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July 31, 2005
The Missing Flags in Londonistan
I was in London a few days after the July 7 bombings and witnessed the moving two-minutes of silence in Central London. Yet something nagged at me, something was missing, was off. There were no flags. Sure, the Union Jack was on display near Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square for the commemoration of the allied victory in World War II. But those flags quickly came down. After the terror bombings, there were no displays of flags to symbolize national unity in the face of terror. Even the unity demonstration following the 7-7 bombings, which featured fine speeches from Muslim leaders, included no British flags. (Contrast this with 9-11, when Americans hung flags and signs depicting flags have available surface. Many even bought plastic little flags to attach to their cars.)
I asked a number of British journalists, a Member of Parliament and other longtime London residents about the missing flags. Some missed the point, contending that Brits were not "jingoistic"—"We don't want anyone to think that we are going to war." (Aren't you already at war? Nevermind.) Others patiently reminded me that patriotism is a bad word in Britain. "Why do Americans always call the U.K. Great Britain? What's great about it?" one asked. Even in soccer matches, English fans hold up the white-and-red flag of St. George, not the Union Jack. I can't help but thinking that this aversion to patriotism is part of the problem; it is a concession to those who think that arresting terror suspects is "racist" and "anti-Muslim" and those activists who chant "There ain't no black in the Union Jack." (Quick, name a country whose flag was designed before 1945 that includes the color black. I can think only of Nazi Germany... The choice of flag colors tells us nothing about a country's virtue. But, tellingly, legions of Britons let this cheap shot stand.) Or as the great French anti-communist intellectual, Jean-Francois Revel observes: "Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it."
Prime Minister Blair missed an important opportunity when he spoke to his nation following the attacks. He could have called on his citizens to hang flags in solidarity with the 55 victims of terror. But he did not, probably knowing the negative reaction he would have experienced. And that says it all.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:32 PM
July 27, 2005
This is Your Spokesman?
"Who is Larry Johnson?" asks a writer at the Daily Standard. While he loomed large at the CIA in the Clinton era, he made a few boneheaded public pronouncements: telling PBS in 1999 was bin Laden was "all talk" and writing in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, less than two months before 9-11, that Americans tend to exaggerate the threat posed by terrorism. More die in bath tubs, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Anyway, I am prepared to give Johnson a pass and suggest that maybe these are cheap shots. Johnson (and Clarke) was one of the few insiders calling for a tougher line on bin Laden before it was fashionable. Of course, he didn't do much about it.
But the Standard writer too easily glides over something that is harder to forgive: Why is a former CIA official giving the official Democratic party response? What happened to the tradition of intelligence officers and military leaders being non-partisan? What happened to the old ideal in which registering to vote and actually voting made one appear to be "a bit political"—and that wasn't seen as a good thing by peers. Now it is perfectly normal for intelligence officials like Michael Scheurer to write books attacking the current Administration, while it is at war, and for others to act as spokesmen for a political party? Sure, you might say, they are citizens and entitled to their free speech. True. But consider what happens when the intelligence or military establishment takes on a partisan viewpoint (even if it is a conservative Republican one). If it shares the view of the White House, it doesn't provide the kind of intellectual tension that sharpens analysis and sees ahead of the curve. Alternatively, if it opposes government policy, then it leaks to the press and to the opposition as many early drafts of damaging documents as it can in the hopes of either defeating the Administration in the next election or ruining the careers of its best-known members. The Valerie Plame episode is just one of several recent CIA-related scandals that in some way was set in motion by the agency. (Who asked them to send Amb. Wilson to Niger anyway?) In the worst case, you get something akin to Madrid, in which the intelligence service leaked information to the opposition Socialist party—hours or days before it was seen by the sitting prime minister. As a result, Aznar went public with outdated information and could be successfully attacked for "lying" about or "covering up" things he was not told yet. (See the last chapter of my book Shadow War for more details.) Somehow CIA director Porter Goss and other intel chiefs have to depoliticize the services or else the intelligence community really will become the secretive cabal against democracy that its most left-wing critics fear it is.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:00 PM
The Master of Terrorism
Hassan al-Turabi, the former speaker of the Sudanese parliament—the architecture of which is nearly identical to the Israeli Knesset (I guess the architect was fairly confident that the two nations' officials would never visit each other)—and later enemy of government and inciter-in-chief of the butchers of Darfur, is now hailed as "the pope of terrorism" in the Weekly Standard.
