Diversity Enthusiasts Beware!

Irish Independent columnist Ian O'Doherty declares he has "no respect or tolerance" for Sharia:

Anywhere in the world where Sharia law is practised, such barbaric and disgusting practises take place on a regular basis.

Don't believe me? Well, Iran has been in the news for the most recent example of a woman being sentenced to death by stoning. But they are also partial to hanging gay people and women with too much attitude.

And they quite like a bit of eye-gouging as well, when the mood takes them, such as the woman who had her eyes gouged out in a public square because she fought off a man who tried to rape her. Check that out on the internet when you fancy losing your lunch.

Or what about precious little Palestine, where 50 women have been killed by their own families this year alone, and where the beating of women who aren't sufficiently "modest" is common under the fanatics of Hamas.

Or Afghanistan, where women are routinely raped and murdered by family and strangers with impunity? Or Chechnya? Or Somalia? Or anywhere Sharia is practised.

And yet we are constantly instructed by the multicultural, liberal, chattering classes to show "respect" and "tolerance" towards Muslims who want to practise their cultural heritage in Western countries.

Well, you know what? I don't have any respect or tolerance for not just the actions, but also the mentality.

And, yes, he concedes, this makes him "Islamophobic":

Well, I am Islamophobic in the sense that I'm phobic towards the notion of treating women as third-class citizens, flogging people and killing them for having an independent thought.

I'm phobic towards the idea of killing Theo Van Gogh because he made a movie they didn't like. I'm phobic towards killing a Japanese translator because he worked on the Satanic Verses.

I'm also rather phobic to the notion that the Muslim world has the right to riot and kill each other because of a few unfunny cartoons in an obscure Danish publication.

Protestations from the Ivory Tower notwithstanding, there's nothing high-minded, chic or compassionate about tolerating barbaric acts of intolerance. Indeed, tolerating intolerance feeds its growth and provides its sanctuary. O'Doherty also reports that the Saudi woman who recently suffered the misfortune of being gang-raped and later sentenced to 200 lashes for the offense was also targeted for death by her very own brother. She had violated the family's "honor," after all.

It's too bad President Bush and many of his Anglosphere allies are so jaded with misplaced notions of "tolerance" that almost nothing is said of women's abuse under Sharia law. Why not push for a United Nations resolution that simply expresses the belief that state-sanctioned abuse of rape victims is inhumane? It wouldn't have much practical effect, but it could go a long way reminding people there's no shame in being intolerant of barbarity.

Americans Want To Hear More About Iraq ...

But the media has moved on. From a Pew Research Center analysis:

News about the Iraq war does not dominate the public’s consciousness nearly as much as it did last winter. Currently, just 16% of Americans name the Iraq war as the news story that first comes to mind when asked what has been in the news lately. In December and January, a period when U.S. policy toward Iraq and President Bush’s troop surge drew extensive news coverage, as many as half or more named the Iraq war as the first story that came to mind.

Despite decreased public interest in the war [this doesn't logically follow the last 'graf -- FP], a growing number of Americans fault news organizations for providing too little, rather than too much, coverage of the war. In particular, the public believes that the challenges and experiences of U.S. soldiers – both while serving in Iraq and after returning to the United States – are receiving too little news coverage.

Fully 63% say that “the challenges faced by some U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq” have received too little news coverage; about the same number (61%) say that reports about soldiers’ personal experiences have been undercovered.

It's no surprise the media's clammed up on Iraq just as the reasons for hope grow steadily stronger. For the last three years, most major media outlets have invested their personal credibility in the all's-doomed angle. Allowing that this call may have been premature is embarrassing. But more interesting is the implicit conceit that there's no such thing as good news, as World News Tonight anchor Charlie Gibson recently opined:

One item from Baghdad today. The news is … that there is no news. The police told us that, to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad and today no bombings or roadside explosions were reported.

Apparently, Americans disagree -- this is news.

Isn't It Sad?

To visit a site like Gawker.com and read a relatively controversial post, only to discover that not a single commenter is able to muster the courage to express an opinion that, even in the most limited way, separates him/herself from the herd? I mean, surely not every single Gawker reader thinks exactly the same, right? Isn't conformity, like, totally passe?

P.S. Is this my first post that's composed entirely of questions?

