Rhymes with Dubya: The President and His Critics

The President has often pointed out that the Iraq War is but one theatre in the over-all War on Terror. When his critics hear this, all they hear is a sad attempt to justify a huge mistake. A mistake that has distracted the U.S. from what should be its main goal: the destruction of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network. To these critics, the policies of the Bush Administration are not only wrong, they are downright dangerous, adding to our insecurity rather than diminishing it.

A good example of this type of thinking is on display in the current issue of The Atlantic (or at least, what is the current issue here in the Near Abroad). The issue features two lengthy pieces by prominent critics of the Iraq War and charter members of the "al-Qaeda is the real enemy" school of thought. The first piece, entitled "Ten Years Later," is a fictional look back at the policies of the Bush Administration from the perspective of a professor of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2011. This essay about the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks to hit America is written by Richard A. Clarke, the national coordinator for security and counter-terrorism for Presidents Clinton and Bush. The second piece, entitled "Success Without Victory," outlines a very different strategy for the War on Terror, one that relies primarily on a policy of containment, written by James Fallows, the Atlantic's national correspondent.

The Most Famous I-Told-You-So Artist in History

When Clarke's essay hit the newsstands (and the websites) there was an immediate buzz. Clarke's prescriptions for fighting a successful War on Terror found an appreciative audience, not only among the usual suspects, but also at The Corner and other Internet citadels of the conservative Right. A number of commentators found the science fiction quality of the essay an interesting hook, chock full of shopping mall attacks and suicide bombers in Las Vegas, complete with elderly slot jockeys falling prey to heart attacks in the aftermath.

The fictional history format fits Clarke like a glove. Clarke sees himself as nothing more and nothing less than a modern-day Cassandra, one who constantly gave warnings of what would happen and one who constantly agonized over the lack of understanding of his urgent message by his political masters. As became painfully apparent during the 9/11 Commission hearings, Clarke believes (as did most of the so-called "9/11 families" who were, in fact, nothing more than a numerically small liberal activist wing of the thousands of victims of that horrific day) that the 9/11 attacks are the fault of the United States Government (USG); that is to say, the fault of President George Bush.

As the man who possessed all the information and who had, of course, a perfect course of action to defeat the terrorists (had he only been listened to), Clarke is the ultimate I-Told-You-So Artist. During his entire performance during the 9/11 hearings, one could not help but be struck by Clarke's demeanor; here was a wronged man, a man who had tried to serve the American people but could not due to the small-mindedness of this superiors. Mysteriously, although he worked many. many more weeks for President Clinton than for President Bush, Bush was always the superior he referred to when complaining of such small-mindedness. Thus, Clarke's sad and pathetic apology to the "9/11 Families" in attendance; in Clarke's world, USG is responsible for 9/11.

Of course this is so much nonsense. As Clarke's own testimony reluctantly revealed, even had President Bush followed all of Clarke's advice, all his plans as they existed prior to 9/11, the course of history would not have been significantly altered:

[Former Senator Slade ]GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?

CLARKE: No.

GORTON: It just would have allowed our response, after 9/11, to be perhaps a little bit faster?

CLARKE: Well, the response would have begun before 9/11.

GORTON: Yes, but there was no recommendation, on your part or anyone else's part, that we declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11?

CLARKE: That's right.

Since real, actual-existing history shows Clarke to have been a hyper-cautious functionary worried whether or not attacking this or that terrorist camp was "legal", for Mr. I-Told-You-So nothing could be better than a fictional account of the future. It allows him to fully explore the dreadful import of his warnings unheeded, and to revel in the carnage we suffer as a result. In Clarke's future (surprise!) everything goes exactly as Cassandra has warned, and the U.S. is undone. With the wisdom of hindsight, everyone it the U.S. now realizes how rash, how foolish President's Bush's silly Iraq War was, how it distracted us from the main task ahead.

Clarke's account of the future is an un-serious as the man who produced it. In one unintentionally hilarious passage, the perpetrators of suicide bombings in Florida, Texas, California and New Jersey foil our domestic security system because they are all Asian-looking and, thus, evade the pitiless racial profiling Bush had ordered and its subsequent obsession with Arabs. Hello? Have you even heard a Bush Administration official condone Arab racial profiling, let alone order it? Perhaps Clarke should call up Norman Mineta and they can have a talk.

And, of course, since Americans are all bigoted fascists waiting for the right opportunity, in Clarke's story the immediate aftermath of the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks, which killed a mere 1,032 people--less than half that of September 11--are marked by "armed gangs of local youths attack[ing] mosques and Islamic centers." Sure, Clarke. We all remember the roving armed gangs who attacked Muslims in the wake of 9/11. To the contrary, nothing remotely of sort happened, nor would it happen; it's just another example of Clarke's "blame America" mindset. If it wasn't for good, big-hearted responsible men like Clarke, the American people would just be a rampaging beast, bloodthirsty for revenge!

But that's not all. As everyone knows it did in 2001, the government again over-reacts and an ominously-named bill called the "Patriot Act II" is passed. Horrors abound. Illegal immigrants are detained! Foreign student enrollment drops by a third! Ethnically-based round-ups antagonize local communities and create racial tension! (We are grateful, however, that Clarke got the holding of Korematsu right; not even the brightest law students do that with regularity). All this is apparently a reasonable supposition given that USG completely over-reacted in 2001 when it basically tore up the First Amendment by giving the government the same power to fight terrorists it has had for years to fight the Mafia. It's a police state in Minnesota, I tell you, a police state! Ask anyone.

Clarke's hysterical (in both senses of the word) rantings only get better as his cute essay rolls on. Terrorists are able to kill Americans because they bought "all their guns illegally, in six different states across the Midwest" because "[a] year earlier Congress had failed to reauthorize the assault weapons ban." State governors disband their National Guard units because they no longer trust Washington. UAV Predators are deployed "to monitor Americans."

