect. Hate your families and your countrymen. Hate others – all others.
Hate yourselves. Hate your teachers. Hate me. Hate this school. Hate life and everything in it.'” Slowly, the cracks in the extremist Islamist façade are showing. Let’s do all we can to widen them.

TALIBAN PROPAGANDA IN THE OBSERVER: Take a look at this piece in Sunday’s Observer in London. It’s an interview with a Taliban-supporting suicide killer. To interview him, without alerting the authorities, the Observer clearly acquiesced in the possible murder of British and American soldiers. There is barely a word of context or criticism in the article. Every conceivable piece of pro-Taliban propaganda is relayed. Notice how the Observer quotes this man’s rabid anti-Semitism – “‘The American leadership has put too much attention to the short-term interest of the Zionist financiers, rather than the safety of the American people” – without comment, and even some praise. The would-be murderer’s rant is a “thoughtful conversation.” Can you imagine a newspaper interviewing, say, a member of the Waffen SS in the early days of the Second World War in order to encourage Brits that their struggle was hopeless, that “Zionist financiers” were behind the Allied effort, and that their enemy could not be stopped. Meanwhile, on the same day, the Taliban forces essentially collapsed across whole swathes of Afghanistan. No doubt a gloomy day in the Observer’s editorial offices.

INTELLECTUALS AND TYRANNY: Ever wondered why so many intellectuals – Heidegger, Sartre, Said, Chomsky – are somehow drawn to violent tyrannies, and in some ways romanticize and long for them? Here’s a useful little dialogue in the New York Times with my old friend Mark Lilla, now at the University of Chicago. I’m a third of the way through his book, “The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals In Politics,” and highly recommend it for those of you with time and patience for philosophy. Mark’s dissection of Heidegger, for a brief survey, is close to being definitive.

“It is now clear that, at least as far as domestic policy is concerned, the administration views terrorism as another useful crisis… [T]he administration favors “stimulus” proposals that have nothing to do with helping the economy, but everything to do with its usual tax-cutting agenda.” – Paul Krugman, New York Times. Would it be possible for Krugman to concede that some of us sincerely believe that lowering people’s taxes actually stimulates productivity, growth and creativity? Or would that mean he’d have to argue with his opponents rather than demonizing them?

John Gross has a particularly acute piece in the current New Criterion about the baleful influence of the pomo left in the BBC, Britain’s once great institution of objective journalism. I was unaware of the following quote from a columnist in the Guardian but it says a lot about both the incoherence and malevolence of many on the hard left: “The smile on the face of the suicide bomber has as much to do with true humour and laughter as the rictus incantation “Have a nice day” in the supermarket checkout. Both are debased forms of totalitarianism.” Clever? In a way, I suppose. Depraved? Absolutely. And these are people in Blair’s coalition. No wonder he looks exhausted.

There’s a fascinating new interview with OBL on the web. I found a few things apposite. First off, he’s completely incoherent. His responses to the questions about the Islamic legitimacy of killing innocent civilians are all over the place. First it is illegitimate; then it isn’t. In the end, it seems it’s ok to kill civilians if they live in a democracy and you disagree with the policies of their government. Because they vote for these policies, they’re fair game. This is a pretty convenient pretext for someone who believes in Islamic theocracy as the only rightful form of government (and only Afghanistan fits the bill). Then there’s OBL’s appeal to Berkeley: “I ask the American people to force their government to give up anti-Muslim policies. The American people had risen against their government’s war in Vietnam. They must do the same today. The American people should stop the massacre of Muslims by their government.” That’s you he’s asking for help from, Congresswoman Lee. Then there’s this interesting exchange:

“HM: Some Western media claim that you are trying to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons. How much truth is there in such reports?

OBL: I heard the speech of American President Bush yesterday (Oct 7). He was scaring the European countries that Osama wanted to attack with weapons of mass destruction. I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.

HM: Where did you get these weapons from ?

OBL: Go to the next question.”

Now why would this question be the only one he won’t answer?

“The terrorist who mailed anthrax-tainted letters is probably a man, something of a loner with scientific ability who ”lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others” face to face, the FBI said Friday in a fresh plea for the public’s help in solving the baffling case. The culprit ”did not select his victims randomly,” the FBI said in a three-page, carefully hedged assessment issued more than one month after the disease first surfaced. He ‘may hold grudges for a long time, vowing that he will get even with ‘them,’ one day.'” – Associated Press.

