The Redhunter

November 17, 2008

Book Review - Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad

On February 26, 1993, Americans were stunned to learn that a bomb exploded in the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring 1,042. Scenes of panic were on our televisions, and for awhile Americans wondered if we weren't going to suffer a wave of terror as what plagued Europe in the 70s and the Middle East to this day.

Within a week, though, our law enforcement scored what seemed like a stunning triumph against what seemed to be stunningly incompetent terrorists. On March 4 one of the terrorists, Mohammad Salameh, was arrested as he attempted to retrieve his security deposit on the Ryder truck they had rented for the attack.

This in turn led to other arrests, and before too long it looked as if law enforcement had the entire thing wrapped up. I myself remember thinking that it we must either have the world's dumbest terrorists or the world's best law enforcement. From what I remember most other Americans thought the same thing.

But what if we had known that the FBI had had an informant inside the organization that carried out the attacks months before they occurred?

And what if we had found out that the informant had warned the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force; FBI and local law enforcement) that this organization was actively training jihadists in guerrilla tactics for a campaign of assassination and bombing? Or that they were actively experimenting with explosives? And was apparently well-funded?

And despite all this, the JTTF ordered the informant to withdraw from the organization?

We'd have been outraged, that's what.

This and more is told by Andrew C. McCarthy in Willfull Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

McCarthy is in a position to know what he's talking about, because at the time of the bombing he was the Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against the masterminds behind it, most notably the "Blind Sheikh", Omar Abdel Rahman, and eleven others.

McCarthy's involvement only came after the 1993 bombing, so he was not a part of the missteps with the confidential informant. Nor did he prosecute the underlings who carried out the attack. His job was to go after the terror masters. He did, and his efforts led to the conviction of all of them. The Blind Sheikh was the most important, and dangerous, terrorist ever tried in the United States.

If McCarthy's book was only about the bombing, investigation, and trial of the accused, it would be an interesting but not a terribly important book. As it is, however, McCarthy goes well beyond a simple narrative of the investigation and trial. Much of the book is a discussion of the nature of the jihadist threat that we face.

The Blind Sheikh

Omar Abdel Rahman was born in Egypt in 1938, and lost his sight as a child to diabetes. Early on recognized as something of a prodigy, impressed his teachers early on by memorizing the entire Quran. He attended the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he obtained a degree in Qur'anic studies. He was recognized as a specialist in Islamic law, authorized to issue fatwas and binding legal opinions. Rahman, by now called the "Blind Sheikh" adopted the most radical views, calling for the imposition of Sharia law wherever possible.

The Blind Sheikh saw America, Israel, and secular Arab governments as his main enemies, and called for the overthrow of all of them. Nothing the United States did on the behalf of Muslims anywhere held any water for him. Mubarak, and Sadat before him were mere puppets of America. As for Israel, well, "Zionist" conspiracies were everywhere.

The Blind Sheikh's entire history is long and complicated, but suffice it to say that he developed ties to seemingly every radical and terrorist group in Egypt. He even led fundraising tours for MAK, or Mektab al-Khidmat, the organization from which al-Qaeda would grow.

While in Egypt he became the spiritual leader of an organization called Gama'at al-Islamia, or simply the Islamic Group. Formed in 1973, it is considered an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is closely tied to al-Qaeda. Their original motivation was to overthrow the secular government of Egypt, but as their ties and size grew, they "branched out" into full-fledged jihad against the West as well.

The Blind Sheikh's method was to issue fiery denunciations of, say the government of Egypt, backed by the relevant Islamic scholarship, but stop short of calling for outright violence. He simply let his followers figure out what he meant. Imprisoned for a time in Egypt, amazingly enough he beat the charges in court by simply quoting Islamic law to the effect that it was every Muslim's duty to engage in jihad against anything anti-Islamic. Since Sadat's government was openly secular, the court was forced to admit that Rahman was right.

He entered the United States on a tourist visa in 1990, this despite his name being on our terrorist watch list. Deciding to stay here, his lawyers successfully fought off deportation orders. He brought his organization with him, and, while continuing to issue orders to his followers in Egypt, also started to pursue jihad against the United States.

The result was the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Worse than that, his organization was working toward bombing five New York City landmarks: the United Nations building, an FBI office, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge. It was for this conspiracy, as well as the World Trade Center attacks, for which he and his co-defendants were convicted.

Willful Blindness

On Nov 5, 1990, Rabbi Meir David Kahane was shot and killed by El Sayyid Nosair after giving a speech in Manhattan. A subsequent search of Nosair's apartment revealed what would seem to be a treasure a trove of documents. Box after box of notebooks, assassination manuals, handwritten notes, and jihadi literature was removed. Amazingly, the authorities ignored all of it. They had convinced themselves that Nosair was a loner, and no further investigation was required.

It was an act of willful blindness. The reality was that Nosair was part of a jihadist conspiracy led by the Blind Sheikh.

The Informant

Emad Salem, a former Egyptian army officer living in the United States, had infiltrated the Blind Sheikh's organization for the best of motives; he believed that jihadists had perverted the religion and he wanted them exposed and convicted. His undercover activities started in 1991. He'd even met Rahman on several occasions, and had so thoroughly convinced him that he, too, was a jihadist that the conspirators had asked him not only to design their bombs but to help build them also.

Therein lie the problem. The JTTF did not want its informant actually building bombs. "Imagine the liability," they said, if Salem engaged in bomb building, and then the jihadists escaped the FBI's surveillance and were successful in exploding their bombs. After all, even the FBI does not have magical powers, but rather limited resources, and such a thing was eminently possible. Thus the decision to withdraw Salem from the jihadist organization altogether.

In retrospect it was clearly the wrong decision, but given the attitudes at the time, an understandable one.

What outraged McCarthy is not just that the JTTF ordered Salem off the case, but that they dropped the investigation altogether. As he points out, they still could have conducted surveillance and used other investigative techniques.

After the World Trade Center bombing, Salem was allowed to re-infiltrate the terrorist organization. He was so successful in collecting evidence that long story short, eventually the Blind Sheikh and his fellow jihadists were all arrested.

A "Perverted Islam"?

In planning his strategy for prosecuting the Blind Sheikh (as McCarthy calls him throughout the book), McCarthy realized that he would have to present a clear motive to the jury. Jurors, he explains, are hesitant to convict on forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony alone. They want to know why the accused did what he or she did. Without a convincing motive, jurors will tend towards giving the accused the benefit of the doubt.

It was clear that the Blind Sheikh was motivated by jihad. For years he had railed against the secular Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak, and ever since moving to the United States had taken up the cause against us here.

The question to McCarthy was not how to present this to the jury, for that was easy. The danger was how he would cross-examine the Blind Sheikh should he take the stand. He knew he couldn't engage in a wide-ranging debate about Islam with the Blind Sheikh, for the latter was a world renowned scholar on the subject. Rather, he would try to trip him up on a few points of Islamic theology, showing that the Blind Sheikh had twisted the true, peaceful, nature of Islam into something violent and hateful. After all, we've all been assured by "moderates" that Islam is a religion of peace.

But as he studied Islam, he came to realize that it was the Blind Sheikh who had the better understanding of Islam. McCarthy concluded that "Islam is a dangerous creed" that threatens Western values. The way the religion is practiced today, it's hard to disagree.

As it was, the Blind Sheikh never took the stand, so no cross examination occurred. But if it had, McCarthy concluded, neither he nor anyone else would have been able to show that the Blind Sheikh had twisted Islam into something it wasn't.

The Pre-9/11 Mentality

Much of the book details the comedy of errors that our various government bureaucracies made in dealing with terrorist suspects in the 1980s and 90s. Time and again agencies such as the CIA, INS, and FBI didn't communicate with each other, so that while one would list a particular person as a terrorist suspect and flag him as "no entry" to the United States, the others would not get the message and the suspect would be granted a visa. Four times, for example, the Blind Sheikh applied for visas to enter the United States, and on only one occasion was he denied entry, this despite his history of radicalism if not outright support of terrorism.

Astoundingly, the situation did not improve even after the 1993 WTC bombings, when all of the bumbling was revealed. "We caught them; problem solved." was the prevailing attitude. The public perception was that we were on top of our game and no fundamental changes need be made.

Islam and Terror

At some point during the investigation, it became clear to McCarthy that there was nothing "more elemental to Islamic terrorism than the radical Muslim ideology that fuels it." In order to prove motive it simply had to be addressed. From a legal standpoint it was more important to show that a criminal act affected interstate commerce, for example, than to show that a Salafitst interpretation of Islam was behind it all.

The root of modern Islamic terror, and the primary influence on The Blind Sheikh, can be found in the 13th and 14th centuries, most particularly in the writings of Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymayyah (1263-1328). As also explained by Walid Phares in Future Jihad, Ibn Taymayyan (spellings vary), concluded that the reason that the reason the Mongols had been able to sack Baghdad itself and end the Abbasid dynasty in 1258 was that Muslims had ceased to properly follow the dictates of Allah. The solution, then, was to purify Islam and eliminate or purge it of those who in his opinion were not practicing the religion properly.

To carry this out he developed the doctrine of the takfir, which is essentially the Muslim equivalent of the inquisition. This would later develop into the Salafist movement which would in turn spawn Wahhabism, which in turn spawned al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Ibn Taymayyah led what was essentially a "back to the Dark Ages" movement. Gone was enlightened or "progressive" thought. While Europe would go from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and Enlightenment a few centuries later, the Muslim world did just the opposite. Taymayyah's ideas have dominated radical thinking ever since.

Central to Salafist/Takfiri thinking is the concept of the jihad. Some Westerners have attempted to distinguish between a "greater" and "lesser" Jihad, seeing the first as defensive, or good, and the second as offensive, or bad. The "lesser" jihad, in this thinking, is a vestige of the old days, and is no more. The current, "greater" jihad, is peaceful and used strictly for defensive purposes.

Unfortunately, the idea of a greater and lesser jihad is about as accurate as the portrayal of honor among the Corleone family in the Godfather series. It's good entertainment, but with little or no basis in reality. Even if jihad is strictly defensive, the radicals have been able to twist any and all circumstances into "defense of the faith." This even to the point where resisting the spread of Islam is said to be an attack on the faith and requiring a "defensive" jihad.

Others have tried to portray jihad as a "peaceful inner struggle" one has with oneself in order to purify oneself for God. As with the idea of a "greater" and "lesser" jihad, this is a notion mostly held by Westerners and some Muslims who live in the West. It is not held by many Islamic scholars.

