CenterFeud

Why Europe and the Left will miss Bush

UK columnist Nick Cohen perfectly captures the realities of the post-Bush era, both for Europe and for liberals in general: "Why Bush has been a liberal's best friend."

By building him up into a great Satan, the oil man who invades countries to seize their reserves and the Christian who orders bloody crusades, [the liberal-left in Europe and North America] have hidden the totalitarian threats of our age from themselves and anyone who listens to them. Bush allowed them to explain away radical Islam as an understandable, even legitimate, response to the hypocrisies and iniquities of American policy. Even those in the European elites who do not buy the full 'America has it coming' package believe that Bush is a cowboy who doesn't understand that the postmodern way to end conflict is to compromise rather than fight.

In January, Bush will be history, leaving liberals all alone in a frightening world. Little else will change. Radical Islam will still authorise murder without limit, Iran will still want the bomb and the autocracies of China and Russia will still be growing in wealth and confidence. All those who argued that the 'root cause' of the Bush administration lay behind the terror will find that the terror still flourishes when the root cause has retired.

Agreed 100%. In many ways, an Obama presidency would be a relief, in that it would force the Democratic Left to confront the realities of an ideology of religious supremacism that stands foursquare opposed to all of its professed ideals. But since that ideology doesn't originate with familiar opponents, it may take awhile for the realization to set in. But those realities will be there to be confronted, and the illusions will last only so long once hard decisions must be made.

Once back in power, the Democrats will find that they can stay in power by pursuing popular programs here at home and putting out soothing idealistic rhetoric abroad, all the while quietly building on the assets left to them by the Bush administration, i.e., an emerging democratic Iraq and an al-Qaeda back on its heels after a stinging defeat in Mesopotamia -- a defeat Obama the Democrats would have gladly embraced to repudiate Bush and his war, regardless of the enormous cost. Fortunately, Bush made it easy by doubling down on the Surge, enabling that victory to occur at virtually no cost to the Democrats.

For their part, if the GOP is out of power, they will need to put country above politics and lend enthusiastic support to any moves by Obama to counter the influence and aggression of radical Islam, even if that means on occasion siding with the opposition party on principle, as did Joe Lieberman. Will the GOP have the courage of its convictions, even if they no longer call the shots?

John Bolton slams Obama's revisionist Cold War history

Former Ambassador John Bolton weighs in with a harsh analysis of Obama's  recent address in Berlin before a crowd of 200,000 Germans:

First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, "The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." Having earlier proclaimed himself "a fellow citizen of the world" with his German hosts, Obama explained that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe proved "that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because "the world stood as one." The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator's own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War,Ostpolitik-- "eastern politics," a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance -- continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative.

This is, of course, exactly right. The Cold War didn't come to an end because we all came together as one world to reject Communism; it ended in spite of a drift towards seeing the Soviet Union as a mirror image of -- and occasionally useful counterbalance  to -- to the excesses of American power. During the '80s, Ronald Reagan's hard line against the Soviet Union, which included basing medium range Pershing missiles in Germany, sparked massive protests across Europe. Yet, it was this hard line stance that convinced  the Soviet leadership that they would not be able to prevail in a confrontation with the West. The need to choose between guns and butter ultimately led to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his polices of glasnost (political openness) and perrestroika (economic restructuring).

The Berlin Wall fell, in no little part because of Gorbachev's outreach to the West and his decision to not use military might to rein in Poland and other balky Warsaw Pact nations. But without the hard line -- and unpopular -- Cold War stance of Reagan, backed by Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, the Soviets would have pushed more aggressively for world domination, and reformers like Gorbachev would not have been ascendant,

Obama either forgets or ignores those lessons at his own peril. It is very possible that, should he end up in the Oval Office, he will be forced into a remedial course.

The lowest ratio of real to apparent integrity

Alan Dershowitz on Jimmy Carter:

If money determines political and public views as Carter insists "Jewish money" does, Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.

In 1976 I voted for Jimmy Carter and saw his inauguration as a long-overdue cleansing of the Nixonian stench hanging over Washington and the country. But over the years I have come to see Carter as a failed president, albeit a moral man who worked hard for worthy causes such as his Habitat for Humanity.

More recently, I have been troubled by his tendency to focus on Israel's occupation of the West Bank as though it were the only obstacle to middle East peace, with his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid being the most egregious example. It is sad enough to think that Carter is merely so shallow as to uncritically drink the Israel-as-South-Africa kool-aid retailed the world over as thoughtful analysis, but that he is a bought-and-paid-for shill, working as a tool of the Saudis even as denounces the influence of the "Zionist lobby" on US policy-making.