Quote of the Day

Via Powerline:

"According to [House Majority Whip James] Clyburn, a strongly positive report by Petraeus would be 'a real big problem for us.'"

U.S. Troops Boogie With Iraqi Police & Tribesmen

"A video of US officers, Iraqi security personnel and Iraqi tribesmen dancing in Anbar Province has been making the online rounds," IraqSlogger reports:

Excerpted from a report on the US-funded Arabic-language broadcaster al-Hurra, the video features a gathering in Ramadi to celebrate gains realized by US-backed tribal forces and Iraqi security forces against al-Qa'ida-affiliated groups in the province.

Voicing over general shots of US military, Iraqi security forces, and tribal leaders dancing and celebrating together al-Hurra’s Omar Muhammad, explains that US forces, Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi tribesmen gathered in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar.

The video is undated.

A banner is shown, proclaiming that the “spark of liberation” has been unleashed in the province.

The first gentleman to be shown addressing the crowd over the public address system is the governor of Anbar province, Ma’moun Sami, who praises the efforts against “terrorists and takfiris.” Takfiri is a term employed for Sunni extremists who adopt takfir, or the practice of declaring less extremist Muslims to be unbelievers.

Then, Shaykh Khattab al-'Amir al-'Ali Sulaiman, son of the head of the Dulaim tribe, addresses the crowd, thanking the “allied forces” including the tribal fighters and Iraqi police.

At the end of the report the US-funded broadcaster’s reporter suggests that the battle continues for other parts of Iraq.

Al Qaeda: No Big Fans of Jews, Children

"The radical leader of Islamabad's Red Mosque, under siege for the last six days by hundreds of Pakistan troops, said the 1,800 children he claims are still in the religious-school complex have taken oaths on the Quran to fight to the death, a frightening possibility confirmed by frantic parents who have spoken by cell phone with sons and daughters who say they soon hope to be martyrs," WorldNetDaily reports.

Ghazi, who has said he and his followers will fight to the end, now says the 1,800 children he holds have been divided into two groups and will join his fighters against any assault. [...]

"The boys are the first line of defense, then the girls," he said. "They have all sworn an oath on the Koran that they will fight to the death."

All Ghazi needed was eight weeks:

Khan, the desperate father and shopkeeper, succeeded Friday in getting his two daughters to leave the compound with a ruse.

Reaching them once again by cell phone, he told them their mother was ill and lay unconscious on the pavement outside. The two girls left the compound and were taken by their father.

Saima, Khan's 10-year-old daughter, denounced the trick.

"The teachers taught us about martyrdom and that it is a great achievement," she told the Times. "I could see the fighting was in front of me and I could understand that we would die. I felt real anger about what my father did. He tricked me."

"I'm taking them back to our village," Khan said. "They were ready for martyrdom and they're very angry with me. I'm just happy I've got my daughters back, and sorry for those whose daughters are still in there."

According to Khan, Saima's transformation had taken only eight weeks.

Also, Karol directs readers to this story, from Michael Yon, reporting from Iraq:

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11-years-old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Politicians make much of their passion for The Children, passing bans on everything from smoking to dodge ball out of concern for their well-being. Meanwhile, House Speaker Speaker Nancy Pelosi is promising a "month of action" to "end the war," thereby ensuring stories like those above become only more frequent. Too bad Iraqi/Pakistani parents don't vote in Democratic primaries.

Has the Media Learned Nothing?

In today's D.C. Examiner, I expand on some earlier thoughts, taking Washington's press corps to task for it's curious lack of interest in asking tough questions to Democrats proposing "a new way forward" in Iraq:

Having failed to survive Bush’s veto, Democrats are now scrapping “timetables” in favor of “benchmarks.” Ostensibly these make America’s continued support conditional upon verifiable progress from Iraq’s government.

Again, the press, Washington’s (with its closer access) in particular, has an opportunity to prove its mettle. Tough questions:

» Does it make sense to threaten American allies?

» How can Congress be sure “benchmarks” won’t increase short-term violence, whereby insurgents could ensure discontinued U.S. support?

» Who creates the benchmarks? How will they be verified? How will it be determine they’ve been met to satisfaction?

Read the rest here.

Where's the D.C. Press Corps Now?