The thought that al-Qaeda's mission is made easier by the lack of liberal gun control prescriptions is laughable. All in all, the essay reads like something you would expect from an excited 22-year-old undergrad at San Francisco State who just discovered Noam Chomsky and Crass his sophomore year. It is laden with doom-mongering, sprinkled liberally with technical sounding footnotes that use a lot of "in the know" acronyms to make it sound wonky, none of which takes away from its patent silliness. Clarke concludes:

"If they [USG, meaning President Bush] had acted differently--sooner, smarter--we might have been able to contain what were at one time just a few radical jihadis, and raise our defenses more effectively. Instead our leaders made the clash of cultures a self-fulfilling prophecy, turning the first part of the twenty-first century into an ongoing low-grade war between religions that made America less wealthy, less confident, and certainly less free."

Clarke's conclusion is rampant with the kind of soft liberal racism always evident in liberal policy prescriptions. In Clarke's world, as in the world of academia at large, brown or black skinned people have no independent will, no ideas of their own. Instead, they are a curiously static people, whose actions (or lack thereof) always--always--stem from United States policy. To Clarke, if the Islamic world makes war on the West, it is because Western policy was not adequately calibrated. If the jihadis want us dead, it's because of something we did, probably to them. And only through our actions can we diffuse the "clash of civilizations" that Bush has caused.

The thought that there may be an ideology in Islamic Fascism that is independent of U.S. policy positions or actions is utterly foreign to Clarke. Had he undertaken a similar study of German National Socialism in the 1930's (to engage in our own fictional speculation) no doubt he would come away convinced that if only the U.S. and Britain had paid closer attention to German grievances and acted with understanding of the roots of German anger, World War II might well have been avoided.

To Clarke, and men like him, Washington runs the show. The idea that there may be people out there who wish to destroy it for what it is rather than what it has done simply never enters his head. One shudders to think how a man could spend so much time studying the enemy without ever coming close to understanding him. The barest readings of al-Qaeda texts or the speeches of Bin Laden or Zarqawi suffice to understand: they are the new masters, the master race with the master religion. They decide who lives and who dies; who learns to read and who does not; who may take a wife and who may not; who may speak and who may not. Like the Nazis before them, they have granted themselves license to murder to impose their romantic vision. Only the people they approve of deserve life.

All others must submit or die. And the latter is really preferable.

Liberal Boilerplate

Fallows, like Clarke, shares this same worldview, as becomes painfully obvious by the second paragraph. Focusing on the policy prescriptions of a veteran terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, Fallows' point is basically this: we already know how to fight terrorism, and if we would only let the experts run the show we can reduce the threat, manage it, reduce it to the status of "nuisance." The thought that it can be eliminated is the thinking of a child, an unrealisticly dangerous crusade that only makes the problem worse.

It must be admitted that we cannot imagine a world completely free of terrorism directed at America and the West. But to think that is what President Bush is aiming at is to misread his fundamental message. The President has consciously taken the issue out of the hands of "experts" like Clarke and the scholars at RAND because he realizes that wonkish policy won't suffice to control what is at its root a political problem. Instead, he has embarked on a high-level, multi-pronged strategy encompassing everything from armed conflict in Iraq to USAID-funded civil society support programs in Morocco.

Fallows makes some good points, especially regarding the inherent uselessness of random searches and shoe x-raying by TSA when it lets unchecked cargo containers in the holds of passenger planes, not to mention the fact that almost all of TSA's budget is sucked up by air travel, leaving other modes of transportation woefully under-secured.

It's when he turns to the Iraq War that Fallows shows his cards. He informs us, for example, that Osama Bin Laden's favorable rating rose to 67% in Pakistan following the invasion of Iraq, while Bush's fell to 6%? (Conveniently, Fallows fails to mention where these ratings were pre-invasion.) The idea that the U.S. should make tactical and strategic decisions based on the response by the lads in a cafe in Karachi is ludicrous. We don't need better P.R., we need a better defense. No doubt the "Arab street" prefers an America that doesn't have the nerve--the damn nerve--to take the fight to Muslim nations. We knew that, Fallows.

As Eban once said, the Arabs can have peace or they can have war, but what they can't have is peace in their own nations and war in ours. We're ever so sorry that hurts our standing in Cairo, but there you have it. No doubt we weren't very damn popular in Tokyo circa 1943 as well.

Under Fallows' new containment policy, we would take care of the most urgent priorities while adjusting our policies to diffuse Muslim anger. Again, as with Clarke, Arabs have no minds of their own; if only we get a hold of the right CFR briefing paper, all will be well. Lest you think we exaggerate, here is Fallows' conclusion:

"Could today's leaders look like heroes in fifty years? Yes--if they similarly laid the groundwork for a long, principled, and sustainable struggle. A Truman would tell us that loose nuclear weapons are the real emergency of the moment, and that instead of pussyfooting around we should control them right away. A Kennan would explain the sources of Muslim extremist behavior and how our actions could encourage or retard it. A Marshall would point out have gravely we left ourselves exposed through our reliance on oil from the Persian Gulf." (Emphasis added).

Here we see the unreality of the realists exposed for the fantasy that it is. All that is needed to encourage or retard Muslim extremist behavior are "our actions." Again, the opponents of President Bush attribute too much power to the United States and, at the same time, not enough will to power in the hearts and minds of our enemies. As has become standard liberal boilerplate, the United States doesn't have enemies, just people it has wronged to whom it hasn't properly apologized.

