Minarets Are Political Not Religious Symbols

A week ago nearly fifty-eight percent of the Swiss electorate defied the wishes of their government, their parliament, and voted to ban future construction of minarets. The vote was open, transparent, and in keeping with the long standing democratic practices of the multi-lingual, multi-religious federated republic.

Not surprisingly the solid nitrogenous waste product landed on the air impeller. Not simply in Muslim states ranging from Algeria to Malaysia but within the multi-cultural, ever-so-sensitive-and-tolerant elites of the US and Western Europe.

The Iranian foreign minister made dark and unspecified warnings of "consequences" to his Swiss counterpart. Not to be outdone, a leading Muslim cleric in Egypt, the Grand Mufti Ali Goma, declared the ban of new construction minarets constituted "an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, joined the chorus of condemnation. This bureaucrat, who seems never to be bothered by such bagatelles as the prohibition against the construction of any church or synagogue, or, for that matter, Buddhist temple, extant in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states, weighed in with a statement deploring the Swiss voters' action.

In the US the denunciations from the political Left were every bit as robust as those emanating from the Muslim press overseas. In the HuffPost Cameron Sinclair characterized the Swiss exercise in vox populi, vox dei as "misguided at best, at worst downright racism." (Emphasis in original.) Ironically Mr Sinclair also states, "architecture is political."

How right he is! Architecture is political--and never more so than in the case of minarets. As much or more than the steeples on Christian churches, the towering minaret is today what it was centuries ago--a symbol of Muslim political presence. And, a visible sign of Muslim political domination.

Although typically described as being necessary for the summons to prayers which issues from mosques worldwide five times a day, the minaret was not only a late comer to Muslim religious practice it was also a product of the successful wars of conquest waged by Muslim armies following the death of Mohammad. The minaret was not a convenient elevated platform for the muezzin's summons. No. It was the phallic symbol of conquest, of the subjugation of the non-Muslim population.

Arguably, the spires crowning the cathedrals of Europe were designed to point to heaven or to summon the aspirations of the believers to the highest, most noble callings. This explanation has been given over the generations by historians and others seeking to explain the significance of the steeple which has so long been a visual signature of Christian communities. True or not a more fundamental reality exists: The steeple was never intended to be a mark of conquest or of subjugation.

The minaret is a different beast all together. Before Islam exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula carried on the scimitars of legions of highly motivated believers, the mosque was unadorned. No minarets were to be seen (nor have any foundations for such been excavated in recent years.) It was only after Islam came, saw, conquered new territory, new people, that the minaret came into existence. Even so, the progress from the low slung mosque to the towering minaret equipped version was slow and spotty.

Indeed, the historical and archaeological record points to an interesting correlation. Minarets proliferated most in those areas where the battles of conquest were most hard won and where the Muslims constituted a distinct minority, a thin ruling crust over a large and restive population of infidels. The minaret like the assorted regulations covering the second class folks of the Christian and Jewish communities was intended to impress, overawe, to remind all the non-Muslim "people of the book" of their humiliated position in the new Islamic order.

Yes, Mr Sinclair, architecture is political. In this case the politics were those of dominance and submission, of rulership and being ruled, of giving the orders and taking them. The minaret was the tallest building admissible. No church could surpass it just as no Christian, no Jew could speak to a Muslim while on horseback while the Muslim could sit on his animal and glare down at the inferior non-Muslim.

There is no justification for the minaret today. The hoary justification that its lofty heights were necessary so that the faithful would hear the calls to prayer has been set aside by the use of sound amplification systems. The minaret has only one utility--as a symbol of Muslim presence.

The Swiss vote expressed the desire, perhaps the need, to reclaim the skyline as Swiss, as European. There was no explicit threat to the practice of Islam, to the building of new mosques. There is not even an implicit threat to either. Nor does the vote indicate a desire let alone a need on the part of the Swiss hoi polloi to limit the rights of Muslims in any way let alone force the Muslims to return to Kosovo and other places of origin.

The Swiss merely said by their vote that they wanted their skyline, their traditional skyline. At worst it may be alleged that the Swiss are more comfortable with their traditional skyline as they are with their cultural and social traditions. It may be alleged that the Swiss "feelings" have been, if not insulted, at least discomfited by the intrusion of the alien minaret.

This means quite simply that the Swiss people as distinguished from their government, parliament, and the elite of Europe generally are like most people most everywhere--happiest, most comfortable, most at home as it were with the cultural and social traditions and features long known and accepted, even loved. It is ironic that the multi-cultural crew cannot or will not recognize this and accept it.

The multi-culti crowd with its celebration of "cultural relativism" holds that all cultures, all manifestations of cultural features are equally valid. They accept that it is OK for Muslims to have cultural features such as Shariah mandated punishments, the veiling of women, and the use of minarets. Why is it impossible for the high priests of multi-culti political correctness to accept that the Swiss hoi polloi to have their own shibboleths including a skyline free of minarets?