Most readers of this site will know most of the facts in this piece, but there are few noteworthy surprises: the connections between Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist thinker and that the express purpose of the infamous Popular and Islamic Conferences in Khartoum—which included every murder-minded Muslim terror group in the world and every major Arab intelligence service—was to weld together the Islamists and the seemingly secular Arab Nationalists. This pokes a pretty big hole in the idea that Salafis like Osama bin Laden and secular socialists like Saddam Hussein would never form alliances of convenience. I have never met Turabi on my various visits to Sudan (though I tried to see him when he was under house arrest), but I did talk to a number of his friends and former associates. Gutbi, who when I met him in 2002 was the head of Sudan's intelligence services, said that Turabi was bored of bin Laden because he could only talk about two subjects, jihad and horses. So Turabi's extensive help for bin Laden was nothing personal, just business. For whatever that it worth. Gutbi did not mention what Turabi thought of Iraq, but he personally hated it. He and his wife were followed constantly by the secret police and he, as Sudan's ambassador, was forbidden to leave Baghdad. Turabi's son used to go to horse races with bin Laden, who plugged his ears when the horns sounded because music is "un-Islamic." Neither Turabi nor his son covered their ears. Sure, they were radicals who believed that killing infidels just gives them another chance to convert to Allah, but sometimes a horse race is just a horse race. Other friends of Turabi fill in other details. The onetime Peace and Development Minister (the man in charge of the two things that Sudan doesn't have much of) is a charming man named Ghazi. He points out that Turabi changed after a sudden beating in a Canadian airport; after that, his thoughts were more erratic and less connected. This was the reason that Turabi was pushed out of power in 1996; he could no longer be trusted to follow government policy and was endlessly scheming against his onetime student, President Bashir. (Anyway, any serious consideration of Turabi needs to take account of this beating and of the feminist views of his wife). Another friend of Turabi's said that he is more fond of revolution than rule; that is why he fomented the crisis in Darfur that has killed and displaced millions. The role of Turabi and perhaps al Qaeda in causing the misery in Darfur is also largely unexplored. Thomas Joscelyn's piece in the Standard would have been improved if he offered a fuller picture of the master of terrorism.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:45 PM
July 25, 2005
The Global Police
Some like to say that America is becoming the world's policeman, but, in fact, that job is already taken—by the New York Police Department. The city's men in blue are now stationed from Spain to Singapore, as this article in the Canada Free Press by Marinka Peschmann, makes clear. Joking aside, the NYPD is becoming a serious counter-terrorism force on its own and this postings show a strategy to coordinate with intelligence services around the world. Hiring the former head of operations at CIA is another such step. Also, as some readers already know, the NYPD has also set up its own think tank devoted to counter-terrorism—giving the force an internal analytic capability. Sounds like they are giving the FBI and the CIA a run for their money.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:19 PM
Here We Go Again
Ever since the 1986 divestment campaign against South Africa, reformers have been looking for another troubled democracy that they could influence by choking off private investment. Never mind that divestment is about as effective as economic sanctions—hit either does not work at all or it impoverishes the people at the bottom while giving the rulers a convenient foreign enemy to excuse their misrule. Now it is so-called mainline Prostestant churches that want to get into foreign policy, by pulling their investment from any company that does business with Israel, as my friend Eugene Kontorovich writes in the Wall Street Journal. Not being an Anglican, as I am, Kontorovich misses one vital point: there is a prayer we say every Sunday for the clergy. It is right here in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The modern Episcopal Church has rewritten this and other prayers and forgotten the wisdom behind them. So now we have this mess, with dog-collar wearing amateurs inserting themselves into politics rather than carrying on with their more important duties of comforting the sick and the dying, teaching the young, uplifting the poor in spirit, and saving the souls of the lost.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:31 PM
Sharon's Gamble
No one in the press (except Caroline Glick in Jerusalem) seems willing to report on the legality and morality of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to force 10,000 Israeli citizens out of their homes in Gaza in order to turn their land over to the Palestinians, who case has been pressed by a murderous band of terrorists for the past 40 years. (The Jews in Gaza built on land never occupied by Arabs, but, in most cases, empty desert.) Sharon and Bush are gambling that the pullout will provide security and put pressure on the Palestinians to adopt democratic reforms. Let's hope that they are right. If not, 10,000 families lost their homes and a nation gave into terror for nothing...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:21 AM
July 24, 2005
Expect More Like This
David Warren is a Canadian who has lived in the non-Arab Muslim world and now lives in a scandal-plagued, quasi-democratic land that is dividing along ethnic lines—Canada. Though I have never met him, I am sure he is a serious person. And this is a serious article from a deeply non-politically correct point of view. If the secular liberal consensus that forms the basis for all current Western societies does not come with better arguments against the ideology of radical Islam (Sayyid Qattab and so on), Warren is right, it is doomed. And Europe will see it first.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:28 PM
Trump v. United Nations
So a Swedish diplomat writes a letter to Donald Trump—the Donald, lord of the Apprentice, a swagering billionaire of bile—and asks him a simple question: How can you build a new building across the street from the United Nations for a fraction of what it will cost the U.N. to rennovate its own post-Modernist pile? Trump's answer, as relayed in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate, is priceless. And very funny. (Hat tip: radioblogger.) It is worth reading every rambling line. The Oil for Food Scandal is just the begininng...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:13 PM
July 22, 2005
40 Goats for Chelsea Clinton
It's official. Chelsea Clinton, Bill's only daughter, is worth 40 goats and 20 head of cattle, at least according one Kenyan chieftain. He's hoping to marry her in the traditional African way. No word on the multiculturalist's response yet...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:57 PM
July 07, 2005
Out of Country for Two Months
I will not be posting for the next two months because I will be traveling in Europe and Afghanistan. However, I will be checking e-mail occasionally while I am traveling. I expect to be back in the country by September.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 05:50 AM
July 01, 2005
Zarqawi Spotted?
My friend Mark Eichenlaub writes: "This is from the same source who broke the hospital story a few days before it was confirmed by other sources."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:17 PM