What Bush Understands

The President takes a completely different approach, which goes a long way to explaining why he gets under the skin of experts like Clarke or MSM types like Fallows. Having dispensed with the old way of doing business, Bush has embarked upon a risky policy that relies on high-level political change in the Middle East to change the fundamental dynamic between the Islamic world and the West. With the change in Iraq, and pressure elsewhere for change in the Middle East, the President thinks that the answer to Islamic Fascism is Islamic Democracy.

This is not mere slogan-making. Ironically, while the President's critics harp upon his failure to "address the root causes" of terrorism, his strategy is in fact to deal with the root causes at their most basic level. The President understands that our actions can never change or reduce "Muslim extremist behavior." Instead, he has had the realization that the experts lack: the only real change that could bring about a sharp reduction in Islamic terror is wholesale change in the Muslim world that is the work of the Muslims themselves.

This is why Democratic carping about an "exit strategy" strikes us as foolish and quite beside the point. The whole of the President's strategy in Iraq and in the Greater Middle East is one big exit strategy; after giving the process a violent supporting push, our goal is to hand over the reins as soon as possible. We will then support local democratic movements wherever they are, however we can. In the President's eyes, Muslims aren't automatons awaiting Uncle Sam to press the "calm" button instead of the worn-out "anger" button we've been pushing for years; instead, they are people, with hopes, dreams and aspirations, who will--if given the chance--lead their countries to their rightful places in the community of nations.

It strikes us as highly ironic that those who scream the loudest about the President's lack of nuance themselves fail to recongize what is at heart a very nuanced policy. We war in Iraq, we talk in Saudi Arabia, we defer to the EU in Iran, we engage in civil-society building in Jordan, all in a coordinated effort to bring about a democratic reformation in the wider Islamic world.

Already, just 3 years into this strategy, we are seeing Bush's revolutionary boldness bear fruit. Elections, a new democratic government and female ministers in Afghanistan. Recognition, for the first time, in Saudi Arabia that some sort of representative body with real legitimacy needs to be created. A resounding victory for moderate parties in Indonesia. The hope for moderation in Malaysia. Democratic reform in Jordan. Pressure on Syria and Iran, support for their embattled populations. The break-up of Pakistan's nuclear technology proliferation. And the most democratically-elected government in the history of the Muslim world in Iraq. A wind of change is sweeping through the Middle East. Slowly now, but gaining speed and strength daily.

And then there is Libya.

When Libya gave up its WMD program voluntarily, agreed to take responsibility for Lockerbie and re-opened its markets to the U.S. and other Western nations, the pundit class immediately took to the air to explain how none of this was because of the Iraq War. However, in a little-noticed passage in Boris Johnson's famous 2003 interview with Italian PM Silvio Burlesconi, printed in the Spectator (sadly, the issue where the interview appears is not available on line), Burlesconi told a little anecdote that struck us as very interesting.

Burlesconi explained to his British guests that he had recently received a series of phone calls from the leader of a certain North African dictatorship regarding the leader's immediate prospects for survival. Said dictator, not named but said to be from a nation with close historical ties to Italy, asked for Burlesconi's advice on how to proceed and how to deal with the Americans. The dictator said that he was scared, that he "didn't want to end up like Saddam" and that, because of this, he was throwing in the towel on his WMD program.

Any guesses as to who that dictator could be?

Hint: his nation rhymes with "Dubya."

The Diplomad: Say it Ain't So

The Chief Diplomad, the person who inspired our endeavors here, has announced his retirement from blogging. Having read his farewell post, we can only respect what must have been a difficult decision. We will miss his insightful commentary, his wit, and, most of all, his example. To him must go the credit for spreading the word that not everyone at the State Department are Council on Foreign Relations liberals. (Not that there is anything wrong with that....)

The accomplishments of the Diplomad were many, especially the posts dealing with the United Nations' "response," to the tsunami disasters and the real response by the U.S. and our Australian cousins. The Diplomad, more than any other blog site, helped reveal the truth about that disaster and its aftermath. We also would like to thank C.D. for introducing us to the term "Red Ensign Canadian;" that term perfectly captures that part of Canada that we continue to love and cherish and which, we hope, is not irretrievably lost. No maple leaves here either! (Except perhaps on an old hockey t-shirt.)

At the end of his farewell post, the Diplomad mentioned that he may wish to publish posts either here or at our fraternal site The Daily Demarche.

C.D., we are at your service. Thank you for helping us find our voice. Good luck to you, and we hope we have the opportunity to work side-by-side with you in the future, even if, as is likely, we never realize it.

Bush, Infuriating Bush: So Close and Yet So Far

Last night's State of the Union speech was memoriable more for what it felt like than for what was said. In the depths of the Presidential campaign, as the MSM shilled ever more dishonestly and screechingly for Kerry, even die-hard Bush supporters began to feel that creeping feeling of dread one gets when one feels that one's man is done for. Every hour, it seems, another poor victim was beheaded in Iraq, more Islamic Fascist savagery was put on display; it didn't take much insight to see that Americans were getting close to thinking "what the hell are we doing trying to help these monsters?....Screw 'em....."

That being the case, who would have thought that a mere two months later, President Bush could walk into the halls of Congress a conquering hero? That the President could point to Iraq as one of the most important political victories for the U.S. in the post-war period? That the Democrats would recede once again--as they had on election night--to a minority party desperately holding on to retrogade portions of the country by spouting dried-out, reactionary slogans? (Speaking of which, did you see the Democratic response? We neither.)

The feeling in the House was palpable even on TV; it was clear that the oh-so-important mantle of "winner" had been replaced around the President's head, that he was once again The Man, in full control of his office and the political scene. The fact that he has done this in the face of implacable hatred from the liberal/left cultural elite both here and abroad made the spectacle that much more remarkable.

