I recommend viewing the 12 minute version of Obsession, the movie about Radical Islam’s war against the West. This is an appetizer for the final DVD that vividly portrays the mentality behind the indoctrination to a deadly religious ideology against America and the West that has been disseminated in grade schools, universities and mosques of the Arab world for many decades. Today the world is tasting the bitter consequences of this massive brainwashing process that is more dangerous than secular Nazi indoctrination that reaped the Holocaust and World War II. The ultimate danger lies in the fact that Radical Islam is a religious-based ideology, painting America as the great Satanic aggressor against God’s world of pure Islam. The insurgency in Iraq, suicide bombers in Israel and the 9-11 terrorists, as well as the terrorist attacks on London, Beslan, Madrid and Bali are the recent products of this Jihadist death cult, in the beginning stages of its appearance throughout the globe. Why should we devote time to understanding the mindset of these killers? Because, in order to wage a successful counteroffensive, which Mitchell Langbert calls Fifth Generation Warfare (here and here), so as to counteract the manifestation of decades of Islamic indoctrination against Western Civilization, we need to connect the dots that demonstrate the twisted us-vs.-them logic of America hatred. A good place to wage 5GW is in our colleges and universities which have developed terrorism-justifying ideologies to coincide with the Islamic threat. For decades American academics have blamed American imperialism, capitalism and European civilization for all the ills of the world which consequently feeds the fires of the Islamic threat. Just like their intellectual idols, Martin Heidegger and other academic Nazi collaborators falling all over themselves to curry favor with their Nazi masters, the academics of today are vying to ingratiate themselves with the oppressed Palestinian and Islamic communities and clerics whom they regard as the subjugated indigenous victims of American and Israeli hegemony. This justifies, aids and abets indoctrination of Arab youth to the worldview that they must martyr themselves in the jihad against the American and Israeli enemies, fighting to destroy the unity of the Muslim world. The battle to be won is here on our campuses.

A few days ago, I received, at Campus Watch, an irate, and poorly written, email from one Yousef Salem of the Islamic Education and Information Center in San Jose.

I posted the email at CW--the author all but asked me to--and it's an excellent example of what we're up against on the domesit front. Read it and remember: his organization has helped write curricula for California public schools.

David White has produced another excellent article for Campus Watch, this time on 9/11 conspiracist and University of Wisconsin part-timer Kevin Barrett. The piece, which we titled "Kevin Barrett May Be a Fool, but He's OUR Fool," appears today at Human Events Online under the title, "9/11 Conspiracy at Public University." I posted it at Campus Watch.

David interviewed several professors at UW who hadn't gone on the record about Barrett until now, plus one who spoke on condition of anonymity. His article provides insight into the academic world as we now have it--a world in which you can say just about anything and find support from administrators too timid to demand competency and common sense.

I recently posted a blog, NIE and the War of Ideas where I argued that the responsibility we have as Americans of all political stripes is to transcend partisan politics in this time of war against Islamic terrorists who are now waging a war of propaganda in our country. Regrettably this war has now “leaked” into Democratic political campaigns. The news was out when I wrote this blog in September, that certain cherry picked portions of the National Intelligence Estimate report were leaked to the New York Times to validate its own opinion that the war in Iraq has radicalized the Islamic jihadists and provided the enemy with more fighters against our soldiers. However, the only thing that has been validated in fact, is that the leaker of the NIE report, a Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee has been suspended by the chairman, Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) for this offense.

The war in Iraq has become the central political issue in many of the campaigns for November as Democrats, including Hillary Clinton are calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation and bringing the troops home. The public referendum on the war in Iraq will weigh more significantly in the outcomes than the qualifications of the candidates in most cases. For this reason, the voting public should be aware of the irresponsible and unlawful tactics that Democratic operatives are utilizing to undermine the war, in order to gain advantage in the November elections for congressional and state government seats that are up for grabs. I say these unlawful acts add up to treason against our country and what is more troubling is that the public may very well be duped into allowing the morally bankrupt Democratic agenda to win out over reason and clarity in this critical time of war.

The Sunday New York Post pointed out this malfeasance in its revealing editorial Leak, Leak, Elect Elect:

Initial reports on the NIE cited it as saying principally that the Iraq war had energized Islamist radicals and, in the process, increased the danger to America from jihadist terrorism. In fact, taken in its entirety, the document concluded just the opposite: that the military defeat of jihadists in Iraq would mean "fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the [war]."

That's a big difference.

And the selective leaking of the NIE - and the spin put on it by the Times and The Washington Post, among others - put the White House on the defensive and contributed to lagging poll numbers for both the president and the Republican Congress.

The Post has called for a “full and complete federal investigation” of the staffer as well as the New York Times, for the reprehensible act of selective leaking of classified documents in a time of war for partisan political purposes. It so happens that these tactics are ubiquitous ploys of the Democrats who are frantically trying to discredit the President and undermine the war in Iraq as election day approaches.

I say that this is not only reprehensible and against the law, but it is treasonous. The House Intelligence Committee staffer and his Democrat colleagues who were responsible for leaking portions of the classified NIE report as well as the New York Times reporter(s) who printed and put their own spin on it are traitors who should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Following a San Diego Union-Tribune hollow front page article on October 8 and an editorial on October 11 inferring that the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, may have profited somehow illicitly in purchase price and property taxes on his then run-down house, as the U-T reports today back on the front-page but of its Local section,

In a move rarely seen in politics, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter bought a full-page ad in yesterday's editions of The San Diego Union-Tribune to rebut what he said were false impressions created by the newspaper regarding his East County home.

Hunter had to pay the U-T $26,000 to get his documented side out. Today’s U-T article makes light of the matter, with a concluding,

Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at Sacramento State University, said Hunter's move was highly unusual but likely to be effective.
“You never pick your fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel. One way to deal with that is to get some of your own ink and pay for it,” she said. “He will get people to read it just because of its novelty.”

But, the U-T provides no link to the ad, nor does its website post ads in order to show you Hunter’s rebuttal. The property literally was a wreck, and Hunter provides photos, not the “estate” the U-T called it.

In what passes for “investigative” journalism, the U-T’s hit piece, its failure to provide equivalent -- not to mention any before now -- space for the facts, and the need to buy, pay tribute to the U-T, to get the facts out, is an all too typical low.

Next time the U-T is editorializing about integrity in politics or bemoaning dirty campaigning, the U-T may want to mention its own culpability.

John O’Neill and I, and dwindling few others, are old enough to painfully recall what the “Watergate Babies” of 1974 did to Vietnam and America’s place in the world. We see their also now gray-heads persist today in their infantile and dangerous pursuits to abandon those who depend upon us and endanger America. John and I first joined up in 1971, then both recently returned from service in Vietnam.

John O’Neill writes today, “Don’t Repeat Mistake of 1974.”
Listen up, those who remember and those who need to learn the consequences of allowing defeatism to empower domestic and foreign adversaries.

Dispirited conservatives and Republicans rightfully appalled at the Cunningham, Abramoff, and Foley scandals should remember history as they contemplate not voting in the 2006 elections because of disillusionment….

It is not clear why the voters of 1974 thought it wise or just to indirectly cause the destruction of millions of allies in Southeast Asia because of the cover-up of a minor burglary at the Watergate. They certainly did not know that by their votes they would punish themselves severely, leaving, by the end of the Carter years, a U.S. economy that was a burned-out hulk and a nation that was humiliated.

I wonder whether history will repeat itself this year. Despite mainstream media distortion, the economy is in its strongest condition since the Reagan years with low unemployment and inflation rates and diminishing fiscal deficits. We have recovered from the implosion of the Clinton Internet bubble and the shock of Sept. 11, 2001. We have crippled al Qaeda, assembled an international coalition to deal with North Korea and made reasonable progress in defeating at least the foreign insurgency in Iraq. We have seen no terrorist attack on our heartland in more than five years.

Despite the second-guessing by Democrats who have no military experience and by a few veterans who question the Iraq policy, an overwhelming majority of active-duty personnel support the Bush policies and the Republican administration….

I wonder now if we are so blind and ignorant of history to actually allow a new crop of “Watergate Babies” to install clearly unfit leaders such as Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), John Conyers (D.-Mich.), and impeached Alcee Hastings (D.-Fla.) as the guiding force in our nation. Considering that a Democratic win could mean the rise of John Murtha (D.-Pa.) from Abscam to majority leader, and Hastings from impeached federal judge to House Intelligence chairman, it is no exaggeration to say both parties have bad actors. The distinction is that the Democrats promote them and the Republicans fire them.

Finally, I wonder if voters (like those in 1974) are going to actually vote for the betrayal of our Iraqi and Afghan allies and the sacrifices of our troops. I wonder if our Iraq War veterans will watch the mass execution or flight of those who fought with them and believed in us. If so, history teaches us that in the end we will suffer terribly ourselves. This is particularly true here, where we face adversaries who have said they will not stop at the waters’ edge but have already reached across the ocean to destroy our nation’s largest buildings and thousands of our people.

Among my decades-long conservative friends who tolerate my iconoclastic brand is Cliff Kincaid, indefatigable editor of Accuracy In Media. For the many millions of Americans who depend on Fox and Murdoch owned other media for “fair and balanced” news, Kincaid will attend today’s Annual Meeting of Murdoch’s News Corporation to ask the following 27 questions:

Questions for News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Fox News Executives at News Corporation Annual Meeting, October 20, 2006. Submitted by: Cliff Kincaid, Editor, Accuracy in Media.

1) New York magazine calls Rupert Murdoch a friend of Bill Clinton and Hillary. Rupert Murdoch told Time magazine that he is someone "reputed to be more conservative than I really am…" On what issues do you have liberal views?

2) Federal Election Commission records show an April 2006 contribution from Rupert Murdoch to Harold Ford Jr. in the Tennessee Senate race. Why are you supporting the liberal Democrat over the Republican in that race? (FEC records also show Rupert Murdoch contributions to Democratic Senators John Kerry, Charles Schumer, and Hillary Clinton, and Democratic Rep. Ed Markey.)

