“Unimaginable” terror attack foiled: denial

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A planned terrorist attack to destroy airliners in flight through explosives hidden in carry-on luggage has been thwarted in Great Britain.

The police described the plot as involving “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” My reaction: unimaginable to whom? Folks, where’ve you been for the past five years?

Of course, you might say it shouldn’t have been “unimaginable” even before 9/11. But for most of us, it was. At the time, it was easier to be in denial of the intent and the capability of the jihadis because they’d never managed to pull it off before.

But at this point, the use of the word “unimaginable” is either a case of rhetorical hyperbole, or the reflection of an attitude of unfortunate denial in the face of clear and uncontrovertible evidence and statements of intent. Nothing of this sort should be unimaginable these days, and one doesn’t even need a very active imagination to envision it.

It’s also true that some still find it almost impossible to do so. One of my first thoughts on hearing the news–after I’d heard some of the details of what, where, how, who (I didn’t need the “why” since we’re all-too-familiar with that)–was to wonder how long it would take for someone to imagine the whole thing a conspiracy by the authorities to scare the public.

Preliminary reports aren’t saying all that much about the perpetrators, except that they are “home-grown” and part of the Pakistani community. This is the trend in terror attacks lately–not foreign nationals but locals, which is especially worrisome to authorities and, I would imagine, to the local communities as well, who could experience a backlash against them by the public at large. Not that the perpetrators care; it’s not “unimaginable” to me that generating such a backlash might even be desirable to them. After all, if their own community feels more oppressed, it could gain them more dissatisfied and disgruntled potential jihadis to martyr themselves in the cause of blowing up innocents.

[ADDENDUM: Dean Bartlett wonders about that word “unimaginable” as well.

And Alexandra has a nice list of reactions from the Left that are about as predicted.]

Paleodems

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Lieberman’s been drummed out of the Democratic Party, the party he refused to abandon on his own.

I wrote here about how difficult it is ordinarily to change party affiliation, quoting Zell Miller’s remark that it’s almost like trying to remove a birthmark. Lieberman seems to have undergone a sort of radical surgery to remove that birthmark against his will.

Today, people such as Lieberman–Democrats who are foreign policy hawks– must align themselves more closely to Republicans than Democrats on those issues, leaving them open to charges of party disloyalty. But ’twas not ever thus. One only has to think of such Democratic luminaries as FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK to realize how different mainstream Democratic thought on these issues used to be.

But that was before the watershed experience of Vietnam, which changed the Democratic Party. Following that era there originated the term “Scoop Jackson Democrats,” after Henry M. (“Scoop”) Jackson, a Democratic Senator who was hawkish in the mold of Harry Truman. He’s also considered by some to be the father of neoconservatism, although he remained a Democrat his entire life.

I hereby propose a new term for Democrats who remain in the party but are hawkish on security and foreign policy matters: paleodems. It lacks the heavy baggage of “neocon,” and it’s more descriptive as well, because such people are not conservative in most senses of the word (nor am I, by the way). It also retains a reference to the Democratic Party, reflecting the 20th century history and tradition of that party as muscular on defense.

Of course, I may be too late, because paleodems are becoming an endangered species. If extinction occurs, the “paleo” prefix becomes even more apropos.

A historical note of interest on Scoop Jackson himself, with some resonances to today:

Coincidentally, Jackson in 1970, like Lieberman in 2006, faced a primary challenge from left-wing Democrats unhappy with his support for a controversial war; Jackson fended off Spokane lawyer Carl Maxey in a fiercely-contested primary, and went on to win the general election by a record margin.

Hmmm.

No shelter for hawks under the shrinking Democratic tent

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Joe Lieberman was defeated last night in the Democratic primary in Connecticut, thus proving (as if it needed any proving) that the Democratic Party has veered to the left.

The Democrats seem to have abandoned the “big tent” concept–the idea that a party shouldn’t position itself so far to either side that it becomes marginal and exclusive.

Who is Ned Lamont? A deep-pocketed novice–very deep-pocketed indeed. We’ll see what happens in the statewide election. I haven’t yet been able to locate what the polls say at this point on Lieberman’s chances of winning as an Independent–only this:

It will be days before the polls can measure a three-way race with accuracy. A Quinnipiac survey in mid-July suggested Lieberman would head into the campaign in a strong position, finding 51 percent support for him, 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for the Republican.

With his primary victory, Lamont almost certainly will gain support, at least intially, in a three-way matchup. In defeat, Lieberman will lose it, and the next poll could produce far different results than the last.

If Lieberman does go on to win as an Independent, the Democratic Party will have shot itself in the foot. And if Lamont wins? Will the Party go the way it did post-Vietnam, perceived as soft on security issues? Or will antiwar sentiment trump that perception?

And now for some good news: Cynthia McKinney is toast. You know you’re in trouble when even a supporter says, “She makes us look bad.”