AHEM: Of course, the other op-ed page that’s a must-read is the Wall Street Journal. Sorry, Max!

BLOCK THAT METAPHOR: “Is America the Titanic and Pakistan the iceberg we’re about to hit, while we’re searching for Osama bin Laden in the fog of Afghanistan? Or is Pakistan the Titanic, its president, Pervez Musharraf, the captain, America the only passengers and Afghanistan the iceberg we’re about to hit?” – Tom “Dear Yassir” Friedman, New York Times. Or are the allies the deckchairs near the swimming pool and CNN the life-rafts?

WHAT PLANET IS HE ON DEPT.: “The [Washington Post] Op-Ed page does feature some alternative voices, like David Broder, E.J. Dionne Jr. and Michael Kinsley, but they tend to focus on domestic affairs and in any case are no match for the Stentorian Seven. As a result, the page seems stale and one-dimensional, offering much less diversity of opinion than, say, the New York Times Op-Ed page.” – Michael Massing, The Nation. Massing believes that Rich, Dowd, Lewis, Herbert, Krugman, Friedman represent diversity! Let’s say that at least the Washington Post op-ed page might conceivably have had more than one token Bush-voter last fall. And Massing, of course, has got things exactly wrong. The only op-ed page worth reading these days is the Washington Post’s. Until the Times actually embraces real diversity (rather than gender-racial posturing), that will remain the case.

NEVER TRUST CONTENT FROM QUETTA: An interestingly honest piece from a Pakistani journalist in Quetta suggests things haven’t changed much in foreign reporting since Evelyn Waugh wrote “Scoop.” We should be particularly wary of generalizations about the mood of Afghans. How on earth does anyone know? As for misery, I’m sure it exists, as it has done from some time. But here’s some perspective: “After having faced years of strife, falling of bombs and missiles is a routine matter for common Afghans. There is no fear or harassment. Besides, for many, bombs, whether intact or after explosions, are the only source of livelihood. When the missiles were hitting the suburbs of Kandahar and smokes emitted with a heavy sound, locals started fighting with each other to get the shell of missiles and bombs. Sale of scrap is the only way there to earn some money. A ton of scrap sells for Rs 125 – as the rupee is a valid currency — and a truck load of debris, scattered when mountains are torn apart by US bombs, sells for Rs 1,300. It is big business for some in times of bad wars.”

“Before you can even talk of world reconstruction, or even peace, you have got to eliminate Hitler, which means bringing into being a dynamic not necessarily the same as that of the Nazis, but probably quite as unacceptable to “enlightened” and hedonistic people. What has kept England on its feet during the past year? In part, no doubt, some vague idea about a better future, but chiefly the atavistic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners. For the last twenty years the main object of English left-wing intellectuals has been to break this feeling down, and if they had succeeded, we might be watching the S.S. men patrolling the London streets at the moment … The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions–racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war–which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.” – George Orwell, “Wells, Hitler, and the World State.”

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 civilian hate crimes with terrorism. He gives no history of terrorism except that committed by Americans or Christians. Here’s a critical passage: “Indeed, in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple mound. The contemporaneous descriptions of the event describe soldiers walking on the Temple mound, a holy place to Christians, with blood running up to their knees. I can tell you that that story is still being told to today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.” I’m not quite sure what he means by this, but the context is perilously close to saying we deserve to pay for ancient horrors committed by people roughly from the same gene pool as ourselves. Huh? And this in a context that is arguing – against much history – that terrorism has never worked. Still, it’s not equivalent to saying that America asked for the 9/11 massacre, as I implied from what I now see was an appallingly slanted piece in the Washington Times. The speech is interminable of course. It has almost an internal contradiction in every paragraph. But it’s not Noam Chomsky. For that, we should give thanks.

SHUGER ON HERSH: Here’s a useful and highly convincing take-down of Sy Hersh’s overblown account of an alleged Special Forces screw-up in the current New Yorker, by Scott Shuger of Slate. Shuger has military experience and a very sharp and fair mind. Worth a read.

LETTERS: I really shouldn’t have brought up the subject of body hair, should I?