3) In an article titled "Is Murdoch Going Liberal?," the New Yorker magazine referred to "The News Corp. progressives," a group of liberals inside the company, which has "greater access to Murdoch on a daily basis" than conservatives. The magazine identified members of this "progressive" group as "Murdoch's deputy Peter Chernin; the two co-chairs of Fox's film division, Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos; and Gary Ginsberg, whom Murdoch refers to as his 'ambassador to the Clinton Administration.'" The magazine said that "Murdoch has told associates that it was Ginsberg who persuaded him to hold the fund-raiser for Hillary." What did Ginsberg, a former Assistant Counsel to President Clinton, say to convince you to hold the Hillary fundraiser?

4) Commenting on the News Corporation fundraiser for Hillary, Jeff Cohen asked, "What does Hillary want from Murdoch? Obviously, softer coverage from Fox and elsewhere." Cohen, a liberal, asked another question many conservatives were asking: "She certainly doesn't need his help getting funds; she raised $6 million in the first three months of 2006." When Senator Clinton made an appearance at a Fox News event celebrating the creation of the Fox News Sunday show, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace crowed that her presence "makes a statement about how we're regarded in top Democratic circles." So why is the company raising money for Senator Clinton?

5) Rupert Murdoch has often been described as a "right-wing media mogul." But the company does business with the Chinese Communists. You and your top lieutenant Peter Chernin, president of News Corporation, have been long-time supporters of Democratic Party politicians. In what areas of the company are your right-wing views reflected?

6) Rupert Murdoch has been critical of the anti-American slant of the foreign media. So why does BSkyB air Al-Jazeera? And why is it going to air Al-Jazeera International? (Please see background on Al-Jazeera and Al-Jazeera International at the end of this document).

7) Will any of News Corporation's other media properties, such as DirecTV, air Al-Jazeera International?)

8) Rupert Murdoch gave $500,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative. What is the purpose of this contribution? And will you balance that with a contribution to a group critical of the man-made global warming theory?

9) The New York Times reported that your son James is "steadfastly liberal" and that he "has supported Bill Clinton and Al Gore whose daughter he befriended at Harvard." How liberal is James Murdoch and what plans does he have for taking the company in a more leftward direction?

10) James Murdoch's BSkyB is bringing Al Gore's Current TV to Britain. James Murdoch is also the one who reportedly invited Al Gore to the News Corporation executive meeting at Pebble Beach, California, this summer. How close are they? And how liberal is James Murdoch?

11) James Murdoch wrote an article for the Guardian attacking the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute for dispensing "inaccurate propaganda" about the global warming issue. But many conservatives regard the theory of man-made global warming as a hoax. Has James Murdoch been persuaded by Al Gore to embrace it?

12) James Murdoch has criticized the Western media for focusing on China's human rights abuses. Observers say this was an effort to ingratiate the company with Chinese Communist leaders because of News Corporation's extensive business dealings with China. What is your view on that?

13) Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a significant number of voting shares in the company and says he is prepared to raise his stake. He claims that he forced Fox News to eliminate on-air references to the Muslim role in the riots in France by speaking directly to News Corporation chairman Murdoch. Was such a call made and what did Alwaleed say?

14) A News Corporation subsidiary, HarperCollins, published Alwaleed's biography by Al-Jazeera International journalist Riz Khan. The book includes a DVD in which News Corporation chairman Murdoch praises Alwaleed and dismisses as "politics" the rejection of the Saudi's $10 million contribution to a 9/11 fund after he blamed U.S. Middle East policy for the terror attacks. Does chairman Murdoch believe U.S. policy was to blame for 9/11?

15) Fox News Channel has banned a pro-American ad, entitled "Defending Freedom," from the Move America Forward organization because it was critical of former President Clinton's handling of the terrorism problem. Why is Fox News protecting Bill Clinton?

16) Hugh Miles, author of a book on Al-Jazeera, reports that Fox News and other U.S. networks have content-sharing agreements with Al-Jazeera. How much does Fox pay to Al-Jazeera for the right to air its terrorist videos and statements?

17) Bill O'Reilly claims the FBI "came in and warned me and a few other people at Fox News that al Qaeda had us on a death list…" Where is the evidence for this claim?

18) Bill O'Reilly claims that TWA 800, which crashed off Long Island in 1996, could not have been shot down by missiles because he saw the plane explode on TV. But the incident was not televised. Why won't he correct this falsehood?

19) The Fox News special, "The Heat is On: The Case of Global Warming," which aired on November 13, 2005, was criticized by conservatives as completely one-sided. It featured liberal activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as a special correspondent. Why did Fox News violate its stated policy of being fair and balanced?

20) BSkyB carries Channel 4 in Britain, which aired "Death of a President," about the assassination of President Bush. The film was widely criticized for being not only tasteless and irresponsible but as incitement of violence against the President. Why did BSkyB air the film?

21) Bill O'Reilly claimed on his show that Americans committed a massacre in World War II at Malmedy, a city in Belgium. But O'Reilly was wrong. The atrocity involved German troops killing Americans. Why won't he correct the record?

22) News Corporation hired the Glover Park Group, a public relations firm run by friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton, to block changes in the TV ratings system. Was this part of News Corporation's move to the left?

23) Bill O'Reilly has acknowledged on the air that Fox News received a set of the controversial emails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley to a 16-year-old male former congressional page but didn't do a story about them. Why?

24) The October 7 Fox News Watch program did a segment on how some news organizations failed to do stories about the Foley email messages, but did not mention that Fox News was one of those news organizations. How do you explain this omission?

25) Bill O'Reilly called himself a big mouth whose career was threatened by his sexual harassment scandal. How much did the settlement of the lawsuit cost the company?

26) Americans for Truth, a group headed by Peter LaBarbera, has asked Fox News Channel to be "fair and balanced" by giving $10,000 to a conservative group to match its donation to a homosexual journalists' organization whose leader recently compared pro-family critics of homosexuality to "white supremacists." The organization is the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Fox News was listed as a "Feature Level" ($10,000) sponsor of the group's 2006 convention. Will Fox News balance that with a contribution to a conservative group?

27) Fox News anchor Shepard Smith gave an interview to Playboy magazine and attacked the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Do you approve of Fox News anchors giving interviews to pornographic magazines and venting their personal views?

BACKGROUND ON AL-JAZEERA: The Qatar-funded Al-Jazeera acts in support of global terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. Al-Jazeera International, the English-language version of Al-Jazeera, is currently negotiating carriage on cable and satellite systems controlled by Western media organizations. AIM has produced the DVD, "Terror Television: The Rise of Al-Jazeera and the Hate America Media," noting evidence that: - Al-Jazeera's first managing director, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, was shown in a videotape captured after the liberation of Iraq taking orders from Uday Hussein.- Al-Jazeera's Kabul, Afghanistan, bureau chief, Tyseer Alouni, was charged, convicted and sentenced to prison in Spain for being an agent of al Qaeda, and was alleged to have links to members of a terror cell that planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America.- Al-Jazeera continues to pay Alouni's legal bills and defend him.- Al-Jazeera employee Sami al-Haj was captured in Afghanistan and is now in prison at Guantanamo Bay on terrorism charges.- Al-Jazeera was expelled from Iraq by its new democratic government.AIM also notes that: - Al-Jazeera has reported links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that gave rise to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. - Al-Jazeera may have inspired the British Muslims involved in the bombing plot targeting airliners flying to the U.S.- Al-Jazeera has been praised by the Islamic Army in Iraq, a terrorist group that includes former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, his intelligence service and former army officers.- Al-Jazeera promotes the so-called 9/11 "Truth" movement, which blames the U.S. Government for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.- Al-Jazeera has a content sharing agreement with the Telesur channel of anti-American Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chavez.

My dear and good friend Ruth King, on the executive committee of Americans for a Safe Israel and a member of the editorial board of "Outpost" where she contributes a monthly column, whose daily emails are a key source of media writings about Israel, unleashes her own pen to describe “The War Within the War on Terror.” Ruth recounts the post-war history of persistent anti-semitism and its more recent rise, pointing out what is new – and most dangerous -- now. Ruth advises liberal American Jews to wake-up, and smell the terror:

What Jews fail so signally to recognize is that the most important cause of this resurgence of anti-Semitism is the perception of Israel in retreat. It is undeniable that a powerful and victorious Israel elevated the international prestige and confidence of the Jewish people everywhere. By contrast, an Israel which has lost its way and forfeited its claim to its legitimate and historic rights is viewed with contempt, encouraging and emboldening anti-Semites. Jew hatred is an opportunistic virus that attacks weakened organisms. Like those nations of Eastern Europe which hated Jews even after there were none left, the Arabs will hate Israel and the Jews even if they were all to leave or die. Only Israel’s determination to succeed, to prevail, to prosper and to win will sedate them and anti-Semites all over the world.

There is a war within the war on terror. It is a war against the Jewish people. The consequence of ignoring the link between a strong and secure Israel and the safety of all Jews will be a dark and cold winter for Jews throughout the Diaspora.

On October 13, when President Bush signed the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act, buried within was also the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Financial transaction processing companies are forbidden to make payments to Internet betting businesses, most of which are overseas.

Critics focus on the libertarian argument that prohibiting online gambling is excessive government interference in our private lives.

Charles Murray’s op-ed in today’s New York Times says, “the Republicans have allied themselves with a scattering of voters who are upset by online gambling and have outraged the millions who love it.” Murray recounts the Prohibition saga, of widespread disregard for the law, and throws in the “stupid” excesses of OSHA, to conclude, “The more honest citizens who take for granted that they are breaking the law, the more their loyalty to the law, and to the government that creates it, is eroded.”

Granting those points, Murray misses several key points that went into this law.

First, I’d hardly call a “scattering” moralists or those who think that irresponsible excesses should be reined in. Southern Baptists, for example, I’m sure speak for many more than just a scattering, or Southern Baptist:

Southern Baptist public policy specialist Richard Land applauded Bush for his action and again commended Congress for its passage of the anti-gambling legislation.

“All friends of families should be pleased with this measure,” said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “It will certainly help insulate homes from a parasitic addiction to gambling that sucks the life out of families and destroys marriages.

“Thousands of families have faced financial ruin and bankruptcy because of one of the fastest-growing addictions in the county,” he said. “This legislation will make it more difficult for these Internet gambling predators to reach into the pockets of America’s families and steal the future of children and spouses.”

Unlike games regulated and monitored in the States, to be reasonably honest, the Internet casinos are not ensured to give a sucker an even break. That is a reasonable governmental concern.

