Talk about the NIE quickly went stale, after it became obvious that the only thing fresh about it was the imaginative reading that appeared in the NY Times.  The contention that the war in Iraq produces more terrorists has been answered.  But, Jonah Goldberg gathered together the best that can be said about the issue, and says it very well.

"Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority
nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit. Over time, such
progress, together with sustained, multifaceted programs targeting the
vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al-Qa’ida,
could erode support for the jihadists."  NIE Key Judgments

Jihadists see Iraq as the front line of their cause, because of what they envision would result from their defeat in Iraq.  The jihadist pull derives from their allegation that should we win, Iraq would be better for the United States but worse for Iraq, and especially for Muslims in Iraq. 

Killing more jihadists does not neutralize their attractiveness to their supporters.  Their attraction lies in their credibility as freedom fighters.   The key to defeating them is in establishing freedom, and doing so despite great cost to ourselves.

In order to win in Iraq, we must believe unwaveringly that democracy is compatible with Islam.  To sustain the war, we must be convinced that we are fighting on behalf of democratic Islam, against anti-democracy.  To believe this, we must believe that the anti-democratic movements within Islam, against whom we are fighting, do not speak for all of Islam.   It is alarming to see this conviction crumbling, on the left and the right.

The jihadists promote the view that democracy is the enemy of Islam.  This is the ideological enemy that we are fighting.  Whoever starts to believe that Islam and sharia are incompatible with democracy has become a hindrance to the cause of democracy in Islamic countries, and in fact has switched sides in the ideological battle that is the key to winning the war in Iraq. 

A couple of thoughts will sustain our alliance with democratic Islam.  First, there is a difference between secularization and democracy.  Failure to believe this is why those who believe in secularization more than they believe in democracy cannot win the war.   The forces in this country who are terrified because religious people have a democratic influence cannot persuade the religious people of another country that our war is not against their religion.  This describes the difference between the President, who thinks that the insurgency will be defeated by fair elections, and his opposition.

Second, not all who favor genuine democracy are "moderates".   Although democracy favors people more than it favors truth, it does not exclude truth; and it is only on that account that people can be convinced to favor democracy as a means for advancing the truth as they understand it, and to oppose violent jihad as the disaster that it really is. 
We need to pay attention to Indonesia, for example, and examine how Islamic "scholars" there have managed to interpret sharia in various democratic ways.

Howard Dean thinks that Bill Clinton's tirade against Fox is fuel for a money engine.


I really thought that the Democrats would try to divert attention from the interview.  I thought they would say that Clinton lost his cool because he was provoked, lured on a pretense, and that his manner shows how the viciousness of politics as defined by the "right wing extremists" finally gets under the skin of even the best of us.   Clinton's rant was, after all ... well ...  a bit paranoid and desperate, to put it kindly.

But, I am obviously tone-deaf, when it comes to guessing what will resonate with Democrat voters.  Evidently, Clinton's "powerful interview" was the keynote for the campaign.  Huh. 

James McGreevey's Confession has not been received well by the same-sex sex crowd, or the liberal community in general - thanks to the common grace of God.   But the disgraced former Governor of New Jersey's creepy invocation of God to justify surrendering to temptation is certainly what happens when the liberal's Supreme Being, whatever it is conceived to be, is called upon.

Can "red letter liberal" Christian Democrats prevent their party from being more and more conformed to the image of James McGreevey?  They may not desire their cause to be identified with his, but they have insufficient will to prevent it. 

Besides how weird it will get when pacifists address issues like defense and sanctions,  they will find that they will not be heard for what they say, but for what they do not say.  They will get the most attention for the message inferred between the lines, that God has come out of the closet.

Launched with the lofty goal of focusing on obligations to the weak according to Christ, the Christian Democrats will find their flight immediately hijacked, directed toward the issues that liberals really care about these days. 

For sheer short-term practical effectiveness, the subversive tactic of marginalization requires us to enlist vocal "Moderate Muslims" to fight for us.  The benefit is that we can comfort ourselves by having some "good Muslims" to listen to, who denounce their co-religionists in the name of their own religion.  We can use what they say, to humiliate the enemy.

As a confessional Presbyterian - a fundamentalist in newspeak - I can tell you that nothing marginalizes like the word "moderate".  Since only "moderates" speak for Presbyterians in the media, their customers know nothing of the rest of Presbyterianism, except that it is "extreme".  Never mind that "fundamentalism" simply means to stand with  historical Christian faith on even the most minimal grounds - fundamentalism is extreme.  We know this, because it is not represented by the "Moderate".

