The Dish

You tell me to calm down (okay, I’m trying, I’m trying); why NPR is driving some of you nuts; and why the Canadians aren’t so bad after all.

After Joe Biden’s dumb-as-a-doorpost comments about the war in Afghanistan, it’s worth taking a look at an excellent piece, published just a tiny bit too soon, by my friend Michael Crowley at the New Republic. It’s as good an account of Biden’s recent silliness as you’ll find.

A BIN LADEN-ANTHRAX LINK?: An interesting report in the Times of London. I agree that we should not jump to conclusions about the source of this anthrax. At the same time, I don’t think we should deny what is obviously the likeliest explanation. And we certainly shouldn’t stick our heads in the sand because we cannot bear to contemplate what the consequences can and must be.

PATENT NONSENSE: A credible and important study has just come out from a usually liberal source, the Kennedy School of Government (my alma mater) at Harvard. The study was designed to find if restrictive patents on anti-retroviral HIV treatments in Africa were a critical part in preventing an adequate response to the problem. The study found that patents were actually rare in most of Africa, and the main problem was a lack of Western government finance to pay for unpatented medications. Take a look at this interview with Amir Attaran and follow the link to the study itself. The key sentence: “Of the 795 patents we might have found only 172 actually exist, or about 21%. What that means is that in nearly all countries patents are not frequently a barrier to treat people with several of the antiretroviral regimens today. Lack of money explains why the many HIV-positive Africans living in countries with ZERO patented antiretrovirals are not being treated.” Ah, but it’s so much easier to blame the pharmaceutical companies.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius that they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window – no, I don’t feel how small I am – but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.” – Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead.”

This following awful scenario keeps occurring to me. If we shortly prove that biological warfare has indeed been launched upon the United States from a foreign source, what will our response be? In the past, we have had a doctrine that a biological attack upon American citizens would open the possibility of nuclear response. But against whom? How? Where? This is the bluff that the terrorists have just successfully called. By starting the biological war piece-meal, they have been very smart. Because the casualties are as yet minuscule, and the horror diffuse, the terrorists have managed to both break a previously unthinkable barrier in warfare and yet also avoid anything like a commensurate response. The micro-war we are witnessing is designed to avert the mass outrage that followed September 11, an outrage that has obviously hurt the terrorists badly. So they have tried a sneakier approach and, because of this, they have gotten away with one of their key objectives: to normalize the use of biological weapons. As of now, the government has said nothing coherent about this epochal event, except to continue a war that was launched in response to a separate, conventional attack. The terrorists have therefore won something big, and the Bush administration doesn’t even seem to know how to respond. I can see why. If the White House were to say explicitly that it believes this weapon has been used by a named enemy, there would be enormous pressure for an appropriate response. So the administration has been confused in its public utterances, barely able to grasp what has been achieved by the enemy, seemingly unable to articulate a credible response. It seems to me that this passivity must end soon. After all, the White House itself has now been targeted with a biological weapon! We need the president to tell us what exactly the government believes about this anthrax attack, who is behind it, what it means, and what we are going to do in response. If we continue the current, passive strategy, we are not only sowing fear across this country. By our lassitude, we are almost inviting a far larger attack. Perhaps the administration is waiting for some truly huge horror before taking further action. I can see the public relations reasons for this. But isn’t it their duty to prevent just such an outrage by retaliating distinctly now? This need not mean nuclear weapons, but it should be separate from our current strategy and fiercer than anything we have yet unleashed. What I’m saying is that the response to this new assault should not be measured by how many people it has killed, but by the new and terrifying means that have been deployed. We must draw a line now, or we will have normalized barbarism for the foreseeable future.

SCHEER MADNESS: “To understand the limits of government-sponsored “unity,” we might ask the soldiers of the old Soviet Union. They marched with their pledges and anthems into the treacherous terrain of Afghanistan two decades ago, while at home the dissent that could have saved them from military and economic disaster was systematically squelched.” – Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times. This, of course, is the reductio ad absurdum of the far left’s inane cries of censorship, by which they mean immunity from sharp and pointed criticism. Scheer is honestly equating the fate of dissent in the United States today with the fate of dissidents under the Soviet Union. He does this while preening in a mass circulation newspaper. Go figure.

