The Dish

An Australian writes:

As you might imagine, I am a very pissed off Australian. David Hicks might be one stupid Australian supporter of Al Qaida, I grant that. I also grant that he was likely a very minor and irrelevant part of that organization, a stupid man caught up in something much greater than himself (and something the facts cannot say he was really involved in).

As an Australian I am an instinctive friend of America, and like my fellow Australians I admire what America is. But, America’s abrogation of the rights and privileges we expect among free peoples and America’s expectation that we will go along with this is hateful. Our PM, John Howard, is I hope going to lose the next election because he would not fight for his fellow Australian and because he followed President Bush where no Australian was inclined to go.

There are two main issues of concern and indignation:

(1) The extent to which America ignores or rewrites the fundamental tenets of western civilization concerning the rule of law, due process, the admissibility of evidence, habeas corpus, the right to face the accuser, etc, i.e. your heretofore moral high ground.

(2) The manner in which you, America, conduct your investigations. Your record is replete with failed indictments and vengeance after the fact new charges of doubtful legality, may I mention Chaplain Yee, designed to punish someone who had in fact done nothing wrong. Remember the charges Hicks was supposed to have faced, e.g. reconnaisance of the US embassy, withdrawn after it was clear that the embassy was not even existing at the time (and thus did not pass the basic laugh test). The coerced plea bargain of Hicks to achieve some form of immunity from transparency and follow up suit is just so par for the course.

As a civilization, our greatest weapon against terrorism and hate is to adhere to the greatest and most effective values and laws that define us. To do otherwise is to make us into the image of what we fight.

I am not sure Americans quite realise the full extent of what happens in the world of ideas and law. Nations Adhering to the western ideal use the best practice and precedent to order their own affairs. When a major power in such affairs, America, carries much weight and its effect is mirrored to one extent or another in changes elsewhere, the draconian changes to laws and civil rights is apparent elsewhere.

No one, these days has much to thank America for.

The Hicks judgement is a travesty on so many levels it is hard to quantify. It is a dismal display of American justice and you should be ashamed, very ashamed.

As for me? To the extent I can I will work for his immediate release. Not because I think he is innocent but simply because no one has adequately demonstrated that he is anything more than absolute gullible, stupid wannabe who does not know what or who he is. He has already paid whatever dues he was supposed to have paid in Guantanomo Bay, an illegal prison.

As to Major Mori, Hicks’ defence counsel, he has become a media hero in Australia and God bless him. He is the only person in this affair who might be described as shining and a credit to his uniform. I do not know what penalties he will in due course pay for his defence of the luckless Hicks but I wish him well and all honour. Mori is a true American.

I still don’t think most Americans realize what this president has done to the reputation, honor, influence and power of the United States. It will take a generation to recover.

We’re making progress.

Britain experiences a shift in its religious underpinnings. As Christianity has declined, Islam has grown. Here’s a fascinating story of a cultural shift in a small English town. It discomforts me as a traditionalist, but it doesn’t alarm me as a conservative. Societies can change out of all recognition and yet stay the same. England experienced far more violent religious revolutions than this in its long history – the destruction of Catholicism a few centuries back, for example, and Cromwell’s vile dictatorship. What’s needed is Islamic reform – from within. Maybe Europe in the next few decades will be where it happens. It’s certainly more fertile ground than the Middle East. Johann Hari explores the potential in a new essay in Dissent:

The trickier solutions will require Europeans to reconsider a central plank of our conventional antiracist approach: multiculturalism. The Ni Putains, Ni Soumises manifesto calls for "no more justifications of our oppression in the name of the right to difference and of respect for those who force us to bow our heads." Multiculturalism has worked on the assumption that there is one "pure" Islam, represented by elderly mullahs. Now that Islam is splitting into liberal and literalist wings, this approach places European states closer to the reactionaries than to the feminists and liberals. We will have to ensure there are no more state-funded Muslim-only schools and youth clubs, no more privileged status for reactionary clerics. "It must," [Bruce] Bawer notes, "become impossible for children growing up in Western Europe to be raised to see their religious affiliation as the be-all and end-all of their identity."

To host an Islamic civil war – one where the liberals win – Europeans need to junk both the conservative pining for an apocalyptic clash and the liberal fixation on multiculturalism. The potential prize is extraordinary. In the thirteenth century, Muslims stopped using the principle of ijtihad—the application of reason and reinterpretation to pull their religious texts into a modern context—when reading the Koran. This led in a clear line to the literalism and psychosis of Bin Ladenism. If the gates of ijtihad open once again, it will be in Europe. It is a long, slow process, but it has already begun. Amid the sound of suicide-murders on European streets, it is possible to hear the slow creaking of those gates — and the low rumble of the Islamic Enlightenment.

Excessive hope, perhaps? Naivete even? Only if we have no real confidence in freedom and the West’s astonishing power to take the material of illiberalism and bribe and coax it into something more tolerant. Yes, even that most determinedly illiberal of entities: Islam.

"I really came to the conclusion that there was a threat to our system, to our way of life, and it was coming from those I thought were my people," – Vic Gold, former friend of the Cheneys, co-author with Lynn Cheney, Republican insider, seeing what has happened to conservatism under Bush and Rove and Cheney. Money quote:

"For all the Rove-built facade of his being a ‘strong’ chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times," Gold writes. "Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots."

Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. "A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control."

For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, "Men do not change, they unmask themselves." Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests — but he says he did not see it at first.

"He was hiding who he really was," Gold says. "He was waiting for an opportunity."

"Any person who has been involved in a cause, and pity the person who has not, knows the pressures that political ardor puts on intellectual honesty. When one’s universe is separated into sides, and one has chosen among the sides, the surest signs of intellectual honesty are expressions of sympathy for one’s other and antipathy for one’s own," – Leon Wieseltier, New York Times.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 2 pm.

Another victory for the blogosphere: the Human Rights Campaign appoints a Republican as co-director. Yes: a Republican. They really do realize they have a problem.

Some great pics here. This one shows some ankle. Hubba-hubba. I think it’s extremely important right now not to conflate the hideous regime in Tehran with average Persians, many of whom love the U.S. and would love to enjoy the freedoms we have.

David Boaz comes to Brian Doherty’s defense.