Well, the answer to that is simple. The vote reflected the views, the desires, and, yes, the fears of the common herd. This fact is enough in and of itself to outrage the self-defined "elites" of both Europe and the US. The basis of the outrage is equally simple: The damn fool lesser folks did not heed the "guidance" of their "betters" in the Swiss parliament and government.

That attitude can be understood, if not forgiven. It is, after all, no fun to be a member of the self-elected elite if the man and woman in the street can ignore your "guidance" and demands with impunity.

The Swiss electorate made two political statements in their vote. The first was the reclamation of their skyline--Islam is not dominant here! The second was equally blunt albeit implicit: The elite can take a hike.

Right on, Switzers!

Pakistan Wins Some--And Loses Elsewhere

Operation "Path to Salvation" has been working surprisingly well in South Waziristan. The Pakistani army has cleared the majority of cities and moderate sized towns in the region, squeezing the ever-retreating Taliban into mountain refuges. The pressure will continue for a few more days until the snow brings active operations to a near halt.

Behind the advancing army the Pakistani government has been attempting to address the problems of (re)establishing effective government, gaining functional legitimacy, and providing basic services. So far the Army's part of the clear-hold-build operational concept has been working better than the government follow-on. However, the government must be given credit for making the attempt--and succeeding to some degree.

The success of the Army in South Waziristan more than its previous operations in Swat show that it is a more capable counterinsurgency force than most (including the Geek) thought it to be. It is possible, even probable, that the Army learned from Swat. That being the case it must be given credit for a very rapid assimilation of the lessons learned.

The readiness of the Army to maintain a presence in cleared territory resembles its previous behavior in Swat. The probability of a long term Army presence in South Waziristan has been boosted by the announcement by the Interior Minister ten days ago that additional forces are being deployed in the area. This decision will help assure that the local population believes that the government will stay and keep the Taliban survivors at bay. It will also provide an effective matrix for the development of an enhanced capacity local defense and constabulary force.

Powerfully assisting the success of the operation to date has been the local population's disenchantment with Taliban. Until two years ago the Taliban was very popular within South Waziristan. But, as was the case with the Afghanistan Taliban and the Islamist jihadists in Iraq, the Taliban in South Waziristan proved to be their own worst enemy. The excesses of repression, the love of flogging, stoning, maiming and killing people for "religious" malfeasances soured the locals. Also turning the locals against the jihadists and their expansive view of Shariah was the prohibition of fun.

So far the indications point to the Pakistani Army and, more importantly, Air Force having killed relatively few civilians. Care in targeting is part of the reason. Another, larger factor was the increased employment of foreign manufacture precision guided munitions. As a result of the smaller non-combatant butchers' bill, the locals have been very welcoming of the incoming Army and government personnel.

The intelligence collection and usage of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Army has also improved markedly over the Swat operation. The reasons are obscure but probably focus on two considerations. ISI has sources within Taliban. The Taliban command, control, and communications systems rely on cell phones including those with a "push to talk" capacity, and this means the commo is wide open to interception and exploitation.

While Path to Salvation is not to its end yet, the Pakistanis deserve a strong thumbs-up for their success to date. As long as the locals (and the larger Pakistani population) continue their support of the operation it is probable that the military and government will not quit before a reasonable approximation of suppressing Taliban in the Agency has been accomplished. Then, of course, it will be necessary to repeat the processes in other parts of the FATA.

One of the non-FATA places where the Army and government will have to employ their newly developed counterinsurgency skills is Balochistan. The sparsely populated, economically underdeveloped but resource rich area of Balochistan is currently the venue of a three way contest.

The belligerents are the Baloch separatists, Islamist jihadists including both al-Qaeda and Taliban, and, of course, the central government. While the Islamist jihadists are recent and not particularly welcome arrivals, the separatists have been active since the days in 1948 when the infant Pakistani Army conquered the previously independent Balochistan.

Since then, a sporadic, usually very low intensity defensive insurgency having the goal of establishing a (re)independent Balochistan has been underway. In recent years the insurgency has been chronic as well as having grown in intensity.

Over the past eight years the situation in Balochistan has grown increasingly perilous from the point of view of Islamabad. The turbulence surrounding the aftermath of the US led invasion of Afghanistan spilled heavily into Balochistan with results which both benefited the indigenous insurgents and brought the Islamist jihadists into the mix.

The provincial capital Quetta has become a vital center of support operations including the movement of drugs, arms, personnel, and money to and from Afghanistan. The US believes that assorted Taliban and al-Qaeda heavies have been hiding out in Quetta or nearby. The Pakistani government denies this, of course.

It is the US conviction that a number of "WANTED--Dead or Alive" figures are in Balochistan which propelled the recent request by Washington that Islamabad allow an expansion of our UAV shoot-to-kill operations into Balochistan. This request has perturbed the Pakistani government greatly as it suspects our long range intentions regarding the province.