Is Carter sincere? I believe that at this point he is, but in the mold of Dershowitz' example of the tobacco lobbyist, he has thoroughly convinced himself that a genocidal Hamas-led government in Palestine is less of an obstacle to peace than an Israeli polity that builds a wall to protect itself from that genocide. And that human rights abuses in the Arab world (or China, North Korea, Sudan or Iran for that matter) don't merit the condemnation that Carter seems to think is due uniquely to Israel.

Is France moving closer to Israel?

Yes, according to the Jerusalem Post, which tracks a shift in French thinking about the Middle East:

The negative attitude regarding Israel typical of the French government of late is shifting towards a new policy, according to the delegation of French senators sent to visit Israel and the West Bank by the Medbridge Institute.

Now, France is eager to offer Israel support in ensuring its national security by confronting terrorist groups and regimes in the Middle East. "The feeling in France today is that terror must be handled directly, and we are ready to combat terrorism," Jean Pierre Plancade, vice president of the Foreign Affairs and Defense committees, told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend.

Based on France's history of accommodating Arab governments, one would expect its position on the new Palestinian "unity" government agreed to in Mecca by Hamas and Fatah to be closer to that of Russia, i.e. that the Road Map's preconditions can be thrown over the side and the unity government could receive funding from the UN and EU in spite of its continued refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terrorism or abide by past peace agreements with Israel. In fact, my own expectation was that France would eagerly cooperate in such a charade. Perhaps it will, but the initial reaction gives me more reason to hope than I would have otherwise had."

According to a French Foreign Ministry official, the French government's position on the conditions of the road map are non-negotiable. "Obviously we cannot judge what will happen in the future, but don't expect either Royal or Sarkozy to differ from the current government's position," the ministry official said.

Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged the French delegation to fulfill their "moral obligation" regarding Iran, insisting that "Europe must remain forceful regarding the nuclear capabilities of Iran." That position was echoed by Plancade, who acknowledged the threat of a nuclear Iran and opposed their efforts saying that a France under Royal "would totally oppose a nuclear Iran in any capacity. We have carefully analyzed the situation, and are against Iran having a nuclear program of any kind."

He added that they are "in favor of a more severe handling of Iran if they do not cease their efforts. It is not only Israel who will be in danger, but the Sunnis and the rest of the world would be under the Iranian threat." While the Chirac government is opposed to an Iranian nuclear arsenal and has expressed concern over the lack of cooperation by the Iranians with the international community regarding the program, they do not oppose peaceful nuclear technology in Iran.

Other delegates, such as Senate Secretary Yvon Collin, have admitted to broadening their views concerning Israeli-Palestinian relations. "We arrived with preconceived ideas but every day those preconceptions... make room for new realities," declared Collin.

France has a long history in the Middle East, and prides itself on knowing the nuances of the political situation in countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iran. French citizens have long championed the Palestinian cause, viewing Israel through the prism of its own colonial past in the Middle East, and not as an embattled democracy at war with both government and non-government forces who are determined to end its existence.

Now, perhaps realizing that French president Jacques Chirac's recent bizarre offhand comments indicating a comfort level with an Iran that has the Bomb, combined with its own realization that it may be facing its own "intifada" in the streets of its cities, it is possible -- maybe -- that elites in the French government are coming to the realization that the Arab-Israeli conflict may not be just about land, nor even about Arabs and Israelis -- but about a complete unwillingness on the part of the Muslim world to tolerate the existence of Israel under any circumstances, regardless of its policies.

If France is waking up because it perceives a threat to the democratic West, what about the rest of the EU? It seems odd to hear French criticism of the EU, but what to make of this?

Medbridge Chairman and member of the European Parliament Francois Zimeray, who founded the institution to fill the information gap between Middle East and the EU, said from Paris: "This is why Europe has no real impact in the Middle East. They cannot mediate a peace in the Middle East because they do not understand the Middle East.

"I was fed up hearing European diplomats talking about realities that they do not understand, so that is why I have sent 350 parliamentarians from 27 different European countries to Israel and the Palestinian territories." According to Zimeray, one such diplomat is French President Jacques Chirac, who he believes exposed his ignorance of Israel and the Middle East last week with his comment that Teheran would be razed if Iran fired a missile at Israel.

"Israel's real friends are those who understand the fragility of the state of Israel" Zimeray noted. "Saying that Israel would destroy Teheran shows that Chirac doesn't understand Israel's fragility. Israel is not going to take on confrontations all over the world, they need friends and supporters."