Lastly, but I think most importantly to the passage of this online wagering prohibition, is that our governmental casino bosses both reacted to contributions and pressure from gambling interests established in the U.S., from proliferating, prosperous “Indian” casinos (about as “Indian” as giant gambling companies can make them appear, like cigar store fronts), and from themselves missing out on taxes or seeing a competitor to the worst shell game in town, the lotteries with their pittance payouts.

Nevada wasn’t so shy, when in 2001 it passed a legal structure for online gambling, that of course enriched the state, Nevada knowing a good tax-take con when it sees it. Washington State, on the other hand, outlawed online gambling in 2006. The bill’s sponsor “received numerous campaign contributions from land based casinos.”

Business Week expects the online gambling to go further underground.

Instead, the law will drive out regulated, publicly traded companies like PartyGaming, the Gibraltar-based parent of PartyPoker, and make way for private gambling companies and banks based in nations where such industries are loosely policed at best. As a result, the new law could ultimately make billions of dollars in U.S. online gambling transactions more difficult to trace, and increase the likelihood that funds end up in criminal hands.

So, alright already, just pay up “protection”, er taxes, to the government Dons, and let the big U.S. public gambling companies in on their “cut” of the action, throw in some honest gambling regulations for the honesty-minded, and let the games begin, resume, come out of the alleys.

It’s easy for Democrats, the far-left, not to mention media luminaries, to dismiss conservative concerns about a biased media, despite overwhelming evidence. Their agendas mostly benefit from it – at least short term.

However, if any care about the survival of the West – literally – as well as their own paychecks from a declining media economics due to alternative media and declining credibility, the equally deep concurrent problem of a lack of elemental professionalism and standards must be addressed.

The West’s enemies are emboldened and their program is dependant upon their ability to slant MSM coverage, and through it Western public opinion, governmental resolve and policies, by targeted propaganda.

There are too many specific instances to cite, most recently in the staged and phonied photos from Lebanon, or yesterday’s videotape of the Reuters cameraman enciting rock-throwers at the Israel security fence in Bil’in.

The stage is set by Western media trying to get by on the cheap, turning over coverage to local stringers, a problem I pointed out in Editor & Publisher last April, and the Washington Post covered yesterday about how few reporters are embedded in Iraq, the president of Military Reporters & Editors calling it “more than pathetic.”

Similarly pathetic, and only explainable by bias and lack of standards, is the widespread coverage of the incredible numbers of Iraqi deaths attributed to the U.S. presence in Iraq, and the MSM’s failure to equally broadcast the charge’s debunking and ludicrousness, although even fellow anti-war counters at Iraq Body Count discredit it and knowledgeable pollsters detail its “bogus” methodology.

Richard Landes writes in the current New Republic how such propaganda works (speaking of the Al Durah “blood libel” used to justify the pre-planned second intifada by Palestinians and to spread a message that “Israelis were the new Nazis.”):

But this image goes beyond blood libel and anti-Semitism, beyond blackening Israel's image and whitewashing Palestinian violence. Al Durah became the icon not only of the Intifada, but of global jihad. Within months of the incident, bin Laden came out with a recruiting video that featured extensive Pallywood footage and highlighted Al Durah. Months later, Pakistani jihadis killed Daniel Pearl, interweaving Al Durah's image into their tape of the execution.

In 2000, anyone told of Muslim plans to Islamicize the West laughed with scorn. It was the least of Western worries. Today, some have already given up Europe for lost; others see it in the balance; and others are finally awakening with shock to the radical shift in the balance of forces. And every aspect of l'affaire Al Durah is emblematic of why: from the Palestinian forces that staged it; to the Western mainstream press and the NGOs that presented it as news without asking hard questions (and that believed any subsequent Palestinian claims of Israelis killing children and resisted efforts at correction); to the Muslim world that turned it into an icon of hatred and a call to genocidal holy war; to the "leftist" revolutionaries who jumped on the jihad bandwagon in Durban, South Africa; to a public distressingly eager for "dirt" on Israel and unaware of the forces empowered by diffusing such poisons.

Some may think that the truth-telling by alternative media is a rising corrective, and this is so. But, it is far too little.

MSM must reform itself, quickly and thoroughly. It’s almost too late.

UPDATE:
Jack Risko, the Dinocrat extraordinairre, posts, “To execute the strategy of the Global Jihad October Surprise, America’s enemies have enlisted the useful idiots of the MSM, who appear all too willing to cooperate in the anti-American venture, if it serves their political agenda..” Read it all.

In short: More, please, of everything.

Yesterday I posted how “Startfor and Gerecht Clarify the Iraq Choices.” The central point clarified is that the U.S. military was and is both undersized and misorganized to meet the challenges that developed in Iraq. There are good explanations for this. Nonetheless, consequently our mission there and in that region is endangered, as well as our vital interests elsewhere. A significant expansion of our fighting forces is required.

Today, let’s address what that means. The short answer is that the U.S. needs to expand both its conventional and unconventional capacities, because both challenges are present and expected, and the consequences of inadequate preparedness are dire.

Understanding this -- and that major new expenditures and sacrifices are necessary -- is, also, vital among our political and commentating classes. An essential front in American engagement in the world is clarity of purpose and of public understanding. Without that, adversaries are encouraged to aim their actions at undermining our home front, and critics of good will are stimulated or of weak will to cave.

A home front which is confused by policies that are confused and whose expression are confusing is a core liability in the execution of any foreign policy, particularly in a war. Americans are reluctant to sacrifice, but will and rally to clear need, purpose and policies. Americans, too, have the common sense to see when sacrifice is seemingly wasted by leaders who are incoherent or who do not express clearly enough what is needed, instead disrespecting them by muddling by on the futile cheap.

James Joyner writes about “The Most Important Culture War,” outlining the needed counterinsurgency doctrine that must be emphasized and enlarged, even though counter to the big weapons-big divisions conventional capacities favored in most of the Pentagon. Joyner is correct, if perhaps too pessimistic that this counterinsurgency doctrine will last.

Fortunately, the combination of battalion commanders that have grown up mostly during the post-Cold War, the harsh lessons identified* in Iraq, and coffers overflowing with money has at least temporarily created an opportunity for a cultural change. The Army and Marine Corps will continue to get better at counterinsurgency. More billets will be allocated to Arab translators and fewer to tank gunners, at least for a while.

Whether these changes will stick after our withdrawal from Iraq is another matter entirely. If history is any indication, sadly, they will not.

Meanwhile, Fred Kagan writes about “New Thinking, Old Realities,” recognizing that there are real needs for a large conventional capacity. Kagan gives credit where due:

The most successful part of the administration’s strategy has been, surprisingly, the struggle against al Qaeda. According to the apostles of novelty, this should have been the greatest challenge of all for the supposedly hidebound U.S. security structure. Yet a combination of conventional and unconventional approaches has kept this threat largely under control. The administration applied conventional military power (primarily bombers) in a supposedly novel way in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power and chase al Qaeda to the hills. Since then, aggressive intelligence, special forces, and covert operations have kept al Qaeda’s leadership on the run and broken up or preempted a number of attempts to attack the United States again. Al Qaeda’s leaders spent 2004 telling each other that they were losing, and the evidence was on their side. Cellular terrorist organizations like al Qaeda are resilient, however; its leaders are still at large and its threat persists. In particular, were the United States to relent in its direct military pressure on this organization, it is highly likely that al Qaeda or splinter groups would prepare a more successful attack. It is possible that they will do so anyway, but to date, the Bush administration has succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations in defeating the most novel threat we face.

Kagan, then, points out where failure has occurred:

Efforts to find new solutions for supposedly new problems elsewhere have not worked out as well. The “small footprint” approach in Afghanistan and Iraq has led to disaster. In Afghanistan, the failure to complete the defeat of the Taliban through a significant occupation has allowed it to regroup. The Taliban poses a significant insurgent challenge once again, and Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s government no longer appears resilient.

In Iraq, the small footprint used in major combat operations clearly facilitated the rise of the insurgency. The slavish adherence to the “new” doctrines of a small footprint and putting the Iraqis in the lead on internal security has led to disaster. American forces were never allowed to establish security in Iraq and efforts to turn responsibility over to an unprepared and predominantly Shiite Iraqi military added to that failure.

Kagan tells us that we actually face old realities, requiring large forces, of many types, and the intelligence and will to use them:

The result of all of this new-think is impending disaster on many fronts. Iraq and Afghanistan are in danger of failing. North Korea already has nuclear weapons and will soon be able to deploy them against the continental United States. Iran is well on its way to nuclear capability. Somalia is falling into the hands of militant Islamists, and the situation there may well destabilize the entire region. Why are we doing so badly in the world?

The answer is that the world did not change as much in 2001--or in 1991, for that matter--as many observers thought. Our enemies did not, in fact, abandon traditional power politics. Misconceived though it might have been, Saddam Hussein fought a conventional war in 2003. Even Osama bin Laden rallied his terrorists to fight as conventional soldiers in 2001, digging trenches and setting up machine guns as the Taliban lost a lopsided conventional campaign. Iran maintains a large conventional army, which it has been modernizing as rapidly as possible. So does North Korea. Both are pursuing nuclear weapons in the most conventional way possible--not as terrorist-style suitcase bombs, but as Soviet-style missile-mounted warheads. Far from being impressed by our adoption of novel strategies--withdrawal from South Korea on the one hand and a small footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan on the other--the Iranians have seized the advantage in a very traditional way. They have seen that we are bogged down and distracted, that our conventional forces are overstretched, and that the danger of a U.S. attack is therefore very small. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seizing the moment with traditional diplomatic delaying tactics while his scientists race to give him the weapons he desires. There is absolutely nothing novel in any of this.