Reuters and CYA journalism: the mystery of the disappearing terrorists

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Now that Reutergate has caught our attention, it’s informative to look at certain other questionable aspects of Reuters policy.

For example, Reuters is famous for refusing to use the word “terrorist” in its copy or headlines.

Two years ago, Reuters made an amazing admission about this practice. I missed it at the time, but now it takes on greater significance. I had always thought that the failure of Reuters to use the “t” word was based on some abstract principle of “innocent till proven guilty,” combined with an incomprehensible bias in favor of those in the Mideast with grievances against the West.

But it turns out I was wrong. Reuters’s motivations are not even that lofty. They could best be described under the general rubric “CYA.”

Oh, but let me present it in Reuters’s own words–that is, the words of Reuter’s managing editor David A. Schlesinger. Back in September of 2004 when CanWest, the owners of a large Canadian newspaper chain, decided to substitute “terrorists” for “militants” in Reuters’s mealy-mouthed articles, Schlesinger said CanWest would be required to remove the Reuters label from such demonizing pieces:

“Our editorial policy is that we don’t use emotive words when labeling someone,” said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters’ global managing editor. “Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline.”

Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to “confusion” about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.

“My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity,” he said.

So, it’s Eason Jordan all over again. The words “editorial integrity” used to mean telling the truth; at least I thought so. But truth? Fahgetabout it, says Reuters. What does matter, instead? Press access: Reuters’s ability to bring you all the news that’s not fit to print.

How has it come to this? Oh, believe me, I understand the need for journalists to live to write another day. But if telling the truth is too dangerous, then it’s time to get out and tell it from another place.

Because you’ve outlived your usefulness as journalists if you compromise that much. You’ve become the tools of terrorists–and I doubt even Mr. Schlesinger had that particular goal in mind when he chose his profession.

Listen up: podcast

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The first podcast by the Sanity Squad is up at PoliticsCentral. I’m the host, and regulars Dr. Sanity, Shrinkwrapped, and Siggy complete the crew.

Here we are (I’ll leave it to you to figure out who’s who–and, by the way, to those of you too young to identify the photo, here’s a hint. And yes, I know, the genders aren’t quite right. Poetic license.)


I welcome any suggestions for future podcasts, including topics you’d like to see covered. I think my fellow podders were wonderful. My own critique of myself: spoke much too slowly. I’ll speed it up next time.

Israel and Lebanon: let’s play dominoes

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To some, the war in Lebanon and Israel may look like just another skirmish in that long-running “cycle-of-violence” film. To others–and I count myself among them–something quite different is going on. And it’s a different “something” than has been going on until now in that region, and that “something” is the growing power and reach of Iran.

Those who support Israel have always seen the Mideast wars as fights for Israel’s existence against those ranged to destroy it. But Israel always prevailed. Its enemies seemed unable to fight effectively, or to be in disarray, despite periodic help from powers such as the once-mighty USSR. Those who prefer to think Israel culpable–and even evil–still saw it as powerful compared to its enemies. In fact, that’s one of the reasons those people supported those enemies–in sympathy for what was perceived as their weakness and downtroddenness. It certainly couldn’t have been their glorious devotion to human rights.

At the beginning of this war many people (including myself) wrote of the Lebanese people as being held hostage by Hezbollah, as having been reluctantly dragged into this fight against their will. But, although that is certainly true for many Lebanese, it’s become more apparent that there are a vast number of Hezbollah supporters in that country.

What else has become apparent? The extent to which the Lebanese government has been coopted by Hezbollah, and by its masters Syria and especially Iran.

Take a look at Alexandra’s an excellent post on the subject. Iran is behind a great deal of the turmoil in Iraq, via al Sadr; it is behind Hezbollah. And Iran has declared itself boldly: it is dedicated to the destruction of the great and little Satans, the US and Israel.

So here’s another domino theory for you, updated: Iran is bent on hegemony, and Lebanon is a pawn in the game. Take a stand here, and it might help stop Iran. Give in, and more than Lebanon may be lost. Think Czechslovakia in World War II.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that we are now in an atomic age. Previous tyrants never had access to destructive means of this magnitude. But now they do. This particular marriage of tyranny, religious megalomania, and nuclear physics has never been consummated before. But get ready: that horrific menage a trois is about to take its vows.

At the moment, Israel is fighting for its life. Some care about that, some don’t. Some would cheer if the entire country were wiped off the face of the earth. But make no mistake. The words of Eric Hoffer, written in 1968, resonate with eerie prescience:

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

Is this another siege of Vienna, one of those pivot points in history? If so, let’s fervently hope it pivots in the right direction.

And the first step towards that goal is recognition that this is not a minor skirmish. Israel is fighting for its life, but not only for its life. It’s fighting for the West and the Enlightenment against formidable and implacable forces of darkness and religious tyranny.

