MSNBC:

At Ramadan, TV turns up heat on extremists
Satirical Saudi show makes mockery of militants, draws fundamentalist ire

CAIRO, Egypt - Ramadan is a time of fasting and prayer, but it is also a time for overindulgence. Once the fast is broken each day, many sip tea and feast on syrupy sweets while lazing in front of the TV.

That is why the holiest month in the Muslim calendar is akin to the sweeps weeks in the United States - and why satellite and local channels spend the year producing their most compelling TV serials to fiercely compete for what are essentially captive evening viewers.

An example is "Tash Ma Tash," a wildly popular Saudi TV series that is deploying satire to poke fun at the fundamentalists.

Encouraging news; read the whole thing. Sounds like some Muslims - even in the homeland of Wahhabism - are speaking out.

Via John Burgess, who adds:

"Tash Ma Tash" is somewhat of a phenomenon in the Middle East. It's one of the most widely viewed TV programs during the month of Ramadan, popular for its ascerbic attacks on the status quo. What's somewhat surprising (at least to those who have little knowledge of Saudi Arabs) is that it is a Saudi production, in Arabic, and so clearly for domestic consumption.

A Canadian Army Company endures ambush and friendly fire, but not without a heavy toll:

"All hell broke loose," says Master Cpl. Allan Johnson of Owen Sound, in command of the LAV known as 3.1 Alpha.

"It was dead quiet. And then I saw a guy jump up on a roof. Maybe he was giving a signal to the other Taliban.

"All I know is the entire area just lit up. We were taking fire from at least two sides, maybe three, with everything they had. Rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms fire, the works.

"It was the cherry-popper of all cherry-poppers. And once we started taking casualties, we moved up to provide cover fire. Our cannon didn't stop from that point on."

(Via sda)

Iraq the Model:

The sounds of war continue while I'm typing these words... the night is obviously going to be a long one but tomorrow should bring the truth about what's happening. More important, tomorrow will be a big challenge for the Iraqi security forces in Baghdad. We'll try to keep you updated when we can.

Perspective

(Via AoSHQ)

I'm still too busy today to author substantive commentary on the Esmay-Malkin Conflict, but in the meantime, be sure to read Eric Scheie's post. Despite showcasing (very) slight variations from my own emphasis, it's by leagues the best take I've read thus far. An important read.

UPDATE: Esmay responds to Malkin's post.

The Chicago Tribune:

When Lt. Abuhena Saif-ul-Islam first arrived at the Camp Pendleton military base in California, recruits often asked the Muslim chaplain what the crescent on his lapel meant. Saif-ul-Islam, a Bangladeshi immigrant, jokingly told them he was an astronaut.

Nowadays, fewer sailors find the Islamic symbol unfamiliar. But Saif-ul-Islam, a U.S. Navy chaplain since 1999, still is questioned often about his religion during training sessions he conducts at bases across the nation.

"They want to know if non-Muslims can go into a mosque," Saif-ul-Islam said. "They ask why people in Iraq are behaving [violently] if Islam is so peaceful. It's a genuine question."

Read the rest.

(Via Dean)

Bruce Kesler on the recently well-publicized Iraqi polls:

As a teenager expressing his or her independence is welcomed, even though often shrouded in surliness, the latest poll of Iraqis' desires for independence from any external presence in their affairs should be welcomed.

The Washington Post reported on several polls of Iraqis. The headline, "Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show" and most of the article focus on this part of the polling. Although the poll by World Public Opinion devotes most of its content on other matters, and the WP article spends a few paragraphs on these, Judith Klinghoffer's blog post focuses on this other side of the poll story, "Poll: Al Qaeda Lost Hearts And Minds In Iraq."

In short, most Iraqis polled favor a withdrawal of US forces within a year, but most Iraqis also oppose Al Qaeda, support their central government, oppose sectarian militias, have faith in Iraqi security forces, and do not favor dissolution into Shia, Sunni and Kurd states.

Read the whole thing.

*** Dean Esmay attempts a dialogue with Michelle Malkin on the nature of Islam. As Kevin from Pundit Review remarks, it's a debate worth having (civilly):

I sympathize and understand with those who think Islam is simply incompatible with democracy. Just look around. When Islamic radicals slaughter innocents in the name of Allah, there is hardly a word of condemnation. When someone draws a cartoon of Mohammed or the Pope utters a benign statement of advancing religion through dialogue, the Muslim "street" leaps into action, has rallies in their capitals around the world and sets out to intimidate those who even question them.

However, as Dean points out, look at Afghanistan. Listen to what Harmid Karzi said this week. Wanting freedom and autonomy over one's live [sic] is a basic human desire. Democracy, maybe not as we know it, can work in Iraq, and elsewhere. I believe that. Given my relentless defense of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, count me in with Ralph, and Dean. Your thoughts?

I was pretty satisfied with the tenor of my exchange with Bryan Preston on the same topic.

UPDATE: Malkin responds. I'll withhold more extensive commentary until I have time for it, but immediately:

Glad to see that she responded ... but the implication that Esmay is trolling for traffic is an odd mischaracterization of his motivations; agree or disagree, the guy is about as sincere on this issue as one can get. I'm also kind of surprised at how much the post ticked her and Bryan Preston off, though there's some backstory there. (UPDATE: Michelle has now noted Dean's shrill comment under his post, which I can't defend, except to note that there is backstory there as well.) This whole back-and-forth is a bummer, as relevant debate can and should take place about this topic, given its influence on the character of the war.

Also check out Donald Sensing's substantive critique. Sensing's distinction between Arab countries and other parts of the Islamic world and his quotation of Bernard Lewis are especially worthwhile.

And also check out Eteraz for a must-read Muslim's take.

*** Kudos to the folks at MSNBC for their production of a new series of vignettes about American military personnel in Iraq. The first features Medal of Honor recipient SFC Paul Smith:

*** Iowahawk is back with a perfect parody of a Keith Olbermann rant. Pajamas Media throws the humorist some praise:

Where else on the web can you channel-surf the spirits of Mark Twain and Big Daddy Roth on the same page?

I have no idea who Big Daddy Roth is, but the Mark Twain comparison is quite right.

*** babalu:

"When I left Cuba," he said with tears running down his aged cheeks. "We had nothing and noone. I was scared. And back then, I could never have imagined that one day my son would be a guest at the White House."

Moving.

Last night I attended the Pajamas Media panel at the National Press Club. A few quick impressions:

* The panel went pretty well, though some responses to questions ran a bit long. Cable news formats may have destroyed my attention span. Not to mention ...

* ... the top-shelf open bar.

* Jane Hall showcased some amusing involuntary(?) facial expressions while listening to right-wing panelists speak.

* The open bar had 86-proof Kentucky bourbon.

* Glenn Reynolds displayed no visible antennae, wires or other electronic components. His grip was warm and remarkably flesh-like, and his optics tracked movement with reptilian smoothness. Remarkable.

* Juan the Press Club bartender: libatory magician. A healer, really.

* A blogger from the New York Times shot the panelists some skeptical questions, one asking if blogging increased partisanship because people could "choose news" that fit a worldview. Best counter-argument**:

"Like the people who read the New York Times?" -- Val Prieto.

* Met LT SMASH, Ace of Spades, Mary Katharine Ham, Judith Weiss, Michael Totten, Baron Bodissey, among others. Nice folks. Surprisingly not abnormal for a group of bloggers.

* The Press Club was a nice setting, despite the lights flickering wildly in the presence of such concentrated nerd energy.

* Pajamas Media is holding a contest to nickname political independents. My suggestion: "Wild Turkeys."

** CLARIFYING UPDATE: Val's comment about the NYT was to me, not the reporter.

I've been MIA on this campaign, but hearty congrats to the Porkbusters for their terrier-like and ultimately successful lobby of the Coburn-Obama Bill. This effort has represented bi-partisan, 21st Century citizen advocacy at its finest.

*** Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do ...

*** In a comment under my post lamenting the rarity of military heroism stories in the MSM, Pundit Review Radio's Kevin Whalen dropped a reminder:

Every Sunday at 9pm, Matt from Blackfive joins on on Pundit Review Radio on WRKO in Boston to bring his series 'Someone You Should Know' to the radio. Hester, Chontosh and so mant others have been honored for their incredible service to our country. You can find them all here ...

Check it out.

*** I've been wondering recently about the Administration's practical commitment to winning Iraq, given apparently insufficient troop levels. Do we simply lack the personnel? Has the Administration been unwilling to invest in a requisite build-up? It's probably at least the latter, given the unsustainability of current force levels:

Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
...
An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message: The Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.

The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

One might hope that this underfunding is a long-term component of pre-midterm politicking regarding the deficit (and thus due to expire in November), though I'm not holding my breath. And given Bush's stated prioritization of a stable Iraq and historically moderate defense spending as a percentage of GDP, I'm at a loss as to why the Army has to fight for resources.

Via the Commissar, who opines:

This is way beyond partisan politics, comrades. I'm struggling for less strident tone, but can't get there. Rumsfeld and Bush are showing terrible disrespect for, and are damaging our military.

I'll be curious to see Rumsfeld's reaction.

See also: "I think we will be in need of American forces for a long time"

*** Slate Explainer tackles the history behind Satan supposedly smelling like sulfur. Nary a word on why Hugo Chavez smells like flop sweat, rotten platanos fritos, Brut 33 and Fidel Castro, however.

Notable excerpts from a WaPo interview with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani:

[Talabani:] The presence of American forces -- even a symbolic one -- will frighten those who are trying to interfere in our affairs.

Are you talking about Iran?

Our prime minister just came back from Iran. He got good promises from Iran on security -- promises that they will never permit any kind of interference in the internal affairs of Iraq.

Do you believe that?

Our prime minister tells me he got real and serious promises. Let us see.
...
Would you welcome U.S. bases in Kurdistan?

Yes, they are welcome. Kurdistan wants the Americans to stay. In some places Sunnis want the Americans to stay -- Sunnis think the main danger is coming from Iran now. There is a change in the mind of the Sunnis. The Sunnis are for having good relations with America. The [Shiites] have started to think that.

Even minding requisite grains of political salt, Talabani provides some relevant info. Read the rest.

See also: Iraqi Parties Reach Deal Postponing Federalism

Light posting alert.

Some good news:

[T]he leader of Ansar al Sunnah, Muntasir al-Jibouri, has been captured! This is big news.
...
We should be shouting for joy that the leader of Ansar al Sunnah has been captured. This should just as big as when we got Zarqawi. It is that important.

Ansar al Sunnah's organizational structure is not as well know as al Qaeda's. It appears, though, that al-Jibouri's voice can be heard on at least two hostage murder videos-and probably many many more ... Like Zarqawi, al Jibouri is said to have personally murdered many of Ansar al Sunna's victims.

*** Ghoulishly cynical asymmetric warfare:

Shiite militias are encouraging children - some as young as 6 or 7 - to hurl stones and gasoline bombs at U.S. convoys, hoping to lure American troops into ambushes or provoke them into shooting back, U.S. soldiers say.

Gangs of up to 100 children assemble in Sadr City, stronghold of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, and in nearby neighborhoods, U.S. officers said in interviews this week.

American soldiers have seen young men, their faces covered by bandanas, talking with the children before the rock-throwing attacks begin - and sometimes handing out slingshots so the volleys will be more accurate, the troops said.

Just awful.

*** Steve Verdon is focusing on gloomy economic news:

Leading Economic Indicators Decline

U.S. Recession Likely in 2008

CFOs See 33% Chance of Recession in 12 Months

*** Factcheck.org debunks the latest attempts to make body armor into a political issue:

A new ad claims Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia "voted against giving our troops" modern body armor. He did no such thing. The ad cites a vote on an appropriations amendment that had nothing whatever to do with body armor.

The ad also claims troops were sent to Iraq with flak vests "left over from the Vietnam war," another falsehood. The ad actually shows an improved vest that wasn't available until the 1980's.

Apparently, McQ at QandO got the ball rolling on this one. Nice job.

*** And lastly, not a big surprise here:

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told supporters Friday that his guerrillas will not surrender their weapons until a stronger Lebanese government is in place _ including 20,000 rockets his group claims to still have after its 34-day war with Israel.

In his first public appearance since Israel launched its massive offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas on July 12, Nasrallah repeatedly attacked the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, which he called weak and unable to protect Lebanon from Israel.

More accurately, Saniora's government is too weak to protect Lebanon from Hezbollah.

A Street Corner in Ramadi

Frank Warner:

Unknown soldiers: With 38,000 Bronze Stars awarded in the Iraq war, where are the stories of heroism?
...
I've been following the war fairly closely for three and a half years, and I admit I can't think of 10 American servicemembers who have made headlines for their heroism.

One of the media's staggering failures in covering the past 5 years of war has been its relative ignorance of military heroism, particularly when that bravery involves killing the enemy. SFC Paul Ray Smith defied the trend and made headlines because his Medal of Honor citation and sacrifice were too amazing to ignore; SGT Leigh Ann Hester's aggressive defense of a supply convoy garnered attention because of the uniqueness of a female receiving a silver star in combat; Dr. Richard Jadick made the cover of Newsweek because his valor saved lives, rather than took them. These exceptions merely prove the rule.

Few Americans outside of the blogosphere have heard of CPT Brian Chontosh, CPT Dominique B. Neal or SGT Kenneth Conde Jr., unless they read DoD press releases, the Marine Corps Times or other military-centric information outlets. The reasons are simple: despite the gobs of narrative tension present in stories of combat, most mainstream media outlets take pains to avoid the perception of jingoism.

In contrast, when my grandfather shot down planes or destroyed ground targets, his exploits consistently made the Newark Star Ledger, along with the actions of thousands of others in combat during WWII. I always hesitate to mourn lost parallels between "the good war" and present conflicts: the country has changed, the press has changed and public opinion is much more sharply divided than it was in certain other wars. But despite the rational portion of these evolutions, the media's aversion to combat reporting that highlights acts of bravery does the country and the media outlets themselves a disservice, if at least for the reason that such features are terribly gripping human interest stories. Their rare exposition is a loss.

(Via DW)

A little bit of hope: "Muslims & Christians In Iraq Join to Renounce Violence"

Previous:

What the Pope Said

When Religious Folk Misinterpret Secularists

Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith delivers a lengthy and impressive eulogy to Pat Tillman, as well as a disheartening account of his death: "Remember His Name."

From details of his love of literature, curious mind, alternately humble and reckless character and acerbic rejection of the casus belli for Iraq, the piece reveals Tillman as a remarkably complex man.

Everybody who thought he'd enlisted purely out of patriotism, they missed reality by a half mile. Sure, he loved America and felt compelled to fight for it after more than 2,600 people at the World Trade Center were turned to dust. But his decision sprang from soil so much richer than that. The foisting of all the dirty work onto people less fortunate than an NFL safety clawed at his ethics. He had uncles and grandfathers on both sides who'd fought in World War II and the Korean War, one who'd taken a bullet in his chest, another who'd lost a finger and one who'd been the last to leap out of a plane shot from the sky. On a level deeper than almost any other American, he'd reaped the reward of those sacrifices: the chance his country afforded him to be himself, all of himself.

He yearned to have a voice one day that would carry, possibly in politics, and he was far from the sort of man who could send others into a fire that he had skirted. His relentless curiosity, his determination to live his life as if it were a book that would hold its reader to the last word, pushed him into the flames as well. The history of man is war, he told a family member, so how, without sampling it, could he ever know man or himself completely?

Some people, only a few, decide early in their lives that the world will remember their names. Some people -- fewer still -- understand that the cleanest and most powerful way to do that is by never asking the world to remember their names, by letting their lives do that. "Let people find things out about you," Pat told B.J. Alford, his roommate and teammate at Arizona State. "Don't tell them."
...
Something else he figured out early: Fear was what stood between a man and an extraordinary life, and the surest way through it was to stare it down over and over, until that gaze became habit.

