Mark Steyn: The last youth standing -

Western Standard - Canada ^ | November 20, 2006 | Mark Steyn

[UnklGene]

The Last Youth Standing -

What the West and Islam share are elites detached from their own demographic realities

Mark Steyn - November 20, 2006

I was watching Mansbridge One on One the other day. Don't ask me why. May have been an "encore presentation." Or more likely an encore presentation of an encore presentation. For a 24/7 news network, there's an eerie timelessness about CBC Newsworld: one would be only mildly surprised to switch on and find Mansbridge One on One with Lester B. Pearson or Sir Charles Tupper. Anyway, this week, the one he was on was the Aga Khan. And he wasn't exactly on him with anything other than a big slurpy puppy-dog tongue. In that soft breathy voice of his, His Highness was doing a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger routine on what had happened to Iraq--by which he meant not decades of Saddamite dictatorship but the American liberation therefrom.

"Can Iraq be put back together again?" asked the great Mansbridge sympathetically.

"'Put back together'?" I roared. "You **@*%**# ! 'Put back together' to a smoothly functioning genocidal dictatorship? Are you out of your mind even by CBC standards?" And I picked up the TV set and hurled it through the window where it killed two elderly spinsters taking their morning constitutional.

Okay, I didn't.

I merely rolled my eyes in mild exasperation, which was just as well, as the next bit was even better. The Aga Khan was asked who was providing real leadership in these troubled times, and he answered--wait for it--"Kofi Annan." This would presumably be the same Kofi Annan who preceded his secretary-generalship with the Rwandan genocide and ended it with the Darfur genocide. But don't waste your time quibbling about a million dead here and there. His Highness thought Kofi Annan had a "very good team" around him. This would presumably be the same very good team mired from top to toe in the oil-for-fraud scandal, from Benon Sevan, the program's head honcho (since resigned and back in the Cyprus apartment building in whose elevator shaft his aunt mysteriously plunged to her death before she could be questioned by investigators), to Alexander Yakovlev, the senior procurement officer (for UN peacekeeping, I mean, not the child sex rings that invariably accompany it). And let's not forget Kofi's Executive Co-ordinator for United Nations Reform, our own Maurice Strong, who unfortunately was obliged to resign before he could complete his "reforms."

Yet this is what the Aga Khan thinks is great global leadership, and, if Mansbridge felt tempted to raise a quizzical eyebrow, he either kept it under control or it was digitally re-lowered in post-production.

I hesitate to plug my own book, but, if the CBC carries commercials, I don't see why this column can't. The volume in question, America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It (recently excerpted in this magazine), was born in part from this kind of Great Man Syndrome: Mansbridge One On One with some other bigshot about what a splendid fellow yet another bigshot is. A year or two back, I was at a dinner party and mentioned that I was heading to Jordan a couple of days later. The very grande dame on my right--a celebrity journalist--asked if I was flying in to see King Abdullah. I said no, I wasn't. She found it hard to see the point of going to Jordan without seeing His Majesty and offered to use her good offices to get me some face time at the palace. I demurred politely. And here's why. I like swanking about with the international A-list as much as the next chap, but I became convinced a few months after 9/11 that great men jetting around and shooting the breeze with other great men is inadequate to the situation these days. I think you learn more about Jordan from going to Zarqa, the bleak industrial city that produced the late Mr. Zarqawi, or to the isolated towns in the eastern desert, whose tribal representatives refuse to vote against "honour killing" whenever it comes up in parliament. In other words, it's too easy to get the wrong impression about a place from the urbane bespoke Sandhurst-trained monarch who sounds so reasonable on CNN and the CBC but who doesn't always speak for the fellows jumping up and down in the street shouting "Death to the Great Satan!" And insofar as I have a universal theory these days it's that a lot of the problems in the world lie in the widening chasm between elites and the masses.

If you want an example of what I mean, consider an interview Condi Rice gave to Cal Thomas recently. "The great majority of Palestinian people," said the secretary of state, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."

Cal Thomas asked a shrewd followup: "Do you think this or do you know this?"

"Well, I think I know it," said Dr. Rice.

