They Can't Take That Away From Me

But the NYT can give it back. Walter Duranty has been long dead, and now it appears his Pulitzer might at last follow him to the graveyard. The NYT -commissioned study of the work for which he won the prize in 1932 has resulted in a recommendation to Sulzberger, Jr. has determined that the work reflected a "serious lack of balance" and was a disservice to American readers...and the peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires." (New York Sun, 10/22/03 Eric Wolff. Read this paper every day.) Throw it back, NYT. It will be a blot off your journalistic soul.

Australia is Not Asian

I've never thought of Australia as Asian. It is part of the Anglosphere, a distant part, but a vibrant outpost of Anglo sentiment and sensibilities. The Singapore PM has confirmed my visceral belief: Australia will not be part of Asia until the population is over 50% non-white. (Reported in the Daily Telegraph)

The Clash of Civilizations
New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

Ralph Peters cites historian Samuel P. Huntington on the clash of civilizations, and goes further:

"Huntington fell short by suggesting that this clash of civilizations was something new. Clashing is what civilizations do. Especially monotheist civilizations, with their one-God, one-path-to-the-truth, our-way-is-best convictions.

We should not be surprised at the current clash of civilizations. It would be far more surprising if it were not occurring. Such conflict is the rule, not the exception.

Of course, we would be fools to celebrate this clash, despite our own triumphs. It would be better for all if the Middle East could regain its moral and economic health. Cooperation is better than warfare. Peace should be our ultimate goal.

But not peace at any price. And cooperation doesn't work unilaterally.

Our soldiers in Iraq aren't engaged in a religious crusade. But ours is, undeniably, a cultural crusade, based upon our belief that the values of our civilization, from human rights to popular sovereignty, are superior to archaic forms of oppression. It's an old, old struggle, fought on post-modern terms.

Today's Middle East has become a citadel of tyranny. And tyranny must be fought without compromise. If that's a crusade, there's no reason to deny it."

Ralph Peters' new book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

Many are afraid to suggest that the West and the Islamic world are in conflict, suggesting, as does GWB that the conflict is betwen the nations under attack and terrorists. We would be wise to understand that the conflict has deeper roots.






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Legacy of Henry Ford Lives On

NY Sun headlines: Ford Foundation Spends Millions to Aid Anti-Semitism

Good piece in the Sun today, documenting the how the Ford Foundation financed the NGOs which attended the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001 which turned into an anti-Israeli rally. (Authored by Edwin Black)
I would link, but don't subscribe to the Sun online. Maybe it's time I did so.

Clash of Civilizations

The LA Times writes of Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence who sees the war against terror as a war of Judeo-Christian vallues v. Satan.
This is countered thusly:

"The first lesson is to recognize that whatever we say here is heard there, particularly anything perceived to be hostile to their basic religion, and they don't forget it," said Stephen P. Cohen, a member of the special panel named to study policy in the Arab and Muslim world for the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

"The phrase 'Judeo-Christian' is a big mistake. It's basically the language of Bin Laden and his supporters," said Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development in New York.

"They are constantly trying to create the impression that the Jews and Christians are getting together to beat up on Islam.... We have to be very careful that this doesn't become a clash between religions, a clash of civilizations."

Isn't it a clash of civilizations? Medieval thugs v. people trying to get on with their lives?

Gaza Bomb Kills Americans
Jihad Salim, a young man in a white T-shirt, said many Palestinians would feel little sympathy for the United States. "America has to pay for its foreign policy, which is against Muslims," he said.

Whinge, whinge, whinge. Of course US policy supports Israel over terrorists of the PLA. On 9/11 Palestinians danced in the streets. Israelis did not. 'Nuff said.

The Queen Awakes

QEII has apparently grown uneasy at the prospect of the EU constitution:
It is believed that the Palace's concerns focus on whether the Queen's supreme authority as the guardian of the British constitution, asserted through the sovereignty of Parliament, could be altered or undermined by article 10 of the draft text.

This states: "The constitution and law adopted by the union's institutions in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the member states."

Many MPs say that this will rob the House of Commons of its ultimate authority to override decisions and laws made by the EU.

I fear that the member states will realize what they've signed on to far to late to escape. Odd to think that centuries of struggle in Europe might be trumped by on a document which will not be fully comprehended until many years pass. If the trend of statist governments was toward liberty and human freedom, I would not be so aghast. The nature of statism is to impose itself at the expense of human freedom and liberty. Statist, appeasement-minded Europe, aligned at the behest of Germany and France with totalitarian China presents a spectacle which makes the blood run cold.
God save the Queen! God save a sovereign GB.

Clinton Works on His Legacy

Clinton asserts that : his inability to convince Bush of the danger from al Qaeda was "one of the two or three of the biggest disappointments that I had."
Which of course, raises the question as to why Clinton did so little about the problems he now cites as the most critical when he had the reins in the Oval Office. Must have been some right-wing conspiracy preventing him from doing his job.

There's a War On:

Peter Brookes writes in the NY Post about the ongoing war on terror, quoting Cheney:

"Terrorists are doing everything they can to gain even deadlier means of striking us. From the training manuals we found in the caves of Afghanistan to the interrogations of terrorists that we've captured, we have learned of their ambitions to develop or acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons."