Once again, Bush had found his voice. Once again, he spoke plain, clear truth, daring the losers of the left to fight it out with him. And, once again, he found a way to agonize we conservatives who cherish his presidency and love the man.

We shall leave the commentary on the President's incredibly ambitious domestic agenda to other commentators. We only wish to point out that should the President succeed in cementing in his tax cuts, changing Social Security from a passive "benefits" system to at least a partial "ownership" system and reforming the Internal Revenue Code--and there is every reason to believe he will be successful--he will go down in history as a transformative President along the lines of FDR. In fact, with each passing year, Bush appears to us more and more like FDR: a visionary who took the actions (not all of which were successful or popular) that were necessary to meet the great challenges of the age and who, in doing so, won the unswearving love and loyalty of some and the unyielding and deep hatred of others.

The key to the foreign policy aspects of the speech was its treatment of the current critical situation in the Middle East. A look at each portion of that part of the speech illustrates both President Bush's great insight and his one, deeply troubling blind spot.

Iraq

It's no secret that the President gambled everything on his belief, deeply held, that given the chance the Iraqi people would seize the freedom and liberty currently on offer and, improbably, that they would seize it while being targeted by some of the most ruthless killers in the long, sad annals of man's cruelty to man.

On Sunday, January 30, the world saw Bush win that bet. In their millions, Iraqis came out to vote. Today's editorials in the New York Times, reverting to proper let's-keep-moving-the-goalposts-so-that-Bush-is-always-a-loser form in record time, stated that:

The voting, however, was only a first step. It made the journey to establishing a stable and reasonably democratic government appear possible, but not necessarily likely. The election did not bridge over the fact that a vast majority of Iraq's people think of themselves as Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds or members of smaller ethnic groups rather than as part of an Iraqi nation

Sure, the wise men and women at the NY Times knew all along that the voting would go well; that was the easy part! For liberals and leftists, the great unknown that is the future is nothing more than more opportunities to prove that the Chimp-Faced Moron Fascist President is wrong.

Interestingly, the Last Decent Reporter at the NY Times on the scene, John Burns, seems to disagree with the mandarins of his Editorial Board:

How many times did voters say to me—and I believe to many other reporters who began their interviews with them by asking them, as we so often do, are you Shiite, are you Sunni or are you Kurd—they would say to us, what is that to you? Why are you people so obsessed with that?

I must have heard that several dozen times yesterday—people who said, can’t you get it straight in your mind that we are Iraqis first, and then Sunnis or Shiites second? And this is really very interesting. There is a sense amongst Iraqis that Americans arrived here with an obsession about the ethnic breakdown of this country.

What the President's foes don't seem to grasp is that the President, in this speech, in every other speech, has always been animated by one simple principle: that Islamic Fascism is born of the type of dispair lack of liberty brings and that the solution is freedom.

From the Republican members with purple-blue ink on their fingers, to the snarky silence of the left-wing ranks to the Iraqi woman politician/voter in the gallery, the President's vision was justified by undeniable facts on the ground, spinners be damned.

On the great question of the Iraq War, the President has been completely, utterly vindicated. And how that must rankle! Expect a Dean-led Democratic Party to ease the pain by drifting further into MichaelMooreLand and to lose even more power as a consequence.

Syria

The other Ba'athist dictatorship in the neighborhood was held up by the President for special scrutiny. No illusions were harbored here. While we wish the President had pointed out that the only people in Syria who have ever voted in free elections were the ex-pat Iraqis living there last Sunday, we were generally pleased with the no-nonsense treatment of this insignificant country which has been a festering sore on every hope for peace in the region for decades.

We were especially pleased that the President pointed out that Syria allows terrorism to flourish in the parts of Lebanon which it occupies. Make no mistake, the Great Opthamologist is on notice. Your time is coming and your day is done, loser. Step aside or be swept aside. Your choice.

Iran

By far and away the most heartening part of the speech. Once again, the President demonstrated that he understands the threat the terrorist regime of Iran presents and, once again, he has proved himself up to the task of facing it down. The President spoke simple, plain words, and the simple plain truth when he said:

Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror — pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium re-processing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

Let us translate this for you: Iran is a terrorist state that denies basic liberty to its people. We're willing to give the EU a shot at solving this problem since there is a high likelihood of an internal revolution solving our problem for us, but, bottom line is that if Iran keeps on the course it's now on, we'll take care of the problem ourselves, in time-honored American style (if you're uncertain what that is, find an elderly German or Japanese man to explain it to you). And, by the way, that internal revolution we are hoping for? Well, we're for it, we support it, and when you make your move we'll be there to help.

Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain

The bright students in the bunch got a nod for their modernizing and democratizing efforts. There is still a way to go, but in the Islamic world, you take your progress where you find it. These three are vital and critical to showing the Islamic world that "democracy" doesn't mean "do what the United States says," but, rather, means progress, growth, happiness and stability.

Egypt

While the Administration was at pains to stress that the President's Second Inaugural Address didn't presage a change in policy, the President's actions last night showed that there is, indeed, a new game in town. Egypt, a large receiver of direct U.S. foreign aid, was flattered, buttered up and complemented....and then told straight out that the U.S. expects its "ally" to get on board the Greater Middle East Initiative.

Given its reliance on our aid and our support, the GOE is susceptible to this kind of pressure. We at State can look forward to a push in Egypt to translating that aid and support into democratic reform on the ground. Bush's willingness to take on a once sacred cow was incredibly cheering and leaves us hopeful. And, speaking of sacred cows......

Saudi Arabia

Another Michael Moore myth bites the dust. Turns out that "Big Oil Interests" don't control what Bush says and thinks. Imagine our surprise that Moore was wrong. Again.

