Month: March 2006

Is there a connection? The murderer of Theo van Gogh was a sexual failure in Holland. Mohammed Atta went to a strip club before 9/11. The sexual repression in much of the Arab-Muslim world means a lot of frustrated young men, eager for some kind of escape. Ian Buruma has a typically fecund essay on the topic here. Money quote:

"Sexual deprivation may be a factor in the current wave of suicidal violence, unleashed by the Palestinian cause as well as revolutionary Islamism. The tantalising prospect of having one’s pick of the loveliest virgins in paradise is deliberately dangled in front of young men trained for violent death. And even those who are not trained to kill and die often live in authoritarian societies in which sex before marriage is strictly forbidden, in which women outside the family home are not only supposed to be untouchable, but invisible. Access to MTV, the internet, DVDs and global advertising reinforces the notion that westerners live in a degenerate garden of sinful delights. This makes the lot of millions of young Arab men even harder to bear, and can provoke a mixture of rage and envy."

I cannot believe that a culture in which half of humanity is essentially in slavery to the other half, and in which all sexuality is treated as potentially damning, is a culture at peace with itself or the world.

Several of you have objected to the email posted yesterday about Biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, and his evolution from fundamentalism to agnosticism. Here’s one email that is similar to many others:

"I went to UNC, and Ehrman was often talked about. Each semester, he would use the last lecture to tell about his spiritual journey and his reasons for his ultimate beliefs. You ignore a large part of his spiritual journey, which was mentioned but not focused on in the article, a point with which any of his students are forever impressed. The suffering. I really think this is the final blow for Ehrman: the endless, needless, often arbitrary suffering experienced by mankind. Ehrman finally saw a human world unconstrained by even the simplest of moral logic, and this is what broke him. I think it’s not so much that Ehrman doesn’t believe there is a God (he does say he’s agnostic), but that he simply doesn’t want to believe in a God that doesn’t care. This is a question that religion has never addressed with anything but the most hollow and strained assurances."

My own Catholic response to that existential dilemma is simply the cross. I remain a believer because I believe that the divine did not stop suffering but instead chose to embrace and thereby transcend it. Does that somehow end human suffering? Of course not. Does it logically solve the problem? Not without faith or an encounter with Christ himself. But it doesn’t avoid the problem, it seems to me, either. It places it at the center of Christian faith.

Jason Zengerle and Jim Sleeper take turns bashing the latest crusade of one of contemporary conservatism’s establishment pundits. Ouch.

Barry Posen’s strategy for Iraq.

Mohammed wakes this morning in Baghdad to the sounds of mortar shells – insistent sounds, not intermittent ones, the sounds of civil conflict. He talks with his father:

"Me: How is this mess going to resolve dad?

Dad: It is not.

Me: Are you positive? Why?

Dad: People find solutions only if they wanted to and I think many of the political players do not want a solution.

Me: Is there a chance the situation will further escalate?

Dad: Most likely yes, we are a state still run by sentiments rather than reason which means it’s a brittle state and any sentimental overreaction can turn the tide it in either direction.

Me: What kinds of challenges can make things worse?

Dad: Virtually anything … assassinating a leader, a fatwa, attack on a shrine like last time; we do not possess the institutions that can abolish the effects of severe sentimental reactions.

Me: Is there going to be no role for politics?

Dad: What politics are you talking about?! We are dealing with deeply-rooted beliefs … Yes, in politics everything is possible but with religion you find yourself before very few options to choose from and our people have mostly voted for the religious."

The old problem: religion versus politics. Mohammed’s father is wise: "America is a super power but it’s not superman. These are our problems now and America has nothing to do with it. We have to fix our mess or no one will."

