[Rhodes22-list] what is list etiquette? Ignore That!

Wed May 18 18:34:11 EDT 2005

Slim,

You're a bad, bad boy.  I had that one coming! 

Speaking of ghosts, I'm in the middle of a great book
"Ghost Wars" that specifically deals with the whole
lead-up to this Islamic extremism issue we're
discussing.  It dove-tails neatly with "Charlie
Wilson's War", another book about Afghanistan.  Here's
another article along the same vein as the one this
morning.

May 17, 2005, 1:07 p.m.
The Smug Delusion of Base Expectations
Count me out of the Newsweek feeding frenzy.

We're in the grips of a pathology. And it's not media
bias.

Here's the late-breaking news (you'll want to be
sitting down for this): The mainstream media is
ideologically liberal and instinctually hostile to
George W. Bush, U.S. foreign policy, and the American
military. 

No kidding. Really. If you want to throw the
off-switch for the cognitive part of your brain — as
many conservatives seem only to happy to do this week
— then, by all means, that is the story you want to
run with in this latest media scandal. 

Newsweek, in reckless pursuit of a scoop that might
score the daily double of embarrassing the Bush
administration while heaping more disrepute on the
Left's favorite punching bag, Guantanamo Bay, falsely
reported a martial toilet-flushing of the Koran. Oops,
I'm sorry, I mean the Holy Koran — after all, I don't
want to be left out of the new, vast right-wing "we
can be just as nauseatingly pious as they can"
conspiracy. 

The false report, according to the New York Times,
instigated "the most virulent, widespread
anti-American protests" in the Muslim world
since...well, since the last virulent, widespread
anti-American protests in the Muslim world —
particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where at
least 17 people have been killed.

That's right. The reason for the carnage is said —
again and again, by media critics and government
officials — to be a false report of Koran desecration.
The prime culprit here is irresponsible journalism.

Is that what we really think?

Here's an actual newsflash — and one, yet again, that
should be news to no one: The reason for the carnage
here was, and is, militant Islam. Nothing more.

Newsweek merely gave the crazies their excuse du jour.
But they didn't need a report of Koran desecration to
fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers, to blow up embassies,
or to behead hostages taken for the great sin of being
Americans or Jews. They didn't need a report of Koran
desecration to take to the streets and blame the
United States while enthusiastically taking innocent
lives. This is what they do.

The outpouring of righteous indignation against
Newsweek glides past a far more important point. Yes,
we're all sick of media bias. But "Newsweek lied and
people died" is about as worthy a slogan as the
scurrilous "Bush lied and people died" that it
parrots. And when we engage in this kind of mindless
demagoguery, we become just another opportunistic
plaintiff — no better than the people all too ready to
blame the CIA because Mohammed Atta steered a hijacked
civilian airliner into a big building, and to sue the
Port Authority because the building had the audacity
to collapse from the blow.

What are we saying here? That the problem lies in the
falsity of Newsweek's reporting? What if the report
had been true? And, if you're being honest with
yourself, you cannot say — based on common sense and
even ignoring what we know happened at Abu Ghraib —
that you didn't think it was conceivably possible the
report could have been true. Flushing the Koran down a
toilet (assuming for argument's sake that our
environmentally correct, 3.6-liters-per-flush toilets
are capable of such a feat) is a bad thing. But
rioting? Seventeen people killed? That's a rational
response?

Sorry, but I couldn't care less about Newsweek. I'm
more worried about the response and our willful
avoidance of its examination. Afghanistan has been an
American reconstruction project for nearly four years.
Pakistan has been a close American "war on terror"
ally for just as long. This is what we're getting from
the billions spent, the lives lost, and the grand
project of exporting nonjudgmental, sharia-friendly
democracy? A killing spree? Over this?

In the affirmative-action context, conservatives have
written trenchantly about the "soft bigotry of low
expectations" — the promotion of a vile
dependency-ethos that says "you don't need to strive
for better," as a result of which many people who
might, don't. Our cognate sense of the Islamic world
has become the smug delusion of base expectations. 

Someone alleges a Koran flushing and what do we do? We
expect, accept, and silently tolerate militant Muslim
savagery — lots of it. We become the hangin' judge for
the imbeciles whose negligence "triggered" the
violence, but offer no judgment about the societal
dysfunction that allows this grade of offense to
trigger so cataclysmic a reaction. We hop on our high
horses having culled from the Left's playbook the most
politically correct palaver about the inviolable
sanctity of Holy Islamic scripture (and never you mind
those verses about annihilating the infidels — the
ones being chanted by the killers). And we suspend
disbelief, insisting that things would be just fine in
a place like Gaza if we could only set up a democracy
— a development which, there, appears poised to
empower Hamas, terrorists of the same ilk as those in
Afghanistan and Pakistan who see comparatively minor
indignities as license to commit murder.

"Minor indignities? How can you say something so
callous about a desecration of the Holy Koran?" I say
it as a member of the real world, not the world of
prissy affectation. I don't know about you, but I
inhabit a place where crucifixes immersed in urine and
Madonna replicas composed of feces are occasions for
government funding, not murderous uprisings. If
someone was moved to kill on their account, we'd be
targeting the killer, not the exhibiting museum, not
the "artists," and surely not Newsweek.