The left's betrayal of liberal ideals

A must-read excerpt from UK journalist Nick Cohen's new book, What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way:

Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left? Why will students hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures but not a crusty conservative don? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? As important, why did a European Union that daily announces its commitment to the liberal principles of human rights and international law do nothing as crimes against humanity took place just over its borders? Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal left, but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why, even in the case of Palestine, can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a superior literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? And why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish rather than right-wing newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers who were inspired by a psychopathic theology from the ultra-right?

In short, why is the world upside down? In the past conservatives made excuses for fascism because they mistakenly saw it as a continuation of their democratic rightwing ideas. Now, overwhelmingly and every where, liberals and leftists are far more likely than conservatives to excuse fascistic governments and movements, with the exception of their native far-right parties. As long as local racists are white, they have no difficulty in opposing them in a manner that would have been recognisable to the traditional left. But give them a foreign far-right movement that is anti-Western and they treat it as at best a distraction and at worst an ally.

Cohen grew up on the political and cultural left, which he always saw as inherently virtuous. Now, he bemoans the left's betrayal of everything it formerly stood for. Case in point, Iraq:

Journalists wondered whether the Americans were puffing up Zarqawi's role in the violence - as a foreigner he was a convenient enemy - but they couldn't deny the ferocity of the terror. Like Stalin, Pol Pot and Slobodan Milosevic, they went for the professors and technicians who could make a democratic Iraq work. They murdered Sergio Vieira de Mello, one of the United Nations's bravest officials, and his colleagues; Red Cross workers, politicians, journalists and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis who happened to be in the wrong church or Shia mosque.

How hard was it for opponents of the war to be against that? Unbelievably hard, it turned out. The anti-war movement disgraced itself not because it was against the war in Iraq, but because it could not oppose the counter-revolution once the war was over. A principled left that still had life in it and a liberalism that meant what it said might have remained ferociously critical of the American and British governments while offering support to Iraqis who wanted the freedoms they enjoyed...

The policy of not leaving Iraqis stranded was so clearly the only moral option, it never occurred to me that there could be another choice. I did have an eminent liberal specialist on foreign policy tell me that 'we're just going to have to forget about Saddam's victims', but I thought he was shooting his mouth off in the heat of the moment. From the point of view of the liberals, the only grounds they would have had to concede if they had stuck by their principles in Iraq would have been an acknowledgement that the war had a degree of legitimacy. They would still have been able to say it was catastrophically mismanaged, a provocation to al-Qaeda and all the rest of it. They would still have been able to condemn atrocities by American troops, Guantanamo Bay, and Bush's pushing of the boundaries on torture. They might usefully have linked up with like-minded Iraqis, who wanted international support to fight against the American insistence on privatisation of industries, for instance. All they would have had to accept was that the attempt to build a better Iraq was worthwhile and one to which they could and should make a positive commitment.

A small price to pay; a price all their liberal principles insisted they had a duty to pay. Or so it seemed.

Like Christopher Hitchens, Cohen has become something of an outcast for his consistency in opposing fascism and supporting human rights and self-determination, even if that ostensibly lands him in the same camp as George W. Bush and Tony Blair. He refuses to treat politics as an us-against-them team sport, instead holding the left and the anti-war movement accountable for its betrayal of what he thought were obvious principles.

Fallaci-Khomeini smackdown

In tribute to the recently departed Italian journalist, interviewer and polemicist Oriana Fallaci, Neo-neocon recalls her famous encounter with Ayatollah Khomenini. As good as you remember (or would imagine).

I was introduced to Fallaci's work through reading her 1977 collection, Interview with History, in which the Khomeini interview appears, along with similarly revealing interviews of Golda Meir, Mohamar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger. Hard to get hold of but still highly relevant and a showcase for Fallaci's take-no-prisoners style. She was one tough lady and feared no one. She will be sorely missed.

With friends like these...

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick says of Tony Blair:

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe. And he's not a very good friend.

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global jihad. His success in convincing Bush of this distinction turned the anti-Semitic - not to mention strategically disastrous - view that terrorists who kill Israelis should be treated differently from terrorists who kill anyone else into one of the cognitive foundations of the US war on Islamic terror.

I am a huge fan of Tony Blair, whom I see as one of the last bastions of the responsible Left. Although he is clearsighted about the nature of the global jihad against the West, he has a blind spot when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians.