Read the rest. Many of those who've valued Tillman's sacrifice most will be surprised at and even disagree with some of his opinions and traits, but I'll be damned if they won't come away more impressed and mournful than ever. He was a classic American.

*** Surprisingly, the WaPo highlights a positive impact of US reconstruction efforts in a story about the Iraqi date crop:

In the calculus of preventing Iraq's slide toward civil war, reconstructing Iraq's economy is a top priority. And dates are Iraq's second-biggest export, after oil. Revitalizing the industry could help reduce sectarian tensions by creating thousands of jobs while generating revenue to rebuild Iraq, improve security and lessen the country's dependence on U.S. reconstruction dollars.

Now, after years of neglect, war and sanctions, the date industry is showing signs of recovery, partly through U.S. efforts. Farmers are being introduced to market-oriented capitalism after years of depending on state subsidies under the government of Saddam Hussein.

In May, helicopters contracted by the U.S. military sprayed thousands of acres of date palm trees across Iraq with pesticides to eradicate insects that had caused major damage.

If the New York Times ran the story, the headline might read: "Shades of Vietnam: Mercenary Helicopters Defoliate Iraqi Jungles; Contribute to Global Warming."

*** I see merit in both the "avoid gratuitous offense" and "aggressively protect free speech and Western values" memes that spring from the controversies over the Pope's remarks and the Danish cartoons; these ideas aren't antithetical. Anne Applebaum makes a strong case for the latter:

None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting.

By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns.
...
[N]othing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

She's got a point.

*** It's silly to draw facile equivalencies between modern evangelical Christianity and radical Islam (a la Andrew Sullivan), but some surprising folks may aspire to:

Film Shows Youths Training to Fight for Jesus

Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush -- these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."

"I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places," Fisher said. "Because, excuse me, we have the truth."

An odd analogy, though I'm not quite sure if she's referring to radical Muslims for an example, or merely Christians in those countries who have been killed for their religious belief. Either way, death probably isn't the best thing to teach at a kid's summer camp. Martyrdom's admittedly much more exciting than making tin can totem poles or macaroni sculptures, but it can't touch the frolic of a good potato sack race. No sir.

"A lot of people die for God," one camper said, "and they're not afraid."

"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," said another, "only in a funner way."

This interview with the directors paints a more moderate picture, but I admit some, ah, trouble getting past the initial quotes. More here. Apparently the camp and movie are pretty controversial among evangelicals.

*** And continuing the spirit of our recent deep theology discussions, via the sitemeter, I have the bizarre duty to announce that INDC is the number four google result for "Is Joey Lawrence a Christian?"

Best guess: might he be a Je-"WHOA!"-vah's Witness?

(Ra-ta-ta. Don't forget to tip your waitress.)

*** The chairman of one of the largest independent Islamic organizations in the world is telling Muslims to put a sock in it with regards to the Pope's statement. (alternate link)

Hasyim said the regret was "enough" and further resentment from the Muslims would only justify the pope's statement. "If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true," he said.

*** The statement quoted by the Pope was from a conversation between the Byzantium Emperor Manuel II and an "educated Persian", but who was the "educated Persian" and what were the circumstances of their discussion? The surprising answer is that Manuel II was a vassal of the Turks, the "educated Persian" was a judge, and the discussion took place under the auspices of the Turkish sultan*. See this post by Gail at Scribal Terror for more. This comment by Gail is also worth quoting:

How interesting indeed, that in the old days of Muslim ascendency, no one offered to cut off the head of the questioning infidel, although they could easily have done so. Instead, his gracious hosts encouraged him to speak his mind and amused themselves by answering his objections and correcting his misconceptions, as they understood them.

The behavior of the Qadi and his Sultan, in my opinion, should be celebrated as one of the high points of Muslim civilization. Has that civilization declined so much in the intervening centuries, that the way debates are settled is now by vitriol and violence instead of by reasoned and dignified discourse?

*** On a much lighter note, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day. Readers of INDCJournal who happen to be pirates may be interested to read about "the only drunken Pirate seeking office in this great nation": James Hill (Who could soon be referred to as James Hill (ARR! - IA)). While not endorsing his candidacy, I would note that past experience in plundering and pillaging means he should fit right in with the rest of Congress.

* Updated for accuracy per second comment.

*** Jonah Goldberg:

I don't think the Pope's original comments have elicited nearly as much authentic rage as the images on TV would suggest. But I do think those driving these protests and whipping up anger know what they're doing. The West wants to be loved. It can't stand the idea that somebody -- anybody -- doesn't like us. This is doubly so in Europe and perhaps triply so at the Vatican.

(Via IP)

Aziz P:

Such violence is the product of professional thugs who exploit the lack of civil order in their societies, and seek any pretext upon which to wage chaos. Their efforts are barbaric, and they are transient, and they are ultimately futile.

I'm not sure that I agree with the "futile" part, and I'm of two minds about the piece's larger focus on quite that level of practical deference to radicals, but still.

Robbo the LB:

It strikes me that the outbursts of rage on the Muslim "street" don't have much to do with offended sensibilities per se. Rather, somebody recognized a perfect opportunity to play some more on the West's perpetual self-doubt by whipping up the mob.

*** Nice theory, guys. But who could possibly have incentive to ...

Iranian Leader Urges More Papal Protests.

... oh.

*** Muslim (yawn) rage. Though this is nothing to yawn about.

*** And finally (and largely unrelated):

(Dubai Ports) World, a leading global marine terminal operator, has become the first global company in the transport and logistics industry to gain certification to an international standard for its security management systems and operations. Lloyds Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), an independent international certification body, has audited DP World for compliance with the international standard ISO/PAS 28000:2005 at both the corporate head office in Dubai, UAE, and its chosen site, Djibouti Container Terminal....

Daniel Drezner: "If only Dubai Ports World could somehow run our ports." Heh.

In a critique of my post on the Pope, Bryan Preston explains that there are differences between Islam and Christianity:

The basis of the title of this post is that it's consistently atheists and adamant secularists who understand the Islamist enemy the least, yet they're also the quickest to slam or argue against anyone who does quote the Koran on its own terms to argue that it is animating violence. They are also the quickest to equate Christianity with the villain du jour, because Christianity is to them just one among many faiths that they may think they understand, but ultimately don't. Here's one example [My post - ED]; here's another.

I'm not sure that I've exactly "equated Christianity with the villain du jour," nor would I argue that Koranic text is incapable of animating violence. My post primarily focused on the Pope's principle of engaging Muslims against terrorism by finding common cause in shared humanistic values, rather than theological understanding. From this first interpretation of my argument, it's clear that we're in for a rough road to understanding. If nothing else, it intimates that Bryan disagrees with the Pope's strategy.

In contrast, he insists on almost totally addressing the rise of militant Islam with religious analysis. To wit:

Namely, that an essentially post-Christian West comes to the battle with Islamism, Islamofascism, caliphascism, or whatever you want to call the demon that animates al Qaeda and apparently millions of Muslims across the globe to hate the West and work toward our destruction, ill-equipped to understand and confront the foe. This inability to get into the enemy's head and heart makes it harder for us to win. Yes, for all our weapons and the superiority of our forces versus theirs, we are ill-equipped to fight because we're increasingly incapable of understanding what motivates them and therefore are less likely to find the means of removing that animator.

I take this as a politely condescending slap that people like me aren't willing or able to understand the threat within the limitations of a secularist's mindset. But what I think Bryan misses is the idea that hyperanalysis of a religion's bondage as a deterministic cause of violence (to the exclusion of political, cultural and economic factors) is only as good as the extent to which those particular religious edicts hold sway over the faith's followers. And thus, when Robert Spencer and the Hot Air crew describe the negative Koranic underpinnings of radical Islam, they do a fantastic job of describing the motivation of violent Islamists. They also do a good (if partial) job of explaining some of the reasons how and why so many Muslims become radicalized to embrace violence, and why a greater number of them tolerate it.