The reality is that jihad is the central tenant that drives Islamic terrorists, and its goal is the worldwide imposition of Islamic law. Issues such as the Palestianian-Israeli conflict are tangential.

The other major influence on the Blind Sheikh was Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of modern jihadist thinking and the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood until his death in 1966. Qutb's focus was on replacing secular Arab governments with Islamic ones, which would be governed by Sharia law. As an Egyptian, his main focus was on Gamal Abdul Nasser. After Nasser died in 1970, the Blind Sheikh took up the cause of overthrowing first Anwar Sadat, and then Hosni Mubarak.

Moderate, progressive, Muslims want the entire concept of jihad to just go away. As McCarthy found out while preparing his cross examination of the Blind Sheikh, they have mostly proven themselves unable to debate with the scholars, virtually all of whom see violent jihad as part of the religion.

What attracts followers is the ideology of radical Islam. What keeps them there is success, and what drives them away is lack of success. It's the "strong horse/weak horse" thing, and so each victory fills their ranks, whereby each defeat depletes them. There are lots of fence-sitters who are watching closely.

Not that we should always expect the jihadists to tell us who they are. It has been said that "war is deceit," and the Blind Sheikh followed this to it's fullest. Interviewed by CNN's Bernard Shaw in 1992, he said that "I do not call people for any violence," a known lie even then as he was on record for calling for the murder of Egyptian officials. Caught gloating over his deception by an authorized Federal wiretap of his phone later that same day, Rahman not only admitted to the deception to an associate but found it hard to believe that some of his followers might not "get it."

Although it was clear to McCarthy and the JTTF that the Blind Sheikh and his fellow conspirators were guilty, there was some resistance to charging him at all. Some in the intelligence and foreign service communities thought that doing so would upset Muslims and make it harder for us around the world. They even said that it would be counterproductive; that it might provoke more attacks.

McCarthy rejects such reasoning. Terrorists, he says, thrive on weakness. As noted earlier, fence sitters look for the "strong horse," and join that side. Further, if they didn't prosecute, it would embolden the Blind Sheikh himself who would only order more terrorist attacks.

That he and his fellow conspirators were indited was due, McCarthy says, to the steely determination of two of his bosses; Mary Jo White and Janet Reno. White was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1993-2002, and Reno needs no introduction. Both were Clinton appointees. As much grief as Reno has received from those of us on the right, I was pleasantly surprised to see that she did good in this case. My hat is off to them both.

Lessons Learned

McCarthy's experience has caused him to reject a strict law-enforcement model for dealing with jihadists. For standard criminal cases, "the law is our noble, all-purpose abstraction." Time and again he makes sure the reader understands that he and his fellow prosecutors followed such things as discovery procedures to the letter of the law, even when they very much helped the defense.

A problem with the law-enforcement model is that it ignores Islam as the fuel for Islamic terrorism. Prosecutors, as explained above, tend to concentrate only on the technical aspects of proving that the suspect planted or designed the bomb because of the way the law is written. Further, prosecutors are generally not interested in bringing up the overall aim of the terrorists, rogue-state facilitation, or who covertly financed the entire operation. They just want to prove that so-in-so designed or planted the bomb, or recruited the people to do it.

Traditional criminals may want to murder, but only individuals or small groups. They want to steal money or items. They do not want to overthrow any government, just work their evil around it. But terrorists, especially those of the Islamic variety, want to kill large numbers of innocent civilians, and the more the better. They do want to overthrow our government and replace it with an Islamic one. Because the two have different motives and objectives, we cannot use the same means to go after both. It is especially problematic to use standard legal means to pursue terrorism outside of the United States.

The reality is that we are not dealing with a small band of crazies who sometimes hide out in the wilds of Afghanistan or Pakistan. We face hundreds of thousands of jihadists (of one level of commitment or another) around the world.

Further, the means used to identify terrorists on this scale is necessarily different than what is used to gather evidence against criminals. While wiretaps are secret, they are revealed during discovery. We use national intelligence means to gather evidence against terrorists, and we simply cannot reveal "sources and methods" to the public.

Lastly, trials with their associated appeals take years to complete, cost tens of millions of dollars, and end up convicting relatively few people. Given the number of jihadists, it is simply not feasible to try them in criminal courts.

In the end, McCarthy says that it is Islam itself that must be confronted. Here too he and I agree. Far from a "hijacked" religion that is really about peace, Islam as it is and has been practiced for far too long incorporates many disturbing elements and beliefs. These can be changed, just as Martin Luther and John Calvin changed Christianity, but if will never happen if we remain wedded to political correctness.

As McCarthy says at the end; "We can open our eyes and see it. Or not."

Video Interviews of Andrew McCarthy on National Reivew: "Law & Jihad"
Chapter 1 of 5
Chapter 2 of 5
Chapter 3 of 5
Chapter 4 of 5
Chapter 5 of 5

Update

After rewatching the interviews I realize I didn't do justice to McCarthy's recommendations at the end of his book. The terrorists at Guantanamo are neither criminals nor enemy soldiers as properly understood. Therefore, they are due neither the protections of our constitution nor those of the Geneva Conventions (details on the latter here). As such, they fall into a never-never world where the traditional means to deal with them don't apply.

One of McCarthy's suggestions to help resolve this is to establish a National Security Court. President Bush should have established a board of advisers to help set this up immediately after 9-11, but better late than never. The idea is to take the best of both criminal and military court system. The benefit of the military justice system is that it better allows us to protect national intelligence. On the other side, the criminal justice system works much better in that federal judges do a better job of moving cases along to resolution. When the military is fighting a war court cases will by definition be on the back burner (and I would say there's probably a conflict of interest) so the federal court system can better handle the load and move cases forward.

That's the ultra short version. Buy the book and learn the rest.

Posted by Tom at 8:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 20, 2008

Book Review - Surrender is Not an Option

William F. Buckley Jr. once called Jeane Kirkpatrick "St. Jeane" for her work at the United Nations during the Reagan Administration. To those of us on the right who remember the odious Andrew Young as ambassador to the UN under Jimmy Carter, "St. Jeane" was a godsend. Instead of apologizing for our country as Young so often did, she put the dictators of the world on defense and forthrightly stated our case.

To conservatives, John Bolton is a sort of latter-day Jeane Kirkpatrick. To liberals, he is a loud-mouth "ugly American" who is brash and arrogant. Readers of this blog well know that I am in the former camp.

Bolton may not have had to clean up the mess of Young and the Carter Administration, but he had his work cut out for him nonetheless. The UN is corrupt, and at best useless and at worst a positive harm to US and Western values. It a swamp of kelptocrats whose purpose in life is to draw a salary and prevent Western values from taking hold in other regions of the world. Process, not progress, is the watchword of the day.

John Bolton made his mark when he got a recess appointment as Permanent US Representative to the UN, serving from August 2005 until December 2006. His book, Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations, is mostly about his experience at that institution.

Bolton attended Yale University, graduating summa cum laude, and made his mark by standing up for conservative values in the face of much opposition. On "Class Day", which was just before graduation, he addressed the assembled parents and students with a few remarks. For his efforts he was heckled by the leftists, who could not stand any dissent. "A typical example of liberal 'tolerance'" he dryly remarks. In addition to his B.A. Bolton earned a J.D. from Yale.

His early career, from 1974 through 1999, was mostly spent in private legal practice, though with stints in the Reagan and first Bush Administrations in a variety of positions, perhaps the most important of which as serving as Assistant Attorney General from 1985 to 1989.

IN 1975 the United Nations General Assembly passed it's infamous Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. Repeal of this odious measure became the test by which Israel and many pro-Israel groups in the US would measure the UN.

At the State Department

During President George W. Bush's first term Bolton served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Among other things, he was influential in establishing the Proliferation Security Initiative(PSI), whose purpose it was to interdict WMD shipments around the world. Hardly a unilateral effort, it started out with eleven member states and has grown to 75 countries today. What made the PSI effective was that it was "an activity not an organization", while the UN was just the opposite.

His "happiest moment at State was personally "unsigning" the Rome Statue that created the International Criminal Court (ICC)" ICC advocates contend that it simply provides a framework for trying "crimes against humanity" where there was no other judicial system that could do the work. Bolton saw it as something that would be exploited by those with an anti-American agenda to go after American politicians and military leaders. Typically the State Department was against the "unsigning", because their main (seemingly only) concern was that our action would make others unhappy. Bolton, on the other hand, only considered the well-being of the United States, and the rest of the world could go fly a kite if they didn't like it.

Bolton also thwarted attempts by elements at the UN to sneak in "global gun control" provisions which would have superseded our Second Amendment. Many attendees of the UN Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons had a hidden agenda, which Bolton smoked out and shot down.

The "catechism" of what Bolton calls the "Risen Bureaucracy" was that "North Korea(DPRK) can always be talked out of its nuclear weapons program." As it is, his conclusion after years of effort is that the DPRK "will never give up nuclear weapons voluntarily" but "often promises to do so," and those promises fool many people.

Among the players in the administration, Rice was always "maneuvering for position," and it was to know her true thoughts. Richard Armitage comes across poorly. Powell comes across well, and Nick Burns so so.

Appointment to the United Nations

As is well known Bolton's appointment to become ambassador to the United Nations generated much opposition in the Senate. Bolton took the entire exercise in stride, though, never seeming to become upset or bitter about how it turned out. His persona, in fact, seems to relish opposition. Of the senators who opposed him, Christopher Dodd is probably the biggest villain.

One of the charges against him was that he tried to pressure an intelligence analyst named Christian Westerman. While I have neither the time nor the inclination to investigage this story elsewhere, Bolton makes a persuasive case in the book that the charge was a fabrication.

The other charge was more personal, that he wasn't a nice person. My take is that Bolton is more just blunt, and won a lot of bureaucratic battles, the result being that several people used his confirmation battle to settle personal scores.

In the end he was not confirmed by the Senate, so President Bush gave him a "recess appointment", whereby he was made interim Permanent US Representative, which lasted from August 2005 to December 2006.

At the United Nations

Revelations about what became known as the Oil for Food scandal were hitting in full force as Bolton took up residence at Turtle Bay. Paul Volker, formerly chairman of the Federal Reserve, made his report, which was highly critical of much of the UN bureaucracy involved in oversight of the program. Although the report made waves (tsumanis, really), in the United States, the UN leadership made sure that the report went nowhere and was buried without a trace. Among other incidents this confirmed Bolton's view that the UN needed a major overhaul.

Much of his tenure there, then, was dedicated to reforming the UN. Secretary General Kofi Annan would pretend to go along, but in the end always stymied any attempt at real reform, preferring to move the deck chairs around a bit. The other force preventing reform was simply that many nations see the UN as a means to soak the richer nations of money, and the last thing they wanted was an organization that spotlighted their corruption and human rights abuses.