Like most on the Left, Blair operates under the assumption that terrorism against Israelis is somehow distinct in its motives and justification from terrorism anywhere else in the world. It is a tragically naive point of view, one that is implicitly or explicitly held around the world. It is based on the misplaced analogy that the Israelis are to the Palestinians what the former white nationalist apartheid government of South Africa was to black South Africans. In this framework, the Israeli/Palestinian question (and not religious extremism that rejects the existence of the Jewish state) lies at the heart of all problems in the Middle East. In Britain and Europe, reeling from terrorist attacks and looking for scapegoats, this worldview is expressed in a hatred for not only Israel (and by extension, its US sponsors) but of Jews in general. The old anti-Semitism has become fashionable again, only this time it comes from the supposedly progressive Left:

British antipathy towards the US and Israel was clearly exposed in an opinion poll published on September 6 in the Times of London. The poll reported that 73 percent of Britons believe that Blair's foreign policy, and especially his "support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the recent war against Hizbullah, has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain."

More than 62% said that to "reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain, the government should change its foreign policy, in particular by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq."

The day after the poll was published, Blair announced that he would leave office in a year.

Also, on September 7, a committee of members of Parliament released a report on anti-Semitism in Britain. The all-party committee found that that since the Palestinian jihad against Israel began in 2000, anti-Semitism in Britain has become a mainstream phenomenon. Attacks against Jews in Britain were at an all time high over the summer.

In their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, the British, of course, are no different from their Continental brethren. And the situation in Europe is alarming. Writing in Frontpage magazine this week, Islamic expert Andrew Bostom reported that in November 2005, Stephen Steinlight, the former director of education at the US Holocaust Memorial Council, told a conference in Washington that on average, Muslims attack Jews in Paris 12 times a day. According to Steinlight, this means French anti-Semitic violence is approaching the level of anti-Semitic violence in Germany during the days of the Weimar Republic.

These attacks against Jews in Europe are accompanied by ever increasing official hostility towards Israel on the part of European governments. On the second day of the war with Hizbullah, Chirac felt comfortable alleging that "Israel's military offensive against Lebanon is totally disproportionate." Chirac then acidly asked, "Is destroying Lebanon the ultimate goal?"

Chirac's remarks opened the floodgates for anti-Israel propaganda throughout Europe. They were followed by the barring of El Al cargo planes carrying weapons shipments from the US from European airports. That prohibition still stands.

For those who have not yet caught on, the forces of global jihad are not going to suddenly abandon their desire to make war upon unbelievers just because those unbelievers favor retreat from Iraq, allowing Iran to go nuclear, or blaming Israel for fighting back "disproportionately" against enemies who want to wipe it off the face of the earth. The jihadists will gladly accept all these concessions as proper tribute to the rightness of their cause, and continue to push for the establishment of Islamic sharia law as the only acceptable form of rule in the world.

The Europeans, and even the British, in their willingness to demonize Israel (which last time I checked was not blowing up trains in their capitals), are selling out the only Western democracy in the Middle East, in the hopes of quelling their restive Muslim populations. And in the end, they will find that they are still targets, willingly co-opted by religious extremists for whom there will be no peace until all the world falls under their rule.

Making Israel the problem lets them ignore the real problem, and maintains the bubble of denial. This denial was on full display recently as the EU decided to back the newly formed Palestinian "unity" government, even though it does not recognize Israel's right to exist, and has not renounced terrorism.

Tony Blair is a little less cynical about this exercise than his counterparts on the continent; I have always seen him as an idealist, who wants to see a just peace in the Middle East but not at the expense of Israel's right to exist. But he is, sadly, the exception. And now he is headed for the exit.

Bruce Bawer's wake-up call for the West

FrontPage Magazine has an excellent and thought-provoking interview with Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Bawer, who is gay and had previously written Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity, had moved to Amsterdam in 1998, looking forward to living in a tolerant, secular country that embraced gay rights and other liberal values. Instead, he ran headlong into far more virulent form of fundamentalism:

Bawer: In 1998 I moved from New York, where I’m from, to Amsterdam. I loved the Netherlands – its tolerance, its secularism, its heritage of freedom and learning and culture. But in early 1999, living in a largely Muslim area called the Oud West, I saw another side of the Netherlands, and of Europe, that I hadn’t seen before, or even been particularly aware of. The Oud West seemed less a neighborhood than an enclave – a piece of another society that had been dropped down into the city and that lived apart from it and its values. Just to walk from downtown Amsterdam into the Oud West was to experience a staggering contrast.

I soon came to realize that Amsterdam wasn’t unique – virtually every major city in Europe had Muslim enclaves like this one. The people outside of them were living in a democracy, but the people in them were living in a theocracy, ruled by imams and elders who preached contempt for the host society and its values. They were against secular law, against pluralism, against freedom of speech and religion, against sexual equality. Husbands believed it was their sacred right to beat and rape their wives. Parents practiced honor killings and female genital mutilation. Unemployment and crime rates were through the roof.