But what this theological reading and analytical focus consistently fail to account for is how significant portions of the rest of the "Muslim world" - by which I mean the other hundreds of millions of people who aren't radically devout or interested in violence - view and study their religion. Furthermore, the incessant "FEAR ISLAM" drum beat (as opposed to the distinctive "FEAR ISLAMOFASCISTS") offers no constructive solution to addressing the cultural or political aspects of terrorism, given that we need the aid of non-violent Muslims to eradicate the religious violence within their midst; an aid probably best acquired by not trashing their basic religious identity. Thus, from a practical standpoint, Bryan's focus describes the religious aspects of a problem and ably succeeds at whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment, but it's almost totally useless at providing solutions to address that problem. "I'll engage 1.3 billion Muslims when Islam changes according to A, B and C" seems like about as much of a throwaway, pie-in-the-sky, argumentative head-fake as it gets.

I'd call this a trap common to specialists the world over - applying their relevant speciality to the entirety of a much more complex problem, to the neglect of potential solutions that reside outside of this focus.

I'll give you a real world example:

The other day, I was having a conversation with a Marine officer who was describing the experiences of Marines working to train Iraqi Army units. He'd mentioned that most of the Iraqi officers were Sunni, while the enlisted men were Shia. I asked him if this produced any tensions, to which he responded "no, not really. People tend to overestimate how religious the average Iraqi is." While acknowledging the sectarian violence gripping the capital, he said that most Iraqis are pretty laid back about religion, primarily focusing on the things that most people the world over focus on: making a better life and providing for their family. He told me that Marines entering Iraqi homes often found shows like Baywatch dubbed in French on satellite TV. Young Iraqi soldiers like to drink beer, listen to rap music and give each other gangster nicknames. Now, I'm not going to argue that Baywatch, beer and rap are necessarily cultural improvements (well, maybe beer), but they do anecdotally illustrate how much the average Iraqi gives a rat's ass about "restoring the Caliphate" or "killing the infidels."

But despite this apparently lackadaisical piety, the Marine very explicitly told me, "disrespect their Koran and they'll get mad. It's sort of like somebody messing with our flag." These Iraqis are fighting side-by-side with our military personnel against Al Qaeda in Iraq. They are our allies against Islamic terrorism. Many aren't radically devout. But shock of all shocks, they naturally bristle at affronts to their religious and cultural identity.

And there lies an anecdotal example of how non-distinctive anti-Islam rhetoric fails to acknowledge the realistic solutions to terrorism that have to come from shared humanistic values - be they a desire to stop radical co-religionists from killing innocents or to watch Yasmine Bleeth run down a beach in a red bathing suit. These theological arguments about the structure of Islam, while worthwhile, persistently look past the fact that real solutions will also come from Western cooperation with and within the Islamic world, the former contingent upon the practicality of not wholly trashing our allies' religious identity. And for every Vent cautioning against Islam's threat with a background of ominous music, I can imagine quarter percentage points of requisite empathy slipping away from the American electorate's support for Iraqi democracy.

And that's why I have my own chuckle when a religious fella like Brian claims a more steadfast support for the Global War on Terror by rallying the men of Rohan against a legion of evil Muslim horsemen poised to descend upon our cities and towns. While I respect his analysis of radical Islam, to borrow and slightly modify a line from his post:

"This inability to get into the enemy's our allies' head and heart makes it harder for us to win."

UPDATE: It's also important to note that there are pious Muslims who share a rejection of violent jihad. For example. And example.

*** DaF: Five Years in the War on Terror.

*** Dowdified quotes at Newsweek.

*** Donnah: "Handicapable."

*** LT Smash's further adventures with Code Pink.

*** Tim Blair rounds up hurt feelings.

Did Pope Benedict deliver a blistering critique of Mohammed's militarism and the structural primacy of Islam? Eh. Sort of. Not really.

Using the words, "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope quoted criticisms of the prophet Mohammed by a 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II, during a debate with a learned Persian.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," Benedict quoted the emperor as saying.

His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity's view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam's view that "God is absolutely transcendent." Benedict said that Islam teaches that God's 'will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God's will.

The incendiary words in question were an illustrative historical quote that set the stage for a critique of irrational violence in the name of religion, specifically Islam. His surrounding exposition of the quote does not endorse the text of the quote itself, but does somewhat logically reinforce the view that Islam is a deterministic force, given the oft-noted self-reinforcing structure of the Koran that prioritizes obedience over reason. The media ledes have all characterized the speech as a harsh attack on Muslims. Predictably, many Muslim protests have turned angry and violent, the New York Times has rushed to condemn the speech and bloggers are crowing about the Pope's brave condemnation of the "true nature" of Islam.

But did anyone actually read it?

Here's the full text. Good luck: it's an interminably dense - painful, even - theological argument about how the concept of reason interacts with faith. The hyper-rationality of science to the exclusion of faith comes in for more critique than Islam, whose mention is almost an aside that prefaces this much longer treatise. David Warren provides a good analysis:

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"Silent revolution in Arabia: Yemen's president hard-pressed:"

The cliche goes that the Arab world is at its most modern in Lebanon and at its most backward in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. While it is true that tribal ties are more important in Yemen than ideologies, it is also true that the poor house of the Arabian peninsula - where men still wear traditional wraparound robes and women hide their faces behind black veils - is experiencing an electoral campaign that is more democratic than in other Arab states in the past year.

On September 20, Yemenis are due to elect new local councils and decide whether President Ali Abdullah Saleh should step down after 28 years at the helm of the region the Romans called Arabia Felix, or Happy Arabia.

Unlike the presidential campaigns in Egypt and Tunisia, where it was clear from the start that no opposition candidate had a chance against the incumbents, the fight for the top spot in Sana'a is proving to be gripping.

A notable bit of detail:

Five of the larger opposition left-wing and Islamist parties have agreed on a joint presidential candidate and manifesto.

Limited engagement of Islamists in a governing coalition marks a test case for the second scenario discussed in my summation of Zakaria's prescription for democratic reforms in the Arab world. Let them deal with coalitions and voter appeasement for a while - without total authority - and we'll see if the process influences them more than they influence the process. Keep an eye on Yemen.

(Via Jane, the 'sphere's resident expert on all things Yemeni)

And lo, the healing legend of green tea grows stronger yet more confounding:

Adults in Japan who drank more green tea had a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease specifically, though not from cancer, a study has found.

In the study, they tracked more than 40,000 adults in northeastern Japan, where green tea is popular, from 1994 until last year. Participants had no history of stroke, coronary heart disease or cancer at the the study's outset, Kuriyama said.

Compared with participants who drank less than one cup daily, those who consumed five or more had an overall risk of dying 16 percent lower during the time of the study, the researchers reported. The reduction was 26 percent when only the first seven years were counted.

(Emphasis mine)

This apparently impressive result reinforces the idea that tea's polyphenols delay damage from oxidative stress and inflammation. A big caveat is present, however:

The researchers, reporting their findings in the Sept. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote that the study isn't the last word: still more rigorous trials will be needed to confirm the results. The ideal would be a "randomized controlled trial" in which some participants are assigned at random to drink the tea while others do not, Kuriyama wrote in an email.

Without randomization, the study design raises a big question: how much did green tea itself promote health, vs. how much did those inclined to drink green tea live an otherwise healthy lifestyle? Still, this is merely another result out of many, in vitro and in vivo, that implicates green tea as a mild to moderate elixir. Drink up.

*** LT Smash observes interaction between wounded soldiers and Code Pink protestors outside of Walter Reed. Some telling lines:

They wouldn't even talk to us! How are they supporting us, if they won't even talk to us, or look us in the eye?
...
Those guys (indicates Code Pink) say, "Don't talk to them." That guy literally came out and said, "Don't talk to them."