As such, one of Bolton's goals was to replace the UN's discredited Human Rights Commission with a newly designed "Human Rights Council". Rules for membership would be changed so as to keep the worst abusers off the council. With the old commission, the worst of the human rights abusers tried their hardest to get on the commission, the better which to prevent investigations into their own abuses, and to retarget the commission's energies toward their real enemy - Israel. Unfortunately, in the end the HRC is no better than the old commission. The abusers won.

One characteristic of the UN was it's focus on process over progress, or substance. As long as a peacekeeping operation reported back to the Security Council, everyone (except the United States) was happy. Heaven forbid anyone should ask whether the peacekeeping operation was making a difference, or that the diplomats were making any progress in resolving the conflict.

Another of Bolton's initiatives involved the DPRK. Since the Six-Party talks weren't going anywhere, he wanted to use the Security Council to force (diplomatically, of course) the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons. Japan was to prove a strong ally in our efforts there. In the end, the deal achieved in February 2007 was "radically incomplete." It contained too many flaws, and represented the triumph of the "permanent government" of go-along-get-along bureaucrats. As mentioned earlier, neither talk nor incentives will persuade the DPRK to give up their nuclear weapons. In the end, only a collapse of the north and reunification will resolve the situation on the Korean peninsula.

Throughout his tenure, Bolton attempted to bring the issue of Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons to the Security Council for serious sanctions, but to no avail. The EU-3 (UK, France, Germany), insisted that they could handle Iran through negotiations, believing that they could talk Iran out of pursuing nuclear weapons. Despite years of effort, no real progress was ever made. Instead, Iran used the time to perfect the fuel cycle and most likely work on bomb design. Bolton concludes, accurately I think, that the result is that we are on the "road to the Nuclear Holocaust."

The UN spends a lot of time, energy, and money on peacekeeping operations. Much of its efforts are focused on Africa, which is logical considering the troubles on that continent. The problem is that there is little desire to achieve actual results, the objective more being to simply "show concern," easy to do when the West is doing most of the financing. Even asking whether a given UN action or operation is helping or hurting the situation is "politically incorrect."

The Middle East, specifically the Israel-Palestine conflict, also consumes much time. Anti-Israel bias at the UN is pervasive. The double standards applied to Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon were breathtaking. Further, the war illustrated what is perhaps the biggest moral failure of the UN; its refusal to recognize that in most wars or conflicts both sides are not equally guilty, but rather most of the time one side is more in the right. But few at the UN were willing to see anything wrong with groups such as Hezbollah.

Lessons Learned

Feelers were sent out to key Senators to see if they may have changed their minds about Bolton at the end of his recess appointment in December of 2006, but to no avail. Deciding not to take another position in the Administration, Bolton retired from public service.

Bolton concludes that the EU will avoid confronting problems (such as Iran) and will "kick the can down the road" through endless negotiations. Process has been substituted for progress.

The UN badly needs reform, not so that "the US can get what it wants," as our critics (foreign and domestic) say, but rather so that it, too, can actually work towards solving problems rather than allow them to go on forever as long as there is a "process."

However, Bolton is not one who wants to withdraw from the UN. He sees it as useful, but warns that we must avoid "the trap of channeling all or most of our efforts through the UN system." We should look to and use other institutions, for example NATO and the OAS, when they suit our needs.

Another problem is our own State Department. Too many there see their role as pushing their own agendas rather than that of the president.

Unlike some who only make their true feelings known years afterward in a memoir, Bolton made his views known throughout his career. A fighter like Jeane Kirkpatrick two decades before him, he was an unabashed champion of the United States and Western values and didn't put up with any nonsense from anyone. While this no doubt earned him some enemies, it also earned him, and our country, much needed respect. It is a shame that the Senate did not have the wisdom to confirm him as ambassador.

The Book

Much of the book is a blow-by-blow account of the details of each of the subjects outlined above, as well as many more. Although rich in detail, it gets to the point while reading where I found myself skipping pages. While invaluable for the researcher, at times the detail can be a bit much for the general reader.

If you are of the type that believes that the UN is mostly corrupt, does as much harm as good, and should be hit over the head with a 2x4, then you will like this book. If you are of the sort who thinks that the US has too much power, uses it too often, and needs to be "reigned in," you probably don't like Bolton anyway so will not like this book.

Posted by Tom at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 28, 2008

All Creatures Great and Small

All Things Bright and Beautiful,
All Creatures Great and Small,
All Things Wise and Wonderful,
The Lord God Made Them All

I only just looked up that poem, and discovered it was written by one Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895). Little did he know that each of those first four lines of a much longer poem would become book titles for one of the most successful authors of the late twentieth century.

Under the nom de plume James Herriot, James Alfred Wight published a series of books in the 1970s detailing his life as a country Veterinarian in Scotland in the 1930s and 40s.. The first was actually All Creatures Great and Small, the second All Things Bright and Beautiful, and the third and fourth from the last two lines of the poem. The books were eventually adapted into a television series, which I believe ran on the Arts and Entertainment channel. There are a few other Herriot books also, but these four are the most popular.

At the time I was in middle and high school, and I remember my mom talking about how much she enjoyed his books. For the life of me I couldn't understand how the story of a country Vet could be remotely interesting. Little did I know how much in later life I would enjoy them. At various points in my life I've picked up and read all four. I watched the series when it was on TV, and it was one of the few boom-to-TV transitions that worked as it captured the books perfectly.

I was reminded of the books recently when my cat Athena died. She was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth so there was really no choice but for me to have her put to sleep. Almost exactly 15 years ago I had gotten her with her brother, whom I named Zeus. He died in a mysterious accident two years later (I think he hit his head while playing and broke his neck or something. I was in the next room, heard a sound I didn't like and went in to see him immediately but he was already dead). Not too long after I got another cat, an orange tabby whom I named Bengal (Bengal Tiger...). He died two years of kidney failure.

Here are Athena and Bengal at their best:

So after each of my cats have died I've gone back and reread one or more of James Herriot books. It's what I do for therapy, I suppose. Anyway it works.

So what makes James Herriot books so special?

There are several things that make the books, and TV series, so good. One is simply the superb writing and storytelling. Much of it is also characterization. The personality quirks of his partners and the local Darrowby farmers make for great entertainment. I have come to understand that the books are only partially autobiographical, and he employed some "literary license" in his stories. In other words, some of it is partially fiction. No matter, for it is all based on true experiences.

The books are written as a series of short episodes, each taking up a chapter or two of maybe 10-20 pages. They are absolutely laugh out loud funny. Herriot and his partners are always getting themselves into impossible situations. It's also stories of successes and failures, of many animals that he saves, but some he cannot. While most of it is farm work, there are stories of cats and dogs. More than the animals themselves, the farmers and pet owners are often the real subject of each episode.

The books are usually described as "heatwarming" in the reviews, and they are that. Though funny and historically informative, they are mainly the stories of people and their everyday life as regard their animals.

The first two books are five-star, with All Things Wise and Wonderful not far behind. The Lord God Made Them All is ok, and worth reading to round out the series, but is not as good as the first three. It's that time in the late 1930s and early 40s, during the great changes in medicine and agriculture, that make for the best reading.

Historically the first two books take place in 1938-39, when both human and animal medicine was in the midst of a great revolution. When Herriot starts practicing medicine, antibiotics were unknown, and their medicines were of the "Professor Smith's Universal Cow Medicine" variety. From All Creatures Great and Small, when Herriot has just arrived at Darrowby and with his new boss (later partner) Siegfried Farnon are surveying the dispensary, with all of it's bottles and tins of old-time medicine:

The two of us stood gazing at the gleaming rows without any idea that it was all nearly all useless and that the days of the old medicines were nearly over. Soon they would be hustled into oblivion by the headlong rush of the new discoveries and they would never return.

It is in the second book, All Things Bright and Beautiful, when antibiotics such as penicillin and the sulfonamides were introduced. It is perhaps hard today, when we take such things for granted, the effect that the new "wonder drugs" had. For the first time doctors and vets had medicines that actually worked.

Another theme is that for the first time veterinarians were treating pets on a regular basis as well as farm animals. Before this time the profession was centered around livestock and horses. Again, from All Creatures Great and Small

"Not much small animal work in this district." Farnon smoothed the table with his palm. "but I'm trying to encourage it. It makes a pleasant change from lying on your belly in a cow house. The thing is, we've got to do the job right. The old castor oil and prussic acid doctrine is no good at all. You probably know that a lot of the old hands won't look at a dog or a cat, but the profession has got to change its ideas."

And indeed in the second book Herriot takes several tough cases to a vet in a nearby town who - gasp - only did small animal work. Two of the reasons for the introduction of "small animal"(read "pets") work was the elimination of the plow horse as the mainstay of the veterinary profession and thus the need to find additional sources of revinue, and two, with the rise of a middle class people had the time and money to have pets and pay vets to minister to them.

There's much else, of course. World War II intervenes and all three take time out for military service. Herriot gets married and has children. Wikipedia and an "All Things James Herriot" website have much more if you want the full background.

But mostly, though, if you've never read James Herriot or seen the series on TV you just need to go out and buy the books. Pick one or more up from the library if you're still unsure whether you'll like them. But do yourself a favor and do get one. I promise you won't regret it.

I'll also get back to blogging now on a more regular basis.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 25, 2008

Book Review - Liberal Fascism

At various points in my life I've read fairly extensively about Communism and Nazism. As a good Cold Warrior, I wanted to know as much as possible about the Soviet threat, as well as communist infiltration of the West. World War II was of great interest, and I studied not only the battles and weaponry but the Nazi leadership, ideology, and history as well.

The twentieth century being in large part a great struggle between democracy and Orwellian totalitarianism, this seemed to me natural. Today I read about Jihadism, and try to understand our enemy and their infiltration of the West. I think my book reviews show this pretty clearly.

But fascism was something that I never read much about. Part of this, I think, was that Mussolini's Italy was such a non-factor in World War II. Other fascist governments, such as Franco's Spain or Peronist Argentina, were not expansionist and relatively minor violators of human rights (relative I stress compared to what Hitler or Stalin wrought). As such I never studied them or fascist ideology. I had some vague notion that fascism was militarism coupled with extreme nationalism, but that was about it.

A few years ago I read a comment by Jonah Goldberg on National Review's The Corner blog that he was working on a book about fascism, and I thought "what a waste of time. We're in a war against radical Islam and he's investigating fascism? That can't be relevant to anything."

