From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Ingrates
to Their Very Souls
Some good news from Iraq: "U.S. and British forces freed one Briton and
two Canadians early Thursday in a military operation, ending a four-month hostage
drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a
Baghdad street earlier this month," the Associated Press reports. The ex-hostages
belong to the Christian
Peacemaker Teams, a group that--well, let's let the CPT explain for itself
in a statement issued today:
[The ex-hostages] were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.
Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. . . .
We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq. During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?
It's not clear whom the CPT statement means by "our enemies." But the only enemy they seem to recognize is the U.S. and its allies, whose "occupation" of Iraq is the "root cause" of the ex-hostages' captivity, and whose detention of "thousands of Iraqis" they liken to their own kidnapping and (in one case) murder by terrorists.
But if the CPT is going to "love our enemies," the least it could do is thank them. The statement does not acknowledge that the hostages were rescued by U.S. and British servicemen, or indeed that they were rescued at all; it refers mysteriously to their having been "released," as if the kidnappers themselves had decided to let them go.
This seems to run deeper than a case of simple ingratitude. There is a whole strange worldview at work here--a theology, if you will. We don't claim to understand it fully, but it seems to equate America as the root of all evil and America's adversaries as Edenic creatures--innocents who know not good or evil and thus bear no culpability for their bad actions.
If we have this right, it follows that the CPT Christians see themselves, by virtue of their faith, as being forgiven for being American, or for being from another nation that America has corrupted. This is why they cannot be grateful to, or forgiving of, America: For them that would amount to thanking or forgiving sin itself.
Only
in Reuterville
"The strong Western response to a threatened death sentence for an Afghan
convert to Christianity looks something like a mirror image of the Muslim reaction
to the Prophet Mohammad caricatures printed in the European press," Reuters
"reports" from Rome:
There have been no riots or sackings of Afghan embassies, unlike the violence that marked the uproar in Muslim countries after the Danish cartoons were published, but the shock and mutual incomprehension expressed in both cases are similar.
Actually, the two incidents look more like photographic images than mirror ones. In both cases it is Muslims who are employing or threatening violence against those who reject their religion.
Walt?
Mearsheimer? Never Heard of 'Em!
Harvard is holding its nose in an effort to escape the stench emanating from
the infamous paper in which Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer argue that U.S.
support for Israel lacks a strategic or moral basis and is therefore the product
of the machinations of the "Israel Lobby." Reports the New York Sun:
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government is removing its logo from a paper about the "Israel lobby" that was co-authored by its academic dean.
The new version of the paper also has a more prominent disclaimer warning that the paper's views belong only to its authors.
The changes appear to be a sign that the university is distancing itself from the document in the face of a furor from faculty members, Jewish leaders, and a congressman who say it fails to meet academic standards and promotes anti-Semitic myths.
There may be cash-flow implications:
Harvard, [an] observer said, had received "several calls" from "pro-Israel donors" expressing concern about the Walt-Mearsheimer paper. One of the angered contributors is said to be the donor who underwrote the chair occupied by Dean Walt, Robert Belfer. Mr. Belfer, a 1958 graduate of Harvard Law School, endowed a faculty chair as part of a $7.5 million gift to the Kennedy School in 1997. In addition to bearing the title of academic dean of the Kennedy School, Mr. Walt is also the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Politics.
According to the observer, "Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article."
Belfer himself wouldn't comment. Predictably enough, defenders of Walt and Mearsheimer have cited the criticism of their paper as proof of the "Israel Lobby's" power. An example is this reader e-mail we received:
The truth is that there is an Israeli lobby in this country that is involved in our elections and major influences on our government. Ask Earl Hilliard (D., Ala.) if the Israeli lobby exists--an incumbent in a rural area who was beat in the Democratic primary that installed Artur Davis in his Congressional seat. Ask Michael Scheurer, a policy wonk who didn't understand their power. Check out AIPAC and how they direct American donor money. Check out Israeli industry procurements for substandard materials for our government.
No other foreign country can do what Israel does in our country and get away with it. The answer as to how they do it is simple--find a recent quote from Steven Spielberg that said he would give his life for Israel. He is an American. He also gives a lot of money for Israel to direct in this country along with many other successful and misguided Jews who think Israel should come first, not America.
Your company may be directing you to refute the authors of these ideas and always link them with "David Duke" [who praised the Walt-Mearsheimer paper] for the ultimate badge of disgrace. This is not the normal OpinionJournal that seeks the real truth and lampoons political hypocrisy and hacks. These people are telling the truth--check it out.
In truth, the observation that there is an "Israel lobby" and it is influential is utterly banal. Vice President Dick Cheney was only the most prominent of many prominent politicians who addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's convention in Washington earlier this month. This is all perfectly upfront and legitimate, as Walt and Mearsheimer concede.
What is invidious about the professors' paper is the way in which they selectively cite facts in order to portray Israel as a moral pariah, or at best as the moral equivalent of the tyrannical regimes and terror organizations that are its adversaries. (See Monday's column for details.)