(Via IP)

*** Dean Esmay jumps headfirst back into the Terry Schiavo debate, citing news that ambien(!) has been found to successfully treat a small number of patients in a Persistent Vegetative State. Predictable debate ensues in the comments, much of it worth your while.

Much of it not.

*** Al Gore gets a frosty reception from (some) Australian officials:

"There are three places I do not go for advice on climate change," fumed Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, dismissing the film in which Gore singles out Australia as trailing the rest of the world on climate change.

"One of them is to unsuccessful candidates for the US presidency who cannot even convince their own people that they are right. The second place is the movie," he said, adding that the third was the Australian opposition.

Ouch.

(Via FC)

*** Wikipedia vs. Britannica! Joyner hits the key note:

We've come to the point where, for an increasing number of us, information has to be available quickly, easily, and for free online. It almost doesn't matter if the competition is "better" in terms of quality if it's hiding behind a subscription firewall or otherwise not easily searchable and obtainable.

A powerful clip from "Path to 9/11:"

Via AP at Hot Air, who adds:

We get only a few impressionistic glimpses of the cabin of Flight 93, an artistic choice I found effective. I remember Shelby Foote in Ken Burns's Civil War documentary describing Pickett's charge and how vividly it exists as a proving ground for valor in southerners' imaginations. Flight 93 fills a similar space now in the American imagination, a fact the film's elliptical treatment implicitly acknowledges. There are good reasons to dramatize it but also good reasons not to; the technique here trades brutal realism for greater exaltation. Not always the right choice, but not a bad one here.

Agreed.

Anne Applebaum has an essay in the Telegraph examining the notion that Bush "wasted sympathy" after 9/11.

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for - capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's, depending on your point of view - was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism" itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

Coincidentally, I was recently looking through some Pew Global Attitudes Survey Reports, and noticed one entitled "Bush Unpopular in Europe, Seen As Unilateralist."

That report was published in August of 2001.

A side project is eating up large amounts of time - posting should resume by tonight or tomorrow.

You may have already heard of the 2,996 Project:

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers.

A list with links to every blog participating in the tribute can be found here.

I tend to promote charities at times like this:
Any Soldier and Operation Gratitude are both charities involved in sending care packages to the troops. There's also Two For The Troops, an offer in partnership with Operation Gratitude to send tins of spice to the troops to help jazz up their MREs.

Bill Adds: Also Project Valour-IT, which purchases voice-activated laptops for injured troops, and INDC favorite Spirit of America, dedicated to helping win the GWoT one heart and mind at a time:

Spirit of America's mission is to extend the goodwill of the American people to assist those advancing freedom, democracy and peace abroad. We provide support to those on the front lines: American military and civilian personnel and people who call to Americans for help in their struggle for freedom.

It's worth remembering on this grim anniversary that the War on Terror is a war of ideas, in addition to being an armed conflict and law enforcement issue.

*** Al Qaeda's number two telegraphs the organization's next targets:

Osama bin Laden's deputy warned that Persian Gulf countries and Israel would be al-Qaida's next targets, according to a new videotape aired by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sounds like someone's overcompensating for a tough five years.

*** The WaPo features an interactive database of September 11's victims.

*** Stephen reflects on his 9-11 experience:

Not long after 10:00, we were told to go down to the building cafeteria and await further instructions. As I left my office, I grabbed my briefcase, thinking, "The way things are going, those bozos [building security] won't let us back in." Down in the cafeteria, it didn't seem like anyone was in charge and we milled around aimlessly and anxiously. Someone had a portable radio tuned in, and when the reporter announced that the South Tower had collapsed and that 50,000 people work in the WTC every day, then it finally hit me that this was something big. At that instant, it seemed that most of those people would have died.

I was at a convention in Palm Springs, silently staring at a television screen for hours with a hundred or so other shocked souls.

*** The graphic novel adaptation of the 9-11 report is a great way to digest its originally dry contents.

In a discussion under an AoS post, Bob Owens drops the following comment regarding news that suspected Hindu Nationalist terrorists bombed a Mosque and graveyard in India, killing 37 and injuring 50:

If Hindus were behind this--and I'm not saying they are--they certainly have mre than enough reason.

The area now called Afghinstan [sic] was formerly two Hindu Kingdoms, until maurading [sic] Muslims swept across Mesopotamia and Persia, killing all in their path. You know, like they want to do us.

Hindus have millions of great reasons to want Muslims dead. You can read about them here. [His intended link doesn't work for me -- ED]

I fail to see how this exculpatory logic - which serves to rationalize the murder of civilians via historical slights initiated circa 711 AD - fundamentally differs from that of apologists for Al Qaeda or Palestinian militants; those who justify indiscriminate murder as an "understandable redress" for events from the Crusades to the establishment of a modern Jewish homeland in the Middle East. Certainly there are large moral differences in intent between the collateral casualties caused by an Israeli missile and civilian targeting by Muslim extremists; but neither grants license to purposefully murder children in response, nor deprioritize condemnation of those who do.

One might hope that Owens intended an incomplete argument about the roots of anti-Islamic sentiment, and not an endorsement of Hindu terrorism. But any who reflexively fail to condemn terrorism against civilians because it fulfills an anti-Islamic assessment of the GWoT need to step back and look closely at initial judgments. If the first reaction to the slaughter of innocents praying at a funeral is to nonchalantly explain it with 8th Century historical grievances against the victims' co-religionists, relativism has short-circuited one's moral wiring in service to ideology. That this particular moral relativism is a right-wing, reflexively anti-Islamic funhouse mirror of the left's rationalizations of Palestinian violence against Israeli children in pizza parlors is no small irony.

In addition, Owens and some of the AoS commenters seem unaware that the rise of violent strains of Hindu nationalism in India has not merely been a reaction to Islamic radicalism or the dispute over Kashmir. Rajeev Bhargava, a professor of "political theory and Indian political thought" at the University of Delhi, discusses "the worldview of activists who use 'Indianness' as a weapon against their Muslim, Christian, and secular fellow-citizens:"

The movement brings together fundamentalists, traditionalists, anti-modernists, and right-wing conservatives who covet a form of modernisation radically different from the one begun by secular humanists such as Jawaharlal Nehru. Under its wings, there are proponents of old-fashioned terrorism, authoritarianism and fascism packed closely together with those who reluctantly submit to the constraints set by representative democracy.
...
[F]our features cement all the various groups:

* First, abiding and pervasive anti-liberalism.

* Second, repugnance for the left or to anything that even remotely smells of it.

* Third, commitment to a distinctive and exclusivist variant of nationalism. Hindu nationalists aim to unite all those who are seen by them as part of the Hindu fold and to create (or, seen by their own lights, to reinstate) a strong, disciplined nation of such united people: the Hindu Rashtra.

* Fourth, and above all, relentless antipathy to Muslims, and to a lesser extent, to Christians and to the secular-minded who desire equal citizenship for all Indians.

To totally discount the actions of Islamic radicals in motivating terrorism by violent elements of the Hindu Nationalist movement would be incorrect - it is indeed a bloody back-and-forth - but the Hindu Nationalists don't simply dislike Muslims because of Islam's militant strains; they dislike them because of their inevitable refusal to accept the primacy of Hinduism in all aspects of Indian life. And rationalizations offered by Westerners who are worried about Islamic militancy yet haven't paid much attention to Indian society don't quite explain acts of Hindu violence and religious intolerance against India's Christian population. Namely, what did Christians do to deserve the murders of ministers, the destruction of Christian churches and schools and the mob beatings of Christian convention-goers?

The real explanation is a familiar refrain surrounding many political perversions of world religions ...

The Hindu nationalists argue that emotions and loyalty make a nation, not laws and institutions. Laws, they say, can always be politically manipulated. One should explicitly ground politics in Hinduism, not in laws and institutions.

... which is an absolutist religious prioritization similar to the one expressed in Al Qaeda's latest statement.

