The New Neo

As some of the details of the airplane attack case are revealed, it seems clear that the investigation proceeded slowly and painstakingly over a period of months. But several interesting facts stand out so far.

The first is that breaking the case involved a strong degree of international cooperation, especially between the UK and Pakistan, as well as the US. Although for some this may conjure up thoughts of James Bond, the work no doubt was decidedly unglamorous. It started on a tip from someone in the Moslem community in Britain following last year’s London bombings, the informant being an example of one of those “good Moslems” many people search for, Diogenes-like (it’s my contention that they are not so very hard to find).

The investigation seems to have picked up steam as a result of a phone call from Pakistan to a plotter in the UK, intercepted by the police, on the arrest of his brother in Pakistan. Both were British citizens, as were all the conspirators arrested in Britain so far. I’m curious to know whether this phone call was monitored as the result of a search warrant. At any rate:

This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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.]

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.]

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.