Defenders of Walt and Mearsheimer have responded to criticism of their work by saying that the criticism itself proves the power of the Israel lobby. This isn't false, but it is beside the point. The Israel lobby would not be nearly as powerful as it is if Americans did not find its moral and strategic arguments compelling. And hardly anyone is saying a word in defense of Walt and Mearsheimer's deceptive and slipshod efforts to dismiss those arguments.
Hey
'Realists,' Get Real!
In yesterday's
item on the Walt-Mearshimer paper, we cited a piece by a Democrat who listed
the duo among "realist-oriented security studies scholars" whose work
he admires. Also on his list was Barry Posen, a political scientist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. A reader writes to point out that Posen was the author
of a New York Times op-ed last month titled "We Can Live With a Nuclear
Iran."
He cites various reasons to think it wouldn't be in Iran's best interest to use nuclear weapons, give them to terrorists or employ them as a shield for other forms of aggression. These arguments are convincing to various degrees, but Posen utterly ignores the nature of the Iranian regime--namely, that it is run by theocratic lunatics. Realistic indeed!
Yo
Momma, Osama!
From a Peter Schweizer op-ed in USA Today:
In a brilliant new white paper on public diplomacy, Michael Waller, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg chair in International Communication at The Institute of World Politics, makes a strong case for America's employing a new powerful weapon against the terrorists: ridicule.
Actually, this has been tried, by the Piranha Brothers. From a July 9, 1970 "Monty Python's Flying Circus" sketch by the same name:
Vercotti: Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used--sarcasm. He knew all the tricks: dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and--satire. He was vicious.
Presenter: By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the Southeast of England.
Russ
Feingold, Call Your Office
Thanks to Sen. Russ Feingold's talk of "censuring" President Bush,
people who fantasize about impeachment have gotten bolder. The Minneapolis Star
Tribune today features an op-ed from one Sam Newlund, "a retired journalist
in Minneapolis," who lists a bill of what he says are impeachable offenses.
In fact, they are all policy differences, with the possible exception of the
dubious claim that the terrorist surveillance program "has subverted law
and the Constitution." He concludes:
These facts point to a backward slide in this country from a free and open society where nobody--not even the president--is above the law. Where the well-being of all trumps the wishes of politicians or special interests. Where scientific inquiry is unpolluted by politics or ideology, and public business is done in public. Where nobody worries about intercepted phone calls or stolen e-mail, and wars are fought out of necessity, not out of hubris, nationalism, oil or anything else.
Yeah, well, reasonable people can differ, and we have elections to resolve such matters. If Newlund can't wait until 2008, we're afraid he's out of luck, for the impeachment idea is just silly. Even if the Democrats were to take both houses of Congress in November, and even if the House were to approve articles of impeachment, the Dems will not have the two-thirds Senate majority required to convict unless they have a net gain of at least 22 seats.
So what's the point of all this? It's just immature acting out, as a site called Impeachapalooza.org makes clear:
Can playing music actually result in the impeachment of a criminal president?
We'd like to think it can. With enough visibility, our congressional leaders will have to realize that many voters are cognizant of the criminal transgressions of Bush, and his evil puppetmaster, Dick Cheney.
But in the larger sense, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that this event will server to humiliate Bush, and his complicit co-conspirators in the government in the eyes of the world. It will send a message the the American People are not just dull-witted "sheeple."
We know what he did, and this is the way to call him on it!
Feingold, who is said to harbor presidential aspirations, obviously hopes to tap into sentiments like these. Remember how well that worked for Howard Dean.
The
Last Straw
We skipped Jennifer Loven's original Associated
Press article, but the Editor & Publisher follow-up is too good to miss:
Did a recent Associated Press story examining President George Bush's alleged tendency to use a "straw man" approach in his speeches cross the line from news to biased opinion? Or was it just a long-overdue, in-depth review of the president's public speaking approach? . . .
The story, posted by AP last weekend, cited the president's habit of using phrases such as "some say" or "some believe" when introducing a viewpoint that challenges his own. One example Loven noted was Bush saying "some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day." She also cited his recent statement that "some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."
Loven then contends that "hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions." But she notes that Bush, in presenting opposing views in such a "straw man" way, sets himself up well to fire back, often appearing in defense of his viewpoint or as an underdog.
Of course, by claiming that "hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions," Loven writes out of the debate such figures as Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. John Murtha--which leads one to wonder why they get so much attention from the press. (Though then again, so do some obviously nonmainstream figures, such as fascist fishwife Cindy Sheehan.)
The best part of the E&P story, though, is one of the defenses of Loven:
MoveOn.org's Media Action sent an e-mail to media outlets urging support for Loven, claiming "some reporters take notes on what President Bush says and don't bother to research what is and isn't true. But the AP took a bold step this week and engaged in exactly the sort of strong watchdog journalism MoveOn Media Action members have been calling for."
Tu quoque! That "some reporters . . ." line is exactly what they claim Bush does, isn't it?