Therefore, regardless of the great rift of religious conviction that exists between me and the jihadists, speaking simply in terms of the sociology of religious marginalization as I have experienced it, this tactic cannot work in the long run.  I can use my own experience to assure you by analogy that, these wafflers and quacks called "Moderates", who tremble and fawn before world opinion, are the invention of the press.  When they presume to lisp their fatuous, embarrassing opinions on PBS in the name of my religion,  against my religion, they are warmly received by those who hate my religion.  But, they strengthen my resolve to eventually throw off the illusion, and to resist this attempt to empty my religion of its reality, transforming it into an insipid sentiment.  To put it plainly, they make me more "extreme".

What we need in the long run is authentic, recognizable representatives of the groups that hate us, to be our allies.  They must be peace makers, not traitors.  Such men are not presently available, among the jihadists, frankly, but we must seek them.  And when we find them, whatever we call them, we must not call them "Moderates".

In the absence of a peace maker, we must wage war.  For religious warfare, we require that time-tested instrument for the sowing of confusion, disunity and humiliation among the enemy: the "Moderate".   For cessation of hostility, we require mutual understanding and good will despite our disagreements.

Samir Khalil Samir, sj correctly titles his good summary of the pope's speech, The Pope’s speech: lending Islam a helping hand to avoid a downward spiral.

His explanation of the bewildering reaction, is that the protests began long before any of the translation was available, and even to date the only English version available is "provisional". Nevertheless, with people poised to be offended, it's always something.

It's to be hoped, when the real meaning of the speech is made clear, the reaction will be more than, "Never mind".

Early last month, Kevin McCullough wrote a decent article with a terrible and untrue title.  Why liberals love pedophiles.  But it was a decent article, nevertheless, that raises the more extreme examples of what concerns me about the "youth rights" issue, that I wrote about this morning.

I wrote in response:

An earlier response in that thread contained some very disturbing quotations that illustrate
 even more clearly how inexorable this "logic" can be, for true believers.


I know this seems unthinkable.  But at the extreme edge of "progressivism", the ability to think the unthinkable is worn by some as a badge of pride.

Last month, Mayor Tom Potter of Portland signed a document written by children and youth with the assistance of a few adult advisors, called "The Bill of Rights for the Children and Youth of the City of Portland and Multnomah County". 

This "bill" has the distinction, in the long tradition of progressive youth politics, of being the first such "bill" to be adopted by any city in the United States.  Being part of that tradition, it is hard to resist slipping into outright cynicism concerning the origin and aims of the Portland "bill".  It is obviously awkward to attack "child rights", especially when children are the authors of these lists of demands.  The difficulty involved in resisting it, is why youth rights is so important to the left.

The most powerful and core affirmation of the progressive "rights" movement is always "equality":  "oppression" is thus always conflated with "inequality", "justice" is the rectification of "oppression" so defined, and "rights" are the elements of that programme of rectification of "injustice" so defined. 

For this reason,  "youth rights" has for a long time been very important to egalitarian politics.  The Young Communist League, 1998, "The Youth and Student Bill of Rights", illuminates the connection:


The Green Party of San Diego County Platform, "Youth Rights", seeks to resonate with the principle, received as self-evident, that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness":

All human beings have the right to a life that will let them achieve their full potential. Young people are one of the least protected classes of human beings, yet they represent our future. We must ensure they have an upbringing that allows them to take their place as functioning, productive and self-actualized members of their community.

The Green Party supports the rights of youth:

Youth are important to the left, because they are not equal to adults.  This makes them readily exploitable by a perspective that conflates "inequality" with "oppression".  Our society resists the "independent existence" of children, we deny children the vote, we over-rule their desires and compromise their privacy in our homes, we discipline our children with warnings and punishments as we see fit.  This is what is meant, if the left says "Young people are one of the least protected classes of human beings". 

The agenda for correction is always a wish-list for tax-supported entitlements, and designs for social reform, to correct the structures that support this "oppression". 

The Portland bill is far from being the most radical example of "Youth rights". And yet, it shares with youth-exploitive progressivism, a similar assessment of children and youth. 

Predictably, "Mother" and "Father" are never mentioned in the Portland bill, because they represent continuity with the religion, culture and values of the Family conceived as an integral but independent institution, which sustains the unequal treatment of "our children".   However, a child's "right to privacy in our homes" is featured prominently, because this represents the ideal of independent existence that we value so dearly in our adult society.

As in all such declarations of "youth rights" in the past, the Portland "Bill" contains no condemnation of those who use their positions of trust, as teachers and governors, to publicly and viciously ridicule and humiliate children for the religious guidance that they receive from their father and mother.  Indeed, we are promised intolerance for teaching our children that no one is doomed to be a slave to his sexual desires, if such an attitude is labeled "insensitive".