Most remarkable of all, nobody was saying or doing anything about any of this. European politicians took a hands-off attitude. Journalists sang the praises of multicultural society. With very few exceptions, nobody in a position of authority seemed willing to stand up for basic democratic values.

Later in the interview, Bawer examines the dark side of European multiculturalism that has resulted in the emergence of fundamentalist Islamist enclaves in virtually every country on the continent. He contrasts it with the American ideal of assimilating immigrants into the larger society:

In Norway there’s a comedienne named Shabana Rehman whose parents brought her to Norway from Pakistan when she was a baby. On her website, she writes: “I speak strikingly good Norwegian. But most native Norwegians I meet wish that it was a little broken.” I’ve seen this attitude. Americans are delighted to hear immigrants speaking English. By contrast, many Norwegians are uncomfortable when they hear a Pakistani speaking Norwegian. One thing I still find remarkable in Norway is the frequency with which people use the expression “Like barn leker best.” It’s a very common expression and it means something like “Children play best with other children who are like themselves.” I’ve heard it being said a thousand times by people who think of themselves as devout multiculturalists.

The most successful immigrant group in the history of the world is American Jews. Why? Because they integrated enthusiastically into the mainstream of American society. They rejected the ghetto and embraced American pluralism. In Europe, this same eagerness to belong, to contribute, and to thrive – and not remain segregated and ghettoized – led to the Jews’ near-extermination. It seems to me that part of the reason why anti-Semitism is so widespread in Europe while Islam is often treated with kid gloves is that the European elite has a reflexive contempt for a group that blends in and a reflexive respect for a group that holds itself proudly apart and resists assimilation. That’s a formula for disaster.

Bawer's book is a compelling and disturbing read, and a wake-up call not only for Europe, but for the entire Western world.

(Hat tip: Roger L. Simon)

At sea over the issue of ports

Like many, I've found myself strangely ambivalent over the issue of whether the US should allow Dubai Ports World, the United Arab Emirates-owned company, to manage up to 21 US ports (up from the six initially reported). Obviously, the company should not be excluded because it is Arab-owned. But nonetheless, there's something more than a little odd about the fast tracking of the deal, bypassing the usual 45-day review. And the fact that the Bush administration professes to have not even known about the deal until after it was announced. For a wealth of details, see Dave Schuler's first-rate round-up at his blog, The Glittering Eye.

All in all, it smacks of a quiet strategic/diplomatic deal that has been cut with the UAE, comparable to securing the cooperation of Pakistan's Musharraf, in fighting the War on Terror. The military seems to have no problem with it, and obviously the administration doesn't want to talk about it, but the ports contract looks to be a quid pro quo for logistical support in the war on terror or other strategic considerations that would create bad press for the UAE in the Arab world. Perhaps the hope had been that this would slip by with minimal notice (fat chance!). After all, as has been since pointed out, we let China manage ports on the West Coast and to date have been apparently unconcerned about the potential security breaches.

There are many good reasons why the UAE should come under a great deal more scrutiny than it has to date. So even though this issue has stirred up a hornet's nest in Congress, with threatened vetoes and overrides being traded between Congress and the White House, it's good that it is getting a more thorough review. The whole idea of handing even partial control of our ports over to a country that formerly recognized the Taliban gives me the chills. Nonetheless, Ports World Dubai apparently has a clean record around the world, and it turns out, is already operating ports in the US acquired from CSX. The company especially gets high marks from our military.

I am also persuaded by the arguments of people like Robert Ferrigno, author of the bestselling thriller Prayers for the Assassin, in which he depicts a future Islamized America. Certainly no apologist for radical Islam, Ferrigno recently spoke out in favor of the deal in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt:

[I]f we can work with Musharraf and Pakistan, which is an infinitely more intolerant and repressive Muslim country than the United Arab Emirates, we've got to be able to make some friends there, and treat our friends like friends, even though it heightens the risk. But we have to minimize the risk that's heightened there by it. And that should be within our power.

Mark Steyn, (who incidentally just wrote a terrific review of Ferrigno's novel) is an outspoken critic of radical Islam and is well-versed in terrorism and the politics of the Middle East. Surprisingly, he also favors the deal -- well, sort of:

But you know, this is actually the kind of company...when we say to ourselves what's wrong with the Arab world, the problem is it can't cope...it hasn't been able to cope with modernity. Well, actually, Dubai, which is this glittering city, it's like a sort of Hong Kong of the Middle East in some ways...it's the closest to Singapore. And if this is exactly the kind of global company you would like to see the Arab world producing, instead of just being mired in jihad. Now do some crazy people from the United Arab Emirates, and from Dubai say crazy things? Yes, they do. But I think you want to be pretty sure that there are real national security implications in the exchange of ownership...

