Month: January 2007

Litvinenko was poisoned in a tea-cup:

Mr Gordievsky told The Times yesterday how "Vladislav was described as someone who could help Mr Litvinenko win a lucrative contract with a Moscow-based private security company. Sasha (his name for Litvinenko) remembered the man making him a cup of tea. His belief is that the water from the kettle was only lukewarm and that the polonium-210 was added, which heated the drink through radiation so he had a hot cup of tea. The poison would have showed up in a cold drink," he added.

The British police now have a clear suspect. Sources say he is very close to Putin and the FSB. If that pans out, the consequences for Europe-Russia relations are profound.

The appropriate anger in the Congress – on video:

But not if it’s porn.

"Most members of the armed forces reflexively expect the Democrats to pay lip service to supporting them while doing all they can to see their mission fail for political gain … Republican Senators such as Chuck Hagel, John Warner and Olympia Snowe have publicly stated that the president‚Äôs planned strategy adjustment will not work and that they will not support it. I challenge each of these august public servants to go over to Bethesda Naval Hospital TODAY, find a seriously wounded Marine and say to him, ‘Son your sacrifice was in vain.’ GO TODAY Senator. Stand up and be counted. If your vote for the war was wrong, say so today and do what any decent officer would do, resign. Resign immediately," – Hugh Hewitt.

Hewitt’s politics seems to consist in the view that no criticism of the president’s conduct of a war is permissible in a democracy, and that the Senate should have no role in formulating foreign policy, or calculating the risks of warfare. He also seems to believe that every criticism of the management of the war is a betrayal of the troops, a slap in the face to wounded troops, and treasonous to the country. He doesn’t only believe this; he believes this after one of the most disastrously-run wars in American history.

Are they working? Recent events suggest that Iran is less monolithic in its leadership than we might once have feared. Neutralizing this dangerous state requires exploiting these internal splits, not ignoring them.

Dinesh D’Souza and Ted Haggard.

One thing, it seems to me, that Mark Steyn, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and yours truly have in common – despite our many differences – is our loathing of politicized, Wahhabist Islam. On that, I think we all agree. But unlike Steyn, I’m not a believer in the West’s inevitable demographic collapse or in its inability to defend itself in the face of this threat. What matters in a culture is the fight in a population not the population in a fight. I’ve also, like others, become far more aware these past four years of the limits of military force in countering the new religious fascists. The trick is exposing and countering the evil of Wahhabism, while not slipping into lazy hostility to all Muslims, or all Islam. Hitch reviews Steyn’s Spenglerian book here. Money quote:

Steyn makes the same mistake as did the late Oriana Fallaci: considering European Muslim populations as one. Islam is as fissile as any other religion (as Iraq reminds us). Little binds a Somali to a Turk or an Iranian or an Algerian, and considerable friction exists among immigrant Muslim groups in many European countries. Moreover, many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes—seeking asylum and to build a better life. A young Afghan man, murdered in the assault on the London subway system in July 2005, had fled to England from the Taliban, which had murdered most of his family. Muslim women often demand the protection of the authorities against forced marriage and other cruelties. These are all points of difference, and also of possible resistance to Euro-sharia.

Agreed. The great risk is that, by our actions, we force sane Muslims into the arms of Jihadists. We have to get smarter than that, it seems to me. We have to see the divisions within Islam as our most powerful weapon, and our cultural diversity and political freedom as our greatest strength. Steyn, in my judgment, diagnoses the problem correctly, but his solutions are either too crude or too vague. He is too down on the West, and not subtle enough in the distinctions within the Muslim world.

Still, he gets what we’re up against. Which is the precondition for everything else.

Lincoln, Nebraska, 4.15 am.

It’s been a critical few weeks and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on, whether "Plus Up" will work, and so on. I sure don’t blame bloggers for airing confusion, doubts and asking questions. In fact, I read blogs specifically to read others’ opinions and analyses. Glenn Reynolds, for example, has long claimed that the war in Iraq is critical to the war on terror, and that the war on terror is the most important issue we face. So I spent today reading his blog to see where he stands on "Plus Up". Er: no clue. Maybe you guys can help, by reading more closely. On the current page, which goes back to January 14, there are dozens and dozens of short links but what Glenn actually thinks is very hard to judge. Here are some of the few posts that even refer to Iraq:

WITH MICHAEL YON REPORTING THAT "IRAQ IS VERY WINNABLE," Dean Barnett wonders what if the surge works? I think it won’t be allowed to work, at least in terms of media reporting and public perception, if the press has anything to say about it.

MICHAEL YON REPORTS: "Iraq is very winnable."

OMAR REPORTS that insurgents in Baghdad are already running away: "the bad guys are adjusting their plans as the government and US military adjust theirs." That’s how it works, generally.

There’s a link to Hugh Hewitt’s post, accusing anyone with doubts about "Plus Up" of being "retreatists." Is that Reynolds’ position? Here’s a post where he bravely comes out as "agnostic" on the new strategy. Well, it’s better than silence. But, really, is agnosticism enough at this point? Lives are at stake – and his views would be welcome.

A blogger weighs in on the Harris-Sullivan blogalogue. Another blogger writes:

Here is where I find myself. Either with insufficient intellect to span the cognitive dissonances that arise when one seeks to make a ‘leap of faith’ to experience the divine in terms supplied by others, or to embrace the ‘unknowable,’ or with a particular brand of autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder that cannot stop seeking to know the unknowable.

I suspect if I am somehow disordered, it is a common disorder. In this context, it is no wonder that fundamentalism maintains its hold. It must provide tremendous peace of mind to have everything figured out.