But beyond the intricacies of Indian politics and debates about the deterministic role of specific religious ideologies in violent movements; beyond superficial analysis that tries to pigeon-hole all of the world's intolerance into an anti-Muslim template; at a basic human level: there is no excuse for terrorism.

Source.

Television networks showed emotional survivors demanding for the bombers to be hanged whether "Hindu or Muslim".

Amen to that.

Previous, Related Post: Quicker Zakaria Two: India's Stumbling Liberal Democracy, the Benefits of Secular Government and the "Clockwork of Democracy". And it's certainly important to note that Hindu nationalists have failed to turn their rise in popularity into recent national electoral success, as many Hindus rejected an extreme interpretation of their religion. For the time being, it looks as though historical secularism and democracy's moderating elements worked, though local gains and violence used by the movement remain troubling.

*** More skepticism about the recent Telegraph article claiming that Grand Ayatollah Sistani has withdrawn from Iraqi politics (contrasted with Jackson Diehl's recent column, among other items):

... I will point out that the Telegraph article is sourced from anonymous aides while Deihl's is from Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Iraqi Vice President in a session with several journalists - that is, in front of witnesses. Not that such a message can't be distorted, but at least the chain of custody is clear. It is also completely in character with the Grand Ayatollah's policy of not directly intervening in politics. Furthermore it is in character for a man who is a genuine religious leader of a true world religion, not some thug using religious dogma to incite slaughter in the service of his own personal power.

Keep an eye out for Sistani's next publicized move. And note the source when you do.

Previous: Confusing Narratives and Counternarratives: Sistani

*** Israel has now lifted both air and naval blockades of Lebanon:

Israel lifted its eight-week-long air blockade of Lebanon on Thursday but maintained its sea cordon after determining that not enough international forces had taken up positions along the coast to enforce an arms embargo against the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah.

By Friday afternoon, Israeli officials said the country was preparing to turn over responsibility for sea patrols off Lebanon to Italian war ships, and that the transfer could be completed by evening. Israeli naval officers were coordinating the handover with the Italian admiral in charge of the ships.

I'd hope the Italians would enforce the arms blockade as aggressively as the Israelis, but the recent execution of ceasefire terms resembles political theatre.

*** A reminder that we had him. We almost had him.

*** Short people ... dumber?

(Scratches head)

(Scratches head again)

*** Donnah vents ethnocentric hubris over a gamey tradition of Accipitridae-aided corpse disposal in Bombay:

Get some vultures, clip their wings, and keep them on the premises. Initiate a captive-vulture breeding program if you have to.

Join the 21st Century, for crying out loud.

Might I suggest ... nanovultures? Indeed.

RCP features an interview with Ian Bremer, the author of "The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall." He issues some dire predictions for Saudi Arabia:

Saudi Arabia is facing a demographic disaster. With a high birthrate and virtually no family planning its population is growing at a radical rate. And while the country's energy resources are enormous its economy has never really diversified beyond the energy industry. That's not changing anytime soon. The way they've been able to hold the country together so far has been by using that oil money for unprecedented amounts of state sponsored patronage. This ensures the loyalty and dependence of local leaders, creates temporary make-work projects to appease the angry unemployed, and buys off the regime's critics. But over time per capita income has declined and a significant percentage of the population lives below the poverty line.

The country is slowly moving in the direction of becoming a normal developed state. They're trying to join the World Trade Organization, improve education, improve the political process, and bring women into the workplace. But these moves will also sow the seeds of instability. Saudi Arabia has always functioned with an iron hand. Dissent was never tolerated. (You get the benefit but you also don't question it.) The more you provide education and open the country to the global economy--things that will allow the Saudis to survive long term--the more you also free the government's grip on dissent. That's a real problem in a country where per capita income is slipping, where the population of young people is growing, where there are no jobs for them, and where their only opportunities to find a place for themselves are in Wahhabi-controlled schools and mosques run by men well armed with money and influence who are at war with the modern world. It's a sure-fire recipe for instability.

As previously discussed, this assessment highlights many of the problems that stem from globalization mixing with the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and their Islamic fundamentalist alternative.

... and go help a brother out, as you are able.

In a recent e-mail exchange, erstwhile Iraq hawk turned pessimistic war critic Stephen Sherman issued me a relevant challenge:

Bill, I'm quite disillusioned, as you know. Even remorseful. There's no possibility of 'persuading by email,' but I'd recommend trying to 'get outside the narrative.' Maybe you saw Rick Moran's post on the Leftie narrative. We've got one too.

And he's right. We do. And if "we" references right-leaning Iraq War supporters, we've actually got several narratives. I can't speak to all of them, as some righties seem to reflexively endorse the use of military force as a philosophically soothing end unto itself, in addition to a means; but I can address the relevant ones to which I've subscribed. They go something like this:

Given an assumption about the inadequacy of porous law enforcement strategies to prevent terror attacks synthesizing WMD and Islamism, and the unacceptability of strictly reactive foreign policy measures given such bloody stakes, the Doctrine of Preemption and the encouragement of liberal democracy in the Middle East present sensible and ambitious foreign policy options. The latter is one of the few proposed strategic solutions that attempts to structurally quench the long-term political fuel behind the threat from Islamic radicalism.

Deposing the menacing regime in Iraq - which presented a special intersection of humanitarian, realpolitikal, legal, historical, potentially preemptive and strategic interest - was and is intended to deliver a critical acceleration to this generational endeavor, as history outlines several compelling precedents for successful Democratic dominoes tipped by deposition of the autocracies that preceded them. While Iraq is viewed as a key jumpstart to the stalled spread of democracy in the Middle East, the establishment of liberal governance in a region dominated by dueling autocratic and theocratic ideologies will take significant time and effort, its difficulty augmented by hypercritical analysis incessantly focused on narrow narratives in lieu of strategic assessment. The media (Western and otherwise) exacerbates this tendency towards taking the short view, motivated by varying degrees of narrative laziness, ideological bias against the war, reporters' cynicism about domestic authority, and a market-inspired gravitation towards dramatic ledes.

Got it?

If you share this basic worldview, you're inclined to put up with a lot of bad news from Iraq. For one thing, you don't trust the press any longer; after umpteen Vietnam-inspired, premature declarations of "Quagmire!", from just before the stunningly successful victory in Mazar-e Sharif to the briefly stalled march to Baghdad, the hawk is desensitized to and inherently suspicious of negative war news. By crying wolf for dramatic and ideological ends, elements of the mainstream media have diminished its credibility among war-supporting cynics to a dysfunctional extent, and a hawk's reception of many of the legitimately troubling reports from the conflict dead-end at skepticism and narrative confusion rather than aiding real analysis and conclusion. We've developed an abnormally thick skin for negative news, and this sports both beneficial and harmful consequences for anyone interested in sussing out a relatively objective truth about what's going on over there.

In addition to a mistrust of the media's characterization of events, the Iraq Hawk has a core belief that the grand historical changes attempted via an invasion of Iraq call for - demand - time and patience antithetical to 24-hour news cycles and emotional analysis shared by politicians, legacy media and carping bloggers alike. If government policy has the handling characteristics of an oil tanker, the critical event is the captain's choice of where to point it, not how quickly it turns. Having made our choice of captain and course, chattering analysis perceived as unrealistic demand for speedboat-like performance becomes irritating background noise. A war critic sees this steadfast support as ignorance or cognitive dissonance. A war supporter views it as mature, requisite patience. Realistic analysis can be complicated by both sides being right.

Now that we've established the worldview and analytical tendencies of the "dead-end Iraq War supporter," also known as "me," an honest reassessment of the war requires stepping outside of comfortable narratives while avoiding seductive replacements. Without diminishing the value of the struts that support my established point of view - distrust of the media, patience, a belief in the subtlety of deep trends that come to dominate large historical changes, etc - the challenge is to establish an emotionless, rational framework for analysis; a framework that goes deeper than both the BIG philosophy and the splintered, conflicting snippets of war's progress.