“The war is lost,” Senate Leader Harry Reid announced last week. As if to ensure the reality matched the rhetoric, this week congressional Democratic leaders followed up Reid’s statement with votes mandating troop withdrawals from Iraq starting as soon as July.

Reid has not been particularly circumspect in describing his motivations, admitting rather unashamedly the Senate vote is baldly political. “We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war,” he predicted.

Is this the right strategy? Hard to say — no prominent Democrat has yet to really be challenged on it.

Which raises the question: Where’s that famously ruthless D.C. press corps?

Both Democrats and the media never tire of informing just how grave the stakes in Iraq . People are dying -- American troops, innocent Iraqis. America’s reputation is being ravaged. Iraq’s imploding into civil war.

And this is the Democrats’ cure-all -- a pork-laden war-funding bill pronouncing America ’s impending surrender?

For a press corps that takes itself as seriously as Washington’s, one might hope at least a few basic questions would be put toward Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and every other politician advocating timetables.

Rather obvious, and natural, questions — like:

• Is a timetable for withdrawal intended to hasten a U.S. victory — or defeat?
• If it’s victory, how will a withdrawal help?
• If it's defeat, how does that help U.S. national interests?
• How will abandoning Iraq ’s burgeoning government affect America ’s reputation in the region?
• A Taliban spokesman recently stated Osama bin Laden is coordinating insurgent attacks in Iraq. If true, how is it possible to simultaneously fight the War on Terror but not insurgents in Iraq ?
• What are some possible worst-case scenarios of withdrawing from Iraq ?
• Should such a scenario manifest, what are Democrats’ contingency plans?
• The recently passed war-funding bill mandates the last of the U.S. troops stationed in Iraq leave by September 2008. What’s significant about this date other than being two months prior to the next presidential election?

We don’t get these questions because the answers are obvious: abandoning Iraq will hasten an American defeat; leaving the country halfway broken will leave a permanent scar on America’s regional reputation; it’s impossible to fight the War on Terror but not Iraq’s insurgents; leaving Iraq could beget a full-fledged regional war; Democrats have no plan should such a contingency arise; the final pullout date is arbitrary aside from its intent of removing Iraq from the next election’s political equation.

Reid wouldn’t answer this way, of course. He’d say this is President Bush’s war and that any such negative externalities are in his hands.

Which is precisely the problem. Having expended so much effort using Iraq to bring down Bush, the credibility of Democrats and the major media now hangs in the balance. Diverting even a fraction of energy spent challenging the president over his war plans to do likewise with Democrats threatens not only Democratic leaders, but the D.C. press corps itself.

Herein lies the provenance of a subtle bias, perhaps subconscious, that poses an enormous threat American security.

In keeping their personal interests on high -- thus ignoring possible consequences of Democratic actions -- Democrats and their D.C. press corps brethren invite the very dystopic Iraqi finality they’ve spent so long predicting the Bush administration was inspiring.

And all because reporters are still not doing what they now blame themselves for failing to do in the run-up to the war: asking tough questions.

The Middle East's Fading Anti-Americanism

For those interested in formulating an opinion on what America's doing right now in Iraq, Amir Taheri's writing is indispensable. In his latest for the Post, Taheri apprises of how political parties are developing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most interesting: leftist groups are allying, and rejecting their ingrained anti-Americanism.

Here are a few nuggets:

* In Iraq, two rival Communist parties, along with Social Democrats and other center-left groups, supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and continue to play a significant role in the new pluralist system. They are resolutely opposed to a premature withdrawal of American and allied forces, as demanded by the U.S. Congress. ...

BEFORE the U.S.-led inter ventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, much of the Middle Eastern Left shared the views of its U.S. and European counterparts with regard to America.

"We looked to the Left in the West and imitated it," says Awad Nasir, one of Iraq's best-known poets and a life-long Communist. "We heard from the United States and Western Europe that being Left meant being anti-American. So we were anti-American. And then we saw Americans coming from the other side of the world to save us from Saddam Hussein - something that our leftist friends and the Soviet Union would never contemplate." ...

IRAQ'S parties of the Left were shocked when the new So cialist government in Spain decided to withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition in 2004. "We had hoped that with a party of the Left in power in Madrid we would get more support against the Islamofascists, not a withdrawal," says Aziz al-Haj, the veteran Iraqi communist leader.

