Month: July 2003

“I thank Allah that [our son] attained what he sought. For 14 years he sought [martyrdom]. He always pointed to his head and wished that a rifle bullet would split his forehead, and we have been told that that is what happened.” – from MEMRI’s special report on Jihadi fighters in Iraq. Put it together with this and the flypaper theory seems more credible by the day. Bring ’em on.

The New Republic’s evisceration of Mel Gibson’s upcoming movie is now available online. I’m going to wait to see the movie myself. But this piece is pretty damning.

The war to depose Saddam was moral, necessary and timely. My counter-blast against the war critics can be read here in the Sunday Times.

It had a lot of the atmosphere of post-war Iraq. Funny that isn’t often mentioned. Wrong analogy, of course. For one generation, it is now, has been and always will be Vietnam.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Cuaron’s outspokenness is also new to the franchise. Does the evil wizard Voldemort still remind him of George W. Bush, as he said recently? ‘In combination with Saddam,’ he says. ‘They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people. I read books four and five, and Fudge’ – Rowling’s slippery Minister of Magic – ‘is similar to Tony Blair. He’s the ultimate politician. He’s in denial about many things. And everything is for the sake of his own persona, his own power. The way the Iraq thing was handled was not unlike the way Fudge handled affairs in book four.’ Cuaron’s scrappiness is either refreshing or worrying, depending on your stock portfolio.” – from Newsweek’s interview with Alfonso Cuaron, the new Harry Potter director.

Conrad Black, the media mogul, tells it like it is in a letter to his own newspaper, the Daily Telegraph:

The BBC is pathologically hostile to the Government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy.
It benefits from an iniquitous tax, abuses its position commercially, has shredded its formal obligation to separate comment from reporting in all political areas, to provide variety of comment, and is poisoning the well of public policy debate in the UK. It is a virulent culture of bias. Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform.
It isn’t just at war with the Government; it is attempting to take over the formation of public opinion and is masquerading as the officially persecuted voice of truth against the Government. Alastair Campbell’s excesses have facilitated this pretence. But he, at least, has been doing his job, and promoting Tony Blair’s interests.
It is not the BBC’s function to assassinate the truth about the Iraq war. From Jeremy Paxman’s insolent question of the Prime Minister: “Do you pray with” President Bush, to the mouthy challenges to British military spokesmen at Iraq war press briefings, the BBC’s only interest seems to have been to destroy and supplant the Government as a source of authority in the country.

It was a little dumb of the BBC to push the leftist envelope this far while their charter is up for review. Here’s hoping they reap the whirlwind.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BBC II: A reader from Britain weighs in:

Just finished reading your column in today’s Sunday Times. Whilst doing so we were listening to Radio 4 – Broadcasting House 9am. These reporters are dredging the swamps in their attempts to find anti-American stories in Iraq. This one had me shouting at the radio. They reported that since the war orphanages have closed in Iraq and children are roaming the streets. These kids feel safe to camp out near the Americans but sometimes they are moved on – if they’re smoking or peddling hash, etc. One 11-year old reported that he was hit by a soldier. This reporter went on and on trying to create an issue. No mention of the fact that 3 Americans were killed guarding a hospital. He also reported that 12 year old girls are prostituting themselves with locals with other children are attacking them, too. Why couldn’t he interview an Inman about this? I thought the soldiers interviewed should be commended for their patience and good manners – but the reporter put in a complaint about them.
I am now resenting the fact that I have to pay a license fee for for this tabloid crap.

And the resentment is spreading. The British people are forced to pay for this propaganda if they own a television set.

It’s extremely depressing to see a magazine that has long championed federalism and states rights support a Constitutional Amendment that would shred such principles. But it is not too surprising. Their fundamental argument, in so far as they have one, is procreation. Here’s the money section:

Traditionally, marriage has been understood to be ordered to procreation. This ordering was not, in general, understood in a narrowly instrumental way. The tradition did not insist that “the purpose of marriage is to raise children.” Married couples were never required to have, to want, or even to be capable of having children. Elderly couples could marry. Infertility was not held to be a valid ground for annulment. Still, there was a link to procreation. Impotence was a valid ground for annulment, because it meant that the couple could not effect the behavioral conditions for procreation; that it could not unite in the total, including biological, sense required of true union. It was understood that the ideal setting for the rearing of children was the marriage of their parents.
That ideal could not always be achieved. Tragedy could leave a child parentless and in need of adoption. Children could be born outside of marriage. These realities did not challenge the culture-wide commitment to the ideal, just as the recognition that adultery exists does not bring the virtue of fidelity into question. The widespread practice of divorce and remarriage did, however, challenge the ideal. So have such seemingly marginal developments as the rise of sperm banks. Gay marriage would cut the final cord that ties marriage to the well-being of children.

I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments here. But I will point out that NR has essentially conceded in this passage that every link to procreation in legal marriage has been gutted already, except the abstract but practically inconsistent association of heterosexuality and procreation. Yet they are not proposing an amendment to make divorce or multiple re-marriage or sperm banks illegal – something that clearly would restore the ancient links between marriage and procreation. Their view is that although heterosexuals have severed the link between procreation and marriage, homosexuals should not be allowed to enter the institution on the same terms. Why? I can’t see a real argument, except that somehow admitting gay people would make what is already true too explicit. Fromthe point of view of National Review, a civil marriage regime which allows the most shameless, intentionally childless, days-long, Green Card, Vegas chapel, heterosexual marriage is worthy of more legal and social protection than a long-term faithful and loving gay relationship with kids. It’s good to see how they really feel about gay relationships.