"You think you know it?"

"I think I know it."

So many of our present woes are due to thinking we know things. In the case of Palestine, however, it requires an almost absurd suspension of disbelief. When Condi Rice speaks of an "educated population" with a "culture of civil society," I'm sure we've all met Palestinians like that, in Montreal and Los Angeles and London--everywhere except Palestine. In Gaza, as I note in my book, the median age of the population is 15.8 years. Count back 15.8 years and you come to early 1991. In other words, a huge swathe of the population have spent their entire life in the depraved death cult of the post-Oslo Arafatist-Hamas squat. Not much of a "culture of civil society" there. Not much evidence that many of them "just want a better life." Au contraire, given the choice between "a better life" and blowing up Jews, quite a big chunk of the teenage and twentysomething males in Gaza would regard the latter as a lot more fun.

How could a smart woman like Dr. Rice be so misled on this point? No doubt she's seen all those Palestinian spokespersons--Saeb Erekat, Hanan Ashrawi--who've filled up the CNN and BBC airwaves decade in, decade out. No doubt she's met many soft-spoken "Palestinian intellectuals"--the territories' principal export, one might easily believe, given from the number who've turned up in CBC interview chairs over the years. But they don't speak for their people.

A few months after 9/11, I visited the Muslim slums of France. They're ugly dehumanizing places, and obviously I would rather have been hosting Steyn One on One with Jacques Chirac at the Elysée Palace. But in the last four-and-a-half years those alienated anonymous "youths" (as the papers refer to them) have been a central fact of French life--whether lobbing Molotov cocktails into police stations or torching buses and leaving passengers with third-degree burns. That's the reality. And everything Chirac and de Villepin and even Sarkozy have proposed has been a delusion: like Condi Rice, they thought that they knew. But the rioting youths knew better.

The Aga Khan is even more disconnected from the reality on the ground. His father was for many years the personification of a glamorous jet-set Islam, not least due to his marriage to Rita Hayworth. Nowadays I imagine a sense of self-preservation would caution even the most confident Muslim bigshot from marrying an infidel screen siren famed for revealing rather more than the average Ayatollah approves on. Today, His Highness embodies an Islam in eclipse.

The future will be determined by those youths in the European suburbs, by legions of teenagers in Gaza, by the angry platoons of the Pakistani madrassahs.

And in each case, General Musharraf, Mahmoud Abbas, Jacques Chirac and even Tony Blair will do their best to stay on the right side. The problem is not a lack of leadership, but the leadership's lack of followers.

[Valpal1]

I have truly enjoyed your posts and just wanted to say thank you and welcome to FR.

[norton]

Agree that we need to spend enough time to get them off the ground, and that they can self govern in their own way.

Comment about GWB failing has to do with perception, not anything he believed or said. Only that he/they didn't stop popular opinion from desiring or expecting a one or two year flip.

[Valpal1]

I didn't say you were a leftest, just that your points are common among leftists, perhaps because they are simplistic half truths that many conservatives have a hard time answering.

1. Probably won't invade Iran, but if he or the next administration decides to, our military is in the right place. Invading Iran would have been far more difficult and bloody if we had not removed Saddam first. Invading Iraq first was and still is the right thing to have done no matter how much the pansies vetch about it.

2. Even with the Rino's I don't think a declaration of war (which actually needs to be against a specific nation) was doable. Getting a declaration of war without a provoking act and proof of it is just not happening. And because of terms of the Desert Storm cessation of hostilities, a declaration of war wasn't needed. Why expend the energy and political capital on that which you do not need? Getting a war declaration was impossible at the time and still is not possible even under current conditions. I think there are a lot of chickenhawks who are hoping Bush (or Israel) will take unilateral action to destroy their nuke program, but they don't want to go on the record as saying so.

3. A war on islamofascism isn't enough, because we have other fascists that are non-islamic that also need to be taken down, namely Fat Kim and Chavez, because they are stupidly assisting the islamofascists under the enemy of my enemy is my friend rubric.