A leading political figure in the Baloch separatist movement, Hyrbyair Marri, has stated publicly that the goal was an independent, secular Balochistan. He has noted rather pointedly that the secular orientation of a new state of Balochistan would fit well with the policy objectives of the US and other Western nations. He drew a sharp distinction between Islamic Pakistan and the nature of a secular state as is proposed for Balochistan.

Marri's position outraged the Islamist jihadists of Taliban and al-Qaeda with the result that violence of the Muslim on Muslim sort has increased. This has exacerbated further the ethnic and linguistic tension between the native Balochs and the Punjabi Pakistanis.

In any event the government is currently in third place in the race for supremacy between the three contestants. There is no real probability of this changing in the near- to mid-term. The ground truth is simply that the Islamabad government has neither functional nor existential legitimacy in the eyes of the Baloch population. While some Baloch adhere to the Islamist jihadists of Taliban, this will change if the Islamist jihadists continue to rely upon the attacking of soft, civilian targets or insisting on a version of Shariah which exceeds Baloch desires.

It is the presence of the Baloch insurgency which provides the best basis for a Pakistani alliance with Iran. The latter country has its own Baloch problems as was dramatically shown not that long ago with the attack on a meeting of Revolutionary Guard heavyweights.

It must not be overlooked that Afghanistan has a bull in the herd as well since the Baloch presence extends into that country--including Helmand province where the British and US Marines have been engaged in a prolonged and far-from-bloodless operation. When joined with new forces from the recently authorized Obama Surge, Helmand and other provinces adjacent to Balochistan will become more battle torn with the result that a refugee surge into Balochistan can be anticipated.

The further destabilizing of Balochistan is what bothers Islamabad most of all when the implications of the Obama Surge are considered. Any new turbulence will make the job of containing the insurgency all the more difficult, not to say impossible.

There is an irony in play which concerns Islamabad. Even as the Army suppresses Taliban and the government extends its writ into the FATA, the probability of losing the very rich area of Balochistan becomes more and more elevated. At the end of it all the Pakistani government faces the strong likelihood of exchanging the mountains of FATA for the oil and natural gas laden flatlands of Balochistan.

No wonder the lads in Islamabad are not really happy campers right now. There is no way in which a victory over Taliban in the FATA makes up for losing Balochistan.

Well, that's tough. History shows that the Pakistanis had their chance in Balochistan. And, that they blew it.

The Futility Of "Climategate"

Ever since the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK were posted on the web there has been an enormous brouhaha over the apparent squashing of dissent, massaging of data, and similar sins of both omission and commission. By and large the contretemps has been confined to the blogosphere, particularly sites such as Pajamas Media which reside on the right side of the political spectrum. Coverage by the MSM has been slight and rather biased against the contention that there is anything amiss at CRU.

Government officials, particularly in the UK, as well as outlets such as the London Times have decried the hacking itself as well as assuring all who might listen that the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change was both real and robust. Those who dissent from this consensus are dubbed "deniers" and "flat earthers."

While branded as being nearly paleolithic in mentality, the range and competence of the many climate contrarians have been gaining traction and credibility with the public both in the US and Western Europe to the dismay of the It's-Getting-Hot-And-We-Did-It crew. Given that thirty or so years ago the same sort of "climate scientists" who today predict death by heat prognosticated death by arctic emergency as the globe was cooling and the glaciers must be coming soon, a healthy dose of skepticism is appropriate.

The sorrow and the tragedy surrounding human driven global warming and its political expressions such as that forthcoming in Copenhagen is not that the science may be shaky or questionable--or that the consensus may be driven not by objective science--but rather by the human needs of scientists for status, power, and the other good things of life.

The sorrow, the tragedy, the pity of it all is that neither science nor truth matter in the slightest. As the Geek has posted before, the issue of global warming is simply too attractive to politicians and bureaucrats--particularly of the international sort--to allow to pass unexploited. Ever since Al Gore and other exemplars of The-Sky-Is-Falling school of thought latched onto the initial, fragmentary, contradictory data concerning temperature changes over the past century of so, the potential for further governmental power enhancement has exercised a hypnotic appeal to both governments and the elites affiliated with them.

In a way quite similar to earlier expansions of governmental authority, of public space into the private space of individual decision making, key political, bureaucratic and, oh yes, scientific personalities have adopted global warming and its halting as a way of further narrowing the private space available to individuals. As a high ranking member of the US National Institutes of Health once said to the Geek regarding the absence of sound science in support of the second hand smoke kills hypothesis, "That's true. But it doesn't matter. A political decision has been made."

Global warming, or, more properly, the halting of the menace provides an exceptionally fertile field for the pursuit of manifold agendas.

Left leaning politicians can avail themselves of the global warming fig leaf to cover their actual genitalia--those of controlling, restricting, perhaps removing the residuals of the free market and gaining more and more control over even such trivial personal decisions as what sort of light bulb does one buy.