Was I ever wrong. The book that resulted from his years of research, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, is one of the most important books I've read about modern American liberalism, and its related twin, progressivism.

The book is now on many best seller lists, and Goldberg has a special Liberal Fascism Blog over at NRO where he answers readers questions and post news stories relevant to his thesis. Predictably, the book has thrown the left into a fit of rage, to the extent where Amazon had to delete several thousand "you suck" type "book reviews." The Amazon site was even hacked a few times and the photo of the book cover changed.

Unlike with most, the cover to this book is important. The fascism that Goldberg sees creeping up on us is not of the "hard" sort of a Mussolini or Hitler. Rather, it is the "soft" type of a Hillary Clinton.

The cartoon description of fascism which most people hold consists of two parts; 1) Extreme nationalism and 2) Militarization. While these are or can be aspects of fascism neither are central to it, at least in the way that most people think.

Book Objective and Thesis

Goldberg goes to some length to explain that no, he is not saying that all liberals are fascists or that being in favor of universal health-care coverage means that you are a fascist. Rather, his objective is to replace the cartoon image of fascism with a more historically based one, and in so doing demonstrate that it is modern liberalism, not modern conservatism that has its roots in fascism. More precisely, modern liberalism grew out of the progressive movement of the early twentieth-century, and progressivism in turn has it's roots in fascism and indeed in many cases was ideologically allied with it. Liberal fascism is different, Goldberg says, for what should be the obvious reason that modern liberals don't want to eliminate voting and line opponents up against the wall to be shot. This does not mean, however, that the ideological underpinnings are different.

Rather than go on and risk getting it wrong I think I'll just quote Goldberg himself:

In this book I have argued that modern liberalism is the offspring of twentieth-century progressivism, which in turn shares intellectual roots with European fascism. I have further argued that fascism was an international movement, or happening, expressing itself differently in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture. In Europe this communitarian impulse expressed itself in political movements that were nationalist, racist, militarist, and expansionist. In the united States the movement known elsewhere as fascism or Nazism took the form of progressivism - a softer form of totalitarianism that, while still nationalistic, and militarist in its crusading forms and outlook, was more in keeping with American culture. It was, in short, a kind of liberal fascism.

The term "liberal fascism" comes from a speech by H.G. Wells at Oxford University in 1932. He used it the term to describe what he called a need for a "phoenix rebirth of liberalism." Although known today as the science fiction writer who produced such works as "War of the Worlds", back then he was also known as a prominent progressive thinker. Today we see the term "fascism" as unreservedly evil, and the polar opposite of "liberal." What may surprise readers today is that his joining of the two - liberal and fascist - surprised no one in the audience, and was in fact well received.

Modern American liberalism is totalitarian but in a "smiley face" way, not like that of the twentieth century Orwellian nightmares; Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. By "totalitarian" Goldberg means that it wishes to control every aspect of our lives; from the food we eat to the light bulbs we can buy to the very words that are deemed acceptable (try using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun and see what happens).

When liberals promote these totalitarian goals they claim that they are not ideologically driven, but are rather "listening to the experts", or seeking to overcome the left-right divide with a "Third Way".

Goldberg is not saying that simply caring about the environment or physical fitness makes you a liberal fascist. What makes you a liberal fascist is insisting that everybody else care too, or forcing everyone else to eat healthy and live a healthy lifestyle and using the power of the state to do it. The reason usually given is that it's all "for your own good," or "we all pay for it".

From here out the headings are the titles of the book's chapters.

Benito Mussolini: The Father of Fascism

The ultimate roots of fascism can be found in the Romantic nationalism of the eighteenth century, which culminated in the French Revolution. Jean Jacques Rousseau was the father of fascism and Maximilian Robespierre its executioner.

However, we all associate fascism with the Il Duce himself; Benito Mussolini. What may surprise people - it certainly surprised me - was his Fascist party's political platform. Here is some of it:

• Lowering the minimum voting age to eighteen, the minimum age for representatives to twenty-five, and universal suffrage, including for women.
• "The abolition of the Senate and the creation of a national technical council on intellectual and manual labor, industry, commerce, and labor."
• End of the draft.
• Repeal of titles of nobility.
• "A foreign policy aimed at expanding Italy's will and power in opposition to all foreign imperialism"
• The prompt enactment of a state law sanctioning a legal workday of eight actual hours of work for all workers.
• A minimum wage.
• A creation of various government bodies run by workers representatives.
• The creation of various government bodies run by workers' representatives.
• Reform of the old-age and pension system and the establishment of age limits for hazardous work.
• Forcing landowners to cultivate their lands or have them expropriated and given to veterans and farmers' cooperatives.
• The obligation of the state to build "rigidly secular" schools for the raising of "the proletariat's moral and cultural condition."
• "A large progressive tax on capital that would amount to a one-time partial expropriation of all riches.
• "The seizure of all goods belonging to religious congregations and the abolition of all episcopal revinues."
• The "review" of all military contracts and the "sequestration" of 85% of all war profits."
• The nationalization of all arms and explosives industries.

Amazing. When you just see this he seems like a pretty good guy.

What's important to understand is that these weren't just words to Mussolini; he meant it. He didn't just use this platform as a trick to get into power, because he implemented as much of it as he could once he was in power. None of this is to excuse him, it's just a statement of fact.

Mussolini started as a socialist and became a populist. "Populism" is not really right-wing, it's more a phenomenon of the left. Populism is a "power to the people" ideology, and is usually a force on the left.

Mussolini made a big deal about "getting beyond labels" and seeking a "third way" between left and right. He promoted himself as a pragmatist who "made the trains run on time." To be sure, he governed as a dictator. But he was no Hitler or Stalin in his level of brutality. He won reelection in 1924 in what were reasonably fair elections, and his granting of womans suffrage gained him applause from no less a source than The New York Times.

Mussolini defined fascism as "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State." Mussolini himself coined the word "totalitarianism" to describe his system, and it's important to note that he meant it in a benevolent manner, as he saw his system as a humane one in which everyone was taken care of.

When Mussolini finally did write out his economic theories in the early 1930s, they looked more like standard socialism than anything else. His goal was to either nationalize industry or regulate it into submission. This was called "corporatism", but it hardly meant that he was in league with big business. Far from it, he was their enemy.

Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left

As with Mussolini's Fascists, Hitler's Nazis tried to transcend left-right labeling and promoted themselves as representing a "Third Way." This said, they campaigned as socialists, stealing issues from the communists because they were trying to appeal to the same worker base. The Nazis chose red as the background for their flag precisely because it was the color the communists used.

What made National Socialism - Nazism - different than other left-wing movements was it's adherence to what we today would call identity politics. With the Nazis it was Aryan supremacy, today it is the ethnic identity of minority groups. This is today something associated with the political left. Again, Goldberg stresses that this does not make modern-day identity groups neo-Nazis. What it does say is that the roots of progressive identity politics go back to the Nazis.

Just because the Nazis were anti-Semites does not make them right-wing, as antisemitism is hardly a phenomenon reserved for the right. Stalin and Karl Marx were a vicious anti-Semites, while Mussolini protected the Jews as long as he could against Hitlers desire to get at them.

Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism

Mussolini wasn't the world's first fascist dictator; that honor goes to Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States 1912-1920. If this sounds over-the-top, consider that Wilson arrested or jailed more political dissidents than did Mussolini during his first ten years in power. Wilson's ministry of propaganda was better than Mussolini's. Wilson sent more goons to beat up and harass opponents than did Mussolini (again, during the latter's rule in the 1920s. Mussolini got worse in the 1930s).

The "goons" who carried out Wilson's orders called themselves progressives. Their agenda consisted of eugenics (racial purity and weeding out the unfit), social Darwinism, and imperialism (real imperialism, not the cartoon sort ascribed to President Bush today). They worshiped the State and political power, didn't like organized religion, and looked down on individualism. They thought the U.S. Constitution was outdated and in need of change because it's system of checks and balances impeded quick action.

In short, Woodrow Wilson and the progressive movement of the time had all the bad attributes and more that the left assigns to President Bush and the neocons today.

Theodore Roosevelt also exhibited fascist traits. Much of his appeal was based on a cult of personality. Roosevelt's America would be more like the militarist and welfare state of Prussia than anything else.

Although his campaign slogan in 1916 was "he kept us out of war", when Wilson pushed Congress to declare war on the Central Powers in 1917 almost all progressives supported him. President Wilson then proceeded to set up what can only be described as a fascist police state. His ministry of propaganda, the Committee on Public Information, or CPI, was positively Orwellian in nature. The mission of the CPI was not simply to explain the rationale for war, but to "inflame the American public into "one white-hot mass" under the banner of "100 percent Americanism."" The CPI had offices around the country, and turned out an impressive number of pamphlets, posters, buttons and the like in eleven languages not including English. It hired a hundred thousand "four minute men" who went around the country giving four minute speeches promoting Wilson and the war effort.

In addition to the "four minute men", tens of thousands more were hired to knock on doors and ask residents to sign loyalty oaths, or pledges not to use a certain luxury good that was needed for the war effort. This effort extended down to children, who were asked to sign a pledge called "A Little American's Promise."

Worse than any of this was Wilson's Sedition Act, which banned "uttering, printing, writing, or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States Government or the military." What this translated into was that any criticism of the war effort was forbidden. As an example of how it was enforced, the Postmaster General was given the authority to refuse to deliver any publication he deemed seditious, and there was no appeal to his decision. At least seventy-five periodicals were effectively banned by his refusal to deliver them.

Wilson's Justice Department created the American Protective League to enforce the Sedition Act. APL officers had the authority to read their neighbor's mail and tap their neighbors phones, all without a warrant. It had a "vigilante patrol" whose mission was put a stop to "seditious street oratory" and to physically assault draft dodgers. The Palmer Raids, named after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, were part of all this.

It is estimated that some 175,000 Americans were arrested for some violation of the Sedition Act or failing to demonstrate appropriate patriotism. Many, though how many is not known exactly, went to jail.

In the end, of course, Wilson left office peacefully, so he was not a Mussolini or Hitler. But his administration was fascist nonetheless.

Franklin Roosevelt's Fascist New Deal

A lighter version of Wilsonian fascism occurred during the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the time of the Great Depression.

At the beginning of this review we noted H.G. Wells use of the term "Liberal Fascism" to describe his brand of socialism. Wells was an ardent admirer of FDR. The reason, of course, was that Wells saw Roosevelt as a liberal fascist.