IF WE ARE AT WAR: A superb analysis by Victor Hanson in National Review Online. He gets what we need to do and the challenge our president must urge us to rise to. I know this country is ready. But the last few days have seen worryingly diffuse and reactive signs from our leaders.

THANKS, DAVID TALBOT!: Sunday was our biggest Sunday ever; Monday was our biggest Monday ever. Last weekend was also a quiet step forward for the site. We moved to a whole new server, thanks to your donation dollars. We got too big for the old one. On Monday alone, we had 27,000 visits and 123,000 page views. Thanks.

As my readers know, I’ve been deeply skeptical of past IRA maneuvers in the “peace-process” and have always believed that an actual – not promised – destruction of real – not potential – weapons was necessary for peace. From everything we hear, that day has now come. It is the first piece of truly great news I’ve heard in weeks. What it confirms to me is that the Unionists were absolutely right to insist on this move as a prerequisite to a devolved government in Ulster and absolutely right to leave that government in the absence of real IRA “decommissioning.” It’s a vindication of those of us who resisted accommodating the IRA until they explicitly rejected violence in deed, not just in word. That said, Sinn Fein deserves credit for their stand, and the IRA should now be taken seriously as partners for peace. I cannot help feeling that this is also related to the events of September 11. In that context, the terrorism of the IRA must have seemed even more appalling and petty. And I’m sure that many American financiers of this terrorism began to tell their IRA friends after terrorism struck home in New York that enough was enough. This may have turned out to be the critical reason for the turn-around. In which case, the war against terrorism has just had its first clear victory. May it be one among many to come.

THE NEW YORK TIMES PLAYS CATCH-UP: Interesting piece today in the New York Times about someone the rest of us have been reporting on for some time. The Times is baffled by the notion that an allegedly moderate Imam at New York’s Cultural Center, Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, might have been responsible for the usual anti-Semitic poison that characterizes much of fundamentalist Islam. Oh, well, they get it now. It’s just another sad example of how the Times’ politically correct view of the world means they have been consistently scooped on this story.

A reader points out that it is now a commonplace notion that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Well, America has been mugged.

MORE ON AL AZHAR: I’d missed a recent Smartertimes posting on al Azhar. As is often the case, Ira Stoll, who runs the site, is ahead of the curve. Take a look at the statements of what the New York Times has called the repository of moderate Islam, “the revered mosque, the distinguished university, the leading voice of the Sunni Muslim establishment.” Its leading sheikh is an unreconstructed anti-semite who endorses suicide bombings and believes that “there is not a single Egyptian that maintains the normalization [of relations with Israel] and whoever does so is a traitor to his religion and his nation.” This is the voice of moderation. Can you imagine what the extremists are like?

Useful piece in today’s New York Times, detailing the abundant supply of many anti-biotics to treat anthrax other than Cipro. It exposes the agenda of Chuck Schumer, the Canadian government, the Consumer Project on Technology, et al. as having nothing whatsoever to do with combating anthrax infection today and everything to do with the attempt to cripple pharmaceutical profits (and therefore research) for the foreseeable future.

LETTERS: You weigh in on Talbot, Pollitt, and me; and some former liberals have epiphanies.

ANTHRAX AND THE CULTURE WAR: Apparently, some envelopes with white powder have been turning up at abortion clinics. I have no idea who has been sending them, whether they are hoaxes or what their provenance is. Alas, it hasn’t stopped some pro-choicers beating the drums against their opponents, and some pro-lifers taking a page out of the paranoid Muslim book and claiming that the abortion clinics could have mailed the packages to themselves! Focus on the Family reports that “Mark Crutcher, with Life Dynamics, … speculates that there are probably a few misguided persons out there who claim to be pro-life who might engage in such terrorism. He was quick to add that those people do not, however, represent the pro-life movement? Yet, Crutcher also does not discount the possibility that the mailings, which Planned Parenthood claims were very professional, might have come from within the pro-abortion community. ‘It could be that, since they’re the ones that have the most to gain from these reports, they’re the ones who are doing it,’ Crutcher said.” Oy. Can someone please stop spinning and just call the cops?