In his stinging Iraq war critique "The Assassin's Gate," George Packer features the story of writer Paul Berman, who "believed strenuously that it was the job of intellectuals to explain and mend the rent that [September 11] had ... made in the fabric of our world. For him, the answer lay in literature and philosophy as much as politics, let alone policy." Packer describes Berman's intellectual vision, a near-perfect encapsulation of the 30,000 foot strategy generally shared by neocons, Fareed Zakaria, Christopher Hitchens, Dean Esmay, a guy who calls himself "dorkafork," and me:

Totalitarianism is a revolt against liberalism. And the answer to it is liberalism - liberal ideas (Berman never ceased to talk about the war of ideas) but also liberalism armed, liberalism without the dream of paradise.
...
It wasn't hard to see that the Arab Baath Socialist Party in Baghdad was totalitarian. Makiya had shown this in Republic of Fear. The regime held power through a cult of leader worship, pervasive terror created by endless acts of astonishing violence against its own citizens, overlapping and ubiquitous security agencies, continuous wars of aggression, and a climate of conspiratorial thinking and paranoia toward the Zionist and imperilaist enemies. Saddam seemed to have modeled his regime on Orwell's 1984, right down to Big Brother's mustache. His hero was Stalin, whom Saddam, more than any of the world's dictators, resembled. The founder of the Baath Party in Damascus in the early 1940's, Michel Aflaq (whose tomb is in Baghdad), was deeply influenced by Nazi ideology. But Baathism - like its European progenitors - was nominally secular. It was hostile to Islamist regimes and ideologies. It was also visibly in decay. The days of its ability to move masses of people to frenzy and violence were over. Then why go to war with Iraq in order to fight al-Qaeda?

Berman answered: because Baathism was one of the "Muslim totalitarianisms," the other being Islamism. The terror was not just a police action or a military campaign. Like the war against fascism and the Cold War, it was an ideological war, a "mental war." Victory required that millions of people across the Muslim world give up murderous political ideas. It would be a long, hard, complicated business. But the overthrow of Saddam and the establishment of an Iraqi democracy as a beachhead in the Middle East would show that the United States was on the side of liberal-minded Arabs like Kanan Makiya and against the totalitarians and their ideas. Regime change would show that we, too, were capable of fighting for an idea - the idea of freedom. The willingness of liberal democracy to defend itself and fight for its principles is always in doubt. Alexis de Tocqueville worried about it; Hitler and Mussolini scoffed at it; so, more recently, did bin Laden. But the greatest affirmation of this willingness was made by Lincoln at Gettysburg, where he vowed that a nation (and not only his own - any nation) "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure.

So far, so good. But then Packer hits an uncomfortable mark with this hawk, my analysis still confident about the strategic solution to the threat posed by Islamic extremism and desensitized to negative argumentation:

This was not the kind of thinking that gets one invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations. Berman wasn't particularly interested in military strategy or policy issues. The answers to September 11 were just as likely to be found in Dostoyevsky and Camus as at the Brookings Institution or in the pages of Foreign Affairs. He was responding viscerally to the event (our late-night talks kept coming back to the scale of destruction just across the East River, shocking evidence of the Islamists' ambition) and also at an extremely high altitude of abstraction, where details become specks.

Certainly war commentators have been paying closer attention to the unfolding events in Iraq than an academic arguing policy based on his reading of "the Stranger," and many of us are quite interested and mindful of political and military strategy. I'd also add a component that's opposite in nature though reinforcing in practice to Packer's rebuke: in addition to the peril of letting "details become specks," supporters and opponents of the war also tend to selectively magnify specks, using them as building material to reinforce the larger ideological decision. Given these universal impulses, have righties let our patience and distrust of the media obscure a rational, contextual analysis of Iraq's mounting challenges? Or is our instinct correct about the perils of selective negative argumentation, as massive historical trends set in motion by a bold trauma gather strength and ripple towards a positive outcome: the painful yet inexorable birth of liberal democracy in the Middle East?

I can't say for sure. But over the next few months, I'm going to take a crack at figuring it out. And like the man says, doing so requires stepping "outside the narrative."

There is a bit of controversy about one scene in particular. Here's a description of the scene by Rush Limbaugh (according to ThinkProgress):

So the CIA, the Northern Alliance, surrounding a house where bin Laden is in Afghanistan, they're on the verge of capturing, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to proceed.

So they phoned Washington. They phoned the White House. Clinton and his senior staff refused to give authorization for the capture of bin Laden because they're afraid of political fallout if the mission should go wrong, and if civilians were harmed... Now, the CIA agent in this is portrayed as being astonished. "Are you kidding?" He asked Berger over and over, "Is this really what you guys want?"

Berger then doesn't answer after giving his first admonition, "You guys go in on your own. If you go in we're not sanctioning this, we're not approving this," and Berger just hangs up on the agent after not answering any of his questions.

ThinkProgress attempts to "rebut" this with a response from Richard Clarke:

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From a transcript of his most recent rant (via Crooks and Liars):

"In the 1920's a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews," President Bush said today, "the world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price."

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek--a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety. (-ed. Osama doesn't care about your freedoms.)

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration's recent Nazi "kick" is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

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*** I've long suspected that a snarky fellow resides under James Joyner's perpetually reasonable, robotic exterior. And this bit of fun at the expense of Kevin Drum's partisan hyperbole proves me correct.

Fear the Joyner.

He'll cut you.

*** Hezbollah active in South America.

I had no idea that Arab-directed terror against Jews was taking place in the Western hemisphere, much less that Shiite terrorists were recruiting via e-mail spam. An evil double-whammy.

*** Florida Cracker may be a backwoods swamp dweller with a three-legged dog and a peculiar Allman fetish, but her understated, bone-dry wit is an endless source of amusement to patronizing city folk like me:

Some people would pay good money for a real, honest-to-God adventure like that.

Plus:

I've not had an Internet connection today. I'd like the drama of blaming it on Ernesto, but since he's off menacing North Carolina at the moment, I'll have to settle with a more prosaic answer: my house was hit by an Israeli drone/missile.

Meh-heh.

*** And finally: yeah, we dated:

Michael Scheuer on al Qaeda:

It's a policy issue for the United States. Bin Laden is fighting against us not because of who we are or what we do or that we have elections or women in the workplace -- none of that stuff that the president and Mr. [John] Kerry say, and Mr. Clinton before them. They give those as the reason. They hate us for our freedoms and our liberties. There's nothing further from the truth than that.

al Qaeda on on Michael Scheuer:

The Civilization which commits the filing of lawsuits against those who slander and libel celebrities, politicians, and other public figures of ill repute. The Civilization such as this cannot then hide behind the exclusive freedom of expression after it desecrates copies of the Qu'ran, or defames with unquestionably malicious intent the chief and master of Adam's children and the embodiment of high morals and good character, our Prophet and Messenger Mohamed, may Allahs peace and prayers be upon him.
...
God recognizes no separation between religion and state. And the concept of rendering unto Caesar that which be Caesars and unto God that be God's as understood and interpreted by the proponents of secularism is an atheistic concept of which God and his Prophets are innocent. And since the believer in God and his Prophets believes and lives his life according to the book and prophetic practice, he has no need for the legislatures and parliaments which you in the west have, to put it mildly, used to legislate yourselves into a prison of your own making.*
...
Muslims don't need democracy to rid themselves of their home grown despots and tyrants. What they do need is their Islamic faith, the sprit of jihad and the lifting of foreign troops and interference from their necks.
...
In other words, if the Zionist Crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer, Steven Emerson, and yes, even the Crusader-in-Chief, George W. Bush, were to abandon their unbelief, and repent, and enter into the light of Islam, and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam.

And yet many will still ask "Why do they hate us?", without making the slightest effort to find the answer.

* Need I point out I don't think that "idiot Californian" is the final word on a religion with 1.3 billion adherents?

What's the most influential Cleric in Iraq up to during his country's recent descent into sectarian conflict?