Tareq al-Hashemi, vice president of Iraq, has also gambled his impeccable progressive record on the success of the pluralist experiment in his country. "Our enemy is al Qaeda, not the United States," he says.

Jumblatt, the Lebanese leader, says he realized that his life-long anti-Americanism had been misplaced when he saw "long lines of people, waiting to vote in Iraq, in the first free election in an Arab country. ...

SKIMMING through the Middle Eastern press these days can produce unexpected results. It's not rare to see a virulently anti-American article by an American or Western European leftist - and, alongside it on the same page, a pro-American article from an Arab, Iranian or Afghan progressive figure.

We're winning.

Today's Question

For any senator or congressman who voted for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq:

Without using the words "President Bush," or some variation thereof, please name one good thing a timetable will accomplish.

In the event given responses include the words "policing a civil war" it should be stated for the record that this congressman/senator does not believe in American intervention in Sudan.

Thanks for playing!

Democrats' Doublethink

"Doublethink," as defined by In George Orwell's 1984, means holding "simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them ..."

Nancy Pelosi, today: "We owe our troops a course of action in Iraq that is worthy of their sacrifice. Today, we set the state for a New Direction on Iraq by passing a resolution of fewer than 100 words which supports our troops but disapproves of the President's escalation proposal. ... The bipartisan resolution today is nonbinding, but it will send a strong message to the President: we are committed to supporting the troops and we disapprove of the escalation."

On Democrat Rhetoric

With the House nearing closer to a vote denouncing President Bush's handling of the Iraq War, now might not be a bad time for Americans to think about some of the opinions recently expressed by insurgent leaders in Iraq.

"With our brave fighters dying everyday at the hands of the American occupiers, it's become increasingly clear this war can’t be won militarily," said Ibrahim al-Shimmari, a spokesman for a Sunni insurgent group. "It's time for a new direction."

"We haven't sent in enough fighters. We've been out-manned since Day One," said Abraham al-Manari, a spokesman for the Ansar al-Sunna, a Sunni insurgent group.

Citing what he describes as Mugtada al-Sadr's "failed" leadership of the al-Mahdi Army, Abu Sajjad, a Mahdi spokesman, said "this insurgency is being incompetently managed with disastrous results."

Still others are exasperated with the frequency with which the successor to Abu Musab al Zarqawi of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, is losing fighters.

"We need to place a limit on the numbers of our brave young warriors being sent to fight holy war," said one al Qaeda fighter on an Internet message board. At the least, he said, "We must demand a timetable for withdrawal."

Many Ba'athist insurgents, disillusioned by their dwindling ranks, take an even stronger position, arguing the insurgency should be called off altogether.

Well, not really. While these quotes may ring familiar, it's for all the wrong reasons. These are the Democratic tropes Iraqis have been hearing over the last three years.

But had insurgents leaders really uttered them, imagine the average American's response. Perhaps, sensing widespread despair, many might suddenly feel . . . emboldened? Who knows, some might even suggest doubling up on troops to "finish 'em off."

Too bad it's the opposite that's happening: Our enemies daily take in such worried rhetoric from American political "leaders."

Asked how Democrats can support the troops but not their mission, Senator Charles Schumer let the cat out of the bag: "Well, that's the difficulty. A resolution that says we're against this escalation, that's easy. The next step will be how do you put further pressure on the administration against the escalation but still supporting the troops who are there? And that's what we're figuring out right now."

Political cover first; troops-assistance later.

In their rush to denounce the commander-in-chief’s leadership, Democrats inescapably aid al Qaeda in Iraq and its cohorts. Like those before them, George Orwell said of the Brits advocating withdrawal from World War II: "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other side."

Asked whether Democratic rhetoric could embolden the enemy, Sen. Joe Biden huffed, "It's not the American people or the U.S. Congress who are emboldening the enemy, it's the failed policy of this president going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely."

Blaming Bush certainly makes for easy politics. But even Bush's greatest blunders rank nowhere near the detriment caused by the politician who willingly talks his nation into defeat so that he may achieve some small, personal political gain.

As Biden well knows, reckless rhetoric carries consequences. With Democrats having successfully assumed office and the responsibilities entailed, a recognition of such is, I shouldn't think, asking too much.