I inhabit a world in which my government seeks
accommodation with Saudi Arabia and China and Egypt,
places where the practice of Christianity results in
imprisonment...or worse; in which Jews have been
driven from almost every country in the Middle East,
and in which the goal of destroying their country,
Israel, is viewed by much of the globe as legitimate
foreign policy; and in which being a Christian, an
animist, or the wrong kind of Muslim in Sudan is
grounds for genocide — something the vaunted United
Nations seems to regard as more of a spectator sport
than a cause of action.

In my world, militant Muslims, capitalizing on the
respectful deference of others, have been known
tactically to desecrate the Koran themselves: by
rigging it with explosives, by using it to secrete and
convey terrorist messages, and, yes, even by
toilet-flushing parts of it for the nuisance value of
flooding the bathrooms at Guantanamo Bay. Just as they
have used mosques as sanctuaries, as weapons depots,
and as snipers' nests.

There's a problem here. But it's not insensitivity,
and it's not media bias. Those things are condemnable,
but manageable. The real problem here is a culture
that either cannot or will not rein in a hate ideology
that fuels killing. When we go after Newsweek, we're
giving it a pass. Again.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is
a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies.

And one more interesting little tidbit -

MAY. 17, 2005: MISCHIEF MAKERS 
Imran's Con

Newsweek is taking a pasting over the Koran abuse
story, and surely the magazine was indeed careless,
even reckless. But is the pasting quite 100%
justified? A number of readers have written to make
the point that ultimately the blame for the rioting
has to be fixed on the rioters. I'll quote just one:

"When a college basketball team loses (or wins, it
doesn't much matter which) and some students from that
school use that as an excuse to riot, is the
basketball team to blame? 

"Newsweek doesn't have 16 deaths on its hands, the
rioters do.

"I think the real question is, why should Koran
desecration be such a big deal anyway? If a book that
important to me were desecrated, my response would be
more along the lines of a defiant 'fine, there's
plenty more where that came from.'"

That last question is a powerful one. But something
needs to be understood here: The riots in Afghanistan
were not a spontaneous response to the Newsweek item.
It did not happen that some pious Afghan spotted the
offending story while reading Newsweek at his coffee
house. The riots in Afghanistan were incited for
political gain.

Readers of the British gossip press know the name of
Imran Khan, the one-time Pakistani cricket star and
international playboy. In 1995 Khan made headlines in
Britain by marrying Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of the
late British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith. In
recent years, Khan (who also happens to belong to one
of Pakistan's largest landlord families) has turned to
politics. Unfortunately for him, his background is not
exactly a sure-fire vote winner in the Pakistani
context. Unbearded, Oxford-educated, a notorious
skirt-chaser, Khan has lacked appeal to the Pakistani
values voter. The fact that Khan's wife was Jewish by
background and socially acquainted with Salman Rushdie
did not help either.

So in 2002, Khan divorced Jemima and set about
reinventing himself as the devoutest of the devout. He
has fiercely criticized the Musharraf regime's working
relationship with the United States, and repeatedly
criticized the war on terror as an attack upon Islam.
Unlike the Afghan rioters, he probably does read
Newsweek or anyway employs people who do. And when
that item appeared in the May 9 issue of the magazine,
Khan saw a political opportunity. He staged a press
conference on May 6 and denounced the article in
blood-curdling language. He announced that he had
introduced a motion in the Pakistani National Assembly
to condemn desecration of the Koran. 

Khan's words, broadcast on Pakistani television, were
taken up by Taliban sympathizers in Afghanistan,
inspired by their own political agendas. 

Whatever one thinks of the reactions of the poor and
probably uneducated Afghans who rioted in response to
this incitement, from a political point of view it's
important to keep one's eyes on the motives and
actions of the sophisticated urban politicians who put
the mob in motion. The story of the Afghan riots - and
Khan's role in them - is one more reminder that much
of the extremism and violence of Middle Eastern and
Central Asian politics is the handiwork of cynical
local power-seekers pursuing selfish advantage. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--- Steve Alm <salm at mn.rr.com> wrote:

