Kos-alanche!

I see that I'm receiving a flurry of visitors from DailyKos ever since he linked to my old Pajamahadeen post.

Welcome to my humble blog, Kossaks. And thanks for the mention, DailyKos!

Clinton aide: There's always hope that [Bush's foreign policy] might not work

James Taranto analyzes a transcript of Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's “The Daily Show”, interviewing former Clinton aid Nancy Soderberg, who was flogging her new book: The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might. Amazon.com readers who have rated this book, at least at the time of this posting, have assigned it a perfectly mediocre “two stars” (out of a possible five stars). Maybe her time might have been better spent writing a better book instead of promoting dodgy goods.

As an aside, beware of Clintonistas who write books that suggest that Clinton’s refusal to employ American power in response to, say, I don’t know—maybe to al Qaeda’s 1993 attempted destruction of the World Trade Center bombing, was wiser that Bush's use of it in response to al Qaeda’s 2001 successful destruction of the World Trade Center.

OK, Back on topic.

Nancy Soderberg had the bad fortune to write this book back when the conventional wisdom—at least as announced by the MSM—was that everything was going poorly in Iraq and the prognosis, in general, was bad.

Consequently, Soderberg is having to boost a book,

• that is pessimistic about, say, the outcome of Bush’s efforts in Iraq,


• which was released to the bookstores on January 28^th


• and which said release of said pessimistic book is confronted with the successful Iraqi elections of January 30^th

BU-WHA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

And now this clueless Clintonista is gamely hitting the talk shows—amid MSM reports about successful Iraqi elections, Iraqis protesting al Qaeda death squad attacks in Iraq, Lebanese citizens protesting the presence of Syrian troops and security forces in Lebanon, and Palestinians protesting and homicide bombing in Tel Aviv—discussing how her book explains why Bush should have had more humility and not attempt the impossible and why the sky wouldn’t be falling if Bush had just tried to be as ineffectual as Clinton and saying all of these things when Bush foreign policy garden is coming up with nothing but roses. And the best part is she is (probably) contractually required to make a fool out of herself this way on national TV and elsewhere. Of course I haven’t seen the contract between her and her publisher (Wiley) but I’m confident that it obligates her—in exchange for that advance that Wiley has to be regretting right now—to hit the talk shows and the book signing and pump her book; hence her interview on “The Daily Show”.

OK, all of the above is delicious enough already but wait, there’s more! Jon Stewart managed to get her to admit that the Democrats are hoping for a Bush failure in the Middle East:

Stewart: Do you think they're the guys to--do they understand what they've unleashed? Because at a certain point, I almost feel like, if they had just come out at the very beginning and said, "Here's my plan: I'm going to invade Iraq. We'll get rid of a bad guy because that will drain the swamp"--if they hadn't done the whole "nuclear cloud," you know, if they hadn't scared the pants off of everybody, and just said straight up, honestly, what was going on, I think I'd almost--I'd have no cognitive dissonance, no mixed feelings.

Soderberg: The truth always helps in these things, I have to say. But I think that there is also going on in the Middle East peace process--they may well have a chance to do a historic deal with the Palestinians and the Israelis. These guys could really pull off a whole—

Stewart: This could be unbelievable!

Soderberg: ---series of Nobel Peace Prizes here, which--it may well work. I think that, um, it's—

Stewart: [buries head in hands] Oh my God! [audience laughter] He's got, you know, here's—

Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us. [emphasis mine--johnh

Did you catch that? Soderberg is practically admitting that the Democrats are about to hang themselves over Bush’s imminent success! She basically said that the Democrats only hope is that Bush’s successes in both Afghanistan and Iraq are canceled out by some sort of debacle in either North Korea or Iran—perhaps one similar to the Bay of Pigs debacle caused by Ted Kennedy’s brother.

Also recall Jon Stewart’s prediction that his kid would go to a high school named after Bush. Jon Stewart voiced one of my expectations: that Bush is going to be remembered to be at least as consequential as Reagan.

I have to quote James Taranto’s sensible commentary on this interview:

We've long been skeptical of Jon Stewart, but color us impressed. He managed to ambush this poor woman brutally, in a friendly interview. She was supposed to be promoting her book, and instead he got her to spend the entire interview debunking it (at least if we understood the book's thesis correctly from the very brief discussion of it up top).

She also admitted repeatedly that Democrats are hoping for American failure in the Middle East. To be sure, this is not true of all Democrats, Soderberg speaks only for herself, and she says she is ambivalent ("But as an American . . ."). But we do not question her expertise in assessing the prevailing mentality of her own party. No wonder Dems get so defensive about their patriotism.

Interesting too is Stewart's acknowledgment of his own "cognitive dissonance" and "mixed feelings" over the Iraq liberation. It's a version of an argument we've been hearing a lot lately: As our Brendan Miniter puts it, "The president's critics never seem to tire of claiming that the war in Iraq began over weapons of mass destruction and only later morphed into a war of liberation."