As with Mussolini and Hitler, Roosevelt was obsessed with "the forgotten man". It wasn't a cynical act for any of them. All were genuinely concerned with the economic well being of the lower-middle classes. And indeed the economy prospered under Hitler. Again none of this is to excuse Hitler or Mussolini, it is just a statement of fact. Further, neither is it to insinuate that Roosevelt was no different than the two dictators. For all his flaws, Roosevelt, like Wilson, did respect the vote and the democratic process.

Many European fascists saw Roosevelt as a kindred spirit. Both Mussolini and Hitler saw their programmes as similar to Roosevelt's New Deal. Mussolini gave a good review of Roosevelt's book Looking Forward. The German press praised FDR and his New Deal.

A core tenant of fascism is the desire to militarize society whether there is an external war to fight or not. The whole point, in fact, of fascism is to mobilize. What is important to understand, though, is that it is society that is being mobilized, not the military. The military is usually involved, but it's participation is not really central to fascism. It is the cartoon version of fascism discussed above that only sees the military aspect of fascism.

The progressives supported American entry into World War I not because they wanted to defeat Germany, but because they saw it as an opportunity to advance their domestic policy goals at home. They wanted to militarize society. It was William James who came up with the term "moral equivalent of war" to justify mobilization for one cause or another.

The New Deal was all about the militarization of society. The premier New Deal project, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had actually been started during World War I. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was modeled on Wilson's War Industries Board. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which constructed many city, state, and national parks, was the most explicitly fascist of all the programs. It's members wore uniforms and was rationalized as a program to "beef up the physical and moral fiber of an embryonic new army" (Goldberg's words).

Worse than the CCC was the NRA mentioned above. it was led by General Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, and man who questioned the patriotism of his critics in a manner that would have made Joe McCarthy blush. He continually referred to the NRA and it's mission in military terms, saying for example that "This is war - lethal and more menacing than any other crisis in our history." In fact, Johnson was an ardent admirer of Mussolini's fascist government.

The symbol of the NRA was the Blue Eagle. Usually depicted in textbooks as an innocent symbol that businesses put in their window to show that they went along with NRA guidelines("We do our Part" was the motto under the eagle), it was really the method by which Roosevelt and Johnson bullied businesses into joining. The NRA stuck it's tentacles into every aspect of daily life, or at least tried to. The Blue Eagle was used for propaganda in a way that Goldberg says is difficult to exaggerate, and indeed the whole thing was really more an exercise in state religion than economics. Heaven help any business that refused to sign up, because people were admonished by the government not to buy anything from businesses that didn't have the Blue Eagle in their window.

The bullying wasn't just verbal or economic; it often got quite physical. Johnson sent his goons to smash businesses that wouldn't sign up, and "G-Men" were used to spy on opponents. Goldberg says that "FDR used the post office to punish his enemies and lied repeatedly to maneuver the United States into war, and undermined Congress's war-making powers at several turns." The rationale was that as long as it was for the right cause the constitution didn't matter.

Goldberg is careful to note that despite the fascism in Wilson and Roosevelt's programs, at the end of the day they were not dictators. Neither sought to end elections, and neither cheated (at least not more than their opponents) to win. Theirs was a "nice" fascism.

The 1960s: Fascism Takes to the Streets

The New Left that arose during the 1960s and "took to the streets" had many characteristics of traditional fascism. It prided itself on it's call to unity, but "unity" is at best a morally neutral concept. The Mafia is "unified". Many of the calls to "direct action" were made without any concrete goals in mind, action itself being the objective.
The student groups that took over universities and ousted the faculty were using out and out fascist tactics.

While Nazism is evil, it does not follow that every Nazi was motivated by evil intent. Many Germans joined the Nazi party because they liked Hitler's economic populism, or thought that their country had been treated shabbily by the victors after World War I. But although one might say that Hitler's program had it's "good" parts, it obviously crossed the line into evil. As such, whatever the "good" parts of the New Left of the 1960s, much of it was outright fascist thuggery. '60s leaders such as Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dohrn and others were continually calling for more violence and more destruction, and would have set up an Orwellian totalitarian state if they could have.

The left does not understand that love of country does not by itself lead to fascism. Patriotism is not fascism. During the 1960s the left got the idea that displays of patriotism were fascist and that criticizing one's country was patriotic. Outright anti-Americanism became fashionable among the elite during this time.

From Kennedy's Myth to Johnson's Dream: Liberal Fascism and the Cult of the State

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson did more than anyone else to establish the federal government as a sort of "state religion." Liberals have used the myth of Kennedy ("Camelot" and all that) to promote this idea, especially the idea that if he had lived we would never have gotten bogged down in Vietnam. The purpose of this was to expand federal power into all aspects of life.

Kennedy, like FDR, turned everything into a "crisis", the better which to whip up popular sentiment so he could get his programs passed. This crisis mongering is classic fascist behavior (though again this alone does not make him a fascist). Kennedy even created "crisis teams" to deal with issues and short-circuit the bureaucracy. Biographer Ted Sorensen counted sixteen "crises" in Kennedy's first 8 months in office alone.

"The Kennedy presidency represented...the final evolution of progressivism into a full-blown religion and national cult of the state." It was a rule by elites ("supermen") who had the special answers to our problems ("gnosticism"), all presided over by a "great man in the mold of Wilson and the Roosevelts" (cult of personality).

Remember, the progressives did not push their liberal totalitarianism because of the world wars or the Great Depression, they were glad that they occurred in that they gave them the opportunity to implement their existing ideas.

It was in the 1920s that American progressives redefined the term "liberal". Previously, the term had meant something along the lines of "individual and economic liberty without state control." It was "freedom from a dictatorial state". Led by John Dewey, they changed this to "freedom from want, from poverty, lack of education" etc. This meant that now the state had to get involved, and the idea of the activist state was born.

Liberal Racism: The Eugenic Ghost in the Fascist Machine

Modern-day liberals claim that they have always occupied the high ground on matters of race. Would that they knew their own history. It was the progressives, fathers of modern liberalism, who were the strongest backers of eugenics, one of the most racist and scary programs of the twentieth century.

If you're not familiar, eugenics is the idea that "human stock" can be improved through controlled breeding, much like we treat cattle or crops. While this might not seem too harmful on the surface, in actuality it led to practices such as state-enforced sterilization of the mentally retarded, those with Down's Syndrome and the like. It also led to much racism, as many white progressives wanted to "control the lesser races."

What is amazing is that the progressive infatuation with eugenics has been almost completely erased from history. We are supposed to believe that on matters of race, liberals have always been the good guys and conservatives the bad guys. In reality, close to the opposite was the truth. The fact is that it was the left that promoted eugenics, and conservatives who opposed it.

Progressives supported eugenics because it was one of the means by which they wanted to achieve their "utopia", or at least a better society. They saw it as all quite scientific. This may seem odd today, but remember that since progressives saw nations as bodies, and problems within them as a disease. Excise the disease and you cure the body.

Progressives admired Hitler's eugenics program. This, too, has been conveniently forgotten. But the reality is that until the truth about how far Hitler intended to go sank in, his ideas looked pretty good to progressives. As with all else, Goldberg stresses that this does not put progressives in league with Hitler, or make them Nazis. No progressive favored mass extermination. But it is a fact that many progressives of the 1930s admired Hitler's program.

In the now notorious case of Beck v Bell, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes supported forced sterilization with his infamous justification that "three generations of imbeciles are enough." The lone dissenter on the bench was Pierce Butler, usually described as an "arch conservative." Goldberg points out that it was the reasoning in Beck v Bellthat "endures in the often unspoken rationale for abortion."

To be sure, just because so many if not most progressives fifty to a hundred years ago were racists doesn't mean that their liberal heirs are too. But it does mean that modern liberalism was built on it, something that liberals are loath to acknowledge.

Margaret Sanger, whose American Birth Control League became Planned Parenthood, was a terrible racist who wanted to use eugenics and abortion to reduce the black population and anyone else she deemed "unfit." She said this directly in her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization; "More children from the fit; less from the unfit - that is the chief issue of birth control... We want fewer and better children...and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict on us." The very stated purpose of her "Negro Project" was to use birth control to reduce the black population.

The mindset that promoted eugenics is that same one that supports abortion. Though the holocaust discredited eugenics, the idea behind it did not really disappear. "Family planning" is simply the term used today for what amounts to something very similar. Indeed, in a way Planned Parenthood is more eugenic that the old eugenicists, as abortion ends more black lives than heart disease, cancer, accidents, AIDS, and violent crime combined.

Liberal Fascist Economics

It is perhaps in the area of economics that fascism is the most misunderstood. In the left's cartoon version, fascism occurs when right-wing politicians conspire with big business to oppress "the little guy," or that European fascists were tools of big business. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, as Goldberg demonstrates, "in the left's eternal vigilance to fend off fascism, they have in fact created it, albeit with a friendly face."

The fact is that the more free the market, the less fascist, and the more regulated and close to the political center, the more fascist. The far left, at outright government ownership, is socialist. Remember; it was Hitler and Mussolini who promoted themselves by claiming that they were neither left nor right but represented a "Third way."

Both Mussolini and Hitler were supported by small donations, and not, for the most part, by money from big corporations. Both denounced big business and the wealthy time and again, Hitler most notably in Mein Kampf. Their political platforms stressed regulating business and taxing the wealthy to benefit the working middle class.

Fascism is when the state says to business "You may stay in business and own your factories. In the spirit of cooperation and unity, we will even guarantee you profits and a lack of serious competition. In exchange, we expect you to agree with - and help implement, - our political agenda." This was not only the deal that Hitler and Mussolini made with big business in their respective countries, but it was pretty much the one that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt imposed during the First World War and Great Depression as well. None of this can be called "right wing."

Indeed, as part of his New Deal FDR asked big business to write the very laws under which they would be regulated, and they happily obliged. In doing so they managed things so as to eliminate as much competition as possible through the simple expedient of making the laws so stringent that only the biggest of corporations could implement them. Thus, smaller competitors were regulated out of business.

Even more shocking, New Deal progressives studied Mussolini's corporatism, admiringly, in order to find things that they could apply here. The feelings were reciprocated across the Atlantic, with both Italian fascists and German Nazis praising Roosevelt and the New Deal.

"Fascism is the cult of unity, within all spheres and between all spheres." Therefore, as long as they followed the political goals of the regime they could keep their businesses.

it is forgotten today, but the Nazis were what we today would call "health freaks." Among their many campaigns were ones to reduce alcohol consumption by replacing beer with fruit drinks, fight smoking (before anyone else they saw the link between smoking and cancer) and promote organic foods.