MEMO TO FORTE III: An astute reader of the Doug Jehl piece I linked to yesterday notices the opening paragraph:” Since the September attacks, Al Azhar – the revered mosque, the distinguished university, the leading voice of the Sunni Muslim establishment – has renewed with accustomed grace the roles it has played in the world of Islam for more than 1,000 years. It has sought to advise Muslims around the world that those who kill in the name of Islam are nothing more than heretics. It has sought to guide, to reassure Westerners against any clash of civilizations.” This same moderate, Western-leaning mosque and university had as its representative in New York, the Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, the man who argued that the Jews were behind the September 11 massacre. That moderate sphere of Islam keeps getting smaller and smaller.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Before quitting the subject of freedom of expression, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.” – John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty.”

CHRISTIANITY AS A CANCER: “Like a cancerous growth, we are seeing Christians gain a foothold in the lands of the believers. The first time these crusading forces came with swords and suits of armor, this time they arrive with credit cards and million-dollar aid cheques. Employing Faustian machinations, these human shayateen are converting many Muslims to their false religion and serving to inject a virulent poison into the stream of the Ummah. The Muslim world is under attack.” – Nida’Ul Islam, a magazine published by the Islamic Youth Movement in Australia.

GIBBON ON MOHAMMED: A reader sends in the following passage from Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” The facts of Mohammed’s life are subject to dispute, but his animosity to Jews and unbelievers is not in any doubt. Gibbon is actually something of a fan of Mohammed, preferring his energy to the corrupt dynasties of his time. But the portrait here doesn’t exactly underscore the Oprah view of Islam as a religion dedicated to peace and love. Make of it what you will. (The Kainoka, the Nadhirites, and the ‘children of Koraidha” were three Jewish tribes unlucky enough to live in Medina at the time):

“Happy would it have been for [the Jews’] temporal interest, had they recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his friendship into implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his life; and in the double character of an apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both worlds. The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of the city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, and summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him in battle. ‘Alas!’ replied the trembling Jews, ‘we are ignorant of the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just defence?’ The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days; and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the importunity of his allies, and consented to spare the lives of the captives. But their riches were confiscated, their arms became more effectual in the hands of the Mussulmans; and a wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven, with their wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria … The Jews had excited and joined the war of the [pagan] Koreish: no sooner had the nations retired from the ditch, than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha. After a resistance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies.” Not exactly turning the other cheek, huh?

Daniel Pipes has an eloquent rebuttal to David Forte’s recent piece in the current National Review. My only quarrel with Pipes is that, from everything I have read these past few weeks, his notion that only 10 – 15 percent of Middle Eastern Islam is fundamentalist is, if anything, optimistic. Like Pipes, I agree that there is little propaganda value in this. But it’s important to know the enemy we are confronting. Fundamentalism is a deep and dangerous part of it. I wish this were not so, and have respect for sincere and moderate Muslims. But I also have respect for Germans. And in the early 1940s, the vast majority became Nazi criminals. The same process is at work today; and blindness toward the grim reality of it will help no-one.

Here is Australian boxer Anthony Mundine’s comments about the war on al Qaeda, as reported by an Australian news channel: “I really feel that it’s not our problem. They call it an act of terrorism but if you can understand religion and our way of life it’s not about terrorism. It’s about fighting for God’s laws, and America’s brought it upon themselves (for) what they’ve done in the history of time.” The article also states that, “Mundine’s stance is consistent with most Muslims in Australia, according to Dr Mohsen Labban from the Supreme Islamic Council.” Ok. This is the view of a Western Muslim thousands of miles away from the Middle East. How does David Forte explain that away?

What happened last week? And how should we respond? Check out my new piece opposite.

A simple question. What does my birthplace (England), sex-life (gay and active), or the medications I take for HIV (testosterone replacement therapy) have to do with my views on this war? Last time I checked, nothing. Still, David Talbot takes me to task on these grounds in Salon. Since it’s twenty years since I graduated high-school, I won’t respond to these slurs. The ad hominem attacks seem to me to be a sign of intellectual desperation, which in Talbot’s case, is understandable. Still, he makes a couple of points that are worth addressing. The first is the notion that I have criticized some individuals, including Talbot, for lack of patriotism. This is simply untrue. I challenge Talbot to prove it. Sure, I’ve seared some writers on the left for defeatism, illogic and escapism for not having anything constructive to say since September 11, and I have seized a chance to discredit their view of the world. I have also pointed out that there are enclaves on the decadent left whose nihilism runs so deep they want terrorism to win. Maybe Talbot should take a trip to Berkeley or Amherst to fact-check this. What I haven’t done is attack any named individual for lack of patriotism. I cannot look into someone’s soul and say she is not a true patriot. All I can say is that her version of patriotism is, to my mind, deeply misguided, foolish and immoral. That is my exercise of free speech – and in America, most do not say that immigrants cannot contribute to that free speech. When Talbot says, “It’s repellent to be lectured about my commitment to America, which is deep and true, by an arrogant and self-important Brit,” he is engaging not only in a fantasy – I did no such thing – but in a nativism that shames him.