Language like that is easy to mock in our postmodern world. So very apocalyptic, so over-the-top, so un-PC! But ignore and minimize this situation at your peril. Some day, the bell may toll for thee.

[ADDENDUM: Siniora, a man without a country.]

Reuters rides again

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The plot thickens.

[ADDENDUM: Could it be that Reuters is finally concerned about its own dwindling reputation, if not the state of the Western World? Perhaps.

Reuters also said today it had put in place a tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict to ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters Global Pictures Desk, according to a Reuters spokeswoman.

Now if only they could do the same for their editorial policy, and their headlines.]

Reutergate: the blogosphere fact-checks your ass; what do you fact-check?

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Kate of Small Dead Animals has given the story the perfect name: Reutergate.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (he of “Rathergate” and the superimposed forged memos fame) has caught Reuters red-handed in allowing a Photoshopped image of the war in Lebanon to pass muster. Once again, the blogosphere is living up to its unofficial motto: “we fact-check your ass.”

Reuters–unlike Rather–has admitted the fraud and removed the photo. And perhaps the most interesting factoid about the entire story is the identity of the photographer, one Adnan Hajj, who was also the Reuters photographer at Qana.

The original “gate”–Watergate–was huge news at the time. But as the years have rolled by, and nearly every scandal has been given the “gate” appellation, most of them have been of little or no consequence.

Reutergate should be important, but not just because of this particular incident–which, in isolation, would not matter a whole lot. Its importance lies in the fact that it’s part of a larger pattern in which once-respected news agencies and newspapers have become compromised. Not only do they regularly violate the cardinal rule of journalism–fact-checking and photo-checking: in short, truth–but they have become the willing or unwilling, ignorant or knowledgeable, tools of the enemy (see this).

Second Draft is a website devoted to explaining how the media has disseminated the lies of “Pallywood” around the globe, creating a fictional reality that has influenced perceptions about the Middle East, especially in Europe, where the most famous Pallywood oeuvre, “Caught in the Crossfire” (otherwise known as “the death of Mohamed al Durah”), was widely publicized and fueled anti-Israel sentiment. It’s since become clear that in Qana the press coverage of the aftermath was at least partly a Pallywood production, as well.

I wonder how much coverage this incident will get outside of the blogosphere. And the blogs, unfortunately, are preaching mainly to the choir. Just now, for instance, I Googled “reuters photoshop lebanon,” and all that came up in the way of news stories was an article in the Jerusalem Post, and a short one at that.

It remains to be seen if the MSM will even see this as a wakeup call to vet their stringers better, or whether it will end with the suspension of Adnan Hajj. But it’s about much more than Hajj; the truth is that this photo wasn’t even a good example of Photoshopping. As many observers have pointed out, it was crude and obvious and should have been caught–if anyone had been looking.

The same, of course, was true of the Dan Rather memos. Anyone familiar with the difference between a typewriter and a word processor could–and should–have seen the forgery. But one had to have been looking. And the press has stopped looking.

So it’s not just about stringers, although that’s part of it. Whether or not it’s also about bias (and I happen to believe it is), at the very least it’s about standards. The MSM needs to raise them, and to fact-check and photocheck and proofread itself in a new way. It needs to realize that it is now one of the major fronts in the war in which we are currently engaged, and that it’s being co-opted by forces that are not only the enemy, but are the enemy of a free press as well.

Understanding the 30s: a new Serenity Prayer

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Victor Davis Hanson has written a compelling piece on the current moral malaise in the West and its pernicious effects. It’s a topic many of us have been hammering home lately, although Hanson–as usual–says it especially well.

Hanson makes a point I’ve thought about many times recently, which is that previously it seemed difficult to understand how so many people of the 1930s could be blind to what was happening in Germany–what it meant, what it would lead to, and why it was so important to stop Hitler before his power had grown.

How could they have not seen, not known? Ah, we would have been so much smarter than they were, if faced with the same circumstances!

But lately, along with Hanson, I’m having no difficulty imagining the mindset of the 30s, and how it must have felt to watch, as Churchill put it, The Gathering Storm.

And I keep thinking of the poet William Butler Yeats’s masterpiece “The Second Coming” (written in 1919 after World War I), which presciently foretold the events of the 30s, as Yeats himself acknowledged. I’ve quoted it before, I’m quoting it now, and I probably will quote it again, with emphasis on two especially important and famous lines:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Perhaps those two lines expresses a common truth of human nature, one that comes to the fore when a terrible danger is building: those doing the threatening are passionate and intense, and the majority of those reacting are confused and in denial. For who among us wants to face a truth so harsh, to look true evil in the eye and understand that to fight it will require great suffering on the part of innocent people?