Other security hawks who makes a case for the transaction include Robert Kaplan, James K. Glassman, Jonah Goldberg, and Charles Krauthammer, who thinks it should have been stopped early on but that there is more downside to pulling out of the deal now that it has been announced. Against the deal are Frank Gaffney, Michelle Malkin and Robert Spencer, who warns darkly:

This is staggeringly unrealistic, and reflects the dangers of the Administration’s continuing unwillingness or inability to come to grips with the full dimensions of the jihad threat. That Bush feels compelled to say “to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly’” betrays a peculiar insecurity where he should display a robust and unapologetic self-confidence. He is trying to demonstrate to a world awash in anti-Americanism that America is not as bad as all that, but in doing so he only lends credence to the anti-American charges (for if there weren’t substance to them, after all, why would he feel the need for the gesture?) and manifests the mistaken belief that “they hate us” because of something we have done, which we can undo with the proper display of good will. In this he again shows complete unawareness of the jihad ideology which remains constant while the pretexts and grievances that fuel it shift. No amount of good will can possibly efface the jihad imperative to subjugate the world under the rule of Islamic law, which is the avowed program of jihadists everywhere.

Columnist Deborah Saunders best captures my own conclusions on the ports controversy:

To the extent that Dubai respects the culture of Westerners who respect its culture, it especially merits respect....Even still, I don't mind making Dubai Ports World suits squirm a bit. Two Sept. 11 terrorists came from Dubai. Emirates banks funneled money to the Sept. 11 hijackers, and the Los Angeles Times has reported on allegations that, before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Dubai Islamic Bank funneled money to al-Qaida.

If the Middle East can target Denmark's economy -- prompting the Danish pavilion to pull out of a Gulf Food exposition in Dubai last week -- because a newspaper published some cartoons Muslim leaders don't like, let a Middle Eastern country feel some pain, too.

If Congress wants to hold hearings, conduct an investigation and otherwise make Dubai Ports World perform somersaults, I can't get too indignant. At least Washington will have put Ports World on notice that it would be a bad thing if a bad thing happened in a Dubai-run port.

In spite of my misgivings over the way the deal was disclosed, it remains clear that the West, particularly the US, needs to approach the Arab and Islamic worlds on the basis of mutual respect. In practice, we should strengthen diplomatic and economic bonds with countries who show tolerance and respect for Western ways and freedoms. These countries will not have perfect track records, but if the positives outweigh the negatives, we should continue to work with those governments and societies, and encourage more tolerance and openness based on that mutual respect and trust.

Robert Spencer, quoted above, makes the point that the jihadist ideology treats every conciliatory move on the part of the West as a sign of weakness and an opportunity to push forward in its goal of establishing a worldwide Caliphate. So, we should hold no illusions about the nature of the Islamist outlook, and stand firm against countries and governments who are contemptuous of our way of life, and who foment hatred against us. That means not giving a pass with totalitarian regimes like the theocrats in Iran, or terrorist groups like Hamas, and not curtailing our own freedom of expression so as to avoid "offending" cultures who view such self-censorship as capitulation and will simply ratchet up their tactics of intimidation. In the case of countries like Pakistan, where we have the cooperation of the government but not necessarily the population, it can be a tricky balancing act. But that's the reality of the world we are living in today.

So, after a review by Congress in which the facts are considered and no evidence emerges of wrongdoing on the part of Ports World Dubai, we should proceed with the deal, but keep our guard up and assume that the potential risk of infiltration or information leakage is higher. At the same time, we need a resurgence of support for democrats and free-speech advocates wherever they are bravely taking a stand, whether they be politicians, pundits or pop singers.

And we should be at least as respectful of the Danes, longstanding and true allies, as we are solicitous of the UAE, who have helped us in the War on Terror but whose leaders have at best a mixed record when it comes to associations with global jihadism.

The Cartoon War: defiance and capitulation

So much has been written about the Danish cartoon controversy that it seems almost pointless to chime in with another me-too post. However, it has become clear that this is not just a minor flap but an event that marks a turning point in the struggle between the liberal West and fundamentalist Islam - and, it is not yet clear which way things will turn.

First of all, there are the cartoons themselves, originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which commissioned them as an experiment in countering self-censorship when it came to depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Not all were offensive in nature, in fact most would not strike the average Western reader as anything more than mildly so. Some, like the much-referenced image of Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban made satirical points associating the Prophet with the worst of his violent adherents. But others were mere renderings of the Prophet with no other comment, and a couple of them poked fun at the paper itself for its "publicity stunt". One was not even of the Prophet but of a student named "Mohammed" who jeered the paper's editors as "a bunch of reactionary provocateurs". If you haven't seen the actual cartoons, you are in no position to judge for yourself. You can find them at Jihad Watch as well as many other sites. Overall, they strike me as relatively mainstream by the standards of societies who uphold the right of the press to poke fun at religious figures including Jesus, the Pope and indeed the very concept of God.