CENSORSHIP MADE MEANINGLESS: My friend Norah Vincent writes an unfortunately bizarre column in the Los Angeles Times, arguing that a university professor who is fired after voicing idiotic views about the war has suffered from censorship. Ditto poor Bill Maher, if his dreadfully strained show, Politically Incorrect, goes under after advertiser flight. Personally, I’m no fan of colleges firing professors for their idiotic views (who’d be left?); or of activists launching boycott campaigns to kill off television shows (like Dr Laura); or even patriotic attempts to actually fire (rather than roast) some individuals on the government payroll because of their stupidity or malevolence. But this is still not censorship. Censorship is when the government forbids the expression of certain views, period. It is the punishment of opinion by force. Everything else is the rough-and-tumble of public debate, in which equal measures of glory and ignominy are part of the process. If the public raises an outcry about the unremitting left-wing bias of NPR, and forces it to change its tune, it’s still not censorship. If an editor fires a columnist for endorsing the wrong presidential candidate, it’s tough, but not censorship. If the NEA is forced by public pressure not to fund a hedgehog-turd-on-a-rosary as art, it’s still not censorship. Losing your job is always tough. But it’s not censorship. I thought Norah was sensible on this kind of thing. I say: let’s do all we can to ensure that people with whom we disagree are exposed and criticized. Let debate ensue. But please: no whining about censors.

So it seems that the sins of the United States’ past make it impossible to judge the massacre of September 11, according to our 42d president. Americans’ treatment of blacks and native Americans renders unequivocal moral judgment impossible. I must say that even I found Clinton’s comments yesterday truly shocking. I always thought he was a charlatan, but often a clear-headed one. This speech suggests he has imbibed any amount of leftist nonsense. But the truly revealing fact is that he calls upon America to be introspective, to look into ourselves for the causes of this massacre. Do you think that, since September 11, he has even for a second asked the same of himself? And I don’t mean as a prelude to launching a spin campaign to defend his legacy. I’m speaking of his negligence of our intelligence services, his contempt for foreign policy, his early betrayal of Bosnian Muslims (recently made much of by bin Laden), his deeply counterproductive missile strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan, his allowing bin Laden to escape in 1996, and on and on. If any American deserves any guilt for laying the groundwork for September 11, Bill Clinton’s name must come at the top of most lists. How fitting that he should seek to deflect this fact by casting aspersions on the country whose highest office he besmirched and disgraced.

When I mentioned a while back that the New York City firemen’s friar, Mychal Judge, was a gay man, some of you asked me for evidence. Here’s a poignant piece on the man, partly prompted by my posting about him a while back, in the current New York Magazine. Prepare to be surprised and inspired.

THE WAGES OF RELATIVISM: The terrorist-supporter Robert Fisk asks the following question in today’s Independent: “If the US attacks were an assault on “civilization”, why shouldn’t Muslims regard the Afghanistan attack as a war on Islam?” The answer is obvious. The 9/11 massacre was an act designed exclusively to kill thousands of innocent civilians in the name of some perverted fanaticism. The bombing of Afghanistan is a) an act of self-defense against these murderers; b) designed to avoid civilian casualties as far as is humanly possible; c) aimed not at Islam, whose adherents the United States has rescued and defended in its three most recent international interventions, but at a terrorist state based upon an extreme version of Islam. These facts are not obscure. They are bleeding obvious. Fisk’s deliberate avoidance of them speaks volumes. The rest of Fisk’s piece – his description of Walter Isaacson’s memo to instill some balance in CNN’s reporting as “shameful,” “unethical,” “disgraceful”; his preference for the press in the Pakistani dictatorship over the New York Times; and so on – is a sign that he has actually lost it. Reading him a while back, one was aware of a kind of visceral hatred of Israel, but not a full-bore support for murder, terrorism and any murderous ideology as long as it came wrapped in p.c. Third Worldism. I guess Fisk has decided to go down with the ship. Good riddance.

BODY HAIR AND ALLAH: Well, I asked for it. This looks like a pretty definitive answer to the question. Yes, there’s some sort of religious duty to shave body hair – including your privates. There’s a forty-day maximum hair-growing limit. It applies to women too. Here’s another online guide to the bizarre physical requirements for Muslims, including groin hair. I know we should be respectful of the traditions of religious cultures, but this strikes me as really weird. But then, compared to mutilating the penises of infants, I guess it’s pretty harmless.