In Nazi Germany, businesses proved their bona fides by being "good corporate citizens", not too different than what we have in the United States today. To be sure, what constituted being loyal differed considerably, but the philosophy is the same. In Germany it was firing Jews, in the United States today it is promoting "diversity" or "environmentalism."

Brave New Village: Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Liberal Fascism

Goldberg uses Hillary Clinton's 1996 book It Takes a Village to Raise a Child as the example par excellence of modern-day fascist thinking. It's very title, indeed, is about as fascist as you can get. If the motto of the Mussolini's fascism was "everything in the State, nothing outside the the State, then the implicit motto of It Takes a Village to Raise a Child is "everything in the village, nothing outside the village." The message is clear; your children belong to "everyone" which in the modern world means the state.

All this does not, he stresses, mean that Hillary is evil. Far from it, for hers is "nice fascism", all meant for good. That she means it for well, however, does not make it less fascist.

"Civil society" has traditionally meant free and open "independent associations of citizens who pursue their own interests and ambitions free from state interference or coercion" and "the way various groups, individuals, and families work for their own purposes, the result of which is to make the society healthily democratic." It consists of churches, labor unions, all those clubs and organizations that people form for their own purposes and as long as they are not outright criminal are outside the control of the state.

Hillary has a different view of civil society. To her it is a "term social scientists use to describe the way we work together for common purposes." This is factually incorrect and startlingly totalitarian. There are no truly free associations or clubs in Hillary's world, for everything in her "village" is managed or controlled by the state to achieve "common purposes."

Hillary's "politics of meaning" is therefore a totalitarian philosophy. Again, this is "nice totalitarianism", but totalitarianism nonetheless. Also important to note is that she claims that she is promoting a "Third Way" approach.

Hillary and her cohort Marian Wright Edelman justify everything by saying that it's "for the children." And it's not just that she wants to make their current situation better; to her the children are in a state of crisis. Indeed, to her childhood itself was a crisis. There is no better to erase the wall between government and the private sphere than to declare a crisis.

Using "the children" as a propaganda tool to advance their goals was a brilliant political stroke. For Hillary it was just an opening to a broader political agenda. To her, families are not private units. Indeed, she has said that "As adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn't really any such thing as someone else's child...For that reason, we cannot permit discussions of children and families to be subverted by political or ideological debate." It is indeed a favorite trick of the left to declare that one of their political goals is not in fact political, as anyone who has debated a liberal on the issue of "diversity" or "multiculturalism" has discovered.

Liberalism's entire "cult of the child" is similar, Goldberg says, to fascist thought. Children are controlled by their passions and feelings. Fascism is driven by will (see Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will). Our youth culture is driven by narcissism, so was fascism.

The New Age: We're All Fascists Now

When I was in high school in the 1970s I read both George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Both impressed me, but the former more than the latter, because I saw 1984 as a metaphor for the Cold War, which I saw as more relevant. Over the years I've reread each work once or twice, and recently have come to believe that while Orwell's work was more relevant for the twentieth century, Brave New World is the better warning for what we face today.

It was therefore flattering yet unsurprising to read that Goldberg has reached the exact same conclusion. The totalitarianism of a Hillary Clinton or Al Gore is not that of Hitler or Stalin, but it deprives us of our freedom nonetheless. Today's totalitarianism, or Liberal Fascist State, is one in which everyone is at least nominally happy. All of our needs are met, and indeed no Gestapo or KGB will be coming to break down our doors.

Environmental Fascism

Environmentalism, Goldberg says, is fascistic partially because of it's "crisis mechanism." Al Gore and others preach the gospel of global warming and insist that the world will come to an end if we do not take immediate action. Anyone who demurs is denounced and called a 'denier" or worse. He and others like him will brook no debate. Worse, they insist on all sorts of measures that would create a sort of "economic dictatorship" of just the type that progressives have always wanted.

Environmentalism in general, and the "global warming" movement in particular, are totalitarian. Everything is or can be said to be an environmental issue. The new worry is our "carbon footprint", and every human activity is said to emit carbon, and therefore is to be regulated.

Environmentalism is also quite totalitarian because everything falls under it's aegis. Nothing is private, or out of the reach of environmentalism, because they see every activity as influencing the environment, and thus worthy of regulation. From the food you eat, to the material your sofa is made of, to the light bulbs in your house, they want to regulate it all.

There are many parallels with modern environmentalism and Nazism. Part of the Nazi program was centered on what we today would call "environmentalism." Nazi thinkers were worried about the whales, nature preserves, and "sustainable forestry". They were very concerned about eating habits, and there was a virtual "cult of the organic" among Nazi leaders. Hitler was a vegetarianism and Himmler pushed for animal rights legislation.

Interestingly, the Nazis used the same rationale that modern environmentalists use; "the common good supersedes the private good." A Hitler Youth manual instructed that "food is not a private matter!" and that "you have the duty to be healthy!" Today we hear smoking and trans-fats bans justified with the "we'll all pay" line.

The Tempting of Conservatism

Although fascism is a leftist ideology, and most fascist traits today can be found on the left, the right is not immune. Goldberg identifies three areas in modern conservatism where strains of fascism can be found.

The first is "nostalgia" to the extent that it romanticizes the past into something it was not. This leads to trouble when conservatives try and translate "traditional values" into national programs. Goldberg only devotes one short paragraph to this, and I'm not entirely sure what he means. Based on years of reading his writing at National Review, I know he's not saying that conservatives should not champion their values in response to the "kultursmog", or that anti-abortion laws are fascist.

The second area where Goldberg says conservatism gets into trouble is when in desperation it turns into "me too" conservatism. Here conservatives start to copy progressives, and it turns into a "liberal fascism light."

Lastly, conservatives are not immune to the temptation of identity politics. Sometimes conservatives are tempted to mirror-image liberal identity politics to give them a taste of their own medicine, such as a white conservative referring to himself as a "Euro-American" or some such. It is all very fine to hold conservative Christian values, for example, and of course to base one's voting or governance on such values. Proposing a Department of Judeo-Christian Culture, however, would be going too far.

Goldberg identifies Patrick J. Buchanan as the one conservative who has these characteristics. William F Buckley Jr, "officially" drummed Buchanan out of the conservative movement in 1991 by accusing him (and a few others) of Anti-Semitism in his book (and NRO article of the same title) In Search of Anti-Semitism. Ever though, Buchanan still hovers around the edges of the movement, and appears as a guest on certain conservative radio talk-shows.

Really more of a populist and neo-progressive than a conservative, Buchanan identifies himself as a "paleoconservative." Nevertheless, he has at various times come out against free market trading, the flat tax, in favor of capping executive pay, in support of higher unemployment benefits, and backs a "third way" type of governance. On foreign policy he is famously isolationist and generally opposes Israeli policies. The thesis of his latest book, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, that World War II was an unnecessary war, is downright bizarre.

For what it's worth, I wrote off Buchanan some time ago. First it was his isolationist foreign policy. Then, however, I became less and less comfortable with his talk about immigrants and the need to preserve our culture. I'm as anti-illegal immigration as the next conservative, and I want English as the official language of our country, but Buchanan takes it all too far. And if WFB says he's an anti-Semite, that's good enough for me.

My Take

The danger is that immediately upon reading the book you tend to be hyper sensitive to anything in the news that appears in the slightest fascist. It is tempting to see something fascist in all movements you don't like. I'll try and resist the temptation in the weeks and months ahead.

This warning acknowledged, I would be remiss if I pretended that there was nothing in the news that did not smack of fascism. The anti-smoking movement has morphed from something laudable into fanaticism. It's all very well to promote healthy living, but we've crossed the line when legislators want to ban "trans fats." And can't we live our lives the way we want without some sort of enforced "national service" plan?

All in all this is one of the most important books I have read in the past several years, and comes highly recommended, whether you end up agreeing with all of his conclusions or not. Goldberg has defined and explained a political ideology of which I only had a vague notion. He has also explained much about the history of the progressive movement that I had not known about. Get this book and read it.

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May 22, 2008

Book Review - The Iranian Time Bomb

It is perhaps fitting that I finished Michael Ledeen's The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealot's Quest for Destruction, just days after the good Senator Obama and his fellow Democrats lost it over President Bush's remarks in Israel. Obama and his friends imagine that if only they were in charge, their magical words would convince the Mullah's to quit their pursuit of the bomb and stop their support of terrorism. All this, mind you, while running out of Iraq and cutting military spending.

In his book Ledeen demonstrates that diplomacy, "aggressive" or otherwise, is an utter waste of time. The only policy that has a chance of succeeding is regime change, something we should pursue both openly and clandestinely. A direct military attack, at this time, however, would be counterproductive. It may come to military action if that is our only option to stopping them from getting the bomb, but as of now we have many options if only we would pursue them.

The bottom line is that Iran has been at war with us since the Islamic revolution in 1979. They have attacked us numerous times, and are doing so to this day by sending weapons and personnel into Iraq. Yet astoundingly, many Americans do not grasp this fact. They are at war with us, yet we are not allowed to be at war with them. This would somehow be "fearmongering", and "racheting up tensions."

Every president from Reagan to Bush has negotiated with the Iranians, though not at the presidential level. Every single our attempt to find common ground has resulted in failure. Ledeen documents the whole sad story.

The negotiations were almost always based on a search, always futile, for an Iranian "reformer". President Reagan thought he had found Iranian leaders with whom we might be able to negotiate, and famously sent Oliver North and National Security Adviser Robert C. "Bud" McFarlane with bible and chocolate cake allegedly in the shape of a key. Nothing came of it. President Clinton was encouraged by the election of Mohammed Khatami as president in 1997, only to see those hopes dashed as well. The vote for Khatami was more a vote against the regime than a vote for him.

What makes all this so frustrating is that the human rights situation in Iran is much worse than is generally recognized, and no administration of either party has done anything about it. Ledeen spends a chapter detailing the abuses of women, minorities, non-Shiite Muslims, and anyone who disagrees with the regime.

The leaders of the Iranian revolution made clear from the beginning that there's was not a nationalist movement. The Ayatollah Khomeini said it best "We do not worship Iran. We worship Allah, for patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land burn. I saw let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world." Their motivation is important to understand, because all too many Western leaders think that we can placate the Iranians leaders and they will be happy secure within their own country. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that they have quasi-religious/historical motivations which drive them to want to dominate the region, chasing out Western powers in the process.

For example, Muhammed started the practice of writing to infidel leaders, "inviting" them to accept Islam - or else. In 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote a similar letter to Gorbachev, then still leader of the then still USSR. In 2006, Ahmadinejad wrote such a letter to President George W. Bush. As with the others, Ahmadinejad's letter asked Bush to convert to Islam. Muhammed's letters presaged war. We ignore the letters they send us to day at our own peril. They mean what they say.