But evildoers (in Bush’s famous and much-maligned phrase) don’t care about the anguish of innocents–although they pretend to, if it suits their propaganda purposes. Whereas the enemies of evil do care, and very much.

That’s part of what gives many of those who would combat evil their lack of conviction: the need, at times, to fight fire with fire, to kill to prevent worse killing from happening, is something that is very difficult for compassionate people to accept.

It’s almost as though we need a new version of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant us the serenity to change those things that can be changed with talk and diplomacy, the courage to fight for those things that require it, and the wisdom to know the difference.

It bears repeating: Eric Hoffer on Israel

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It was written in 1968, and perhaps you are familiar with it: Eric Hoffer’s piece on what he referred to as the “peculiar” position of Israel.

Hoffer’s essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it’s also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.

ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese–and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.

Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

[Via Pajamas Media.]

[ADDENDUM: Change “the Arabs and their Russian backers” in Hoffer’s essay to “the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers.”]

Israel: Athens or Sparta or Masada

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Here’s an astounding article (via Belmont Club) about three of the four founders of the Israeli peace movement (called “Four Mothers”) that was largely responsible for the shift in Israeli attitudes leading to the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Revisiting the views of these women now, six years later, provides a sort of “where are they now?” of the mind.

In the 1990’s, they had lost children fighting the war in Lebanon. They felt that the war was being waged to little or no good, and became devoted to a withdrawal of forces from the country and to the cause of peace. These women not only gave peace a chance, they believed in it with a fervent zeal, they lived it and fought for it (metaphorically speaking), and thought they won it.

But read what they have to say now. It’s not only a story about the process of how minds and opinions change (one of the themes of this blog), it’s one of the best examples I’ve found of the fact that Israelis see the current war as a fight for their very survival–a grim necessity offering no alternatives.

One of the women, the eloquent Zohara Antebi, says of her previous commitment:

So if you are saying now that I was wrong when I believed that it would be possible to ensure far fewer casualties and far more quiet after leaving Lebanon, you’re right. I was wrong. I’m afraid of those who are incapable of saying ‘I was wrong’ in the first person. I lived on the border, in Malkiya, and I saw the small tobacco plots of the farmers in southern Lebanon, and I believed that prosperity on both sides of the border would ensure quiet. That Nasrallah would aspire for his people to have a good life. In that I was wrong. I was definitely wrong.

And she says of the present war, and how it followed that previous withdrawal she helped engineer:

And leaving Lebanon then was not a military move. It was a civilian move. It was meant to enable us to be Athens, not Sparta. And precisely because of that there is now no choice. Now we have to change the diskette. This time we are fighting for our home. This time we are fighting so that we will have lives here.

Not all the women regret that initial withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, nor connect it inexorably to the present war. But all are united in believing that the present war is absolutely necessary. As one of them, Orna Shimoni, says, it’s an “existential war,” fought for their very lives. The enemy has made it clear that the goal is to eliminate Israel. And Shimoni, who has always been affiliated with the left, and who abhors killing with all her being, is now angry at her former comrades in the left in Israel. Since she sees this war as a fight for Israel’s very life, and the consequence of losing would be the slaughter of the Israelis, she sees the left as aiding and abetting that slaughter.

The article is eloquent about the intensity of the suffering the deaths of Israeli soldiers cause the Israeli people. Israel is a small country with universal conscription, and Jews are famously known–as many Arab commenters so succinctly put it–to “love life.” The Jewish mother is legendary in her protective maternal instincts, so much so that in the US she’s always good for a laugh in that regard–but just imagine those instincts coupled with the constant threat of losing so many young adult children in war.

The earliest wars in Israel, however, were very clearly for survival, and the mothers of the soldiers who fought in those wars were–if not actually Spartan–part of the tough and pioneering group who founded that country. The mothers of today’s soldiers and the soldiers of the previous decade came of age in a different Israeli climate– one that, if not exactly secure, was at least more secure, or perceived as such. As Antebi puts it, it was more Athenian and less Spartan.

The Lebanese occupation was ultimately perceived by that generation as unnecessary and even counterproductive and wrong, and the deaths as simply not worth it–much like the Vietnamese War came to be perceived here in the late 60s and early 70s, and much as the Afghan-Soviet War came to be perceived by the Russians. Thus, the 2000 pullout from Lebanon was widely supported throughout Israel.

But the events of recent years have taken away the dream of Oslo and the Camp David era. It’s no longer about the Palestinians, either; not this war. This war is about Iran and its plan to dominate the Arab world, a plan that does not include the existence of Israel. And this is true whatever Israel does or does not do, whatever steps it takes or does not take–short of the entire country reenacting the legend of Masada and committing mass suicide.

[ADDENDUM: Listen to this podcast, an interview with Caroline Glick, available through Politics Central at Pajamas Media. Her contention is that Israel must win this war not only for its own sake, but to save the country of Lebanon from becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran.]