"If terrorists ever do acquire that capability - on their own or with help from a terror regime - they will use it without the slightest constraint of reason or morality." There will be no warning and the result: tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of American lives lost in a single nightmarish day."

9/11 (remember that?) would be dwarfed.

The Good News Is...

NY Post: Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who joined the Democratic presidential race last month, is in a statistical dead heat with President Bush, a stunning new poll shows.

The question is, for whom is this good news? Wes (hat tip Joe Leibermann) is new to the race, still stumbling, no one knows much about his real positions or ablity to run, let alone govern. Still, the Democrats, desparate to beat Bush, see him as the best choice to try. When Clark fades (he must, and will) to whom do they turn? Bush is like the pitcher who's given up 8 hits over two innings, yet still has a lead in the game.

What is, and what is reported
This from Down Under ( I came across it on Andrew Sullivan's blog).

In brief, Andrew Bolt recounts the many items in David Kay's report which point to WMD, despite what you may have read in the press.

The French Consider Their Own Decline

In "Ouest contre Ouest," by Andre Glucksmann, one of the few leading French intellectuals to challenge the country's position on the Iraq war, France is described as a nation, with others in Europe, that fled the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on the United States in panic and attempted to set up a sterile biosphere away from the world's realities.
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The book, also a bestseller, maintains that this flight from confronting trouble carried with it an attempt to create two opposing notions of the West: a serene Europe, sheltered from terrorist kamikazes, and a warlike, imperialist, autistic United States.
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Glucksmann wrote that the central question of the future was not hegemony or multipolarity, the key French terms illustrating the Chirac government's seeming obsession about the United States and its desire to counter the Americans, but civilization versus nihilism, and whether the West together could make a fight to protect civilization.
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Glucksmann believes that France's leadership has wanted to bring Russia into its project to counter the United States, with France promising in the bargain a return of Russia's lost rank and prestige.
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"What does France gain?" he asked. "The possibility to continue its siesta. It would be up to Russia to counterbalance America, and keep the Islamist and Eastern hordes away. It would be the United States' job to chase down all the worldwide risks that we want to avoid. Paris, in all this, gives itself the role of directing the world by proxy. Once the Euro-Asiatic bloc is cemented through the inspiration of the Elysée Palace, Washington, put in its just place and counterbalanced, will conform."
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These messages converge with that of "L'Arrogance Française," by Romain Gubert and Emmanuel Saint-Martin, whose chapter and section headings - How France Lost Europe or Narcissistic Blindness - well sum up a book that holds that French foreign and European policy is guided by "obsessive concern with its standing, and terror in the face of its decline."
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France's essential arrogance, the authors suggest, is in continuing to act as if the world community and its European partners do not comprehend that for the French leadership, the "EU serves as the means for France to recover its influence and to reconquer its lost power."
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In this light, although the writers of "L'Arrogance Française" do not say so specifically, it is possible to see French policy in relationship to Iraq as a temporary instrumentalization of Germany in an effort to recapture European primacy - an attempt understood and foiled by the vast number of its NATO and EU partners.
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Months later, the fact is, after Sweden's rejection of the euro (in part because of France's refusal to conform to the economic performance standards it set up itself for the currency's credibility), and the likely splintering of the EU into groups of several speeds without any semblance of a unified foreign or defense policy, France has come up empty.
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The sum of the messages of the books, in French to the French, is that this vision of the country's current circumstances is not a French-bashing invention from afar, but a home truth.
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For Bavarez, France is threatened with becoming a museum diplomatically and a transit center economically. To do anything about it, it must revive itself internally first, getting away from what he calls its "social statist model." To advance, it must end the dominant role of a "public sector placed outside of any constraint requiring productivity or competitiveness."
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The reform of the rest of French policy, based on genuine integration into Europe, should follow, he argues.
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He recommends what he calls shock therapy, a forced march toward modernity that involves the risk of a clash among French interest groups and an end to the "sinister continuity" that unites the presidencies of François Mitterrand and Chirac in a kind of angry immobility.
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But for Bavarez, and most of the other writers now gaining the nation's attention, the present reality is harsh for France.
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"Overtaken by the democratic vitality and technological advance of the United State," Bavarez concludes, "downgraded industrially and challenged commercially by China and Asia, the decline of France is accelerating at the same rhythm as the vast changes in the world."
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International Herald Tribune

The first step in getting well is to recognize that you are ill. Bon chance, mes amis.

Can't Sing, Can't Dance, Can Act Like A General

I knew there was something I didn't like about Wes Clark. The NYT has supplied the answer: He's Hollywood's hottest star. That confirms my opinion of Clark, and says a lot about Hollywood dems, who have seized on the latest candidate to pop out of the woodwork. It's like a huge casting call, for the most important role in the country, and Clark seems to be getting the greenlight from the casting directors.

Looking for a military type with no blots on his record. Environmental sensitivity a must. Must be avaialble for longterm committment to callbacks. Send headshot to the DNC.
Scary stuff. And Hollywood laughs at actors becoming politicians.