Internationalists as well as bureaucrats at the UN, the EU, and other regional organizations can use the specter of global cooking to gain power over national entities as well as private citizens and everyone's (particularly if one is on the Left) favorite evil--the soulless, multi-national corporation.

As a sort of secondary reward, the multi-cultural, multi-lateral, nations-are-evil-and-reactionary portion of Western and American elites can use the lever of global warming to foster more and more reliance upon supra-national entities at the expense of national ones.

Then there are the national leaders, the national governments, who see global warming as an opportunity to mulct the "wealthy, developed nations." The unseemly behavior of a number of African delegations at the preliminary climate meeting last month in pursuit of extortion demonstrates this use of global warming with perfection.

The scientists--that is the scientists who hold "correct" views on the subject--can use the global warming threat to gain grants, acquire power, elevate status. Some from the physics community might even construe the global warming warnings as a sort of penance for the "sins" of physics such as nuclear weapons and long range missiles.

Overall there is much to be gained and little or nothing to lose in the pursuit of ameliorating the presumed planetary catastrophe of global warming. That is if one is a member of one of the components of the elite which would gain power by doing so.

If, however, one is not a member of one of the elect groups, the "healing of Gaea" will be costly. Costly in money. More costly in the loss of personal freedom, in the further diminishment of private space.

History demonstrates that encroachments by public space on private, by the authority of the state on the liberties of the individual, are rarely reversed. And, any reversals are normally purchased in blood.

The expansion of public space, of national and international remote authority, is reason enough in and of itself to make the science utterly irrelevant to the process. The process of gaining power needs no real objective, scientific basis. It only requires the existence of a plausible fear. That plus the will and means to exploit and stoke fear will result in the goal of power acquisition being achieved.

Climategate does not matter in the slightest. Even the harboring of doubts about the scientific base of the global warming hypothesis by a majority of We the People doesn't matter.

Science--and public desires--be damned! Full speed ahead at Copenhagen and its successors. Full speed ahead to a brave new world order of less personal freedom as Authority protects against the thermometer.

Why Bother?

Isolationism has once more been on the ascendant in the American public. A recent poll by the very reliable Pew organization shows that the percentage of We the People who want "to mind our own business" and let the rest of the world stew in its own juices has reached a four decade high.

As in the past two excrudescences of isolationism--one in the Thirties and the other in the late Sixties and Seventies--the root cause is the perceived failure of an American war.

In the bitter aftermath of World War I as it became ever more evident that the Great War (as it was often called in those days) had not fulfilled its goals of "making the world safe for democracy" or having been "the war to end war," Americans in large numbers turned against involvement in the brewing turbulence brought about by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. We saw ourselves in essence as being too good for the rest of the world.

The debacle in Vietnam particularly when coupled with the events falling under the general term of "Watergate" served to convince many Americans, particularly those of the Vietnam generation, that we Americans had somehow sinned against both ourselves and the rest of humanity. We came to the ludicrous conclusion that we were not good enough to involve ourselves with others. That we, our government and its policies, were so inherently "evil" that somehow our interaction with other nations would pollute them, drag them down to our level.

We were, of course, as wrong as a mountain lion chirping. The US was neither "too good" nor "too evil" to engage in the great game of nations. Policies may have been wrong, or based on incorrect appreciations of reality, or oversold to the public, but neither the sending of troops to Europe in 1917 nor our interjection into the multi-party internal wars of the Vietnamese were unjustifiable at the time the decisions were made.

The American withdrawal from the world in both the Thirties and again forty years later had no good effect on either the peace or the stability of the international political system. Indeed, a very strong argument can be made for the proposition that in both cases the plague of isolationism and its impact on US policies served to make the world a far less stable and a far more blood drenched place.

Because neither the W. Bush administration or its Obama successor has managed to define, let alone communicate, to We the People the reasons we have been fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan or the better state of peace we anticipate our sacrifices will bring into existence, it is not surprising that a "pox on all their houses" attitude has taken a firm and growing hold on the popular mind. Given that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime went about the complex task of waging war in ways that were totally boggling to the historically informed mind--and, as a necessary consequence, brought both prolongation of hostilities and results which have been far from satisfactory--the appeal of isolationism has been made all the greater.

President Obama after months of labor did deliver the troops necessary to bring about an acceptable semblance of "not losing" in Afghanistan. It is regrettable and likely to spur a further growth of isolationist sentiment that he did not explicate his decision in terms relevant to defining either the nature of the enemy or the consequences of failing to achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing" in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations. An explication of goals, consequences, and the nature of the better state of peace for ourselves, the Afghans, the Pakistanis, and the rest of the world would (and still will) provide a partial antidote to the isolationist virus.

At bottom it must be recognized that We the People have rarely been totally comfortable with the idea that we are citizens of a Great Power. We have been unwilling to acknowledge that Great Power status places both obligations and limitations on a nation which may not be particularly pleasant to contemplate.

