Politics and Press

Martin Amis Reflects on Extreme Islamism

Our intrepid Kiwi correspondent has referred me to a powerful critique of extreme Islamism by Martin Amis carried in the Guardian’s Observer. In it Amis says what I believe many are thinking but backing away from actually saying, probably out of obeisance to political correctness. It is a lengthy piece, published in three parts and is introduced thusly:

“…On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, one of Britain’s most celebrated and original writers analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West’s faltering response to this eruption of evil…”

Part one, with links to parts two and three can be read here.

The Press and Rep. Foley

There has been much breast beating on the Congressman Foley-Senate page scandal.  Certainly if revenge is best served cold, the Democrats have their due with this one.  The party of the moral majority, the party of family values, the party committed to erasing the horror of the Lewinsky affair in the Oval Office has within it people of shabby morals.  Shocking??  Of course not.  The issue in all of this is not that there are sinners (or at least one sinner) in the GOP.  The issue is the utter hypocrisy of the likes of Foley, and House Speaker Hastert and the gullibility of voters who believe in living saints who are self-beatified.

As for the press, it is pretty predictable. The Wall Street Journal – which went apoplectic about the Oval Office affair  - commented that, ” in today’s  politically correct culture, it’s easy to  understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails”  Is that bizarre or what?

Much of the mainstream press reports it in terms of its relationship to the coming elections, while at least one Dumbbell Radio loony compared Foley’s misuse of words with the Pope’s recent comments on Islam.

So we have this bizarre firestorm over a serious misdemeanor of a whacked out Congressman while thousands die in the War Without End in Iraq, Afghanistan has its largest poppy crop in history, a leading Republican Senator recommends inviting the Taliban into the Afghan government, Hezbollah continues to grow in strength in Lebanon, the U.S. middle class is disappearing downward, not upward, hope for peace in the Middle East has largely disappeared, and Bush et al just might be plotting an idiotic military adventure in Iran.  And oh yeah, North Korea – that’s the country that actually HAS nuclear weapons, is preparing to test one. President Bush (aka Skippy) is touring the country raising money so we can re-elect the buffoons who have put us where we are. In Stupidistan.

Condi’s Incompetence

According to the new Woodward book, verified today by White House sources, Secretary Rice has conveniently misplaced or misfiled in her mind a meeting with George Tenet in July 2001 in which he urgently warned of an impending attack by Al Qaeda.

In an administration overloaded with incompetence, Rice is a particularly fatuous figure. Warned about an Al Qaeda attack she never flinched – just ignored it. As head of the National Security Agency she supported the invasion of Iraq based on phony evidence.  Either she knew it was phony and ignored it or did not know when she should have. As Secretary of State she supported a misguided bombing campaign of Lebanon by Israel despite Lebanon being one of our few friends in the region. She followed that up by refusing to support a ceasefire, which would have spared Lebanon a portion of the violence visited on it. She has consistently presented the view that we cannot negotiate directly with North Korea or Iran without appearing weak. North Korea is now about to test a nuclear device; Iran continues to move – albeit slowly – toward development of nuclear weapons.

Is there a single positive accomplishment in her nearly 6 years in positions of influence?

Sex, Hockey and the Global Crisis

The first round ballots are in and it’s beginning to look very much as if Michael Ignatieff will be chosen leader of the Liberal Party of Canada at their convention in December, and would then be a very good bet to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Ignatieff would be a most interesting opponent in any bilateral discussions with the US at a time in which the two countries are drifting apart faster than the Greenland icebergs are racing away from their former home. The alienation of its neighbours could be one of the more long-lasting results of the increasingly incomprehensible actions of a government in Washington that seems intent on separating itself from the rules of behaviour adhered to by its (former?) allies. Ignatieff would surely be the most experienced and knowledgeable expert on global affairs – he ran the appropriate institute at Harvard before making a run at Canadian politics – to be in a position to do something about it. And his discussion with Bush and his extraordinarily lightweight advisors might be a painful revelation about why North America can no longer be understood – as Europeans tend to do – as one big place called Amerika.