The main forces used by the Iranians to carry out their policies of terror are the Quds force (the overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC), and Hezbollah. They are not going to attack us with conventional military forces if they can help it. They are practitioners of asymmetrical warfare. They aim to wear us down, and to hit us in ways we can least defend against.

In another example of using proxies to further their cause, in the 1990s Iran supported the government of the Sudan, the latter a Muslim Brotherhood movement born out of Sunni Islam. In 1991 they "established a strategic alliance to wage war against their common enemies in the West". The alliance between Iran and Sudan extended to the former sending several thousand IRGC trainers to the Sudan in the 1990's. al Qaeda was in the mix too, as the 1998 U.S. Federal indictment of Osama bin Laden stated that

"Al Qaeda... forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States."

The evidence is that Iran was behind the 1988 Khobar Towers attack. The al Qaeda terrorist who carried out the attack were in fact trained by Hezbollah, and the explosives came from Iran. "The entire operation was conceived, organized, and controlled by the Islamic Republic from beginning to end."

It took some doing, but finally in the spring of 1999 FBI interrogators got access to the terrorists the Saudis had captured, and what they heard confirmed Iranian involvement. Director Louis Freeh advised National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and President and Clinton that Iran was behind the Khobar Towers attack. There is some dispute as to what exactly happened within the Clinton Administration, but in the end there was no U.S. retaliation for the attack.

Unfortunately the Bush Administration has done any better than any previous one in dealing with Iran. Despite tough talk, the Bush Administration has no policy to permanently solve the problem. Regime change by whatever means seems off the table. Ledeen places most of the blame on Condolezza Rice, especially when she was National Security Adviser. In this role she was responsible for the formulation of policy, which in the case of Iran she absolutely failed to do.

Another factor contributing to the confusion is the intelligence community, which has been working against doing anything "muscular" with regards to Iran. They are quite happy to let the current negotiations regime take its course, believing that Iran will naturally flower into a democracy sometime in the next decade. Adding to that is that the CIA has very few true Iranian specialists and fewer Persian speakers. Most of the people assigned to the Iran desk are Arabists by trade.

Ledeen, like Richard Miniter, believes that bin Laden is most likely in Iran. This is hardly as unlikely as it may seem, once you get over the false notion that the Sunni-Shiite split precludes all cooperation. Ledeen takes this one more step; "...al Qaeda no longer exists as a separate entity, and that it has been integrated into the terrorist galaxy that revolves around Iran." This may be be going too far, but I don't have the information to make that judgement. I do know that al Qaeda is loosely organized, so that AQI can exist somewhat separately from the rest of the organization.

As with all totalitarians, the Iranians believe us to be weak, and unwilling to take casualties. Whether this is true or not is beside the point; what is important is that they believe it is so and act based on their beliefs.

Further, they believe themselves to be strong. Part of this is the cult of the return of the Mahdi, personified now in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a member (or reputed to be) of the Hojetiah sect. The Hojetiah believe that they can prompte the return of the Mahdi by creating bloodshed and chaos on earth, something which even the Ayatollah Khomeini thought so extreme that he banned them in 1983.

To be fair, they have not succeeded in their objectives in Iraq. They were not able to prompt the civil war they hoped for, and the "surge" is working.

It would be bad enough if the Iranian leaders simply thought themselves strong and us weak. This might lead to dangerously overstep, and then get plastered by a determined U.S. president in response. Here's Ledeen:

Some of the most thoughtful analysis of contemporary Iran believe that the Islamic Republic is currently in the throes of a second Islamic revolution, driven by Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards Corps from which he comes. As the label suggests, Iranian leaders seek a revitalization of Khomeini's original vision - above all, the export of the revolution - and fully embrace "such events as 'destruction, pestilence, and wars' which they see as the inevitable accompaniments of the Mahdi's return. Amir Taheri terms this "a deliberate clash of civilizations with the West."

They believe they can achieve their Jihadist goal of chasing the U.S. and other Western powers from the gulf region and creating a regional Imamate.

Ledeen doesn't just complain about our past and current failings, however, for he does offer concrete proposals about what to do about Iran, ones that are in line with what I have been saying here.

One thing that he does not believe is useful is engaging in a "War of Ideas" with the Mullahs. Although he does not mention Walid Phares by name, it is apparent that Ledeen has him and similar thinkers in mind. Ledeen has other ideas for dealing with Iran.

Ledeen's starting point is that only regime change will solve the problem. The current government is inherently anti-Western and expansionist and cannot be reformed.

His basic strategy for regime change is pretty straightforward:

...the same way we brought down the Soviet empire, by exporting the American democratic revolution, by adopting the methods that have successfully been used against dictators from Moscow and Belgrade to Beirut and the Philippines. the best strategy is to support the Iranian people against the mullahs they so hate.

A direct military attack would not achieve this purpose because we do not have the capability to take down Iran as we did Iraq. Bombing nuclear installations would set back their program but not get rid of the root problem, which is the government.

Rather, we should use our vast "soft power" to do things like support Iranian dissidents and democracy movements and start a human rights campaign. We can provide these dissidents with material and moral support. Broadcast messages ("propaganda" if you prefer) should be stepped up (our current efforts are abysmal). An information campaign to educate people on the mullahs and their regime should be launched taking advantage of all media including the Internet. Simply providing moral support to regime opponents would go a long way.

Of course this may not work. And there will be many who object to such a campaign, including, sadly, the American left who is stuck in a paradigm of endless negotiations.

Unlike many others, Ledeen sees Iran as the key to winning the War on Terror, or War on Jihadism (or whatever you want to call it).

My take is that Ledeen is mostly correct in this book, but that he takes it all a step too far. Yes Iran is a huge threat, larger than is commonly realized. Yes we should revise our strategy to one of regime change, and, and no, negotiations will not work. Administrations of both parties have kicked the can down the road, and it is time to deal with it before they get nuclear weapons.

The "War of Ideas" that thinkers like Phares advocate will work well against the Wahabbists and Muslim Brotherhood, but alone cannot work against Iran. That said, I think Ledeen criticizes it too much, since I find nothing in Phares' work to indicate such single-mindedness. A War of Ideas can certainly be part of the information or propaganda war that Ledeen advocates.

I also don't see al Qaeda being submerged into Iran as Ledeen thinks. I'm not the expert, but I don't see that theory being promoted elsewhere. Bin Laden may well be in Iran, but that doesn't mean his movement has been totally captured by them. al Qaeda is a pretty dispersed and loosely organized movement, and I never did buy the idea that it's controlled from the top like the Mafia (so "getting bin Laden" would, I think, have minimal effect).

Next Up

Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Don't miss it!

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April 19, 2008

Book Review - The Last Days of Europe

With the enormous influence of Mark Steyn on the right, I suppose it's inevitable that any other books about Europe will be compared to his America Alone: The End of the World As we Know It. Steyn's basic thesis, if you're somehow unaware, is that through the power of demographics, Muslims are taking over Europe, and this-is-not-a-good-thing. Far from assimilating into Europe and adopting Western values, Muslim leaders, and most of their flock, want Europe to assimilate to Islamic law and values.

Historian Walter Laqueur lays out his vision in his 2007 bookThe Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent. Although he definitely has some differences with Steyn's apocalyptic vision, Laqueur largely agrees with his thesis that Islam is the future of Europe. .

There's a whole slew of books out with this theme; in addition to the above I've also read Melanie Phillips Londonistan. Also popular is Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. I haven't read this last one, but have heard him interviewed on the radio, and he is quite good. Bawer is a prolific editorialist, and his website is worth checking out the the links to his pieces. Lastly, The Force of Reason by the late Oriana Fallaci comes highly recommended by reliable sources, although again this is a book I haven't read.

All of these and other works say the same basic thing; that Europe is on the verge of a historic change, one that if it occurs will not be easily reversible.

There is much immigration to Europe, so much so that it will change the face of the continent forever. Laqueur runs through the demographic statistics that have become so familiar, the bottom line being that in every single European country the population will start to fall precipitously once the "baby boomer" generation passes from the scene. Native Europeans are simply not having enough babies to keep up current population levels, let alone grow. On the other hand, immigrants, especially Muslim ones, have a high birthrate, and their numbers are growing rapidly.

However, not all immigrants are Muslim, and the Muslims are not a monolithic bloc. While it is true that Muslims are resistant to assimilation, it is not clear that this will continue to be the case. So the continent "might be greatly diminished in stature and influence and in deep trouble. But it will not necessarily be predominantly Islamist."

Laqueur doesn't buy the popular notion that the plight of Muslims is because of racism. Other immigrant groups, notably Indians and those of "far eastern" descent, have done much better than Muslims. Further, Muslim girls do noticeably better than Muslim men.

Rather, "young people are told, day in, day out, that they are victims of society and that it is not really their fault." The youth culture of violence, Lacqueur says, has little to do with religion. They may attend Koran schools ("madrassas") regularly, but once out the door show little interest in Islam. He does not, for example, see a religious motive for the Nov 2005 riots in France.

Over the past several decades, Europeans have voted for themselves a vast array of social benefits. Funding these social assistance programs depended on a growing economy and, in the case of retirement benefits, a reasonable ratio of workers to retirees. In recent years economic growth has stagnated, and the number of people receiving benefits exploded. In order to bring in more payees, European governments promoted "temporary worker" programs.

Most of the Muslims immigrants were brought in to fill a need for labor during a time in the 50s and 60s when economies were rapidly growing. But things didn't turn out as expected. While some immigrants did the work that was expected of them, crime in their communities was much higher than among native European neighborhoods, and asocial behavior more commonplace. The problem was worse with second and third generation Muslim immigrants, who also decided that they needed "respect", and decided to get it with aggressive behavior on the streets. Far from adopt European ways and respect existing authority, they wanted to be the new authority, the new masters. All this, while complaining of discrimination, and taking offense at anything that criticized Islam even slightly.

Muslim immigration to Europe was "unplanned and uncontrolled". Initially brought in as "temporary workers", they simply didn't go home and noone made an effort to expel them. Because European economies are not growing as they did in the 1950s and 60s, the rationale for their existence has gone. But they have decided that they like Europe better than the countries of their birth, so see no reason to go home. Couple this with European's guilty attitude towards their colonialist past, and you've got permanent residents. Yet the host populations were never asked if they wanted permanent immigrants, and so never approved the decision.