It is time to wake up from the dream world of the 1990s. If history ended with the end of the Cold War, it has since started up again with a vengeance. Beyond al Qaeda, the United States today faces a host of traditional challenges. Large conventional militaries in Iran and North Korea support regimes seeking to develop nuclear arsenals. These threats can be deterred or defeated for certain only through the use or convincing threat of using conventional forces, because these regimes recognize no restraints on their behavior other than those imposed by superior power. The seizure of territory in Somalia by groups ideologically tied to our primary foe is reminiscent of Communist insurgencies in the Third World, which we fought during the Cold War with varying degrees of success. The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are unusual in some ways, but share common features with many other past insurgencies. Basic lessons from past counterinsurgencies should inform our approach to these challenges.
Above all, America’s conventional military strength remains critical, traditional power politics continue to control the world, and the lessons of thousands of years of human history still apply. In counterinsurgencies, the first requirement of success is the establishment of security throughout the country or region. This task is manpower-intensive and incompatible with a small footprint approach. Political, economic, and reconciliation tracks are not sustainable without security, as countless historical examples show. Success in Iraq--and Afghanistan--requires a heavier deployment of U.S. forces with orders not just to train indigenous soldiers, but also to bring peace to those troubled lands.

Military strength and the visible will to use it is also essential to persuading regimes like those in Tehran and Pyongyang to abandon programs they wish to pursue. We have been trying the diplomatic approach, unsupported by meaningful military threat, for nearly fifteen years with North Korea, and the result has been utter failure. A similar approach in Iran will not be more successful. It may not be necessary to attack those two states to force them to give up their weapons of mass destruction programs, but there is no hope of convincing them to do so if they do not believe that we can and will defeat them. Nor is there any likelihood that a “small footprint” (almost a “no footprint”) approach in the Horn of Africa will contain the Islamist threat there.

The United States is at war, and the enemy is the same one we have been fighting for sixty years. A totalitarian regime controls North Korea. Totalitarian ideologues hold power in Iran, have just seized power in southern Somalia, and seek power throughout the Middle East. Their goals are subtly different, but they share several key features: the destruction of democracy, which they hate; the elimination of liberalism and religious toleration; and the destruction of the United States.

Victory will require a mobilization of America’s military might and the willingness to use it. Adaptive and unpredictable enemies like al Qaeda will require us to change part of our approach and some of our forces constantly. Winning throughout the Muslim world will require economic, political, and cultural initiatives alongside the use of military power. But nothing will be possible without adequate military force, which the United States is currently lacking. If we do not begin the necessary mobilization of our resources now, then our military power will become irrelevant, our strategies will fail, and our security will falter.

Lastly, Daniel Pipes reminds us that “The West Must Learn The Public Relations of War.” Military might and success are underemphasized by Pipes, to make his point about the shift in the “center of gravity”, but his description of the rising importance of the home front is still right on. One of the keys to winning the home front is a better-informed political and commentating class, much better than we now have, whose ignorance lacks essential gravity, gravitas, and understanding of basic facts.

With loyalties now in play, wars are decided more on the Op-Ed pages and less on the battlefield. Good arguments, eloquent rhetoric, subtle spin doctoring, and strong poll numbers count more than taking a hill or crossing a river. Solidarity, morale, loyalty, and understanding are the new steel, rubber, oil, and ammunition. Opinion leaders are the new flag and general officers. Therefore, as I wrote in August, Western governments "need to see public relations as part of their strategy."

Even in a case like the Iranian regime's acquisition of atomic weaponry, Western public opinion is the key, not its arsenal. If united, Europeans and Americans are likely to dissuade Iranians from going ahead with nuclear weapons. If disunited, Iranians will be emboldened to plunge ahead.

What Carl von Clausewitz called war's "center of gravity" has shifted to the hearts and minds of citizens from force of arms. Do Iranians accept the consequences of nuclear weapons? Do Iraqis welcome coalition troops as liberators? Do Palestinian Arabs willingly sacrifice their lives in suicide bombings? Do Europeans and Canadians want a credible military force? Do Americans see Islamism as presenting a lethal danger?

Non-Western strategists recognize the primacy of politics and focus on it. A string of triumphs — Algeria in 1962, Vietnam in 1975, and Afghanistan in 1989 — all relied on eroding political will. Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, codified this idea in a letter in July 2005, observing that more than half of the Islamists' battle "is taking place in the battlefield of the media."

The West is fortunate to predominate in the military and economic arenas, but these no longer suffice. Along with its enemies, it needs to give due attention to the public relations of war.

How did we get into this mess, or this part of it, in which we either have too many troops in Iraq because foreigners alienate Iraqi sensitivities (never mind the sensitivities of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis murdered and tortured by Saddam et. al., or a neighboring state invaded, or WMD’s capacities), or too few troops in Iraq because the U.S. is supposed to quickly bring Iraq (a medieval state’s peoples many of whom relish their religious hatreds or seek self-aggrandizing power) into the 21st, or at least the 20th, century?

Conspiracy theories and Monday-morning quarterbacking abound. But, the simplest truth was spoken by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about going to war with the military you have. And what we had, and still largely have, is a military denuded and shrunk in Republican and Democrat post-Cold War enthusiasm for spending elsewhere in the budget and by self-delusions that the world was entering an era in which this was OK.

George Friedman, chief executive officer of Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor.com), specializing in global intelligence assessments, writes the essential truths. Excerpts below (but read it all). Reuel Marc Geracht, however, provides an essential corrective (also read it all): This probable American redeployment will be thin tissue. Recommitment, instead, is necessary, but unlikely, and we’ll be paying the price for the future. At least, one can hope, then we’ll have a more prepared military, if our politicians don’t go on another “peace dividend” spending binge.

I must add that I still hope for a kernel of sense in Washington, including from Democrats, that will not abandon its responsibilities, for us to pay again and again to increased threats from emboldened enemies. But, that's not the way to bet, just pray, and demand.

George Friedman writes:

The center of gravity in the American strategic problem is the need to rebuild the country's military option, particularly its ground combat capability. The decline in this area is the frame around the window of opportunity. In order to rebuild its military option, the United States must address the problem of Iraq, along with the secondary issue of Afghanistan. The Americans either must dramatically increase the capability of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps or else decrease their commitment in Iraq. If the United States does neither, its ability to control and influence events in other regions will decline, even if the internal political crisis is resolved. If that crisis is not resolved – and Iraq continues to soak up resources – the outcome will be strategic gridlock for the United States.

The U.S. Army is the heart of the matter. Today's Army was designed in the 1990s, on the assumption that the need for extended combat operations was a thing of the past. Not only was the Army reduced in size, but many of the key components of combat divisions and critical specialties, such as civil affairs, were shifted to the Army Reserve and National Guard. The administration's expectation for Iraq was that there would be a buildup of forces for several months, a short, intense period of combat operations, then a drawdown in forces in a pacified country. The 1990s force was designed just for these types of conflicts. The Reserve and National Guard components were mobilized to join and backfill for units deploying to the combat zone. By the end of the year, it was expected, the force would return to peacetime operations.

Iraq didn't work out that way. The drawdown never took place because major combat operations were followed by a major insurgency. The expectation of the administration was that the insurgency would be dealt with in a reasonable time, so the Army was not reconfigured for extended warfare. At any point, proposals for dealing with the fundamental problem – that the force was too small – were rejected, with the thinking that there was no need for a significant overhaul to deal with a problem that would be under control in a matter of months. This expectation turned into hope, and the hope into dogma. Thus, the 1990s Army continued to fight a multi-year insurgency with a multi-divisional force, while also fighting a second war in Afghanistan and having to stand by for the unexpected.

Having learned from Vietnam that constantly rotating individuals into units for one-year tours undermines unit cohesion, the Army shifted to rotating entire divisions into and out of Iraq after roughly one year. Had the conflict ended in two years, that might have worked. But it now has been more than three years and divisions are doing their second tours, mobilizing Reserve and National Guard units as they go. Consider this example: The 1st Cavalry Division is now deploying on its second tour to take control of the Baghdad region from the 4th Infantry Division. For the coming year, the 1st Cav is going to be locked down in Iraq, but the 4th ID will not be available for operations elsewhere. Upon arriving back in the United States, it will need to rest, repair and integrate new equipment and integrate new recruits to replace veterans leaving the Army. The 4th ID will not be available to deploy anywhere for many months. In effect, for every division in Iraq, one division is being overhauled. Add to this the weakness in the Reserves and National Guard and the phrase “the force is broken” begins to make sense.

In other words, Iraq is eating up U.S. geopolitical options by eating up the Army. This is the first major, extended ground war the United States has fought in a century without dramatically increasing the size of the Army. World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam all brought massive increases in military size, mostly through conscription. The Bush administration did not view Iraq as a potentially multi-year, multi-divisional combat operation. It maintained the force roughly as it started, and now that force is broken.
It now is becoming clear that the administration understands this.

Two important things happened during the past week. First, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, long an opponent of expanding the Army's budget, agreed to allow the Army to plead its case for more money to Congress. In the past, Rumsfeld wanted the Army to find more efficient ways to run counterinsurgency operations, relying more on technology than manpower. That's a good idea, and might happen some day, but it didn't happen for this war. It is now obviously pretty late in the game to cut the Army loose for funding – plus, any new funding it does get won't impact the battlefield for a couple of years at best. But Rumsfeld's move does signal recognition that the basic assumption up to this point was flawed.

More important is the second thing: James Baker, a former secretary of state and a close adviser for both President Bushes, has been chairing a genuinely bipartisan committee called the Iraq Study Group (ISG), which has been conducting a bottom-up review of the war. Over the weekend, Baker spoke to the media, hinting at the parameters of the recommendations the ISG will make once the elections have been held. He made it clear that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq is impossible, since that would create a massive vacuum in which Iran and Syria would move. At the same time, he made it clear that the country will have to adopt a new strategy.

At the center of the problem is the fact that the United States has been trying to create a coherent government in Baghdad that is made up of hostile and competing parties. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps have been given the assignment of creating a secure environment in which this can be accomplished. To do this, they must suppress the militias and insurgent groups that want to block the political process. The United States has been trying to do this militarily since the summer of 2003. Its forces have failed for a host of reasons – ranging from the number of troops, the quality of intelligence, the impossibility of engaging combatants while simultaneously protecting noncombatants (who are themselves frequently hostile to U.S. forces), and so on.

So long as the United States continues to regard suppression of militias and insurgents as the precondition for creating a government – and the creation of such a government remains the strategic goal of the United States – the Army and Marine Corps will continue to be sucked up by Iraq, and countries such as North Korea will be free to maneuver. Therefore, it follows that the ISG either will recommend that the administration abandon its goal of creating a unified government in Iraq or that the establishment of such a government should not depend on the United States creating a secure environment.