THE SILENCE: But let me add something more. Go read the editorial. See if you can find in it a single reference to gay people’s lives or relationships or needs. If NR opposes civil marriage, what do they propose instead for gay citizens in loving relationships or with children? Domestic partnership? Civil unions? Private sector benefits? Does National Review even have a position on whether it is better for gay people to form solid relationships or live in bathhouses? Look hard. You will find nothing. Nada. Zip. Why? The most charitable answer is that what might be best for gay people simply hasn’t occurred to them. And why should it? Gays aren’t part of their world, are they? It seems to me to be important for those of us who have argued for equal marriage rights to take care, as we have, to look at the interests of society as a whole, especially its heterosexual majority. But it strikes me as equally fair that those who oppose same-sex marriage also take into account the gay citizens of this country, and what is best for them and their spouses and their children. The fact that the editors of National Review have not done this, and have yet to come up with a single constructive proposal to ameliorate the lives of gay people, is simply a sad testament to where conservatism still is on this subject.

“I have a theory about Sam Tanenhaus, one that will explain this and other odd bouts of liberal irrationality. His biography of Whitaker Chambers rehabilitated a figure hugely reviled on the left. As Tanenhaus must know, contemporary liberalism is extremely closed-minded and vengeful; as the country moves further and further away from the need for great social movements (e.g., the civil rights movement), nasty ideological battles are fought over increasingly pettier issues. As the redeemer of the man who accused leftist icon Alger Hiss, Tanenhaus could easily be subject to ongoing discrimination and vilification throughout his career. He doesn’t want to share the fate of Ronald Radosh, forever blackballed from academia and the tonier venues of opinion journalism for the thoughtcrime of confirming the guilt of the Rosenbergs. Therefore, Tanenhaus must periodically confirm his liberal bona fides – in this case, by saying what many on the left believe to be true, that all conservatives are mean-spirited crazies, and that there is no distinction whatsoever between the most thoughtful conservative writer and Ann Coulter.”

“And just because white Evangelicals supposedly vote in part based on their religious beliefs is no reason to say they think religion and politics are not distinct. Maybe they are among the few protestants who have strong religious beliefs. Maybe more of them answer polls honestly. And regardless of the reason for the poll’s results, what is wrong with considering one’s beliefs when voting? Plenty of Democrats vote based on their belief in the moral rectitude of affirmative action, abortion and big government social programs. I respect your writings and agree with almost everything you say, but will admit I am bothered by your constant digs against evangelical protestants.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

One of the clearest and sanest assessments of our mistakes but also our potential in liberated Iraq is Jim Hoagland’s piece in the Washington Post today. Money quote:

Vietnam shaped the cautious-to-pessimistic strategic outlook for a generation of American military leaders that included Colin L. Powell, who popularized the concept of never engaging abroad without overwhelming force, clear political aims and preconceived exit strategies. Now, the worldview of a new generation of commanders is being formed in Iraq’s deserts, mountains and cities in a still uneven attempt at nation-building.
These generals are making their own exit strategy as they go. They see that the overriding U.S. goal must be to make Iraq into a country that works — without several U.S. Army divisions stationed here. Otherwise, in the Sunni heartland in particular, the U.S. Army risks turning into an occupying force regarded with hostility and suspicion while its own demoralized troops long to return home.

Read the whole thing.

Very strange to read the normally sane and cogent Sam Tanenhaus going off the rails in Slate magazine. His argument seems to be that conservative critics of Ann Coulter secretly agree with her and have criticized her to deflect attention from their own closeted belief that all contemporary Democrats and liberals are traitors. He summarizes his cheap shot here:

Horowitz et al. are right [about Coulter], of course. But why are they so worked up? And why reach back so far to single out a few “good” liberals? This just reinforces Coulter’s argument that today’s breed can be dismissed as a single lumpen mass. In other words, they agree with her. So, why the outrage? Here’s a guess: Coulter’s conservative critics fear that her legions of fans-and lots of others, too-see no appreciable difference between her ill-informed comic diatribes and their high-brow ultraserious ones, particularly since Coulter’s previous performances were praised by some now on the attack.

Let me provide some other, less strained reasons for being exercized by Ann Coulter. Those of us who believe that, yes, some Democrats and leftists were traitors in the Cold War understand that the accusation is a very grave one and don’t want to see it used so broadly that it discredits the argument altogether. The difference between us and Coulter is that we want to make distinctions and she doesn’t. So in today’s Democratic Party, it’s vital to distinguish between the well-intentioned critiques of Howard Dean or John Kerry or Bob Graham and those crackpot Democratic activists on Democratic Underground or openly treasonous Columbia University professors who really do want to see the U.S. defeated in Iraq. This strikes me as a pretty critical distinction. My beef with many Democrats right now is not that they’re traitors of any kind but that they have got their perspective skewed; and they need to realize more strongly that we really are fighting truly bad guys out there and our president isn’t one of them. How weird that Tanenhaus should should somehow fail to see this distinction and paint diverse and serious writers like Dorothy Rabinowitz and David Horowitz as indistinguishable from Coulter. Isn’t that kind of broad brush exactly what Coulter is criticized for? The truth is: in this article, Tanenhaus is far closer to Coulter’s methods than any of the people he criticizes.