It would be far easier if we were an imperial power; if We the People really did want a government which would extend its writ across the globe--by force of arms if need be. But, the reality is that few among us harbor any delusions of imperial grandeur despite what the political Left both here and abroad might think and say--or as the impetuous words of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney might have hinted.

The same poll shows that We the People have an accurate assessment of the power and ambitions of China. The notions of Chinese ascendancy and American isolationism are, obviously, incompatible--really mutually exclusive.

Isolationism would be guaranteed to assure the Gnomes of Beijing (and the very able Vladimir Putin) gaining that most precious of international assets--influence. Those within our midst who want us to "mind our own business" ought to ask themselves if they really want to live in a world where the major actors, the Great Powers of the next several decades, will be China, Russia, and that non-state pretender to great powerdom--Islamist jihadism. The isolationists within us have to ask themselves as well, "Do we want out children, grandchildren to live in that world?"

Ask, and the question brings its own answer.

Lurching Through The Swamp(s)

The first swamp is, no surprise here, Afghanistan. The early reports (they're all over the web, no real need for links) have it that President Obama, after only three months of study and palaver, and distractions over the "credibility" of Karzai's election, has finally opted for the least worst course of action. This means that another 34,000 US troops will hit the ground over and above the 22,000 already tabbed by the President for service there.

If the early reports are right (and the Geek hopes they are), the mission of the new increment will be against the Taliban strongholds in the Kandahar and Helmand areas. The goal will be the suppression of the Islamist jihadists both soft and hard core. The intent is the creation of an area which is quiet enough for the Afghan national forces to take over and the Afghan government (if any) to provide essential services and establish both functional and existential legitimacy.

By implication at least, the US military is officially out of the nation-building game. If correct, that is a move that is long overdue. While there is much a military force can and should do to provide assistance to local civilians, the top job is restoring sufficient quiet that purely civilian efforts can build a nation--from the base on up to the pinnacle. To date, the building efforts have been in the reverse and thus doomed to fail.

President Obama is to be congratulated for having listened to such advisors as SecDef Gates rather than those such as Vice President Biden--or even National Security Advisor Jones, who was apparently overly traumatized by his service as a junior combat leader in Vietnam to take a fully mature view of the ways in which the effort in Afghanistan differ from the debacle in Vietnam.

The strict focus on suppressing Taliban as an effective combat force coupled with an eye to the exit emphasizes the difference between the approach currently and belatedly underway in Afghanistan and the long delayed and poorly executed "Vietnamization" exercise during the Nixon administration. Now, if Congress does not play the spoiler role it had during the Vietnam endgame, there is a chance the US and its allies will achieve the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not losing."

In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, "not-losing" is the best that can be hoped for in the real world. As the Korean War paradigm shows, "not-losing" is not really fully satisfying but it is enough. It works imperfectly but it works.

The Iranian swamp has grown both deeper and more murky with the mullahs' men announcing that the country would construct another ten enrichment centers while Russia indicated it would not stand in the way of any new sanctions consensus. In a way both announcements merit a mere "well, la-de-dah and humma-humma."

The threat from Tehran to proliferate centrifuges at an awesome rate of knots was a completely expectable response to the IAEA Board of Governors smiting the regime on the hand for its previous actions in that area. If the Iranian regime expected any other action such as a mea culpa from the body for having ever suspected the mullahs of any motives other than the most lofty and humanitarian, they must have been sampling too much of the cargo surreptitiously brought across the border from Afghanistan.

The Russian protestations of solidarity with the sanction oriented West is nice and might have a symbolic value but is nullified in actual effect by the probable blockage from the Chinese. The Gnomes of Beijing have too much invested in Iran and too much need for its oil to move to support sanctions. This means there is no real consensus for the Russians to join or to block. They can, in effect, put the caviar on both sides of their cracker.

Another ship has been sunk in the pirate swamp of Somalia. This time the jolly raiders of the region snatched a tanker bound from Saudi Arabia to the US with about twenty megabucks of cargo on board. Nine men in a skiff took over the thirty man crew of the VLCC without any mention of a struggle, resistance, or the arrival of the naval cavalry.

With the ending of the monsoon which flattened the seas north of the Seychelles, the pirates have been out in full and effective force while the large multi-national naval presence has driven their boats around with little effective impact on the piracy business. As usual many of the MSM (look them up yourself, it isn't hard to find the usual suspects) characterized the pirates as "unemployed fishermen." This is akin to calling the thugs of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, "unemployed beer delivermen."

There are few effective ways of draining the Somali pirate swamp. And, worse from the soft and sentimental Western perspective, all the ways which would have any effect whatsoever involve both violence and the potential of "innocent" lives being snuffed out.

Unless and until two actions are taken, the pirate swamp will continue to suck in hapless victims. The two actions are easy to describe and easy to take--if political will exists. The first is to require convoying of all vessels transiting the dangerous waters. This could be enforced by the insurance industry--but only if the navies involved drafted and implemented a convoy system.