In order for that to happen, some very Canadian obstacles will have to be overcome. Hockey has popped up, as it always seems to do, in the strangest places. The Toronto Globe and Mail, which had run a very flattering lengthy piece on Ignatieff, ran a much less effusive piece on his main rival and former roommate at the U. of Toronto, Rhodes scholar Bob Rae, who is certainly no dummy, but hardly looks like a jock. He came in a miserable third in the Ontario delegation voting, no doubt because he had once been the socialist premier of Ontario when it got into serious financial problems. The article was highlighted by a photo of a comic-looking Rae in full hockey regalia skating for the Ontario legiskater team. The hockey photos of candidate Ken Dryden, who is given only an outside chance of being prime minister but a very good chance of being Minister of Sports, do not look comical. In fact in the week before the vote, the Montreal Canadiens announced that Dryden’s jersey, along with Quebec icon Serge Savard’s, would be retired and raised to the rafters of the coliseum in Montreal. Guess who gets the Quebec hockey vote. Ignatieff’s announcement that he enjoyed nothing more than having a beer and watching Hockey Night in Canada was met with some skepticism. And to top it off, Belinda Stronach, a top candidate who decided not to run, was identified in a divorce suit by the wife of Maple Leaf tough guy Ti Domi as the other woman who led poor Ti astray. Since Belinda had been married to Norwegian gold-medal speed-skater Olof Johann Koss, she might have given Dryden a run for his money as most experienced candidate on the ice.

The Americanization of Canadian Media

The role of the Canadian press in the Maher Arar fiasco presents some interesting parallels to the Judith Miller run-up to Iraq reporting fiasco. Miller, at the time a NY Times correspondent, was used by anonymous administration sources to publish deceptive information intended to aid in the selling of the Iraq War. While it was never clear how much she actually believed of what she wrote the consequences are obvious and the damage has been done.

The Arar fiasco, as reported in today’s NY Times business section, included CTV’s (Canada’s largest private TV network) main nightly news show broadcasting that information from ‘’senior government officials in various departments'’ showed that Mr. Arar had given Syrian officials information about Al Qaeda and terrorist cells in Canada.

Juliet O’Neill published a 1,500-word, front-page article in The Ottawa Citizen under the headline ‘’Canada’s Dossier on Maher Arar.'’  Her article cited leaked documents and a ‘’security source.'’ They revealed, the report said, that the Canadian police had ‘’caught Mr. Arar in their sights while investigating the activities of members of an alleged Al Qaeda logistical support group in Ottawa.'’

The NY Times reports that ”although the leaks have now been shown to be completely false, Scott Anderson, The Citizen’s editor in chief, said last week that he had no regrets about publishing the report. ‘’Just the opposite. The story stands up completely,'’ he said.”

Anderson’s response is absurd.  The issue here is the laziness of reporters who will run with anyone’s garbage for a front-page scoop and the weakness of editors who refuse to push their reporters to do the hard work of serious journalism. Leaks from anonymous sources may be a necessary journalist tool but their use requires the hard work needed to verify them before destroying someone’s reputation or helping to start a war.

Bush: Relying On Relics

Lord knows George W. has made his share of mistakes [and then some]: he has branded regimes as members of an “Axis of Evil” [which is similar to the damaging invective Chavez used in his UN speech, in which he called Bush a sulfur-smelling Devil]; he invaded Iraq when it posed no threat to the US while he diverted resources from Afghanistan [thereby losing two conflicts at once]; he continues to conflate 9/11 with Saddam Hussein; he relies on corporate polluters to make voluntary pro-environmental decisions [that one is a doozy]; he reserves tax reductions only for those who already make more than enough; and he relies on oil exploration to the exclusion of oil conservation [and then accuses us of being “addicted to oil”!!] - the list goes on and on. In fact, it’s difficult to identify one good call Bush has made. Give that man a set of facts and he’ll reach the wrong conclusion. It’s amazing and predictable - there should be some way of betting on it. At least then, we could win our bets, providing some consolation, as the Nation slides deeper down the tube.
Part of the fault [dear Brutus] lies in the advisors Bush selects. Fingers point to Cheney and Rumsfeld often enough as the originators and/or implementers of major pieces of the Bush Mess. These two old pros began their White House careers back in the 1970s with Nixon and Ford. The Cheney-Rumsfeld “cabal” is not new. They were with Nixon when Vietnam was still raging. The idea of “appeasing” that enemy was never considered back then and the idea of “appeasing” the enemy in Iraq doesn’t get much traction with these two today. What a surprise. Another little surprise, highlighted in Bob Woodward’s new book, is the involvement of another “blast from the past” in the Bush Mess. It’s Henry A. Kissinger! One of the architects of Vietnam. He of Cambodian Bombing fame. Supporter of Pinochet and the murderous regimes in South America of that period. His quote on Iraq, taken from the Washington Post, is straight out of the 1970s, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.” That’s a strategy he followed for years on Vietnam - and you know where that got us. Lord, save us.
On a related aspect of Bush’s reliance on these “oldies but goodies,” Christopher Hitchens, a writer on current events [much more than a pundit] has written wonderfully and extensively on the “crimes” of Henry Kissinger. But Hitchens has also written extensively on the evils of Saddam Hussein and radical Islam. Hitchens was an impressive leftist writer in days gone by. Today he is a Bush supporter. So also today, Hitchens finds himself allied with Kissinger on the problems of Iraq and Islam. Now there is a set of strange bedfellows.