Some native Europeans are resentful toward the new arrivals. Signs, traditionally in the vernacular, suddenly sprouted up in a multitude of foreign languages, and many of the immigrants showed no inclination to learn the any European language. Government programs, especially in housing, favored immigrants over natives. "Positive discrimination" ("reverse discrimination" or "affirmative action" in the U.S.) in the UK further exacerbated this resentment by natives.

All the while, too many immigrants became dependent on government aid, which not only fosters a culture of dependency, but creates an (attitude) of inferiority. More aid just results the perpetuation of the vicious cycle.

Anyone who dares criticize this massive immigration is typically met with the charge of "racism". Laqueur examines the charge and finds it wanting. Rather than help the newcomers find jobs, immigrants are flooded with offers of government aid, with program after program being made available to them. Indeed social workers have "taught newcomers how to manipulate the social security net." While initially resistant to the idea of taking handouts, they eventually overcame their apprehension to the point where Muslim clerics encourage their flock to take full advantage of government aid. The result is that all too many of the Muslim immigrants have adopted the attitude that they need not work to better themselves because the government will take care of all their needs.

The primary threat to Europe is not terrorism. Rather, the threat is from "Islamist organizations that officially disassociate themselves from al Qaeda-style activities but still believe in jihad, and other forms of violence". They are, Lacquer says, similar to the Nazis and fascists of the 1930s in that their method is "mass violence, (and) dominating the street, rather than in acts of individual violence".

While Russia may be able to create problems now, it's systemic problems are so severe that it poses no long-term threat to anyone. A declining population, high rates of alcoholism and drug use, and an AIDS epidemic will destroy it's potential to retain great-power status.

What does Laqueur see as the future for Europe? Muslims in Europe, he says, are too fractured and diverse be part of any monolithic caliphate. At the same time they show no sign of assimilating or (as a whole) of advancing themselves economically. No Muslim middle or professional classes seem to be emerging. As such, they will likely demand and receive regional autonomy. Sharia law will be introduced, though their be (at least in the short term) exemptions for non-Muslims.

At the same time, he sees Muslim fanaticism as being somewhat overrated. There are "centrifugal trends" in Muslim communities that will prevent monolithic blocs from emerging.

Native Europeans will not, in the end, resist these changes with enough force or in enough numbers from preventing it. Rather, a new form of appeasement will be the order of the day, as they will at all costs wish to avoid the great wars of the early 20th century. "Binational states" will most likely mark the new Europe. Self-censorship will become the order of the day; among native Europeans, at least.

In Laqueur's vision Europe will most likely suffer a slow collapse, rather than a swift, violent one. The decline is probably irreversible, but it will be the death of a thousand cuts, not one cataclysmic one.

Whether Laqueur, Steyn, or any of the others who write about this will be proven to be right is somewhat beside the point. What matters now is that we recognize that Europe has a tremendous problem and hiding behind political correctness will not make it go away. Phillips thinks that we still have a half dozen years or so to get a handle on the problem before the point of no return is reached. Others like Steyn are not even that sanguine. I don't know if Europe is still savable, but do know that it is so important that we have to try. An "America alone" may seem romantic and even attractive to that rugged individualist that fortunately still makes up a great amount of our citizens, but is not really tenable. Saving America will be a lot easier if we have allies, and in order to do that we have to save Europe. And the first step towards solving any problem is recognizing that it exists. As such, I recommend Laqueur's book as a step in that direction.

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March 10, 2008

Book Review - U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24

In a way this is the oddest "book" I have reviewed. For one, it's not really a book at all in the traditional sense, but more a manual, and a government publication at that. It's written for the soldier, marine, and to a lesser extent airman, yet is vital for civilians and policymakers. It's also freely available for download; a quick search in google and it yours free of charge (I purchased mine hardcopy from Amazon). Lastly, it's a government publication.

There is also no single author, and other than one appendix no one is given direct credit for any section.

The The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (For the Army, it is referred to as "FM 3-24". For the Marines, "Warfighting Publication 3-33.5") was released on December 15, 2006, and has been the bible for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan during the "surge" of 2007. I should have read and reviewed this much earlier, but either hadn't heard of it, or when I did, didn't realize how invaluable it was to understanding our overall strategy in both wars. So now it's better late than never.

The bottom line is that if you want to know what we are trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan you have to read this book. Period and end of conversation.

The genesis of FM 3-24 was the realization early in the Iraq insurgency that we had forgotten how to fight counterinsurgency warfare. We simply had no current counterinsurgency doctrine. The Army and Marine Corps had not seriously considered the matter since the 1980s campaign in El Salvador, and the last field manual on the subject was FM 90-8 Counterguerrila Operations, released on Aug 29, 1986. Once matters in Central America settled down, however, few Army or Marine Corps officers had spent much time studying the matter.

When we realized our error, the Army went to work to rectify the matter. On October 1, 2004, an interim counterinsurgency field manual was published, designated 3-07.22. However, serious work on a full-scale replacement did not begin until then Lt Gen David Petreaus returned from Iraq in October of 2005.

Petraus immediately assumed command of the Army's Combined Action Center and set out to gather the team that would turn out FM 3-24. To help lead the effort, he recruited one of his West Point classmates, Lt Col (Dr) Conrad Crane (ret). The authors of each chapter, however, are anonymous. At the end are several appendixes. Perhaps the most important, or at any rate the most influential, is one by Lt Col (Dr) David Kilcullen (the first, or "A" appendix), who would go on to become Gen Petraus's senior counterinsurgency adviser in 2007.

In the February 11, 2008, print edition of National Review, Wesley Morgan identified four interconnected efforts that led to the successes of 2007 (numbers added):

..1) The adoption of classic counterinsurgency tactics, with U.S. battalions spreading out among the population and earning their trust; 2) the grassroots reconciliation of many Sunni and some Shiite communities; and 3) a series of meticulously planned corps-level offensives across Baghdad and its surrounding areas. All of these efforts have hinged on one major change: 4) During 2007, every echelon of the U.S. command -- from the four-star headquarters down through the critical corps and division levels to the brigades and battalions in the field -- was closely integrated into a cohesive whole. Without this integration, none of the four efforts that have brought Iraq forward would have made much difference.

The adoption of #1, classic counterinsurgency tactics, was the direct result of FM 3-24.

Following are some of the excerpts from FM 3-24 which I believe are most relevant for understanding what we are trying to do in Iraq. I have omitted areas which are esoteric or get into minutia, such as the details of logistics and intelligence gathering.

As you will see, the book is laid out like a giant outline, with each paragraph is assigned a number.

In addition to the narrative, throughout the book are short stories about counterinsurgency warfare. They range from Napoleon's ill-fated occupation of Spain to the current war in Iraq. While most describe how counterinsurgents overcame obstacles to defeat insurgents, the one on the Chinese Civil War obviously ends with the communists winning. There are several stories about the Vietnam War, with some telling of our successes but of course some of our failures.

Chapter 1: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

1-4 Long term success in COIN depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government's rule. Achieving this goal requires the government to eliminate as many causes of the insurgency as possible.

1-85. Access to external resources and sanctuaries has always influenced the effectiveness of insurgencies. External support can provide political, psychological, and material resources that might otherwise be limited or unavailable. Such assistance does not need to come just from neighboring states; countries from outside the region seeking political or economic influence can also support insurgencies. Insurgencies may turn to transnational criminal elements for funding or use the Internet to create a support network among NGOs. Ethnic or religious communities in other states may also provide a form of external support and sanctuary, particularly for transnational insurgencies.

1-102. Counterinsurgents remain alert for signs of divisions within an insurgent movement. A series of successes by counterinsurgents or errors by insurgent leaders can cause some insurgents to question their cause or challenge their leaders. In addition, relations within an insurgency do not remain harmonious when factions form to vie for power. Rifts between insurgent leaders, if identified, can be exploited. Offering amnesty or a seemingly generous compromise can also cause divisions within an insurgency and present opportunities to split or weaken it.

1-113 LEGITIMACY IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE. The primary objective of any COIN operation is to foster development of effective governance by a legitimate government.

1-131 SECURITY UNDER THE RULE OF LAW IS ESSENTIAL The cornerstone of any COIN effort is establishing security for the civilian populace. Without a secure environment, no permanent reforms can be implemented and disorder spreads.

Under the self described "Zen-like" "Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency" are the much quoted and commented upon paragraghs 1-149 through 1-153.

1-149 SOMETIMES, THE MORE YOU PROTECT YOUR FORCE, THE LESS SECURE YOU MAY BE. Ultimate success in COIN (counterinsurgency) is gained by protecting the populate, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace, and contact maintained...These practices endure access to the intelligence needed to drive operations. Following them reinforces the connections with the populace that help establish real legitimacy.

1-150 SOMETIMES, THE MORE FORCE IS USED, THE LESS EFFECTIVE IT IS Any use offeree produces many effects, not all of which can be foreseen. The more force applied, the greater the chance of collateral damage and mistakes. Using substantial force also increases the opportunity for insurgent propaganda and to portray lethal military activities as brutal. In contrast, using force precisely and discriminately strengthens the rule of law the needs to be established. As note above, the key for counterinsurgents is knowing when more forces is needed - and when it might be counteproductive....

1-151 THE MORE SUCCESSFUL THE COUNTERINSURGENCY IS, THE LESS FORCE CAN BE USED AND THE MORE RISK MUST BE ACCEPTED This paradox is really a corollary to the previous one. As the level of insurgent violence drops, the requirements of international law and the expectations of the populace lead to a reduction in direct military actions by counterinsurgents.

1-152 SOMETIMES DOING NOTHING IS THE BEST REACTION Sometimes insurgents carry out a terrorist act or guerrilla raid with the primary purpose of enticing counterinsurgents to overreact, or at least to react in a way the the insurgents can exploit - for example, opening fire ion a crowd....

1-153 SOME OF THE BEST WEAPONS FOR COUNTERINSURGENTS DO NOT SHOOT. ...While security is essential to setting the stage for overall progress, lasting victory comes from a vibrant economy, political participation,and restored hope. Particularly after security has been achieved, dollars and ballots will have more important effects than bombs and bullets. There is a time when "money is ammunition." Depending on the state of the insurgency, therefore, Soldiers and Marines should prepart to execute many nonmilitary missions to support COIN efforts. Everyone has a role iin nation building, not just Department of State and civil affairs personnel.

1-154 THE HOST NATION DOING SOMETHING TOLERABLY IS NORMALLY BETTER THAN US DOING IT WELL. It is just as important to consider who performs an operation as to assess how well it is done. Where the United States is supporting a host nation, long-term success requires establishing viable HN leaders and institutions that can carry on without significant US support....

Chapter 2: Unity of Effort: Integrating Civilian and Military Activities

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