The second action is to use lethal force. Both security details onboard ships and the naval vessels should have "shoot to kill" authority. Period. Yes, mistakes might be made. "Hold harmless" clauses must therefore exist to immunize ship owners, crews, and security details from either civil or criminal liability.

It would also be of great use if the UN would create another one of those special courts of which it is so fond to deal with pirates captured on the job. The current ad hoc ways of dealing with pirates are both unworkable and unjust. Even better would be an acknowledgement by the UN that ever since Julius Caesar cleared the Mediterranean Sea of pirates, members of that sub species of brigand have been the common enemy of mankind whenever and wherever they have done their dirty deeds.

The final swamp du jour is that of Islam in Western Europe. The Swiss in a referendum have banned by a 57.5 percent margin the construction of minarets. The Swiss government was against the idea. The UN has (of course) deplored the vote's result. And, (again no shock) most published Arab and Muslim opinion is dead against it as well.

While the elites of Europe bemoan this lack of cross cultural sensitivity, the hoi polloi have voted for keeping their little part of Europe, well, European. It is hard if not impossible to accuse the Swiss of prejudice or racism given the way in which their tidy nation has allowed for complete sectarian peace for over five hundred years, but the accusations will--and are--being made nonetheless.

The Muslim press of the Mideast has made the charge that the Swiss and, therefore, by implication all Europeans are practicing a double standard in that they uphold the freedom of speech but oppose cultural items such as minarets and burquas. Of course, the difference between the two matters is palpable.

Then there is the unpleasant and equally uncommented upon reality that Muslim states prohibit the construction of churches, or other non-Muslim religious structures. They fail to note that the Swiss have not banned the building or use of mosques, merely towering minarets. Likewise the critics fail to note all the Muslim countries including some which purport to be democracies prohibit even the use of public buildings for purposes of worship.

The double standard swamp seems to be located more in the Mideast than in Europe. Not that this ground truth will inhibit the same countries from seeking to limit global freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion from criticism.

There it is. One more day of mucking about in the mud of the world, trying to keep one's head above the cloying waters. Will tomorrow be any different? Any better? Any more filled with firm ground and dry boots? Not in this lifetime, bucko.

ElBaradei Cashes In His Chips

Dr Mohamad ElBaradei, who has often seemed to be Iran's next best friend (in both the usual and lawyerly senses of the term) finally had an attack of blunt honesty in the waning days of his tenure as jefe grande of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA.) The Egyptian has graciously acknowledged that the IAEA's investigation of Iran's nuclear program has reached "a dead end."

This admission does not leave Iran bereft of support. China with enormous and growing investment in Iran's oil fields (120 gigabucks over the next five years with more memoranda of understanding in the pipeline) is more than ready to fill the role of next best friend. Even when faced with a clear message that the Iranian program is seen as "existential" with the consequences for China that implies, the Gnomes of Beijing have been unwilling to go further than not oppose a stiffly worded UN resolution deploring the Iranian lack of transparency and cooperation.

Whoopee! That will sure teach them mad mullahs that the "international community" is as serious as a heart attack about them and their quest for the "Mahdi bomb." You bettcha, bucko.

Dr ElBaradei bemoaned the intransigence of the Iranian regime. Evidently he is filled with sorrow over the failure of the Iranians to take advantage of this "humanitarian" moment by accepting the deal his people brokered some weeks ago. The Geek has to agree. It is such a tragedy that all sorts of Iranians in need of medical isotopes produced in the elderly US built reactor may waste away in misery as soon as the fuel runs out next year.

Perhaps Dr ElBaradei and the Chinese alike should be more concerned over what will happen if Israel sees no options other than either the acceptance of a nuclear armed Iran or taking what military actions it can to delay or end the nuclear effort. The effects of an Israeli attack no matter how carefully designed and skillfully executed will be bad for Iranians generally. It won't be much better for the rest of us.

The time when push comes to shove is not far in the future. Dr ElBaradei seems to have realized this. Perhaps he now regrets his overly polite and delicate handling of the so obviously tergiversatious Iranian government over the past several years. Perhaps he now thinks (realizes?) that the delicacy, the sensitivity, were misplaced and counterproductive. Perhaps he now understands that the Iranian mullahs and their governmental frontmen were working from a vastly different calculus of rationality than was he.

We won't know unless the (almost) former Director General writes memoirs which are a monument to both candor and introspection. By the time that hypothetical happens it will be too late for the Iranians and the world.

The IAEA having failed and the UN sanction effort giving every indication of having done the same the question remains, "What is to be done?" In large measure the answer to this question will be found in one of two places: Washington or Jerusalem.

The Israelis will wait a bit before informing the world as to their answer to the key question. However, the "bit" will not be inordinately long. Particularly if the efforts by the US and others to halt the 800 million dollar deal between Iran and Russia for the latter's S-300 air defense missile system is bootless.