Narrative one drops some very bad news:

I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war, warns Shia leader

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.
...
Al-Sistani's aides say that he has chosen to stay silent rather than suffer the ignominy of being ignored. Ali al-Jaberi, a spokesman for the cleric in Khadamiyah, said that he was furious that his followers had turned away from him and ignored his calls for moderation.

Asked whether Ayatollah al-Sistani could prevent a civil war, Mr al-Jaberi replied: "Honestly, I think not. He is very angry, very disappointed."

He said a series of snubs had contributed to Ayatollah al-Sistani's decision. "He asked the politicians to ask the Americans to make a timetable for leaving but they disappointed him," he said. "After the war, the politicians were visiting him every month. If they wanted to do something, they visited him. But no one has visited him for two or three months. He is very angry that this is happening now. He sees this as very bad."

Contrast this with the characterization featured in Jackson Deihl's WaPo column today:

Not Wanted: An Exit Strategy

The mostly bad news from Iraq this summer left a lot of people in Washington, including a few in the Bush administration, feeling confused, anxious and doubtful about whether the Iraqi government can deliver on its promise to stabilize the country. As it turns out, some of Iraq's most powerful leaders have had similar feelings as they have watched the news from Washington.

That was the message of a quiet pre-Labor Day visit here by Adel Abdul Mahdi, who has been one of America's key allies in the attempt to replace Saddam Hussein's totalitarianism with a democratic political system. Mahdi is now Iraq's vice president, but he called his meetings with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and key senators and congressmen a "private visit."

In fact, he was here to deliver a message, and ask a question, on behalf of Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who remains Iraq's single most influential figure -- and the linchpin of the past 40 months of political reconstruction. Sistani's message to Bush, Mahdi told a group of reporters I joined last week, was that "Iraqis are sticking to the principles of the constitution and democracy." But the ayatollah wanted to know if the United States is still on board as well.
...
Mahdi, Sistani and other Shiite leaders in the government don't share Washington's perception of a downward spiral. They also don't buy the American sense of urgency -- the oft-expressed idea that the new government has only a few months to succeed. Consequently, the many ideas for silver bullets tossed around in the U.S. debate mostly don't interest them.

Which narrative is correct? I'd be careful about uncritically accepting either at face value, especially given that the sourcing about Sistani's wishes in both comes from others than Sistani himself. I also suspect that the last bit about a lack of "urgency" is Deihl's take. But ...

... let's throw an Al Jazeera report of Sistani's meeting with Iraq's prime minister into the mix:

Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has met with the country's most influential Shia cleric, with discussions focusing on the current security situation.

Al-Maliki met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Saturday in Najaf, 160km south of Baghdad.

According to the cleric's office, al-Sistani said: "If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty and this is a very dangerous matter."

It may be true that Sistani is losing prestige to Sadr by having publicly put faith in the Iraqi government to stop the violence and deliver justice to its victims. If so, it would be rational for him to drift towards supporting a militia solution to retain credibility and compete with Sadr's waxing influence.

We're not done. From the Kuwait News Agency:

Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki said Saturday after meeting the top spiritual guide of Shiite Iraqis Sayyed Ali Al-Sistani that the top scholar called for barring non-governmental troops from carrying or keeping weapons.

"Al-Sistani called for unifying the nation and restricting arms to government troops," the senior official said at a news conference held in the holy city of Najaf.

The item isn't clear on what is meant by "non-government troops." Is Sistani's meaning focused on occupation troops or non-government militia troops? Both? I suspect it's strictly a reference to militias. If true, it's certainly an attempted affirmation of the government's authority.

And finally, Newsweek buttresses the narrative about Sistani's diminishing authority:

For months, calming statements from the ayatollah held Shiites back from retaliating for killings by Sunni insurgents. But three years of insurgency, sectarian tensions and miserable living conditions have shrunk the space for temperance and given extremists plenty of room to operate. "[Sistani] doesn't have the same degree of influence," says Joost Hilterman, director of the International Crisis Group's Iraq program, based in Jordan. "He may be saying the same things, but fewer people are listening to him." As much as anything, the battle now is about which voices will shape the future of Iraq.

Not too long ago Sistani would have won that contest hands down. When Moqtada al-Sadr, the young radical Shiite leader, laid siege to the Imam Ali shrine and fought U.S. Marines to a standstill in Najaf in the summer and fall of 2004, Sistani put an end to the insurrection in a matter of days upon his return from London, where he was receiving medical treatment. He successfully lobbied to hold elections on an Iraqi timetable and convinced U.S. officials of the need for a referendum on the Iraqi constitution. Sistani's calls for unity after bombings of Shiite shrines worked for a remarkably long time.

But last February, when terrorists struck one of the most important sites in Shia Islam, the Askariya shrine in Samarra, it unleashed a wave of bloodshed that even Sistani couldn't control. "I reiterate my appeal to realize the magnitude of the danger threatening the future of [our] country," he said after the Samarra bombing. Since then the violence has only gotten worse, and Sistani has retreated further into his inner sanctum. "We have noticed that some people feel [Sistani's] calls for restraint aren't protecting them," says Shiite politician Ali al-Dabbagh, who consults with Sistani on a regular basis. "We notice gangs coming out doing revenge. If the violence continues there will be more and more people who won't listen to calls for restraint."

The specifics of Sistani's true role and intent are a bit muddled. Is he actively sending political messages to Washington and meeting with the Iraqi prime minister while issuing public statements backing the Iraqi government, or has he indeed withdrawn to focus exclusively on spiritual matters? Does he want a timetable for US withdrawal, or a recommitment of US support for democracy? (yes, the two are antithetical) Uncertain. I suspect that he's trying like Hell behind the scenes to get the US and Iraqi governments to aggressively commit resources, while cautiously putting a bit more public daylight between his prestige and theirs. But one idea cuts through the clutter: unless the Iraqi government asserts itself with whatever level of US military support required, and unless we're willing to give it to them, the conflict will necessarily worsen as more citizens look to the militias for security, with Shiites disregarding and diminishing Sistani's influence as a discredited backer of the nascent democracy. And before that completely plays out, he'll make greater attempts to distance himself from the government's cause. It's happening.

UPDATE: A commenter under Matthew Yglesias's post makes an interesting point that gels with all of the above angles (not to mention my conclusion):

Color me skeptical. Sistani has a *lot* of "aides," spread throughout the country. During previous crises we typically got conflicting reports of what his position was. He's *always* claimed to be just a religious leader, not a political one. I seriously doubt he's retreated to some quietist stance.

Allahpundit recently expressed concern about Indian democracy, after surveys revealed that Hitler holds a special place in the hearts of populous Hindu Nationalists, who "dream of a more assertive, conquering India cleansed of its Muslim population." Quoth Allah:

Their ignorance about the Holocaust is actually a comfort here, up to a point. It's one thing to admire Nazism without understanding its consequences. It's another thing to admire it because of its consequences. Education about the ends will surely reduce support for the means.

Which brings us to the not-so-comforting question of why so many appear to support the means notwithstanding their ignorance of the ends. That's bad news under any circumstances, but in a burgeoning superpower with nuclear weapons that the west is counting on to be a bulwark of Third World democracy? Bad news.

According to Fareed Zakaria, again in "The Future of Freedom," our Hot Air correspondent's fears are well founded:

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*** Did you hear about that woman that was stalking Colin Farrell, and had an altercation with him when he was on The Tonight Show? Well, she has a MySpace page with a NSFW song* that has to be heard to be believed. (via Jim Treacher)

*** Serpents on a Shippe! The Chaucer version of a modern day classic.

*** Speaking of Snakes on a Plane, I am going to have to figure out how to change my Windows login. (NSFW and SPOILERish)

*** If anyone's interested, I have a piece on how Hitler was a creationist here.

*** Muppet Babies, Tiny Toons, and soon Bozo's Clown Babies and Baby 3 Stooges. The last picture in that post is the strangest. Who are the ad wizards that came up with that one?

* Soon to be the new Citizen Journalist Report theme song.