Like Egypt, Saudi Arabia was singled out as a state in the Middle East that needs to get aboard, and now. By daring to criticize the Kingdom directly and brazenly, the President blew away one of the great taboos of post-WWII American political culture. We were pleased that the President demonstrated that the need for reform in the Middle East includes the Saudis.

However, here is also where the President loses us. Islamic Fascism is just that; it is an ideology of murderous hate. And there is no greater source for the growth of this cancer than Saudi Arabia. From the King Faud Mosque in our own dear Los Angeles (and not far from Canter's at that!) to madrasses in moderate Indonesia, no state has done more the spread the ideology of Islamic Fascism than Saudi Arabia.

The President refuses to see this and, instead, views Saudi Arabia as just another misguided Middle Eastern state in need of a friendly nudge. It is in need of much more than that. Until the President recognizes that the official ideology of the Saudi state is a form of the ideology of The Enemy, we cannot hope for too much progress.

Of course, it is possible that democratic reform in the Kingdom would undo Wahabbism from the inside. Let us hope.

Palestine

It was the President's remarks about Palestine, however, that caused us the most concern. The election of a holocaust-denying, anti-Israel maniac as "President" doesn't fill us with the same joy as it evidently does President Bush.

Let us be plain: many conservatives have been willing to put up with the President's babble about the non-existent brave, democratic Palenstinians who wish to live side-by-side with Israel in peace and harmony because we thought he was merely highlighting their non-existence by demanding that the Palestinians produce them forthwith. But now, after four years, we are starting to believe the President believes this.

This is what we mean when we criticize the President by saying that he is properly romantic when it comes to human liberty, but is a bit over-romantic on the details. There is no evidence, despite the best efforts of the great Christopher Hitchens, that a humanist, democratic opposition exists in Palestine. Rather, there is every indication that the population there is more dedicated to the death of every last Jew in the Middle East with more fervor than ever.

It is this failure--the failure to clearly state that Islamic Fascism is the enemy, the failure to see clearly that there is no "party of peace" among the Palestinians--that drives a wedge between the President and his core supporters.

What we will say in closing is this: we must admit we doubted the President on Iraq on some of the fundamentals. Perhaps it is we who are wrong and the President right. Perhaps, if given a chance, a real chance, the screaming death-cult that is Palestine will embrace liberty and peace.

After all, he's been right so many times in the last four years.

God, please, let him be right again.

Jordan Eason Perfect Head for CNN: Anti-American and Blindingly Stupid

We remember junior high vividly. The name calling, our old friends, the feeling that one was finally growing up, the terror instilled by P.E. coaches, the strange fascination with Angela Wheeler's chest.... Yes, we remember it well. And one thing we remember clearly was when someone made fun of you for something you said, you would come up with a reason for why what you said wasn't stupid by deploying the best 13-year old logic. Example:

"I was smoking yesterday afternoon behind the Multi-Purpose Room with Greg and some of those guys."

"No you weren't, you dork. I was there the whole time and you didn't touch a f'ing cigarette."

"That's not what I said, dickweed. What I said--idiot-- was I was 'smoking,' like, you know, when you're just cranking out the jokes and cracking everyone up. I was totally smoking."

Little did I know that the "Chief News Executive" of CNN is apparently 13.

Smarting from the fact that the old world they knew where the MSM controlled both the news and the agenda is gone forever, CNN's "Chief News Executive" today released a statement to "clarify" his remarks about U.S. troops targeting journalists for death in Iraq. The statement reads as follows:

"To be clear, I do not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists in Iraq. I said so during the forum panel discussion. But, nonetheless, the U.S. military has killed several journalists in Iraq in cases of mistaken identity. The reason the word "targeted" came up at all is because I was responding to a comment by Congressman Franks, who said he believed the 63 journalists killed in Iraq were the victims of "collateral damage." Since three of my CNN colleagues and many other journalists have been killed on purpose in Iraq, I disputed the "collateral damage" statement, saying, unfortunately, many journalists -- not all -- killed in Iraq were indeed targeted. When someone aims a gun at someone and pulls the trigger and then learns later the person fired at was actually a journalist, an apology is appropriate and is accepted, and I believe those apologies to be genuine. But such a killing is a tragic case of mistaken identity, not a case of "collateral damage." That is the distinction I was trying to make even if I did not make it clearly at the time. Further, I have worked closely with the U.S. military for months in an effort to achieve a mutual goal: keeping journalists in Iraq safe and alive." (Emphasis added).

Get it? When Eason said that U.S. troops had "targeted" journalists killed in Iraq what he meant was that they had been killed on purpose; that because "someone aims a gun at someone and pulls the trigger" they have been "targeted" for killing.

This ranks as one of the lamest uses for 13-year old semantic logic we've ever heard (and that includes everything we heard in Junior High).

We're sure everyone who read the statement realizes just how damn stupid it is, but just in case: in standard English, the use of the word "targeted" with regard to killings mean that certain persons were singled out for death. For example, the sentence "After the Nazi soldiers secured control of the Polish city, SS groups were sent out to kill Jews who had been targeted by the regime for death" means not that the SS killers aimed a gun at them and pulled the trigger; rather, it means that the killers were sent out to kill specific people as policy.

The Merriam-Webster definition of the term reads:

Main Entry: target
Function: transitive verb
1 : to make a target of; especially : to set as a goal
2 : to direct or use toward a target

When Eason Jordan said that U.S. troops had targeted journalists for death what he said was that U.S. troops had made "a target of, especially" journalists; that they had "set as a goal" the death of journalists as journalists. This is a hurtful and malicious slander for which the "Chief News Executive" has not a shred of proof.

To add to the stupidity of the statement, Jordan states that the deaths were accidental yet takes offense at the term "collateral damage," which (while we hate the term) if it means anything at all means the unavoidable, accidental death of non-targets during hostilities.