In short, we expect the ISG to recommend that the mission of U.S. forces be shifted away from responsibility for day-to-day security, allowing the United States to act instead as a general guarantor of Iraq's independence from Iranian control, and as a block against the expansion of Iranian power in the Arabian Peninsula. This would mean a withdrawal of U.S. forces from populated areas to enclaves that are close to the cities, and to the south and west of the Euphrates River. It has been suggested by some that U.S. forces be based primarily in northern Iraq, but this would depend on Turkey's willingness to allow those forces to be supplied through Turkish ports, which is far from certain.

Thus, regardless of the results of the November elections, we expect a change in strategy by the Bush administration. First, there will be a rebuilding of the ground forces. Second, there will have to be a redefinition of U.S. strategy in Iraq so that American goals match capabilities. Third, the U.S. ground capability outside of Iraq will have to be regenerated rapidly so that forces can be available for insertion in unexpected trouble spots – such as the Korean Peninsula – if needed.

What the United States has learned with North Korea is that, when a window of opportunity opens, other countries quite reasonably step through it. Diplomacy without a realistic threat of significant action, in the event that diplomacy fails, is just empty chatter. Multilateralism without the option for unilateral action leads to paralysis. In other words, the principles the Bush administration has argued for are incompatible with the reality that Iraq has created. If the principles are correct, U.S. strategy in Iraq must shift and the mission must be brought in line with the force.

Reuel Marc Gerecht points out that,

[A] consensus is growing in Washington. There isn't really much difference between left and right: While Democrats Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Murtha all wish for a rapid departure, former Republican Secretary of State James Baker will soon release his centrist "alternative," reportedly announcing that victory is impossible and our best bet amounts to "cut, pause, talk to the neighbors, and run." Conservative writers like George Will and William F. Buckley long ago gave up on the idea that the United States could help build a democratic government in Iraq. Fewer and fewer among the nation's political and intellectual elites believe that "staying the course" in Iraq advances the war against terrorism and our national interests in the Middle East.

Concluding his review of the many elements involved in jihadist thinking and actions, and misconceptions of it, Gerecht reminds us:

This contest is not what the Bush administration foresaw when it espoused democracy in the Middle East as part of the solution to the evil that struck us on 9/11. But the president's democratic reflex was correct. And as faithful Muslims decide how much of Western political thought to incorporate into their own, anti-Americanism will skyrocket. Indeed, rising anti-Americanism will be a pretty good barometer of how serious the democratic-religious debates are in the Muslim Middle East. The more serious the debates, the more furious the flailing out against America by the hard-core militant Muslims will be.

The complexity of this picture suggests, among other things, how shallow the discussion has been among those who see our mistakes in Iraq as the epicenter of our terrorist problem. Discussion of what will happen if the United States pulls out of Iraq has been similarly thin.

Gerecht then lays out the stark alternatives:

We are certainly not beyond the chance that the Iraqis can govern themselves more humanely than they were governed under Saddam Hussein. Whoever thinks Iraq is hell on earth now is suffering from a failure of imagination. If we leave, it will, in all probability, get vastly worse.

And for those who are concerned about the geostrategic stability of the Middle East or the growth of Sunni jihadism and terrorism against the United States, staying in Iraq ought to be a compelling choice. We don't need to "stay the course" that Rumsfeld and Abizaid have designed. Instead, we should follow the road map offered in these pages by the military historian Frederick W. Kagan. It's the best plan out there for winning. We--not the Iraqis--need to lead a major effort to break the Sunni insurgency. We--not the Iraqis--must police the Shiite-dominated security services to ensure they don't slaughter the Sunnis, especially as we and a Shiite-dominated army with an important Kurdish contingent make a more serious effort to control Baghdad, Ramadi, and the centers of Sunni resistance. We need to keep building up a Shiite-dominated Iraqi army and slowly deploying it in ways that it can handle--with integral American involvement, as at Tal Afar. We should expect a few Iraqi governments to collapse before we start seeing real progress. Yet our presence in Iraq is the key to ensuring that Shiite-led governments don't collapse into a radical hard core.

This may be too much for the United States now. It certainly appears to be too much for the Democrats. We would have all been better off if President Bush and his team had done what Senator John McCain advised back in 2004, when the insurgency started to rip: Tell everyone that the war would be long and hard, and pour in more troops. If we no longer have the stomach for this fight--and it's going to be ugly, with few sterling VIP Iraqis who will make us proud--then we should at least be honest with ourselves. Leaving Iraq will not make our world better. We will be a defeated nation. Our holy-warrior and our more mundane enemies will know it. And we can rest assured that they will make us pay. Over and over and over again.

The following memo was hand delivered to New York State Senator Frank Padavan and emailed and faxed to the other New York Senate sponsors of #S6336, the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) as well as the New York Assembly sponsors of the companion bill #A10098:

MEMO TO: Senator Frank Padavan
FROM: Phil Orenstein
RE: S6336: Academic Bill of Rights

In regards to the recent violent protest to silence an invited guest at Columbia University, I want to ask for your recommendation on making a minor modification or adding a provision to the current New York Academic Bill of Rights, #S6336 to contain a zero-tolerance policy for the disruption of campus speakers and student events in order to protect the fundamental right of free speech on college campuses.

Columbia University Republican Club held a meeting on October 4th where the guest speaker Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, and fellow Minuteman Marvin Stewart were physically assaulted and silenced by students from the International Socialist Organization and other radical campus groups. A violent brawl broke out where students kicked and punched the guests and overturned tables and chairs, which was all caught on videotape and distributed on the internet blogosphere for the public to witness. Campus security did nothing to stop the melee, except to cancel the event and escort the guests to safety as the students seized the stage.

President Lee Bollinger and the Columbia administration are notorious for laissez-faire policies dealing with similar past crises where freedoms of speech and opinion have been abused. Due to the mounting public pressure and outrage, including the threat of a lawsuit from Gilchrist and Stewart, Bollinger has made some tough sounding statements of possible disciplinary charges against those students in violation of university rules of conduct. Yet, it remains to be seen whether or not he will expel the student perpetrators or revoke the campus privileges of the radical student groups involved.

The language of the current bill #S6336 is vague on this matter of disruption of campus speakers and clubs, while the original draft which was adapted from legislation in other states, that Brooklyn College Professor Mitchell Langbert and I submitted to the Senate Higher Education Committee, is more direct in this regard:

CURRENT #S6336 & #A10098: That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations are not infringed upon by administrators, student government organizations or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and That the student's academic institution distributes student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences and opinions.

ORIGINAL DRAFT: An environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated.

I would sincerely appreciate your feedback on this proposal. I also want to once again heartily thank you for your honorable efforts to restore academic civility and intellectual diversity to our colleges and universities, which have become increasingly politicized and narrow-minded.

Please review this petition to President Bush to Remember the Montagnards (President Bush will attend the Vietnam APEC summit in November 2006).
Your signature is needed to show that the Montagnards are not forgotten and that human rights are critical for Vietnam's economic and social progress, in order to benefit all citizens of Vietnam. Feel free to pass this petition on to others.

TO SIGN THE PETITION GO TO LINK: http://www.petitiononline.com/degar/petition.html
OR SEE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION WEBSITE: http://www.montagnard-foundation.org/homepage.html

Regards
Scott Johnson, Advisor Montagnard Foundation
ScottMFI@hotmail.com


PETITION TO PRESIDENT BUSH: REMEMBER THE MONTAGNARDS

To: President Of United States Of America
Hon. President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

This petition concerns the Montagnard Degar peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, their desire for freedom and the role of the United States government in achieving such freedom for all citizens in Vietnam on the eve of your forthcoming visit to the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Vietnam this November 2006.

The petition recognizes that during the Vietnam War the indigenous Montagnard Degar Peoples were loyal allies to the United States and it is estimated that at any one time over 40,000 Montagnards served with their American brothers during that conflict. Upon taking over South Vietnam in 1975 the Hanoi government commenced persecution against the Montagnards that involved a decades long policy of land exploitation, Christian religious repression, torture, killings and imprisonment. In October 2006 the US State Department has continued to maintain Vietnam on the “watch list” of countries that are the worst violators of religious freedom and Montagnard House Church Christians report to us today they are still persecuted for their faith. To date over 350 Degar prisoners remain in Vietnamese prisons for standing up for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia while the entire Montagnard population faces repression by security forces.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, we the undersigned ask that you as representative of the United States, honor and remember the sacrifice the Montagnard Degar people made during the Vietnam War and that human rights for our people and all citizens of Vietnam are raised as a priority issue with the government of Vietnam during your visit to the APEC Summit. We ask that you use your influence to request Vietnam to release all of the estimated 350 Montagnard Degar Prisoners from Vietnamese prisons and establish a permanent solution to address indigenous lands rights and Christian house church persecution in order for progress to benefit all citizens of Vietnam.

Mr. President: Please Remember the Montagnards
Sincerely, The Undersigned

“Captain” Ed Morrissey, of CaptainsQuarters blog, well deserves to be a leader of the conservative side of the blogosphere, for his judgments, clarity and energy. He’s, also, a stout friend and a strong believer in independent thought and open forums of civil discussion.

So, when I occasionally disagree with him, it’s in that spirit. But, also my spirit as a Sergeant who doesn’t give up, and who makes his own judgments on the front lines.

Ed comments on the discussions among some non-Left leading bloggers about the likely drubbing Republicans may take in the November elections:

It's this relentless sameness that has damaged the Republicans among their base and killed their enthusiasm. The GOP has proven themselves to be not much different than the Democrats, and the argument that Democratic control would be worse is not ever going to generate much enthusiasm.

I don't believe we're seeing a blue tidal wave. However, the Republican Party's midterm woes come from Republican failures to match their actions to their rhetoric.

True enough, but a half-truth. And, a half-truth is still not whole cloth, and the holes should be recognized.