There are limits to the US capacity to influence or pressure Israel into agreement with American policy requirements. The limits are quite constricted where the continued existence of the Israeli state is concerned.

Yes, the Israelis have developed and continue to develop an impressive defensive capacity against missile and rocket attacks. This process has been assisted by heavy American cooperation. Nonetheless, the Israelis recognize the limits of purely defensive systems, a purely defensive doctrine, a purely defensive way of waging war.

When the stakes are high--and none are higher than national survival--the attractions of an active, a very active, defense become overwhelming. Even if the odds are not good as regards total success they are no doubt to be preferred to the odds of overwhelming failure if the enemy gets there "firstest with the mostest."

Few analysts believe that an Israeli attack would do more than retard the Iranian effort by more than a few years with the concomitant of solidifying support for the current regime in Tehran. Further costs would be imposed both on Israel and the rest of the world by the inevitable Iranian riposte.

In the short run the task of dealing with Iran resides with the current occupant of the Oval. That is the place where the questions of what is to be done must be answered first. It is sincerely to be regretted that the response cannot be limited to the area where Mr Obama has shown the most talent: making speeches.

Rhetoric is not relevant. Neither is a very long process of "strategic review." Given the record to date, the use of economic sanctions is not particularly efficacious. Admittedly, the reality of sanctions has never been employed. The sanctions to date have not been designed to really hurt Iran and the Iranians. Additionally, the sanctions have been repeatedly infringed if not down right violated in a wholesale way by China, Russia, and commercial enterprises in Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and elsewhere.

Even if the sanctions already in place were to be imposed in the real as opposed to the hypothetical world it is doubtful they would impair the Iranian will and capacity to pursue the Atomic Grail with success. The same can be said of enhanced sanctions such as those which would hit the Iranian deficiency in refined petroleum products.

Even the most effective sanctions take time to become potent tools influencing the decision making of the target government. The time might simply not exist now.

Because of its failing to exploit the shokku felt by the Tehran regime in 2003 and then frittering away the years following in a wasteland of improperly executed policy in Iraq, the administration of W. Bush set up the US for failure in the great nuclear game with Iran. The successor administration has done nothing substantial to rectify the situation.

Arguably, there is nothing the Obama administration can do at this late date. The Chinese have become far more intransigent, and far more potent in the years since 2003. The same is true with the Russians. Neither has any real world reason to go along with US policy requirements--even though the Kremlin for purely domestic reasons may do so, up to a point.

During the same years the US failings in both Iraq (regardless of later redemption following the surge of 2007) and Afghanistan have severely, perhaps fatally, undercut the will and capacity of the president to use or even consider the use of military force. The advent of the Great Recession did nothing to make the aftermath of a military attack on Iran's nuclear and related target constellation any less unattractive.

Then there is the minor factor of President Obama's personality and priorities. The man is opposed to the messy realities of war. He is post-modern and thus believes such bumper sticker sentiments as "We are all passengers on spaceship Earth." (As French president Nicholas Sarkozy was reputed to have said, "Beam up, Barack.") This orientation is why the president is all for the international campaign against the newest bogey "anthropogenic climate change," but balks at making tough decisions regarding Afghanistan or taking an unapologetic, realistic look at life in the Mideast.

Beyond that, the priorities of the present administration are highly focused on the domestic side of life. The problems in that department are manifold and quite time and energy consuming. The one time community organizer finds enough risk, enough thrills, enough reward at home.

All of this implies that the current administration has made the non-decision decision to learn to live with a nuclear armed Iran while hoping that somehow, someway, somebody, perhaps divine providence, will take a hand and bring the Iranians to accept the US perspective. Since the latter is a little less likely than evil space invaders arriving and so bringing about true global harmony, the former seems the new default position regardless of oratory to the contrary.

The further implication is that Israel will take action in the not overly distant future. That country has little realistic alternative given the totality of the circumstances. Most important, perhaps, in that critical context is the demonstrated inability of the US to deal with the ever growing Iranian threat with any degree of effectiveness.

It pains the Geek to have watched the US slowly degrade in its global influence over the past decade, particularly the past five years. While far from purity in its motives and ambitions, the US was the best or at least least malignant candidate for leadership in a unipolar world.

The Bush/Cheney administration was correct in its assessment five and more years ago that the US was (to update the statement of Secretary of State Olney over a century ago) "practically sovereign in the world." It is to the detriment of the US and many other countries and peoples that the Bush/Cheney administration also frittered away this unparalleled position in a combination of hubris, arrogance, and mis-fought (Afghanistan) or mis-begotten (Iraq) wars.

Bouncing between ideological extremes, We the People compounded the disaster of decline by replacing the overly muscular neocon ninnies with the "progressives" headed by a very nice young man from Chicago who was both post-modern and hopelessly naive in the true ways of the world. In not quite a year the Obama administration has shown precisely what its predecessor demonstrated in not much more time--ideology is the natural and fatal disease of effective foreign policy and military affairs.