But I am a liberal Westerner, and not a Muslim, so my opinion is only half the story. Are these cartoons indeed offensive to Muslim sensibilities? Based on the reaction throughout the Muslim world, the answer would have to be "yes". Here is a take from Seema Munir, an American Muslim writing in an op-ed piece for the Arizona Republic:

I think it fair to say that each of the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world feels personally offended by the cartoons. But not every one protested. A small percentage demonstrated and an even smaller percentage reacted violently. Probably all, however, were hurt.

Not surprising - as has now been pointed out ad nauseum, Christians frequently take offense at works of artistic expression that they see as denigrating their beliefs, the most blatant examples being "Piss Christ" in which artist Andres Serrano immersed a crucufix in a jar of his own urine, and the image of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung by Nigerian Catholic artist Chris Ofili. (An aside: Ofili has also used elephant dung as an African symbol of fertility/reverence in pieces honoromg African-American icons such as Miles Davis, and some have countered that his rendering of the Virgin Mary is not quite the slap at Christianity the critics frame it as). To this add the recent Rolling Stone cover featuring rapper Kanye West as a crucified Jesus, complete with crown of thorns, and Corpus Christi, the controversial 1998 off-broadway play that featured a gay Jesus having anal sex with Judas. Christians protested these works as sacreligious and insulting to their faith, just as they had protested "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" in their day. At best, in their view, these artistic works insulted or belittled their faith - at worst, they were seen as outright blasphemy.

So to Muslims who now take offence at cartoons depicting their Prophet, I say, "Welcome to the club." A free press by its nature will question those in power, question received wisdom, and yes, question religious doctrine. And cartoonists (as well as artists, musicians, playwrights, filmmakers and comedians) do occasionally take shots at religious figures and sacred cows. It comes with the territory in any free society. And yes, sometimes lines are crossed and sensibilities are offended. When that happens, people write angry letters, cancel subscriptions, organize protests and boycotts, and otherwise attempt to attract media attention to their grievances. But only extremists burn down buildings, make death threats and advocate for mass murder as retribution for the perceived offense.

And extremists are the ones fanning the flames in the current controversy. When the cartoons first appeared last October, largely as a challenge to the extent of self-censorship in the media, they went relatively unnoticed and created little stir. They were even published in the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr with nary a peep from the Islamic street, a fact that only recently came to light. Nothing else happened until January when all hell broke loose. What happened in the meantime? A group of Danish imams circulated the cartoons, adding three additional images that were highly offensive to Muslims (one showed a Muslim being raped by a dog, another purported to depict Mohammed wearing a pig snout). The intent was to incite Muslim rage against the cartoons, an effort that has by and large been effective.

This underground campaign by Islamist groups went undetected for several months, during which time groups all over the Middle East apparently acquired quantities of Danish flags for the "spontaneous" angry mobs to burn in January for the cameras. The Islamists have repeatedly shown their sophistication in media manipulation in what many are pointing out is actually an information war.

What about the charge that even if the cartoons were not really that offensive per se, the key issue is the reproduction of images of Mohammed, which is forbidden in Islam. Well, two issues with that: first, if we think it prudent that Western newspapers should abide by such restrictions, why not other aspects of Islamic sharia law? This slope becomes slippery quite rapidly, as Christopher Hitchens observed:

The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

Secondly, it turns out that the ban on images of Mohammed in Islam is not absolute, at least in the historical sense. It's true that in the present era Islam is strongly opposed to depictions of not just Mohammed but sees as idolatrous images of Jesus and other prophets. But that wasn't always the case. You can find depictions of Mohammed in early Islamic art (search on "Mohammed image archive") . In some cases, his face is blank or veiled, in other cases he is fully realized. In the current era, depictions of Mohammed can be found in many unexpected places, from the Supreme Court to South Park. That there has been no reaction in the Muslim world to these prior Western depictions of Mohammed are further indications that much of the furor is the result of a deliberate campaign of incitement.

I would agree with commentators like Hugh Hewitt that the media should should not play into the hands of the radicals, and in general should show more sensitivity across the board when it comes to treatment of religion and religious figures. Censorship or even self-censorship is not called for here -- more like common sense and good taste. And if Western journalists choose to apologize to the Muslim world for failing to show sensitivity and respect for Islam, we should be prepared to demand that newspapers across the Islamic world demonstrate their good faith by denouncing and refusing to publish hateful cartoons like these, which appear in government-controlled papers throughout the Middle East on a daily basis. For too long, we have allowed the press in these countries to play a double-game, fanning the flames of religious incitement at home while claiming victimhood at the hands of the West.

