Mark Steyn has an excellent article on the deranged ones like Charlie and those who defend his Pros Islamofascist ramblings:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1045861/posts Mark Steyn: Degrees of Derangement
The Irish Times ^ | December 22, 2003 | Mark Steyn
Posted on 12/23/2003 8:50:54 PM PST by seamole
Last Sunday’s exciting news seems to have prompted a wide array of interpretations around the world. But, to simplify things, most of them fall between two extremes.
The one end is neatly distilled by the headline on John Podhoretz’s post-Saddam column in The New York Post: “Message: America Wins.”
The other end is encapsulated by our old friend Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s Number Two: “America has been defeated by our fighters despite all its military might,” he said in an audio tape broadcast on al-Jazeera last weekend. “With God’s help we are still chasing Americans and their allies everywhere, including their homeland.”
You won’t be surprised to hear I incline broadly to the “Message: America Wins” end of the spectrum. What’s slightly more perplexing is the number of hitherto sane people who take the al-Zawahri line. For example, the distinguished British historian Professor Correlli Barnett, whose piece in the current issue of The Spectator is headlined “Why Al-Qa’eda Is Winning”. If I were Osama, I’d tuck that one away in the cuttings file. Except, of course, that these days what’s left of poor old Osama can itself be tucked away in the cuttings file.
Here, in a nutshell, is why recent trends seem to be going Mr Bush’s way rather than Mr al-Zawahri’s: In the little more than two years since 9/11, two vile dictatorships have fallen in Kabul and Baghdad, and only the other day a third, in Tripoli, has suddenly announced that it’s dismantling its nukes program and the Brits and Yanks are welcome to take a look over anything they fancy. A plus for Bush’s side? Or al-Zawahri’s? You make the call.
But in between these two poles are various other points on the spectrum. At point (a), you’ll find those wise old foreign policy birds who get everything wrong but never seem to notice. That would include all those fellows who tut-tutted that the Pentagon’s announcement that France, Germany and Russia would be excluded from bidding for Iraqi reconstruction contracts was an appallingly amateurish screw-up given that Washington was about to go cap in hand to Paris, Berlin and Moscow asking them to forgive Iraq’s Saddam-accumulated debts. “Democrats seized on the episode as further evidence of Bush diplomatic blundering,” reported London’s Independent.
“Further” evidence: lovely touch that. But you get the gist: the Europeans would now be certain to reject any moves to forgive Iraqi debt. Chris Patten, the EU's external relations commissioner, called Washington’s move “politically maladroit… It’s a triumph for Pentagon diplomacy,” said “a sarcastic Mr Patten”, as The Guardian put it. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, pronounced: “It is not the wisest decision. You are saying that countries cannot participate in tenders and at the same time you are asking those same countries to cooperate on debt.”
But lo and behold last week Bush emissary James Baker touched down in the capitals of Europe and, in defiance of The Guardian et al, France and Germany caved and Russia semi-caved. Perhaps they took the Pentagon frost-out as a sign that the Administration was serious. Or perhaps they were worried that their old pal Saddam might get too chatty while in US custody. But either way, in a non-sarcastic unPattenesque way, it does appear to be “a triumph for Pentagon diplomacy”. If this is politically maladroit blundering, blunder on; crank the maladroitness meter up another notch.
Not that the Administration will get any credit for it. For among the two other international groupings of Bush-disparagers are those in group (b) who argue yes, there’s good news, but no thanks to Bush; and those in group (c) who say yes, it’s all thanks to Bush, but it’s bound to turn out disastrously: the good news will prove to be bad news, if we just wait long enough.
There was an interesting example of group (b)-think last week. A couple of days after Saddam’s lice inspection, Colonel Gaddafi threw in the towel on his WMD programme – chemical, biological, nuclear, the works. Why was this? Well, according to the chaps at Reuters, it was because “segments of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] have become very concerned about Libya”. Hmm. When the IAEA starts showing “concern”, you know you’ve only got another two or three decades to fall into line or they’ll report you to the Security Council. But make no mistake: Gaddafi’s surrender definitely isn’t anything to do with Bush, Blair, the toppling of Saddam, stuff like that, no sir, don’t you believe it.
Here’s an intriguing tidbit from an interview Silvio Berlusconi gave to The Spectator in September:
“I cannot say which country he was from, but someone telephoned me the other day and said, ‘I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.’”
Interesting. Who on earth could Mr Berlusconi be talking about?
Colonel Gaddafi is merely the latest example of what one might call trickle-down destabilization. As I wrote in early May, “You don’t invade Iraq in order to invade everywhere else, you invade Iraq so you don’t have to invade everywhere else.”
Meanwhile, in group (c) are all those who acknowledge that America has won swift victories in Afghanistan and Iraq but that they’re meddling with ancient, complex cultural forces which will come back to bite them in the butt. Whatever gets you through the night, boys. One can’t help noticing that, despite innumerable warnings from these western defeatists about the folly of provoking the incendiary “Arab street”, the Arab street is now in the third year of its deep slumber. It may be that Osama is just very cunningly “lying low”, but, with each passing month, the reason he’s lying low is more and more likely to be due to an inability to get up again. Taliban gone, Saddam gone, Gaddafi retired, Osama “resting”. “Message: America wins” is as accurate a summation of the last two years as any. Whether or not you think American victory is a good thing is another matter. But a smart anti-American ought to recognize that generally things are going America’s way, and the only argument worth having is about the speed at which they’re doing so.
Yep, Charlie, whatever gets you through the night. You have at least 5 years of miserable days and nights as your buddies, those who would kill all of us, are killed instead!