George
Bush Doesn't Care About Sapphic People
"Government experts wrote memos that warned about these dangers and many
others in great detail. The administration was warned about precisely what has
happened, just as it was warned that Hurricane Katrina could cause the dykes
to fail."--Sheila Seuss Kennedy, Indianapolis Star, March 23
Tongue
Slips, Pink Slips
Here's an unhappy story out of St. Louis from the Associated Press: Dave Lenihan,
a radio host in St. Louis, was singing the praises of Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, saying that she would make a good commissioner of the National Football
League. He meant to say her selection would be a "coup," but instead--well,
let's go to the tape:
"She's been chancellor of Stanford. She's got the patent résumé of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that.
"I didn't mean that. It was just a slip of the tongue. She's definitely got all the attributes to be commissioner. I'm really sorry about that."
A highly embarrassing slip of the tongue, and Lenihan was suitably embarrassed. But that wasn't enough:
KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey came on the air to announce the firing shortly after. . . .
Dorsey and Lenihan both called the use of the word a "slip of the tongue," but Dorsey said the utterance was nonetheless "unacceptable, reprehensible and unforgivable." . . .
"It was a most unfortunate racial slur," Dorsey said on the air. "There can be no excuse for what was said. Dave Lenihan has been let go. . . . There is enough hate. We certainly are not going to fan those flames. That is not what we're about."
NAACP chapter president Harold Crumpton called Dorsey at the station for an explanation and learned Lenihan had been fired. He said he accepted Dorsey's apology and commended him for his swift action. . . .
[Crumpton] said Dorsey took the right action, adding it should send a message to other stations to do a better job of judging the character of on-air personalities.
If there were any reason to doubt this was a slip of the tongue, we'd sympathize with Dorsey and Crumpton. But under the circumstances, their attitude seems appallingly unforgiving.
They
Feel Your Pain (Unless You're a Taxpayer)
"Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Tuesday proposed his first state budget, calling
for tax increases and painful spending cuts to rescue New Jersey from
one of the largest deficits any state is facing."--New York Times, March 22
What
Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts: Beware of Phony Cops"--headline, ABCNews.com, March 21
What
Would the Tiniest Tots Do Without Experts?
"Experts Rip 'Sesame' TV Aimed at Tiniest Tots"--headline, Washington
Post, March 21
C'mon,
Guys, Let's Heat It Up!
"Study Says U.S. Companies Lag on Global Warming"--headline, New York
Times, March 22
Let's
Hope She Doesn't Die. Before the Election
"Ex-Army Pilot Gets Ill. House Nomination"--headline, Associated Press,
March 22
Acme
Stock Plummets on Wall Street
"Wily Coyote Captured in Central Park"--headline, Associated Press,
March 22
Looking
for Lava in All the Wrong Places
"South Pacific Volcano Stops Search for Man"--headline, Associated
Press, March 22
Lower
Than 100%?
"People who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than
those who get 8 hours of sleep."--LiveScience.com, March 23
Thanks
for the Tip!--LVIII
"Health Tip: Salmonella Can Make You Sick"--headline, HealthDayNews,
March 22
Bottom
Story of the Day
"Bee Gees Singer to Perform"--headline, Shanghai Daily, March 23
Bright
Lights, Dim Bulb
Let's Eat Mites! carries an op-ed piece today by Larry Bailly, a resident of
Snohomish, Wash., who does volunteer work in Haiti. He describes a conversation
with a Haitian man on a flight back to Seattle:
As we cleared the runway, I gazed out the window at a sea of what seemed to be a bazillion lights.
It made me think about how little it would take--just turning off one light per household--and how the money saved could probably light the whole country of Haiti.
I just told him I was sorry, that there are some Americans who wish Haiti a better future.
He understood, because the lights had struck him, too: so much light, so much waste.
How many trees had to die so that the paper's 232,000 subscribers could read such brilliant insights?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steve Rosenbach, John Andrews, Peter August, Ed Lasky, Ray Guy, Bill King, Anne McCaughey, Mike Glasgow, Tom Linehan, Shawn Sauve, Justin Cawley, R.J. Sorce, Kenneth Nunney, Brendan Schulman, Ron Finch, Wil Milan, Miguel Lecuona, Keith Barnes, Scott Wright, Mark Schulze, Tom Neven, Mark Showalter, Reid Wilborn, Dave Tinkle, Kevin Kennedy, Gad Meir, David Stern, S. Abramczyk, David Shapero, Michael Segal, Monty Krieger, Eric Axelson, Charles Kalina, Mark Finkelstein, Kim Weissman, Kaivon Paroo, Larry Grant, Jason Shanker, Brian Gaffney, Dan O'Shea, David Waghalter, Mark Van Der Molen, Samuel Walker, Alex Selim, Gid'on Friedman, Peter Nichols, Luke Burke, Joe Perez, Russell Zwerg, Roger Love, Jason Corrigan, Ruth Papazian, Mary Pinkowish, Dan Tracy and Jack Archer. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: What a world without U.S. power looks like.
- Peggy Noonan: From India to Iraq, lessons in the dangers of elitist detachment.
- John Fund: Where the Taliban Man at Yale story stands now.
- Stephen Moore: A tiny rodent is the hottest political issue in Colorado.
- Adrian Wooldridge: Will Glenn Reynolds and his army take down Big Media?