My Republican and conservative credentials and track-record are as good as anyones’, as is my willingness to criticize Right or Left when off-base. I differ with some Republicans who think that the Rx Medicare program is a needless waste, as I differ with some Democrats that it should be transformed into a colossal waste. I differ with some Republicans who see the Harriet Miers or Dubai incidents as signs of presidential wrong-headedness, as I disagree with Democrats who fail to respect facts of both’s reasonableness. I differ with some Republicans who overly concentrate on “pork’s” evils to the point of relegating this very relatively small distasteful part of the bloated budget to ultimate prominence to the ignoring of the far huger sums involved in any of the bloated bureaucracies, as I disagree with Democrats who are part of this natural process of political compromises but stand aside trying to appear uninvolved. I differ with those Republicans who saw the 2004 results as a triumph instead of a marginal squeaker, as I disagree with Democrats who failed to respect the American voters’ decision and instead waged despicable continuing war in utter disrespect for governance.

I differ, most of all, with those who say that the Republican caucus in Congress, particularly in the House, have not acted like Republicans. Time and again, it’s they who have stood up for and passed legislation that is as Republican or conservative as can be, either in support of the president’s agenda or to differ conservatively with it, only to see their stances ignored within the conservative blogosphere, allowing the liberal leaning MSM to also ignore and letting it write the public agenda and perspectives on it.

Simply, I believe that many conservative pundits are suffering from battle-fatigue, just as I said last May:

I think all three may be suffering some variant of PTSD, worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth-column in the media.

There’s a natural element to strength of Democrats at this mid-term election. There’s a natural effort of Democrats to field a strong team of candidates. There’s a natural war weariness with any “long war.” There’s a natural opposition research of Republican hypocrisies or criminality. There’s a natural MSM trumpeting of Democrat memes.

There’s an unnatural willingness among many conservative commentators to buy into these liberal efforts and natural strengths, and to chastise those who are targeted. It’s a circular firing squad. Avoiding defeats, or avoiding worse defeats than necessary, and retrieving victory, will not come from in effect buying into or self-generating such half-truths or half-heartedness.

Republicans and conservatives should take their natural lumps, and rather than accepting the oppositions’ memes, or conservative fantasies that the nation is conservative, maneuver for bigger tents rather than throwing misaimed stones from their tents. Be Hector, not Achilles sulking in the tent, or with such a vulnerable heel to our adversaries.

UPDATE:
"Captain" Ed replies:
Bruce,

I'll add your link to my post, and it's a good post, but I disagree. All one has to do is look at the growth in spending across the board to understand that the House has not "acted like Republicans", unless you mean Rockefeller Republicans. They went hysterical at the Dubai Ports debacle, they went missing for Able Danger, they passed the BCRA, and they've feasted on pork in much greater quantities than the Democrats did when they held power, only balking at the Senate's even balder pork-barrel politics when the President finally got sick of it. The only thing they've gotten right is immigration, and it took them five years to get around to it.

I'm voting Republican because it's the only rational choice, but that's not because this crop has earned it.

Cheers!

Edward Morrissey
Captain's Quarters

I reply to my "Captain":

I agree, and said so Friday in my post:
"In November, I'll vote for Republican candidates, although my heart is hurt by many in the Party's fiscal or personal irresponsibility."

I disagree, however, with excess breast-beating.

Thanks, and respect and love, as always.

Once in a while, the New York Times Book Review section actually has a reviewer who knows what he’s talking about. Then it’s a must read.

Henry Kissinger’s review of Robert Beisner’s bio of Dean Acheson, A Life in the Cold War, is such a must read.

For those, most alive today, for whom WWIII, the Cold War, is a distant memory, if at all understood, the review is an essential introduction to the issues and the context of the late-1940’s and early 1950’s in which Secretary of State Dean Acheson, along with a stellar cast of seasoned statesmen, worked with a bravely intuitive President Truman to define the Western response to the Soviet menace.

The contemporary importance of this bio for today is pointed out by Kissinger:

Acheson served as under secretary of state and then as secretary during the period when a people that had known no direct continuing threat to its security since the early days of the Republic had to be brought to recognize that its permanent participation in the world was indispensable for peace and security. Inevitably this realization was painful and slow in coming, if indeed it has been fully achieved to this day.

It’s been many years since I read Dean Acheson’s Present At The Creation, essential to experiencing the thoughts, quandaries and choices of that period. I most clearly recall the core optimism that Dean Acheson and most of our leaders, of both parties, lived by, along with their civil gloves covering steel wills. I, also, most clearly recall their confidence that despite uncertainty and risk, they could wend their way forward, as Acheson is famous for saying “a day at a time,” learning and adjusting bravely and humbly to create a sane world order that would defend, survive and ultimately triumph, because it was right about human nature. Mistakes were made, but they moved forward, not back, and had faith in what’s right and necessary, if painful.

By contrast, I clearly recall my disagreement with Henry Kissinger’s world view, which I labeled existential defeatism, late in the Cold War. Kissinger seemed more wrapped in a realpolitik, however brilliant, that was just marking time to slow the inevitable triumph of communism, as the U.S. and the West – particularly its elites, but also its conflict-weary public opinion – appeared to have lost the vision and the will to fight or take other difficult measures and sacrifices.

Of late, Kissinger seems to have recovered from this malaise, and has been quite strong in differing from his fellow Snowcroft-Baker realpolitik friends, who today counsel withdrawal from forward-engaging the World War IV threat from Muslim jihadists. Kissinger, instead, has been a visiting counsel of strength and firmness to President Bush, perhaps even lending the intellectual support that Acheson lent to Truman.

Kissinger discusses the difference between the Acheson and George Kennan emphases. Acheson believed in building positions of strength from which to negotiate, while Kennan thought negotiations independently could yield worthwhile results.

Acheson treated diplomacy as the more or less automatic consequence of a strategic deployment; Kennan saw it as an autonomous enterprise depending largely on diplomatic skill. The danger of the Acheson approach has been stagnation and gradual public disenchantment with stalemate. The danger of the Kennan approach has been that diplomacy might become a technical exercise in splitting differences and thus shade into appeasement.

Such more recent Kennanesque endeavors during the Clinton administration result in North Korea's brazenness today, along with the Saddam effronteries that continued throughout Clinton’s administration, and the encouragement that terrorists took from American weakness of response to pre-9/11 attacks.

My friend, historian Stan Sandler, reminds me that history does not repeat, but historians do. With that caveat for analogies, maybe 2006’s possible elections’ results will be like 1946’s (when the isolationist Republicans took seats from the Truman Democrats), and let’s hope that 2008 will be like 1948 when Truman confounded the chattering class by his election victory. Republicans and Democrats who remember the lessons of WWIII’s learning curve for WWIV’s, and care about national security, are looking for their 2008 Truman behind whom to unite.

Postscript: Condi Rice is no Dean Acheson.

Too many Republicans have left the campaign field open to domination by slimeballs and slime hurled at them. Not having earned trust, they are more vulnerable to character attacks, even false or exaggerated.

In November, I’ll vote for Republican candidates, although my heart is hurt by many in the Party’s fiscal or personal irresponsibility. I’ll do so, not out of trust but because on most other issues I agree more with them than their Democrat opponents and because I sincerely more fear for our national and financial security under Democrats. That’s hardly a stirring campaign advisory, and some ordinarily Republican voters may feel otherwise, feeling their trust has been abused.

Democrat political consultant Daniel Nelson offers his party good advice, that Republicans should also hear: “It’s not about the issues – it’s about earning trust.”

You'd think that elections this November and in 2008 would yield Democratic victories, hands down. It won't happen. Not, at least, until Democrats understand the fundamentals of political behavior. … It's not enough for Democrats to repeat: "We have had enough." They have to tell people what they'd get if elected. And they have to create trust in their ability to make Americans more secure.

Part of that feeling of trust is trust in integrity and probity. Instead, even trumped up by hostile politicians and press, there’s too much evidence of too many incumbent Republicans more interested in feeding at the trough instead of feeding our needs and confidence, and too many incumbent Republicans weaseling away from supporting our brave, resolute and honest President because they’re too timid to stand for anything.

The Washington Post reports that, in the Democrats' absence of a platform, or at least one they’re willing to share with voters or come clean about, they’re peddling personal attacks upon Republicans, hoping that something may marginally stick.

In the wake of the Mark Foley page scandal, Democrats are targeting the personal lives of Republicans in numerous key House races as part of a campaign to capitalize on voter disgust with the messy personal lives and alleged character defects among elected officials.
…
Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie said Democrats are dangerously close "to overreaching" in their attacks, risking a political backlash like the one that damaged Republicans after they pushed for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton over the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal in 1998. Democratic operatives said they are aware of this possibility but are calculating that, as long as the attacks are at the local level, they will not backfire.
…
A big part of the Democratic strategy in Pryce's district and elsewhere is to suppress turnout among Christian conservatives, a pillar of the GOP coalition.

Republicans, so far, mostly act like deer stuck in the headlights. There will be some return mud-slinging, but the core Republican message of security abroad, and future economic prosperity, is not trusted by many normally sympathetic who, instead, see just another Washington BS’er.

Republican candidates have only a few weeks to restore trust, and probably won’t. But, sinking deeper into Democrats’ mudpit won’t be very beneficial either. Better to stand or fall on integrity and trust than slime that will make the road back more slippery and populated by slippery characters and records in campaigning.

Jews have not always been united in support of Israel. Most Jews, and most non-Jewish Americans, have forgotten. Many American Jews, indeed, have come to take the existence of Israel for granted, and even feel disassociated from its survival in its deadly neighborhood. This has taken a more dangerous turn with the emergence of a relatively few anti-Israel Jews.

The “secret”, seldom spoken aloud, is that most American Jews are both relatively untutored in their own religion or history, are more imbued with Liberal and Leftist politics, and prioritize their politics above Israel or the survival of Jews. American Jewish Committee and National Jewish Democrats’ polls during the 2004 election campaigns found Israel well down the list of most American Jews’ priorities, below support for various domestic Democrat liberal programs.

Before Israel’s founding, some Orthodox felt Israel could only come into being with the coming of the Messiah, some others thought the leadership of the Zionist movement too secular or Leftist, and some others sought defense from then common-charges of dual-loyalty as they established their American identity as part of its mainstream rather than a grouping of immigrants and refugees.

But, none were anti-Jewish by any means, or anti-Israel per se, just ordinary intramural arguers within a family. With the shocks of post-WWII revelations of the extent of Nazi and other European anti-Semitic slaughters and pillaging upon Jews, and the lack of refuge for Jews even by the Allies, the necessity for Israel became paramount and dissolved such petty disagreements among Jews.