THE CENSORSHIP CANARD: My second point is that this debate has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship – and the charge is a blatant attempt to change the subject. Talbot knows I’m a First Amendment fanatic, and I have more experience publishing and writing truly radical, dissenting views than he has. He also knows there is no chance of actual government censorship in this war, and that most of the attacks on free speech in recent years have come from his friends on the p.c. left. I have no ability or desire to censor anyone. What I’ve been trying to do is expose and ridicule the views of many on the far left whom Talbot still won’t take on, and whom he still fawns over (e.g. the ridiculous Sontag). Talbot further claims I have lumped everyone on the left into the same camp. Again, untrue. I have praised many liberals in these dark days – including several, like Jake Tapper, at Salon. I have commended the American Prospect, NOW, the NAACP, Hitchens, Rushdie, and on and on. I deeply respect liberals whose views about how best to defeat terrorism are different from mine. But I simply do not respect those, like Sontag and Pollitt and Moore and Chomsky, who have nothing to say except that it’s largely our fault that we are in this war, and that we should take no action against the enemy that has launched a brutal war against us. This is a contemptible position. It is not censorship to say this. It is a service to the truth.

AND ANOTHER THING: Talbot’s deeper argument is that I should go easy on the left at a time like this because the pro-war hawks on the right are homophobes and would lock me up if they could. This is the kind of argument I have spent most of my career countering. A writer’s job is not to look around him and see which camp it is in his best interests to join. A writer’s job is to call things as he sees them, regardless of how many friends he loses or enemies he gains. When you’re an ideological hodge-podge like me, this makes for a difficult intellectual life. Your friends in some matters are your enemies in others and you get isolated pretty fast. But Talbot knows that I have never turned a blind eye to intolerance on the right, and have battle scars fighting fundamentalism in every form. My biggest contribution to this war debate so far has been an essay in the New York Times dedicated to the exposure of both Christian and Muslim fundamentalism. To describe my writing as Taliban-like is therefore simply loopy. And Talbot is blind if he does not also see that homophobia, nativism, prejudice and every other human failing are also present on the left. In some ways, I am encouraged that the most homophobic attacks on my private and public life have come from the left. It shows that ideas can matter more than simple identity; and that the resort to ugly prejudice is not unique to any politics. Talbot’s desperate smears are merely further proof of that.

AND NOW, FORTE: On a more pleasant note, I’d like to address the arguments of David Forte, who has written a critique of my piece, “This Is a Religious War,” in the current National Review. Forte wants to argue that Osama bin Laden’s extremist fundamentalism is not what he calls “essential Islam.” I don’t disagree. As I wrote, there is obviously a great and glorious past in Islam, and much within Islam today that could never be used to justify the massacre of thousands of civilians. But my point is that bin Laden’s appeal specifically blurs such distinctions, and that there is enough within mainstream Islam to help his effort. Whether we like it or not, this ideology obviously has wide appeal in the Islamic world and is gaining adherents daily. If bin Laden really were a complete crank with no real connection to Islam as a whole, then this simply wouldn’t be happening. Look at Doug Jehl’s piece in the New York Times today. What it tells us is that it matters very little what mainstream Islam says any more. The message has been overwhelmed by a culture of extremism and discontent in societies where there is no space for political opposition, and where a truly terrifying politicized Islam is on the march. Is this new form of Islam still Islam? In some ways, this is semantics. In a very basic sense, it obviously is – just as the Inquisition was a part of Catholicism and the Salem witch trials were a part of Protestantism. But my beef with Forte is not over religion. I am passionate about the importance of religious faith. My beef is about the fusion of politics and religion. Every time this happens, it’s dangerous. In many instances, the fusion has been truly terrifying. Forte disagrees and he wants to blur the distinction between politics and religion in the United States. That’s our deep disagreement. On the empirical question of what kind of Islam is now prevalent in the Middle East, we will soon find out. All I can say is that I’m far less optimistic than Forte.