Miniter correctly notes that "this criticism isn't entirely right," but for the sake of argument let's assume it is. What does it mean? President Bush has altered his arguments to conform to reality, while his critics remain fixated on obsolete disputes. This would seem utterly to refute the liberal media stereotype. Bush, it turns out, is a supple-minded empiricist, while his opponents are rigid ideologues.

I have to say, Jon Stewart is a pretty switched on guy for a fellow who makes his living entertaining stoned slackers.

Update:

Mike's America has the background on Nancy Soderberg:

Yes, Democrats are left hoping that either Iran or North Korea will start some trouble or worse... Isn't that pathetically sad? And while we are on the subject of North Korea... wasn't it the Clinton Adminstration that went over there in the 90's and promised them anything if they would just behave??? And it was this same Soderberg woman who was #3 in the Clinton National Security Council and worked at the heart of that Adminstration during it's malfeasance in the conduct of foreign policy.

And of course you know that if Kerry were elected... she'd be right back in there making as big a mess of things now as she, Clinton and Albright did then.

Good background investigation Mike! I have to point out that the Clinton-Soderberg dynamic duo wasn't alone on North Korea; Jimmy Carter worked out the deal on their behalf.

Thank you, nick, for the blogrolling

Nick of Just Opinions was nice enough to blog roll 2muchtruth.

Many Thanks!

New Report on Saudi Government Publications in U.S.

The Center for Religious Freedom has released a new study titled Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques. The study’s foreword was written by James Woolsey (CIA director from 1993-1195) is worth reading for its own sake. (James Woolsey, by the way, was the CIA director that Bill Clinton avoided meeting for no apparent reason. )

The study reviews the history of the Wahhabi Islamic sect that dominates Saudi Arabia and how it changed from being a fringe element to essentially becoming Saudi Arabia’s “official version” of Islam after 1979. The study examines the how the Saudi ruling family has funded the Wahhabi clerics and their international efforts to create mosques and Islamic schools that only teach the Wahhabi version of Islam. The study also examines the hostile language—hostile to Western culture, that is—of Wahhabi ideology and literature.

Here is a short explanation of the study’s intention:

Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom decided to undertake this project after a number of Muslims and other experts publicly raised concerns about Saudi state influence on American religious life.1 This report complements a May 2003 recommendation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent government agency, that the U.S. government conduct a study on Saudi involvement in propagating internationally a “religious ideology that explicitly promotes hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, and in some cases violence, toward members of other religious groups, both Muslims and non-Muslims.” 2 In releasing this report, the Center is also mindful of one of the key findings of the 9/11 Commission Report: “Education that teaches tolerance, the dignity and value of each individual, and respect for different beliefs is a key element in any global strategy to eliminate Islamist terrorism.”

The phenomenon of Saudi hate ideology is worldwide, but its occurrence in the United States has received scant attention. This report begins to probe in detail the content of the Wahhabi ideology that the Saudi government has worked to propagate through books and other publications within our borders. …

As I read the study I was struck by the explicit directives on how to shun infidels and when to kill:

Here is Wahhabi position on saying “Hi!” to an infidel:

On the matter of whether or not to commence greetings with Christians and Jews, the Saudi publication imposes a strict prohibition. Replying to a salutation by an unbeliever, on the other hand, should consist of no more than a terse “and upon you” …. This directive is also contained in the tract published by the Saudi Embassy’s Cultural Department in Washington and collected from the Islamic Center in Washington.

“It is forbidden for a Muslim to be first in greeting an unbeliever, even if he has a prestigious position.”

Here’s the instruction on how to hate your Christian neighbor:

According to the Wahhabi view, it is a Muslim’s religious duty to cultivate enmity between oneself and unbelievers. Hatred of unbelievers is the proof that the believer has completely dissociated from them. A work entitled Loyalty and Dissociation in Islam, compiled by the Ibn Taymiya Library in Riyadh and distributed by the King Fahd-supported Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., states emphatically:

“To be dissociated from the infidels is to hate them for their religion, to leave them, never to rely on them for support, not to admire them, to be on one’s guard against them, never to imitate them, and to always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.”

Here is Wahhabi intolerance for tolerance:

Western churches have increasingly called for greater unity among world religions and interfaith dialogue, but the Saudi Arabian authoritative religious office is adamant. The government’s Permanent Committee finds no common ground. Islam is the final and most perfect religion and by its coming all previous religions, including Judaism and Christianity, have been nullified. The Saudi text asserts that the Koran has rendered both the Torah and the Gospels obsolete because they were tampered with and altered by wicked or wayward men. The call to greater unity among religions is therefore sinful since it erases the radical differences between Islam and systems of unbelief. The Saudi text, distributed in the San Diego mosque declares,

“It is basic to the belief of Islam that everyone who does not embrace Islam is an unbeliever and must be called an unbeliever and that they are enemies to Allah, his Prophet and the believers….That is why the one who does not call the Jews and the Christian unbelievers is himself an unbeliever….”

Worst of all is for a Muslim to call for such unity and promote this sinful idea at meetings or conferences with unbelievers. Thus, participating in the building of interdenominational places of worship where religious rites other than those of Islam are practiced is a serious instance of misguided behavior meriting severe reprimand

The Saudi government text makes clear the reason interfaith harmony is to be feared is that it will lead to the end of jihad.