You simply cannot make this stuff up. For anyone with two functioning brain cells it is clear as day that CNN's "Chief News Executive" is not only a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-American moonbat he also is (pardon the expression) really, really stupid.

Good thing no one watches the damn channel anymore!

The Limits of Technology in the Near Abroad

We had a fantastic idea last night. We were going to live blog the State of the Union address and give you, our dear readers, some instant opinion on what we saw and heard. As it turns out, our work was in vain. Part of learning to live in the Near Abroad is learning to live with the fact that nothing--nothing--really works the way it should.

So, we'll attempt to re-create a large part of what we wrote and post our reaction to the address tonight. In the meantime, we dream of live blogging from a hot spot in a steamy-windowed Starbucks, Lightnote blend and pumpkin scone near at hand, on a rainy Portland evening.

Sigh......

Eason Jordan: The Shame of the Mainstream Media

We had a routine when we were in the private practice of law, before we hung up the "Esq." after our name in exchange for the privilege of representing our country abroad. We would arrive at the office early, at around 7am, Starbuck's in hand, and spend the first half hour of our day reading the news, browsing the blogs and emailing friends. The routine was the routine; it hardly varied. By 7:30, it was time to start racking up those essential billable hours.

We do remember one day, however, April 11, 2003, when the routine was knocked off course, when all we could do was stare at the words on our screen in wonder and astonishment. At first, we thought that the third or fourth of that morning's opinion articles were likely to be run-of-the-mill. Since it was an op-ed in the NY Times, by someone we had never heard of--a man identified as Eason Jordan, CNN's "Chief News Executive"--we expected to simply disagree, snort in derision and move on to LGF or The Corner for a little sanity.

Except about half-way into Jordan's piece, entitled "The News We Kept to Ourselves," we began to slowly realize that we were reading what was likely to become a huge news story. We read it, the re-read it, then read it some more. We parsed the sentences, took apart the paragraphs and ran it through our heads over and over. 7:30am came and went and we were still reading it. We simply could not believe it: unless we had lost the ability to comprehend simple written English, here was the man in charge of news operations for what was then the nation's most popular cable news network admitting that he and his journalist colleagues had colluded with the regime of Saddam Hussein in a conspiracy to hide the full truth of that horrific regime from the American people.

Jordan began the piece by explaining that he had made numerous visits to Baghdad to lobby the Ba'athist regime to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open. He described what he saw and learned on those visits:

Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.

Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.

Having personally witnessed the fact that his own employees were, in the pursuit of his business, being ruthlessly tortured by a remorseless and pitiless regime, Jordan did what any good journalist would do: he spoke truth to power, comforted the inflicted, inflicted the comfortable, removed his bureau from Baghdad and ordered his reporters to report the truth about the Iraqi regime to Americans and the rest of the world.

Just kidding! If we were to believe the fairy-tales that float out the most prestigious journalism schools, that is what would have happened. But this was CNN, and telling the truth was not the highest priority. Instead, Jordan did what he had to do to maintain "access" to a murdering band of fascists so that he could be competitive and still deliver the "story," never mind that the resulting story was so much lies and tissue.

Don't believe us? Let Jordan tell you himself:

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.

I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.

Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would ''suffer the severest possible consequences.'' CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.

Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for ''crimes,'' one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.
(Emphasis added).

At last? At last?!?

Of course, Jordan could have told these stories freely at any time. The only reason he did not was to keep CNN on the beat in Baghdad. Jordan says that he saved lives by not reporting what he knew to be the truth, but the fact is that CNN's continued presence continued to put Iraqis at risk, a risk CNN was self-evidently complicit in. CNN could have reported all these stories and refused to collaborate with a terrorist regime, but, instead, it chose to remain and to repeat, daily, the sordid lies so familiar to anyone who has had the misfortune to live in a totalitarian regime.

"Nothing wrong here. Reports of terror are just so many American lies. The people here love Saddam. " During the entire run-up to the Iraq War, the nation's leading news network had evidence of the kind of cruelty and torture President Bush accused the Iraqi regime of ("Axis of Evil", what a moron!) and chose to do and say absolutely nothing. This from a network that would go on to hype the criminal activities of a few renegade soldiers at Abu Ghraib as the Worst War Crime of All Time.

Every time a person watched a CNN report on Iraq up til April 2003, that person was being lied to. Every time you watch a report on CNN about Syria, North Korea, Iran or Zimbabwe, you have to know that this is an organization that has proved itself ready "to do business" with murderous regimes in order to file those reports. And who do we have to thank for finding that out? Why, CNN's own "Chief News Executive." We were so stunned we called him in his Atlanta office to ask him what the hell he was thinking when he was covering up human rights abuses for access, and, more, what the hell he was thinking when he took to the pages of the NY Times to admit it. All we got was his voicemail, but we were pretty happy with the resulting message. We're not so sure he was.

This sad incident dropped like--like---well, dropped like the Afghan elections from the pages of the nation's MSM. We had thought the resulting story was so obvious that, even if only in self-interest, other media outlets would take it up. Only Fox News had the wisdom to see the story for what it was, but even they underplayed it. (Good Lord, imagine if Roger Ailes admitted in the Weekly Standard that Fox knew about Abu Ghraib but declined to report it because it was concerned about repercussions on the ground!)

It says a lot, an awful lot, about the state of our current media that Jordan and CNN weren't even remotely held accountable for what they had done in Iraq.

And, now, Jordan has done it again. Today, according to the World Economic Forum Weblog:

At a discussion moderated by David R. Gergen, the Director for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the concept of truth, fairness, and balance in the news was weighed against corporate profit interest, the need for ratings, and how the media can affect democracy. The panel included Richard Sambrook, the worldwide director of BBC radio, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Abdullah Abdullah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, and Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN. The audience was a mix of journalists, WEF attendees (many from Arab countries), and a US Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd.