4. Destroy holy sites, carpet bomb cities, yeah and then get impeached and stand trial for war crimes. He doesn't have the political back up to do what you want him to do. He can't order total war because Congress would have him in leg irons with the press singing hosanna.

5. He should cut the Palies off, I agree. It's past time to stop the diplo-dance of dummies.

You may want scorched earth tactics, but you aren't the elected leader of the free world. Unfortunately, the majority of voters seem to be against your tactics. I think the Bush Administration's single biggest failing is losing the media war.

[dsc]

"You can probably trace it back to our arming of the mujahadeen in Afghanistan so they could defeat the Soviets."

Oh, good grief. A few stinger missiles and some small-arms ammunition does not constitute "arming" a country.

[dsc]

"So before you discount him"

Before you accuse people of discounting anything, you should first bother to understand what has transpired.

"because he dared to challenge your rather shallow understanding"

Yeah, yeah, I haven't spent any time in the Middle East. Right.

"perhaps it would have behooved you to engaged him further."

Funny, I am under the impression that it was he who bowed out of our discussion.

"As for me, if you find me self-righteous, condenscending, or any other insult you can muster, I'll just take it as a compliment."

Take it any way you like.

[TeenagedConservative]

1. The cost to our troops has so far been about 24,000 casualties (haven't checked that, but it's in the ballpark). Are you saying that a military strike against Iran with the intent of eliminating it as a threat would cost more than this, plus the insane amount of money it's cost so far? Iranians are even more decidedly anti-democracy than Iraqis. Invading and "spreading democracy" there will not work. So the correct way to deal with Iran is quick, precise attacks without ground troops. Iraq has not been a militarily efficient way to set such up a strike.

2. You may be right that Bush couldn't get a Declaration of War. However, this was the first time in history that the United States military has invaded a sovereign nation without direct provocation. Don't you think he should have at least tried, and THEN go on without a Declaration of War if he had to? It looks extremely bad from the sidelines and only lends credence the anti-American "Texan gunslinger" charge. And why are those who want strikes against Iran's nuclear program "chickenhawks?"

3. Then declare multiple wars. The Second Korean War. The Venezuelan War. The War on Islam. This idea of declaring a constant state of war on a nebulously defined tactic of an equally nebulously defined enemy is loomingly Orwellian. The "War on Terror" has no clearly defined victory objectives, and can apply, as you say, to any battle. Thus, it can be carried on indefinitely, and without a Declaration of War.

4. Then he (or we) shouldn't be fighting this war. If we don't have the guts to do total war, as we did with Germany and Japan, we shouldn't have troops trying to stay alive in the region with ABSOLUTELY NO victory objectives. When do we win? When terrorist attacks are nonexistent worldwide? Sure, the media would crucify anyone who dared to fight a real war today. So either say F the media, or don't pretend to fight a war. Especially one against the most dangerous, long-lasting enemy history has produced.

5. w00t.

[TeenagedConservative]

So before you discount him because he dared to challenge your rather shallow understanding (especially yours Teenaged Conservative), perhaps it would have behooved you to engaged him further.

I haven't discounted him at all. He seems like an extremely knowledgable and even-handed fellow. I'm merely disagreeing.

[dufekin]

Let me insert some words into Secretary Rice's speech [in brackets] that the State Department minions probably redacted in the interest of maintaining diplomatic sensibilities.

"The great majority of Palestinian people," said the secretary of state, "they just want a better life [in heaven after they die in jihad]. This is an educated population [educated in terrorist training camps]. I mean, they have a kind of culture of [terrorist indoctrination] education and a culture of civil society [in which citizens compete to kill Jews]. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. [Mothers and fathers hope that the complete worldwide annihilation of the Jews occurs before their children get that opportunity.] I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university [to recite the Koran, get indoctrinated in Islamofascism, and learn to wage jihad against us, the infidels]. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."

[Valpal1]

1. Yes, invading Iran instead of Iraq would have been harder and costlier in lives and money and we would have had to do it entirely without the support of any other country. Britain and Australia would not have supported a unilateral action against Iran at the time. There were strategic military reasons for doing Iraq first, not the least being that we were fairly certain no other muslim country would also declare open war against us to help him. That is not what would have happened if we had invade Iran instead of Iraq, we very likely would have instantly faced a very united opposing coalition of Arab nations.