“The effect of this sinful call is that it erases the differences between Islam and disbelief, between truth and falsehood, good and bad, and it breaks the wall of resentment between the Muslims and the unbelievers, so that there is no loyalty and enmity, no more jihad and fighting to raise Allah’s word on earth….”

Here is Wahhabi religious instruction on how to be a total overbearing prick toward your domestic help:

The Saudi publications also instruct Muslims that it is preferable not to hire non-
Muslims, especially within the Arabian Peninsula, but, if they do, they have to hate them. In fatwas on the “Treatment of Servants,” published [Document No. 36] by the Saudi Embassy to Washington and collected from the Islamic Center in East Orange, N.J., the late Saudi Grand Mufti Bin Baz states the following about how to handle an infidel domestic worker:

“The women in your household do not have to stay away from her, but they should not treat her as they would treat a Muslim woman. They have to hate her for Allah’s sake….” [Document No. 36]

The study covers an number of everyday topic, for example, how to tell when it becomes necessary to kill another Muslim, demonizing the Jews, how to hate Muslims how are something other than Wahhabis, anti-Americanism, and so on.

Feeling more enlightened yet?

Mexican government hires lawyers to study legal challenges to Minutemen

A group known as the Minuteman Project is organizing volunteers to conduct surveillance along a twenty-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexican border. The The Minuteman Project's website states:

Our policy of passive activity will be to OBSERVE with the aid of binoculars - telescopes - night vision scopes, and inform the U.S. Border Patrol of the location of illegal activity so that border patrol agents can investigate.

We will not be confrontational with anyone. The tentative area of observation will be a 20-mile stretch of lowlands across the San Pedro Valley in southeast Arizona.

The Mexico edition of the Herald reports that, according to the Mexican Foreign Minister, the Mexican Government intends to use the U.S. court system to oppose volunteer border surveillance groups:

The government of Mexico will use all legal channels to fight the formation of vigilante patrol groups along the U.S-Mexico border, Foreign Minister Luis Derbez said on Monday.

Notice that the author of this article, one Natalia Gómez, chose to spin passive observation of illegal infiltration of our country by her countrymen as vigilantism. Is this word, vigilantism, a good fit? From Wikipedia:

In modern terms, vigilantes are militias or police which attempt law enforcement, in the usual phrase, "by taking the law into their own hands". Vigilantes often operate in secret.

The members of the Minuteman Project fail both parts of this description. They are neither operating in secret nor are they attempting to “take the law into their own hands”. They only intend to alert Homeland Security to any observed infiltration across our southern border. Yes, the Minuteman Project is a type of militia but a militia must also “take the law into their own hands” before they can be considered vigilantes.

The Herald article continues:

In addition, Derbez said that the issue would be broached with U.S. Secretary of State Condolezza Rice during her March 10 official visit to Mexico.

Derbez was speaking specifically to the formation of the Minuteman Project: a 500 strong volunteer group that plans to patrol a 40-mile stretch of the Arizona border throughout April.

Officials on both sides of the border fear the Minuteman patrols could cause more trouble than they prevent.

Trouble? What sort of trouble might that be? Inconveniencing illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, and the occasional al Qaeda death squad by ratting them out to Homeland Security? Creating news that embarrasses Homeland Security officials? I can deal with that sort of trouble.

Note well that Gómez is citing anonymous sources when she quotes unnamed “Officials on both sides of the border”. Is there any sensible reason why such an official would need the protection of anonymity to express such as “discordant” opinion? Or was Gómez just interviewing voices inside her head?

At least some of the volunteers plan to arm themselves during the 24-hour desert patrols.

Evidently Gómez thinks Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights as a contingency against criminal assault by illegal immigrants or drug smugglers is troubling or something. Memo to Gómez: stuff it. If I were participating in the Minuteman Project I would be armed. Why? I’m so glad you asked! Because the illegal infiltrators at the U.S.-Mexican border have earned a reputation for violence, that’s why.

Many are untrained and have little or no experience in confronting illegal border crossings.

This is just more of Gómez’s vigilante spin. The Minuteman Project has already explicitly stated that they intended to avoid any confrontation.

The Mexican government has already hired a Los Angeles based legal firm to prepare a report on possible legal actions to challenge such vigilante groups, Derbez said Monday.

What is this? The Mexican government is hiring U.S. lawyers to facilitate illegal infiltration into the U.S. from Mexico? [Boom! My head explodes as the absurdity reaches critical mass.] This is not logic but a cry of desperation.

Also, I would just love to see the “report” those LA attorneys come up with. What can they say? That Americans plan to lurk on American soil observing any interesting activities that might or might not occur on the American side of the Mexican border? Please.

And what will be the Mexican government’s official complaint about the Minuteman Project? My guess is that it is going to sound like the backseat of a family car around hour nine of driving toward a vacation spot: “Mommy! Johnny’s looking at me again!”

BU WHA HAHAHAHAHA!

Postscript:
all emphasis, except in the quote from Wikipedia, is mine.

Update:

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