During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others. (Emphasis added).

Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if he had any objective and clear evidence to backup these claims, because if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park. David Gergen was also clearly disturbed and shocked by the allegation that the U.S. would target journalists, foreign or U.S. He had always seen the U.S. military as the providers of safety and rescue for all reporters.
Eason seemed to backpedal quickly, but his initial statements were backed by other members of the audience (one in particular who represented a worldwide journalist group). The ensuing debate was (for lack of better words) a real "sh--storm". What intensified the problem was the fact that the session was a public forum being taped on camera, in front of an international crowd. The other looming shadow on what was going on was the presence of a U.S. Congressman and a U.S. Senator in the middle of some very serious accusations about the U.S. military.

The author of this blog is certainly correct to stress that last point; at the very least--the very least--it is now incumbent on Frank and Dodd to uphold the honor of the United States and her military and rebut these outrageous and spurious charges. It's a shame that this duty falls to two MCs who are very likely not to understand, let alone support, even the concept of national honor, but that's how the chips fall sometimes. Let Congress investigate these charges in front of international cameras. Let the first witness be Jordan; let him produce what we in law schools call "evidence."

But know this: the media can laugh off conservative complaints of media bias and argue that Fox News is jingoistic trash for morons, but we now know for certain two things about CNN's "Chief News Executive": 1) he hid the truth about a despotic regime in a quest for access and ratings, by his own admission; and 2) he thinks that the US military has deliberately targeted journalists for killing, by his own words.

If that's what they're willing to admit, what are they not telling us? Until the MSM sweeps out rubbish like Jordan, they can continue their terminal slide into irrelevance.

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs is now reporting that Barney Frank stood up for America on this one. Good for you, Congressman! We have our differences, but we are all American, an we'll be damned if we ever see the day any MC (except for the far left fringe) fails to uphold our national honor. According to the Gay Patriot:

And then, this liberal Democrat [Frank] pressed Mr. Jordan to be more specific, putting the CNN Executive on the spot. The newsman rambled on a bit and mumbled some sort of response about how "'There are people who believe there are people in the military who have it out' for journalists." He could provide no evidence to buttress his claims, then "offered another anecdote: A reporter who'd been standing in a long line to get through a checkpoint at Baghdad's Green Zone had been turned back by the GI on duty. Apparently the soldier had been displeased with the reporter's dispatches, and sent him to the back of the line."

OH MY GOD!!! He had to go to the back of the line?!? Might as well have pumped a few bullets into his head, eh Eason?

Wither France? The Next President of the French Republic

Americans have become more conscious at any time since World War II of France. Since the run up to the Iraq War, France--her policies, her peoples and her place in the West--have been the subject of furious debate. On the one side, we have the haters of France, the despisers of poet/foreign ministers who can give their word to our Secretary of State and then jump him with a changed position mid-meeting. On the other, we have the Francophiles, those to whom France is the anti-America, the everything good that we are bad.

In reality, though, there is just France, a deeply troubled country, a people at the crossroads, a country with deep structural problems, a burgeoning social crisis and an increasingly unsure populace. Which is why the seemingly irresistable rise of a new kind of politician there is so interesting.

Rest of the World, meet the next President of France: Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy is an oddity among a political class famed for its homogeneousness. Born in 1955, in Paris, Sarkozy is the son of an aristocratic Hungarian immigrant/political refugee in a nation that is long on big talk about its welcoming attitude towards immigrants, yet mysterious short of them in her upper ranks. His mother has both Greek and Jewish ancestry, in a culture that largely looks down its nose at both. Unlike most in the political elite, he did not attend the exclusive schools of pubilc administration; instead he became just your average run-of-the-mill lawyer. Nothing in his background can be found in the biographies of past presidents.

In government, he was Interior Minister (a post which, under the French system, is in charge of internal security; think Attorney General, Homeland Security Secretary and FBI chief all rolled into one big post) at a time when many French were beginning to rightfully worry about law and order. Yet he came out of the post more popular then when he entered it. Next, he was handed the Finance Ministry portfolio by an angry President Chirac, enraged by his one-time protege's support of a rival candidate in 1995. This move that was widely (and quite properly) seen as way for the elite to discredit him. It was too good a position to refuse, and, at the same time, too much of a nightmare for anyone to be successful at. After all, who can make sense of the Republic's finances? It was and remains a losing hand. And yet again, to everyone's amazement, he left that post more popular than any other minister currently in government.

In what was widely rumored to be a behind-the-scenes deal to heal the rift between Chirac and Sarkozy, Sarkozy stepped down from the government in exchange for the leadership of the UMP, the president's own party. In charge of the UMP since November, 2004, Sarkozy is expected to use this power base as the platform for a run for the presidency in 2007 as the mainstream right's main candidate. (The candidate of the mainstream left, like it or not, will probably be the insufferable Jack Lang). While things could change considerably between now and 2007, it looks to be almost certain that Sarkozy will become president in that year.

What matters to Americans, of course, is what kind of president Sarkozy is likely to be and whether or not the current policies of France will be maintained. Will France continue to oppose the United States, or will a new era of partnership be ushered in?

The core of France's policies will be maintained, albeit in a very new fashion. For Sarkozy is to France what Tony Blair is to the U.K: at once and the same time a product of his particular political environment who is yet capable of defying it and taking it on when necessary. Sarkozy, like Blair, is a person who knows what our civilization is and what is worth defending.