Current arguments by a few (but given MSM and academic prominence) Jews against Israel, or American support of Israel, differ in a significant degree from the prior: They are not essentially Jewish, or quibbles, but are secular Leftist and lend support to Israel and Jews’ enemies. Although very rarely religious observers, they trade on their inherited designation. They profess love and friendship to Jews, and carefully obscure their calumnies in circumlocutions and sophistry, and many listeners are thus deluded. However, all their source and emphasis is part of their generalized distaste for American foreign policy, for defense of Western civilization, instead favoring the causes of its extremist opponents within the West and in the Middle East and other despot- and terrorist-ridden parts of the world. That may not always be the explicit consciousness or intent, or the couched verbiage, but it is the functional reality. Anyone who believes or professes that alliance with George Soros or his well-funded front groups is acceptable, or that Soros has the interests of Israel or the U.S. at heart and purpose, is dangerously foolish.

Most non-Jews think Jews are a united people, of immense power. Both suppositions are wrong, extremely wrong in the case of those extremists who see conspiracies everywhere, usually linked to invented and evil Jewish machinations. That some Jews even, themselves, believe in such inflated self-importance feeds into such conspiratorial fantasy charges.

In fact, although many of Jewish background disproportionately excel in many realms of endeavor, so do Asian-Americans. The primary cause is rooted in above-average cultural emphasis on education and the importance of living a better material life. This is self-perpetuating across generations, as educated parents instill and earn the means to offer this advantage to their children. Aside from the normal occurrence of wayward offspring, the cycle is disrupted as families fall away from this culture.

Some, also, point to Jews’ ethical heritage and to the respect it generates among non-Jews, or to Christians’ respect for their common religious fount, and this is an advantage to Jews, but an offsetting disadvantage is the traditional discriminations and the petty resentments by many. The balance varies across time, issues, and particular groups.

Most Jews remember the transitory nature of their position, as Jews, in the world. Other Jews come to believe that assimilation or living in an enlightened country, like in Germany before WWII, is protection or the dawn of a new age for Jews. They have throughout history been disabused by horrors visited upon themselves and others.

Unfortunately, it usually takes horrors to wake up many Jews, but then it’s too late.

If all Jews do not unite to both better educate themselves in something other than partisan Liberal or narrow Leftist politics, and uniformly denounce extremists among us, Israel will fall, bloodily, to its enemies, and American Jews will have to share the blame, and eternal shame.

The Congressional Human Rights Caucus includes over 200 bipartisan members. Its co-chair, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia sent a letter to President Bush, on September 26.

Excerpts:

As you prepare to visit Vietnam in November, I want to encourage you to address the issues of religious freedom, democracy and human rights by both meeting with Vietnamese human rights advocates prior to your departure, and meeting with dissidents while you are in Vietnam. Meeting with these groups would send a message of hope to Vietnamese around the world….

Those suffering persecution are encouraged when the United States speaks out on their behalf and your raising these issues would send a message of hope….Much like President Reagan did for the former Soviet dissidents, acknowledging the struggle of the Vietnamese people would give them hope.

Congressman Wolf’s handwritten postscript to the President says: “I would appreciate your meeting with these individuals re human rights. Thank you.”

Let’s hope President Bush takes this bipartisan advice from over half of Congress.

I’ve written many times about the horrible and inexcusable persecution of religious and political dissidents in Vietnam, and the mercantile ignoring of their suffering in the pressure by Vietnam’s “new class” of profiteers and their Western business counterparts to grant Vietnam further trade concessions and legitimization. See the below links:
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002762.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002741.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002722.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002708.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002683.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002657.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002584.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002530.html
http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002380.html

Or, for a link to a roundup of the many concerned organizations and their careful studies and reporting of Vietnam’s disgraceful human rights record, please go here.

The New York Times reports that Senator Trent Lott is suing his insurer for refusing to pay up for his Gulf Coast Mississippi house flooding during Katrina, although flood damage is excluded from his policy and the Senator recognized that by taking out a federal flood policy from which he collected $350,000. To collect more, Senator Lott has threatened the insurance industry with punitive legislation.

Senator Lott, if he weren’t so self-involved and self-important, might have taken the time to read Sebastian Mallaby’s column in the Washington Post, “Flood Insurance for Dummies,” and might begin to act like a Senator instead of a rapacious dummy.

The federal flood insurance program uses taxpayers' money to subsidize houses that are prone to flooding…The program is supposed to discourage building in areas that flood more than once per decade. But in 1995 there were almost 75,000 insured properties that had flooded at least twice in 10 years. Far from discouraging this sort of building, the program appears to encourage it: Ten years on, the feds now insure 134,000 two-floods-per-decade homes. Over the past decade, these houses have generated insurance claims worth $5.7 billion while paying less than $1 billion back in premiums.
…
The insurance industry, which has billions of dollars on the table, cannot afford this sort of nonsense. It is focused on understanding climate patterns and devising rational responses. But government central planners are blind to the usefulness of price signals. So thousands of Americans build dream houses by the waters, oblivious to the risks and costs -- to themselves and to the rest of us.

This problem is not unique to the Gulf Coast. It costs taxpayers, and insurance payers, almost every year along the Calolinas’ coast, and even inland Central Valley California.

Irresponsible building in flood zones is subsidized by everyone else, and everyone else is supposed to be shocked and pay after every flood to maintain the homeowners’ irresponsible choice to have a luxury water view.

Senator Lott, you’re all wet.

Yesterday I posted about the conscientious and proper act of the French Embassy office in NYC to cancel use of its auspices for a book party for Carmen Callil’s Bad Faith, and Ms. Callil’s calumny that the cause was the complaints of “Jewish fundamentalists.” (Did France Cave to “Jewish Fundamentalists”?) Please visit my post, and the Media Bistro and Guardian reports below, to see what utter rubbish are their reports and Ms. Callil continue to exhibit her prejudice.

Once those responsible at the French Embassy office in NYC read the book, they decided to rescind their invitation. I and a few others, acting independently, had brought the matter to the Embassy’s attention, and as I demonstrate in my post yesterday we hardly fit the pejorative caricature Ms. Callil presents as “Jewish fundamentalists”, a further proof of her biases.

By all accounts, the book is a meticulous work on the depradations of a Vichy official’s anti-Semitism, but the author’s postscript equated current Israel and Israelis with the Vichy. Even a very favorable reviewer in the Christian Science Monitor (quoted and cited in my post yesterday), an expert on the period, criticized Ms. Callil’s historically and factually baseless accusation.

Today, Ms. Callil’s prejudicial attitude is repeated in her interview by Media Bistro:

She was politely furious about the turn of events—after all, this party was one of the main reasons she'd come to the U.S.—and full of scorn for the "fundamentalist Jews" whose protests had led to the cancellation, convinced none of them could possibly have had a chance to read the book. "They see the word 'Israel' and they ignite," she argued. "This sort of thing isn't good for democracy, and it's not good for America. Isn't this a violation of that amendment you have?"

No, it is not a violation of the First Amendment, Ms. Callil. It is the First Amendment as it should be: Americans speaking out freely about what is wrong with your book. And, as quoted in my post yesterday, the French Embassy rightfully agrees that its auspices should not be used to further your prejudices against Jews or Israel. We had pointed out to the Embassy that, “when the embassy of a government sponsors a speaker on a topic, that government in effect endorses that speaker’s views.” The Embassy’s press release canceling the event agreed:

Although the French Embassy was looking forward to the presentation of a work exploring the darkest hours of French history, it could not endorse a personal opinion of the author expressed in the postscript of the book.

London’s Guardian, of course, chimes in with sympathy for Ms. Callil.

The row over Callil's book is the latest element in a dispute about restrictions on freedom of speech in the US in relation to comments on Israel.

The Guardian then goes on to recount that anti-Israel speaker Tony Judt had recently had his invitation to speak at the Polish Embassy rescinded, after complaints by the ADL. The Polish, like the French, acted properly, to not allow their countries to be associated with extremist views, but by the Guardian it’s presented as a “free speech” issue. It’s NOT.

Neither Ms. Callil nor Mr. Judt have the “right” to use the property of the French or Polish embassies as their soapbox. Both governments, once alerted to the misuse of what would be their nations’ endorsement, correctly rescinded their invitations.

Let’s hope Ms. Callil has really learned something about America, which still has citizens who do exercise their rights to stand up for Israel, and about France and Poland, which still have governments that can distinguish between right, wrong, and even wronger, irresponsible extremism by her.

UPDATE:
AntiWar.com is hysterical in their reaction:

Having made a clean sweep of Embassy Row, the intellectual shock troops of the IDF (American branch) are now no doubt preparing an assault on Publishers’ Row: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux is reportedly bringing out a book-length work by Mearsheimer and Walt, elaborating on their thesis. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see, with a fair degree of certainty, an organized effort to spike their book.

If FS&G, the Mercedes Benz of the publishing world — which has brought out works by T.S. Eliot, William Golding, Hermann Hesse, Czeslaw Milosz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, and Tom Wolfe — can be intimidated into silencing the Lobby’s critics, then what institution in American society is immune?

Let’s hope so! Any “institution” that engages in irresponsible, baseless, biased attacks upon Israel, or upon Americans’ rights to stand up for Israel, not to mention freedom or civilization, should not be immune. It’s been 36-years since I served in the USMC, and I’m proud to enlist in what the AntiWar hysterics call the “IDF (American Branch)”, at least if I can find its elusive, mythical recruiting and run-the-world office!

UPDATE #2:
The writer of the Media Bistro report linked above, today takes umbrage at my calling his piece “utter rubbish.” Above that, he misnames and misspells my name, although it is clear on my posts. He utterly ignores the responsibility of a government’s embassy to not provide a soapbox for disreputable views, instead arguing that a booking is a booking. Then he criticizes me for blaming the press for covering differing views, when what I criticized as “utter rubbish” was shoddy reporting, which he evidences again in his follow-up. He might read the Christian Science Monitor review of Ms. Callil’s book, referred to above and linked and quoted in my original post, and this New York Times review, both well-qualified to discern Ms. Callil’s gratuitous comment as unsupported and unacceptable.