Notably, the document contains a few great ironies.  Contrary to the general theme, that children who "speak out" are actualized future-adults with entitlement to be treated as such, the "bill" says:  "We recognize that children should not have control over specific medical decisions".  Here indeed is a way to save children from grave injustices, if only we insist on a child's right as a child, not to be made responsible for specific medical decisions.  And yet, the community denies that parents should even be notified of such decisions, much less that they should have authority sufficient to decide; and it is not the intention of the "bill" to overturn this.

Such scant and grudging acknowledgement of the weakness of children accentuates the basic weakness of all of these documents.  Children have an implicit right to be treated as children, derived from their obvious dependence upon the love of their father and mother, to which they have an evident right (in the authentic sense of that word).

Youth are denied their rights as children, when the city and county provide shelters that perpetuate, and enable immersion into, a decadent and dangerous sub-culture of self-destruction, crime and criminality.  These misguided projects are complicit in robbing children of their rights, when they are prevented, or refuse, to inform or confer with parents, sometimes to the grave endangerment of those they seek to help, especially in the case of the mentally ill.  Our schools also interfere in the same way, or find themselves forced to do so.  Every school in Portland presumes that is a matter of their own discretion whether to advise parents of their child's enquiry for birth-control or abortion, or to consult with parents prior to dispensing legal opinions or sexual identity counseling to their child.  Even the public library may refuse to advise parents of materials checked out to a child, or even of a child's over-due materials or fines. 

Parents in Portland are frequently told that they do not have the right to ask what the mayor asks every morning: "how are our children doing?".  In doing so, these institutions not only presume to themselves an authority to which they have no proper claim, they oppress the rights of the child.

Due legal process should be demanded for any case of exception to the child's basic right to the protection of attentive parents - but the "bill of rights" is built on corner-cases and exceptions, ignoring foundational issues.  The false and romantic assertion is implicit throughout that, unless a child is treated as autonomous and self-determining in the context of his home, school and community, he is oppressed.  Rather, oppression is the act of depriving the weak of their rightful protection, subjecting them to forces that exploit or harm them either by act or by willful inaction. 

Progressive "youth rights" does not seek to correct the oppression of children.  Instead, the ideal that guides it is so-called civil emancipation, which when referring to children accomplishes nothing but to excuse appropriate authority from its civil obligation to care for children.  Progressivism ignores what is self-evident about children - that they are the most cherished, protected and hopefully regarded class of people in any sane society, including our society. 

But we are losing our sanity.  Because youth-exploitive politics does not understand what justice demands on behalf of the weak, it does not protect the family and its special and unequal structures of nurture.   Instead, it seeks to replace that fortress with demands of future funding out of which they may build a dystopia in which all people are treated as children, and where children have no regard for father and mother.

The pope quotes someone who 600 years ago thought that Muhammad might have something to do with Islam's 500 year conquest of the Byzantine Empire.  Muslims demand Pope's apology.

"The Pope has dishonoured our Prophet. He said our Prophet was a terrorist and he had used sword. Those who say such things whether they are in India or abroad should be punished," said Syeda Tasnim Hasan, a protestor in Jammu.

The fact of the matter is that, for a Muslim, being offended is part of what is meant by "jihad" (resistance, struggle).  Muslims can't go to war unless they are attacked; but, given that some have a very broad idea of what it means to be "attacked", some are always at war.  This is not ancient history.

Turkey sits on top of what used to be the Christian empire of the East, from which Paleologus wrote the letter quoted by this new Pope.  The name of the capital of that empire, Constantinople, is now "Istanbul" which is turkified-Greek for eis tan Poli, literally, "Into The City" - or more cryptically, The invaded City (Constantinople's koine name has always been "The City"). By the time of the letter, The City had been entered by the Muslims multiple times since Empress Irene submitted to the Persian Caliph in order to avoid the destruction of Constantinople.  As it was being threatened again, the Emperor appealed to reason to prevent war.  Later, The City fell to Sultan Mehmet, and it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. As recently as 1955, the Turkish Muslims' keen sense of victimhood led them to rid Istanbul of its Greek Christian and Jewish inhabitants. 

The notion that Muhammad has something to do with all this invading and purging in the name of faith, is an idea that many of his followers have believed, for a very long time.

The real story here, however, is that Pope Benedict XVI is quoting a Byzantine Emperor , Manuel II Paleologus, to make his point.  This is the successor to the Byzantine Paleologos who reconquered Byzantium after it had been sacked by the fourth Roman Catholic Crusade.  What a brilliant, scholarly, and Christian use of history to make his case!  It really seems as though this pope sees our time as a pivotal moment for Islam, and if the point isn't too subtle he should be seen as having seized high moral ground in order to address the problem that Islam faces: by demonstrating how abhorrence of evil leads to repentance, by showing how faith vindicates reason.

Read the speech, Three Stages in the Program of De-Hellenization".