As Interior Minister, Sarkozy got a lot of credit with the average Frenchman by taking on the rather obvious problem of Muslim assimilation head on. Basically, Sarkozy's take on the issue was to valididate France's commitment to immigaration while, as the same time, breaking with the stifling European orthodoxy by demanding that French Muslims adopt French values. In fact, had John Ashcroft lectured American Muslims in a manner even approaching that of Sarkozy, the international press would still be talking about it. For example, in addressing the largest civic Muslim group in France, Sarkozy announced that he would order deported any imam found preaching sedition in French mosques. One cannot overstate the breath of fresh air such plain-speaking was and is in the European context.

At the same time, Sarkozy had caused to be created a new national Muslim council, to act as the French Muslim community's official government body. (You're nothing in France until you have such an organization). While election to this body dismayed observers--a large number of radicals or quasi-radicals (think CAIR) were elected--the vast majority of the French agreed with Sarkozy's basic vision. Sarkozy was giving the Muslims of France a stake in civil society. All they had to to do was grab it. The fact that they, by and large, did not, spoke volumes and further justified an even harder line. Search the Web for more than a minute and you'll find some Muslim group decrying the mass deportations Sarkozy ordered.

Sarkozy's no-nonsense approach resonates with a people who feel culturally threatened and that, at the same time, wish to be reasonable, to be fair. He is popular precisely because he speaks to that same "silent majority" that exists in France as in the United States.

Sarkozy is said to be enamored with the great thinkers of the Anglo political heritage. However, it would be a mistake to label him as in favor of "les anglo-saxons." Instead, he is a new kind a leader, one needed for a new kind of France, one less married to the orthodoxies of the past given the shape of new problems. As the Economist noted recently:

Mr Sarkozy, by contrast, has no time for tradition for tradition's sake. In an enlarged Europe, he argues that France can no longer rely on the Franco-German motor and needs to cultivate a group of six that also includes Britain, Spain, Italy and Poland. Atlantic-minded, he urges a milder approach to America. He advocates an overhaul of the French social model, pushing for less state regulation and a more flexible labour market; his inspirations are Britain and Spain, not moribund Germany. He considers that the French model of integration has failed French Muslims, and argues for American-style social engineering to help minorities advance. In short, where Mr Chirac urges caution and conservatism, Mr Sarkozy presses for modernisation and change. “France is not eternal,” says one of his aides. “If it does not reform, it will disappear.”

Well said. There is no doubt that France will continue to be a difficult friend even in the best of times. It is, however, heartening that the next president of France realizes what no other French politician dares dream: there is a battle on for the soul of France, and to the winner the spoils.

Iraq Officially 72% Infidel; Steyn Hits One Out of the Park

As we write this, word has reached us here in the Near Abroad that voting in Iraq has exceeded all expectations. Secretary Rice has noted today that "[e]very indication is that the election in Iraq is going better than expected," and she was able to say so even before the polls have closed there. A quick (okay, given the status of our Internet connection, not-so-quick) headline check of the world's leading newspapers and news services show near-universal agreement with the Secretary's assessment.

So, by our reckoning, that makes the score at least International Conventional Wisdom, 0; President Bush 4. The ICW said that the President could not possibly transfer power to an interim Iraqi government in June. They were wrong. The ICW said that the President could not possibly succeed in getting the parties in Iraq to agree to a mutually-acceptable framework for that interim government. They were wrong. The ICW said that getting people registered to vote by Jan. 30 was unrealistic. They were wrong.

And the ICW said that the Insurgents were winning and had the Sunni areas of the country so terrified that even if an election were held, it would have no validity.

They were wrong.

Zarqawi's group released a statement last week stating that every Iraqi who participated in the elections was an infidel, an apostate and an enemy. According to Iraq's election authority, turnout nationwide was at 72%. That makes 3 out of every 4 Iraqis officially infidels. So now we know for sure where the Iraqi people are: they may not love us, they may even hate us, but their agenda is not the same as the Insurgents. This is not Vietnam (sorry, Sen. Kennedy), but exactly what President Bush told us it would be: a long, hard slog to a new dawn that can radically change the Middle East

I do believe that there is a pattern in there somewhere, and it's not one that reflects so terribly on the Chimp-Faced Idiot Fascist.

From time to time we receive enquiries about why we insist of referring to columnist Mark Steyn as the "Great" Mark Steyn. We do this because he deserves it; flatly put, there is no better columnist, no better essayist and, as those of you lucky enough to read The New Criterion, no better movie reviewer as well.

Go now and read for yourself today's column by the Great Mark Steyn. We particularly enjoyed this graph, which sums up nicely why we here at New Sisyphus cringe when we hear the world "realist:"

The ''realpolitik'' types spent so long worshipping at the altar of stability they were unable to see it was a cult for psychos. The geopolitical scene is never stable, it's always dynamic. If the Western world decides in 2005 that it can ''contain'' President Sy Kottik of Wackistan indefinitely, that doesn't mean the relationship between the two parties is set in aspic. Wackistan has a higher birth rate than the West, so after 40 years of ''stability'' there are a lot more Wackistanis and a lot fewer Frenchmen. And Wackistan has immense oil reserves, and President Kottik has used the wealth of those oil reserves to fund radical schools and mosques in hitherto moderate parts of the Muslim world. And cheap air travel and the Internet and ATM machines that take every bank card on the planet and the freelancing of nuclear technology mean that Wackistan's problems are no longer confined to Wackistan. For a few hundred bucks, they can be outside the Empire State Building within seven hours. Nothing stands still. ''Stability'' is a fancy term to dignify laziness and complacency as sophistication.

UPDATE: Fox News has just reported here that turnout in Baghdad was 80%, in Karbala, 90%. This is astonishingly good news and a significant political victory for the United States. We tip our hats to the brave Iraqi people for standing up for their rights.