The book’s one incongruous note is a last-minute, three-sentence analogy between the events described here and the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. This passage has become controversial because it led to the cancellation of a reception for Ms. Callil at the French Embassy in New York on Monday. But the real, apolitical problem with these remarks is that their grandstanding is unearned by the book and incongruous with Ms. Callil’s overall probity. The rest of the time she allows her readers to think for themselves.

UPDATE #3:
The Media Bistro columnist just wrote me, “Let me clarify my position for Mr. Kesler and his readers.” He has corrected the error in his column he made in my name. Thanks, and the first rule of journalism is get the name correctly.

The writer says that, “Based on what I know about how the event came together and fell apart, the French Embassy either failed to do the due diligence that would have enabled them to reject the concept of a party for Bad Faith from the onset, or it punked out on its commitment to Callil and Knopf because of a handful of complaints.”

The writer, thus, continues to ignore the information in his hands that I reported in my original post and the French Embassy confirmed, that they hadn’t been aware of Ms. Callil’s postscript. The Media Bistro writer continues “utter rubbish” reporting.

The Media Bistro writer continues: “The fact that a government body hosts a cultural event does not imply that the government endorses EVERY viewpoint of its featured guests….” Au Contraire. The French Embassy explicitly said just the opposite in its press release, quoted in entirety in my original post, that sponsoring a speaker’s book and her does imply endorsement, and Ms. Callil’s postscript is unacceptable and contrary to French policy.

Knopf and Ms. Callil can rent an auditorium and anyone can hear them. They have no “right” to the auspices of an Embassy. Knopf and Ms. Callil, obviously, sought the French Embassy venue as a governmental endorsement. The French government, seeing the error and misuse of its auspices, properly rescinded the invite.

The Media Bistro writer feels his presentation of Ms. Rabinowitz’ calm and knowledgeable replies was sufficient to puncture Ms. Callil’s characterization of her critics as “fundamentalist Jews.” It may be for those who are intimate with Ms. Rabinowitz, but few likely are. The Media Bistro writer failed to in any way present that Ms. Callil further exposed her own biases by her intemperate and false remark.

Update #4:
The Media Bistro writer has asked me to identify him by name: Ron Hogan.
He has also asked me to refer to his web site as mediabistro.com.

I was happy to be attacked yesterday by the wild men at Lyndon LaRouche's home for the conspiratorially deranged. My reaction is best summed up in this email to Candace de Russy, which she has posted over at NRO's blog PhiBetaCons. As I recalled yesterday, by your enemies they shall know you.

The tenor and factualness of many political advertisements attacking opponents in the 2006 election is truly a new low of not-even half-truths and excess exaggeration.

From the anti-Republican side, this is a continuation of the Soros-led MoveOn-type slurs they so well funded in 2004, that were shown to actually have relatively little impact and out of revulsion even energize some to the Republican side. The 2006 version put more money into character-assassination research, but is cut from the same slimey fabric.

From the anti-Democrat side, however, this descent is a new low. It’s partly motivated by those who think that emulating Soros’ or treating fire-with-fire is the way to go, even though it empirically and morally isn’t. It’s also partly motivated by a sheer misunderstanding of the anti-Kerry campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), and buying into the new Democrat-meme noun “swiftboating.”

This buy-in to the myth-noun “swiftboating” is by those Republicans who still don’t have a clue what the 2004 SBVT campaign was factually or actually about, and reflects an inside-beltway sequestering from realities among ordinary folks in the provinces.

Kerry adherents, including among the mainstream media that Kerry admits he counted upon to ignore and squelch the SBVT, have coined the term “swiftboating” to mean a scurrilous, factless attack upon a candidate. It was nothing of the sort.

The SBVT campaign against Kerry’s candidacy for president was verified as completely documented truth in some cases, beyond a shadow of doubt, as in Kerry’s Cambodia fantasy, and his – maybe youthful, but clearly beyond any pale acceptable from a well-educated, Naval officer, mid-twenties man – leadership of VVAW’s false attacks upon America and its servicemen’s conduct in Vietnam.

In the cases of Kerry’s decorations, the eye-witness accounts of those who were witnesses was overwhelming evidence that Kerry’s self-described tales of heroism were at the very least gross exaggerations, and well probably inventions that he succeeded in being awarded for in the medal-granting milieu of war, even over the objections of superior officers who knew better.

The telling point that so undid Kerry was not the SBVT unearthing of his less than exemplary decades-old behavior, but that Kerry himself promoted his myth as seemingly his only qualification for president, while his pronouncements on current challenges were so hemmed-and-hawed and distinctions-without-a-difference as to be deemed hollow portents of worthwhile leadership.

The core point of the SBVT was that Kerry was Unfit For Command, as a fabricator of his character. In a new world war against fanatic foes, truer integrity and strength of character is necessary. Many – if not most -- raised the good point that the campaign should concentrate on in-depth discussions of the current issues, not old war stories. Still, due to the very emphasis Kerry himself created on old war stories, and the telling amount of nuanced understanding most Americans drew from the SBVT charges, Kerry’s character-centered campaign crumbled.

That such truth-telling by SBVT, as well documented and convincing as any tales of combat can be, has been morphed by the Kerryites, most Democrats, and by their fellow-thinkers in the MSM, into the misleading noun “swiftboating” is resulting in their only misleading themselves, and many Republican leaders who inhabit the same inside-beltway other-universe, into crucial 2006 campaign errors.

Most Americans really do not like clearly low-blow ads, soon tire of them, and begin to resent their supporters. Both political parties are capable of getting out enough clarifications and counter-facts to mostly offset the basest and hollowest of the charges hurled, mostly canceling each other out, and causing contrary reactions. There’s still four-weeks to the elections, and that will occur, and sink in.

What will also sink in is that both political parties are sinking to new lows. Both parties’ ads and talking points are mostly knocks against the other, with extremely little discussion of issues. President Bush’s speeches contain both, and are dutifully reported by the MSM but buried in more space devoted to Democrat counters and themes.

The candidates that rise above this mud-slinging will have the brightest futures. All Americans yearn for leaders with integrity and character, and will turn to them when offered.

In civil and courteous phone conversations with the French Embassy in New York, I, a friend and a few others -- after requesting the embassy to review the book's postscript -- were very happy and satisfied to see that the embassy decided to cancel its participation in a book party to celebrate the publication of Carmen Callil’s history of a Vichy collaborationist, Bad Faith. Our objections centered around the author’s postscript to the book wherein she argues that Israel and Israelis are analogous to Vichy and the Nazis.

The Left’s campaign to vilify Israel takes many guises, and this particular absurd analogy from long-past, completely unrelated history is especially offensive, and indicative of the depths to which they’ll stoop.

A very favorable review of the book, in the Christian Science Monitor by a Harvard PhD in modern French history, concludes:

Unfortunately, after so painstakingly researching and portraying Darquier - as well as the French regime in which he lived and worked - Callil concludes her book with a two-sentence indictment of "the Jews of Israel": "What caused me anguish as I tracked down Louis Darquier was to live so closely to the helpless terror of the Jews of France, and to see what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people. Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians."

It left this reader hoping that others impressed by Callil's thoroughness in telling one complex story will remember the value of a complete record when addressing other complicated subjects as well.

The government of France’s embassy office in New York City agreed to sponsor a party for Carmen Callil’s book, which meticulously details a Vichy government official who organized the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz. The embassy acted at the behest of powerful publishing house Knopf, who used a prominent, widely-respected Jewish author to enlist the French Embassy’s cooperation. Neither that famous Jew nor the official at the French embassy had read the book. The imprint and merchandising power of publisher Knopf was at work, as is common in the world of jacket blurbs by endorsers who trade quotes.

A publisher has the right to print what it sees fit or commercial. However, when the embassy of a government sponsors a speaker on a topic, that government in effect endorses that speaker’s views.

Today, Reuters reported on the cancellation, “French embassy cancels N.Y. book launch over author’s Israel views,” (Also, here in Israel, and here in a media blog, but virtually no where else) quoting the author:

Callil told Reuters on Monday that the party was canceled after complaints from “fundamentalist Jews.”

Reuters reports that,

Callil defended the postscript to her book.

"I think the people in Gaza live in poverty huddled up in a very small territory ... because people don't like their government," she said. "But if you persecute people, they will rise up against you."

Asked if she feels the current Israeli government oppresses Palestinians, she replied, "Yes."

"I want people to learn from the past so the same terrible things do not happen again. If you oppress people, they will hate you and I do not want Israel to be hated," she said.

Of course, Ms. Callil, your comparison of Israel and Israelis to Vichy and Nazis is intended to express your love! Such Leftist anti-Israel twaddle and excess seeks to hide behind many guises, but its one-sidedness -- it ignores historical facts along with Arab and Palestinian culpability -- evinces its gross bias.

In the Left’s lexicon, anyone who expresses his religious faith publicly is a “fundamentalist,” a term employed by them as a pejorative that seeks to deny traditional morality – at least that which differs from their own -- from credibility. I’ll return to the ludicrousness of Callil’s comment below, but first some facts about this diplomatic encounter between a couple of American citizens of conscience and the French Embassy, and the embassy’s conscientious response to the facts.

On October 6, my friend Ruth King emailed me and others on her distribution list interested in discussions of pro- and anti-Israel publications:

Dear e-pals: This is an invitation to a book party for Carmen Callil....For your information, in her book she meticulously details the sordid history of the Vichy government, their helpers, etc. However, she then goes on to gratuitously compare Israelis to the Nazis......

I emailed the French embassy in New York:

Surely an official reception at the French Embassy reflects poorly on France when it equates Israelis and Israel with Nazis and Vichy collaborators. Do you delight in exposing France to ridicule, justified by such inanity?

Much to my surprise, I quickly received a phone call from a press attaché of the French embassy. He was very polite and earnest in expressing his concern that the book, which he hadn’t read, contained anti-Israel comments. He expressed his and the French government’s strong desire to expose the Nazi collaborations by the Vichy Regime in WWII, and to atone, as the embassy’s reason for arranging the book party. He was honestly shocked that this noble objective may be tarnished by the author’s gratuitous launch from that to a comment equating current Israel and Israelis to the Vichy. He promised to read the book, and reconsider. I arranged for my friend Ruth King to telephone him, as well.

Here’s what Ruth King has to say:

Although the book is well written and documented my concern was that even a welcome examination of the sordid history of France during the Holocaust would be