2. Technically the failure to abide by the ceasefire terms from Desert Storm was the provocation and another declaration or provoking act was unnecessary.

3. Declare multiple wars on multiple fronts? LOL, yeah, that's feasible. I prefer a WOT with the identified Axis of Evil.

4. Human history is generally a chronic state of war with an occasional peace breaking out. Get used to it, the cold war is over and it's now lukewarm. The time for total war is not yet, and may even be avoided if eurotrash pull their heads out of their keesters in time. I don't know that the US will pull their nuts out of the fire this go round.

I do not call people who openly support taking out Iran's nuclear program chickenhawks. I was referring to those who secretly hope someone (Bush or Israel) will do it, but do not openly support the action. These are the same people who will vetch that Bush did nothing or will recoil in horror at his gunslinger mentality if he does. You know the type, they want something "done" without having to take responsibility for it, typical leftist magical thinking. You just can't win with these creatures of the welfare state.

Also you seem to forget that the WOT has electronic and monetary fronts that naturally are kept out of the press as much as possible. Iraq is a just one battle, one move on the chessboard that keeps the focus and the energy of the enemy over there and not over here.

Every soldier wounded or killed over there is personally protecting me and my family from harm and I remember that always.

[Maynerd]

Your post is amusing. I'm glad JEBS has a water boy.

[carton253]

And I'm glad you did not disappoint.

[carton253]

You were only pinged because of the Maynerd's rather obnoxious post, and I get tired of FReepers who bully newbies.

As for knowing what transpired...it was written in English and therefore is very easy to understand what happened.

Actually, your posts were the most fun to read. You have a great sense of humor and made a very strong case.

No, I think he posted after Maynard's assault on his character.

Thank you for your permission.

[dsc]

All right, I thought you were saying that I had bullied him.

You're welcome.

[James Ewell Brown Stuart]

I did not say it was arming a country. I said it was arming the mujahadeen. I know you know the difference.

Furthermore, the moderate governments (especially the Egyptians) warned Reagan that this was a mistake and would only emboldened them.

Reading their literature and the fatwas clearly show that they saw their defeat over the much tougher Soviets as proof that Allah was with them and would aide them in destroying the West.

The two acts are related.

[James Ewell Brown Stuart]

You bring up a good point, but how do you stop popular opinion. He has had countless speeches, held countless interviews and press conferences where he said over and over that this would be a war that would take years to win. He started on 9/23/01 and has not stopped saying that.

He has not wavered in his doctrine. If he has not been heard, it is not because he hasn't been speaking, but because 1) we aren't paying attention. 2) one man (no matter how big the bully pulpit) can't drown out the media.

I lurked a long time before I started posting. I read countless threads about the President's inability to speak. I disagree most heartily with this assessment. He has done a very good job in laying out his objectives and the length of time it will take us to win. He has told the Americans why they must stay and fight and win in Iraq.

Now, I know that I am in the minority with this view. But, to me, he has been very vocal and articulate. His views (except for his policy towards the Palestinians) are why I support him.

[carton253]

No, I just pinged the people that Maynerd pinged. That is all.

And like I said, I enjoyed your posts very much.

Where did your time in the Middle East?

[carton253]

Where did your time in the Middle East?

Whoops, should have been: Where did you spend your time in the Middle East.

[Bonaparte]

"How could a smart woman like Dr. Rice be so misled on this point?"

As I see it, there are only 2 possibilities here -- either (a) Rice is sucking up to people she hopes to be able to influence, perhaps even cut a deal with, or (b) Rice is a blithering idiot.

I vote for option "a." Same reason Bush talks about the barbaric cult known as islam as the "religion of peace." Assuming she made these comments to Thomas with a straight face, she would also qualify as an exceptionally disciplined actress.

[bboop]

Hahaha, thanks for editing Condi's speech. It makes it so much more real.

[dsc]

Pakistan and Bahrain. Also had dealings with Iran and Iraq during their 8-year war.