> > You've left such jucy low hanging fruit!
> 
> Jeez, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard
> that...  8-)
> 
> The Germans and the Japanese attacked with the full
> force of their sovereign
> nations' military.  Yes, I acknowledge we were
> attacked on 9/11, but it was
> conducted by a small handful of unseeable "ghosts"
> rather than a sovereign
> nation.  Your point is taken but I don't think your
> comparison is useful in
> this case.  I'll bet their motives are the same as
> mine:  I just want to be
> left alone and go about my life.
> 
> Slim
> 
> If only I
> > had the discipline to resist!  You're not sailing
> > because of the weather and I'm not sailing because
> of
> > house boy/Mr. Mom duties, so what the hell, here
> goes.
> > 
> > You wrote, "Violent reactions are as predictable
> as
> > the sunrise when some country half way around the
> > world strips you of your entire life/value and
> crams
> > their own ideology down your throat.  What did we
> > expect?"
> > 
> > Who were you referring to  Germans or Japanese? 
> Did
> > you gain your insight interviewing Holocaust
> survivors
> > or Chinese at Nanjing?
> > 
> > Frankly I'd like to click my heels and make the
> > evening news go away as much as anybody.  Yet,
> even
> > Bill Clinton sees progress in Iraq.
> > 
> >
>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050518/ap_on_re_mi_ea/clinton_iraq_1
> > 
> > Ok, I'll go back to cooking now.
> > 
> > Brad
> > 
> > --- Steve Alm <salm at mn.rr.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> Brad,
> >> 
> >> Thanks.  I mostly agree with the article however
> >> calling for "perspective
> >> and objectivity" is a waste of breath.  By
> >> definition, "extremists" are
> >> incapable of that.  (And I don't just refer to
> >> Muslim extremists.)
> >> 
> >> As I understand it, Islamic fundamentalists
> object
> >> to Democracy because it
> >> puts men in charge of the law instead of Allah
> and
> >> the Koran--(Qu'ran?)  So
> >> if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be
> like
> >> flushing the Bible AND
> >> the Constitution.  That's the perspective WE need
> to
> >> keep in mind.  It's
> >> easy for us to sit back and condemn the Muslim
> >> extremists for over-reacting
> >> to a tiny little blurb that may or may not have
> been
> >> true, but if the Koran
> >> IS your whole world, how could you not protest?
> >> They already view
> >> themselves as the losers and they're getting
> >> desperate.  Violent reactions
> >> are as predictable as the sunrise when some
> country
> >> half way around the
> >> world strips you of your entire life/value and
> crams
> >> their own ideology down
> >> your throat.  What did we expect?
> >> 
> >> What bugs me is what Don Rumsfeld had to say:
> "Oh,
> >> you've got to be very
> >> careful what you say..."  WHAT?  Look who's
> talking?
> >>  Frankly, I wouldn't
> >> doubt that the story was indeed true and Newsweek
> >> was pressured to retract
> >> it.
> >> 
> >> Slim
> >> 
> >> On 5/18/05 11:01 AM, "brad haslett"
> >> <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Ric,
> >>> 
> >>> I was responding to your post when my daughter
> put
> >> her
> >>> elbow on the keyboard (I'm home all week playing
> >> Mr.
> >>> Mom.)  Ignore that first post.  At least she
> >> didn't
> >>> call 911 like she did when she was 1 1/2.  Those
> >> cops
> >>> still think I'm lying.
> >>> 
> >>> Anyway, I've been too busy to make any pithy
> >> political
> >>> comments but not to busy to read.  Here's an
> >> article
> >>> from today's Chicago Tribune.  Not only is it
> >> funny in
> >>> its own way but dead on the money correct.  This
> >> is
> >>> neither left nor right folks, just a fastball
> >> straight
> >>> down the middle.
> >>> 
> >>> Brad
> >>> "CoraShen"
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> Seeking sanity in the asylum
> >>> 
> >>>   
> >>> 
> >>> By Kathleen Parker
> >>> 
> >>> May 18, 2005
> >>> 
> >>> Reaction to an inaccurate Newsweek report that
> led
> >>> recently to rioting and death in Afghanistan
> >> suggests
> >>> that hysteria is, indeed, contagious.
> >>> 
> >>> To briefly recap, Newsweek reported in a small
> >> blurb
> >>> May 9 that American interrogators at Guantanamo
> >> Bay
> >>> had flushed a Koran down a toilet in attempts to
> >> get
> >>> Muslim terror suspects to talk. Once the
> Newsweek
> >>> story was broadcast abroad, the usually reticent
> >>> hate-America crowd erupted in mass pique. Havoc
> >>> ensued. At least 15 Afghans died and many more
> >> were
> >>> injured.
> >>> 
> >>> All because of a story that may not have been
> >> true.
> >>> The "knowledgeable U.S. government source" who
> >> told
> >>> Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and John Barry about
> >> the
> >>> flushing apparently wasn't so knowledgeable. At
> >> the
> >>> risk of seeming insensitive, may I suggest that
> >> c'est
> >>> la guerre and urge everyone to follow Dr.
> Lamaze's
> >>> always-useful advice: Breathe deeply and focus.
> >>> 
> >>> What we need here is a little perspective.
> >>> 
> >>> First, we all can agree that flushing a Koran
> down
> >> a
> >>> toilet, if physically possible, would be both
> >>> insensitive and rude, though Westerners
> generally
> >> have
> >>> a higher tolerance threshold for such offenses.
> >> Put it
> >>> this way: You could flush a Bible down the
> toilet
> >> in
> >>> front of Goober in Kabul, and it's unlikely that
> >>> Mayberry suddenly would be awash in blood.
> >>> 
> >>> Without disrespecting true believers of Islam,
> one
> >>> also could debate the relative miseries of
> seeing
> >> our
> >>> favorite scripture disappear into the plumbing
> 
=== message truncated ===

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