In fact, a call for a consistent moral standard is not just a good idea but is essential. Here's Victor Davis Hanson:

The deluded here might believe that the divide is a moral one, between a supposedly decadent secular West and a pious Middle East, rather than an existential one that is fueled by envy, jealousy, self-pity, and victimization. But to believe the cartoons represent the genuine anguish of an aggrieved puritanical society tainted by Western decadence, one would have to ignore that Turkey is the global nexus for the sex-slave market, that Afghanistan is the world's opium farm, that the Saudi Royals have redefined casino junketeering, and that the repository of Hitlerian imagery is in the West Bank and Iran.

The entire controversy over the cartoons is ludicrous, but often in history the trivial and ludicrous can wake a people up before the significant and tragic follow.

The matter is far from trivial. Islamist organizations whose goal is to establish a foothold for sharia law in European societies have engineered this crisis as a means of intimidating the West and deflecting attention away from Iran's nuclear ambitions and Syria's perfidy in Lebanon. Their strategy has thus been highly effective and they can see the writing on the wall. The Danish cartoonists are now in hiding, in fear for their lives. News editors who chose to run the cartoons in France, Egypt and Jordan have been sacked. Britain and the US are issuing soothing apoligetics. The Prime Minister of liberal Holland refuses to stand in solidarity with either his counterpart in Denmark, or one of his own Ministers of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch citizen and ex-Muslim who has been marked for death by the radicals for speaking out on the treatment of women and gays under Islamic law. Hirsi Ali is herself unequivocal as to where she stands -- with Denmark and against the economic boycott targeted at punishing the entire country for the actions of a single newspaper:

Liberty does not come cheap. A few million Euros is worth paying for the defence of free speech. If our governments neglect to help our Scandinavian friends then I hope citizens will organise a donation campaign for Danish companies.

We have been flooded with opinions on how tasteless and tactless the cartoons are -- views emphasising that the cartoons only led to violence and discord. What good has come of the cartoons, so many wonder loudly?

Well, publication of the cartoons confirmed that there is widespread fear among authors, filmmakers, cartoonists and journalists who wish to describe, analyse or criticise intolerant aspects of Islam all over Europe.

Hirsi Ali warns us that the radicals who are committing violence and threatening lives must be defied, not appeased. We may be appalled at the intensity of the reaction, and wish to not provoke it further but capitulating to the violence and death threats has the effect of rewarding that behavior, leading to more, not less, as Glenn Reynolds recently pointed out. And their rage is not reserved for Denmark - it is free-floating, turning now against France, now against Norway, and routinely invoking death to Israel and the United States, countries which have in this case stayed on the sidelines.

On that basis alone, however we feel about the cartoons themselves, all free-thinking people should stand with Denmark. Those of us who value freedom of expression should not capitulate to the demands and threats of any one religion that it is off-limits to question tenets of their doctrine. Were we to go down that route, there are a great many questions we would be forbidden to ask; someone will always be offended, if not by cartoons of the prophet, then by Valentine's Day or statues of the Buddha, or women as clergy or same-sex marriage, or for that matter, The Da Vinci Code. These topics cannot be avoided or suppressed merely because they run counter to orthodox religious teachings, whether they originate in Islam, Christianity or Judaism. We must always be able to question our faith in the face of those who would impose it on us, and we must always be able to defend our faith in the face of those who would attempt to take it away.

So - let's agree that the Danish cartoons are offensive to the religious sensibilities of Muslims, and further agree that Jyllands-Posten has the right to print them, as an independent publication in a country with a free press. Let's agree that it is the responsibility of journalists to weigh the consequences of printing any provocative image - whether it be a cartoon of Mohammed, a snapshot from Abu Ghraib, a political cartoon of a wounded soldier, or a grisly image of a terrorist beheading a hostage - the public's right to be informed vs. the overall public good; and let's also agree that the standard has to be high. Finally, lets agree that we will apply that standard across the board to all journalism, and that those who publish an image to incite rather than to inform will face public opprobrium for their actions.

Press freedom is guaranteed in open societies. But with freedom always comes responsibility. The publication has to ask, "Are we printing this to titillate, to be provocative for its own sake, to incite public outrage in relation to an agenda? Or are we honestly presenting a piece of information essential to the public debate?" The former is abuse of a free press, the latter is the reason we must defend freedom of the press, even when we don't like what we see in the newspaper.