John Roberts’ unanimous ruling in the military campus recruitment case is a good omen, I’d say, of his future on the court. The distinctions he makes seem sensible enough (I’m with Bainbridge). On the substantive matter, I appreciate the efforts of many in universities to highlight and expose the stupidity and bigotry of the military’s ban on openly gay servicemembers. But we are at war, and the gap between military and elite culture needs bridging, not widening. Let them recruit; and let others debate. And, for Pete’s sake, let’s change this dumb policy.

Two varying views on what, if anything, should be made of last night. Did Crash win the older vote? A reader muses:

"I’d be really curious to see a breakdown of Oscar votes by age.  I suspect we’d see that Crash cleaned up among the old guard, while Brokeback was the choice of younger Academy members.  My evidence is only anecdotal, but as a straight, white, male GenXer (I’m in my early 30’s), I can tell you that almost all of my friends had the same reaction to both films.  We loved Brokeback not because we viewed it as a gay film — we didn’t — but because it was simply a very strong, moving, adult love story (albeit with some cheesy dialogue), in an age where that is becoming increasingly difficult to pull off effectively.  We weren’t very impressed with Crash, however, because although we viewed it as a well-made film, we thought its vision of race-relations was hopelessly outdated.  I’m a New Yorker, and even I find it difficult to believe that the LA Haggis presents bears any resemblance to the real place.  I took Haggis’ LA the same way I now take Woody Allen’s New York, as a work of nostalgia.  Even among critics, it’s been my observation that the old guard (like Roger Ebert) seem much more enamoured of Crash than the younger generation.  Perhaps this says something positive about the direction of race and sexual orientation relations among the younger crowd."

Or did Crash win the "subversive" vote (as understood by boomer liberals):

"If anything, I think last night may indicate "Brokeback" went a little TOO mainstream for the Academy’s tastes. Like when "Shakespeare In Love" won over the movie everyone was talking about in 1998, "Saving Private Ryan." Or in 2002 when "Chicago" won, probably solely on the merits that nobody talked or cared about it. The problem with "Brokeback" was that too many regular folks turned out for it, related to it and liked it. It was too conservative!"

I thought, for what it’s worth, that Crash was a marginally better movie than Brokeback, but BBM was the better, and more truthful, narrative. Still: I have to say I couldn’t care less who wins the Oscars. I enjoy them for their meaninglessness more than anything. 

A reader takes the long view:

"I agree with some of your points on the order of: suppose we hadn’t gone in? True, Saddam didn’t, and still wouldn’t, have any WMD, but (as we know all too well right now) the WMD issue was only the beginning. The Saddam regime was inherently unstable and some kind of crackup was coming to Iraq eventually anyway.

The lesson can only be: the entire civilized world ("The West", if you will) needs to take more seriously the problem of unstable and/or failed states, and needs to develop and actual functioning machinery for dealing with them, including situations in which Iraq-style "regime change" is the agreed-upon course of action.

While the US had the will and ability to go into Iraq (mistakenly or not), the interesting question is: what if there was no USA? No power with the ability (or belief in its ability) to act unilaterally? Suppose the present situation was not the result of a US invasion, but instead the natural outcome of a post-Saddam Iraqi crackup? What abilities exist under the auspices of organizations like NATO or the UN to deal with it? The answer is clearly, "not much", and this is not going to be adequate for the long term.

Given our financial predicament (exacerbated by the Bush tax cuts), it simply isn’t going to be possible for the US economy to support the kind of gigantic military capability that has been typical of the US since the end of WWII. Once our military has declined to a level more typical of Western democracies such as, say, Great Britain, we won’t be in a position anymore to deal (on our own) with the Iraqs of the future, and a more collaborative mechanism had better be in place before that point is reached."

Agreed. Alas, the Bush administration may have made this harder. But I see signs that they are adjusting. And the Europeans may be beginning to realize that we need to be in this together for the long haul in order to prevail.

Here’s a quote for ya:

"I know that you share the president’s and my commitment to maintaining the full faith and credit of the U.S. government," – Treasury secretary, John Snow.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just a reminder: here’s what he’s done in a mere five years.