As history has shown since written records first existed, the only sort of foreign policy, the only form of military strategy, the only variety of diplomacy which works is one which is coldly realistic as to national interest and national power in all its forms. An over subscription to ideology of whatsoever stripe prevents reality from intruding its ugly head. And, that assures failure.

In all probability it is way too late, but it would be for the good of all if the American president would heed his French counterpart's urging, "Beam up, Barack!"

Who Are We? And, Who Is The Enemy?

Major Hasan, the Fort Hood mass killer, has reawakened the slumbering pseudo-debate about the nature of (A) terror, (B) the role of Islam, and (C) how does the US respond to the threat posed by (A) and (B). Further fuel has been added to the "new" controversy by the decision to put KSM and others of equal ill-fame on trial in a Federal criminal court in lieu of one before a military commission.

Additional impetus has come from the political game surrounding the "strategic review" over the course of the "war of necessity" (per President Obama) and the potential deployment of another large chunk of American troops. This feature gives additional force to the need to finally settle just what we are fighting for--and against. It just is not right either ethically or politically to expect people to put their one and only ass on the line for unknown reasons and unknowable goals.

In past confrontations, in previous wars, on those occasions such as World War I, World War II and, at least at their outsets, the Korean War and the American War in Vietnam, We the People had a reasonable consensus as to both the goal of our fighting and the nature of our enemy. In the cases of the two world wars, the consensus held until after the shooting stopped. With the other two wars, both limited wars in support of policy, the consensus did not hold. As a necessary consequence, We the People (or at least a large, vocal segment) lost political will to continue the effort, the sacrifice.

The First World War consensus was predicated upon a nifty combination of Allied (that is to say, British) propaganda, news management, and perception manipulation with the domestic ideals so well expressed by President Woodrow Wilson of "the victory of democracy" and a "war to end war." The Second World War saw consensus built from diversity in the blinding humiliation and destruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The first casualty of the Japanese bombs was the very large, vocal, and politically potent isolationist movement in the US.

The Korean War achieved an almost instant but not universal consensus because the invasion of the South by the North was so blatant, so evident, and so aggrandizing in the estimate of American public opinion molders that a response by the US was virtually guaranteed. The shrewd use by President Truman of the UN (made possible only by the Soviet self-inflicted absence from the Security Council) comforted Americans in their love of multi-lateral action based on the World War II alliance structure.

In a very real sense the consensus on the sending of troops to fight in the Vietnamese Wars was an artifact. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a ready-made, fill-in-the-blank exploitation of the expectable North Vietnamese response to the provocative actions under MarOps 34A and the twin ELINT collection by US destroyers. Waving the red flag of expansionist Communism was both possible and justifiable given the internal political dynamics of the day. (It might be noted that the documents of the day show the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress were far more hawkish than the administration and far, far more pawing the ground for war than President Johnson.)

The consensus held remarkably well. Even in the closing days of the Johnson administration and the first term of President Nixon, public support for the war effort at its lowest was higher by far than the nadir of support for the earlier Korean conflict. In part this was the effect of the body count--in war the dead often dictate policy. In part the continued support for the war was a response by the "silent majority" to the actions and rhetoric of both the anti-war movement and the counterculture generally.

In any event there was no time during the Korean and Vietnamese wars that We the People had any doubt as to just who we were and what we stood for. Nor was there any doubt as to who the enemy was and what the enemy was all about.

True, in the cold light of history practiced with the utmost of human objectivity, We the People might have been as wrong as a soup sandwich about both us and them, but that didn't matter at the time. Nor, practically does it matter after the fact.

On 9/12 We the People were One. We lusted to strike back against those who had struck not at some far away naval base but in the heart of our greatest city and the center of our nation's capital. Worse, this new enemy had not used military ships and aircraft, soldiers and sailors, but had seized civilian aircraft and turned our own fellows into weapons against us.

The attacks were acts of war. Of that We the People were certain. In the main most still do. A very confusing factor for We the People and the government alike was simply the nature of the attackers. In all of our previous experiences, attacks had been leveled by states, by governments, by soldiers, airmen, sailors. This time the attackers were of no specific nation, no government, no armed force.

It is hard to muster and focus a consensus for war when there is no easily named enemy. Sure, Afghanistan was a convenient and justifiable target given the nature of its government and the total unwillingness of that government to turn over the ultimate architects of the outrage to the US. The invasion of Afghanistan was plausible. It might even be described without undue inaccuracy as having been a "necessity."

But, attacking Afghanistan, overthrowing Taliban, ejecting al-Qaeda to Pakistan did not constitute a blow against the enemy. It may not have been a dangerous diversion as was the later great adventure in regime change in Iraq, but neither was it an effective strike against the real enemy, the (to use another piece of fine old Soviet terminology) "main" enemy.

Eight years ago as today the US government and the vast majority of the chattering, academic, and political classes made and make a bright and shining distinction between Islam and whatever and whomever the "enemy" might be. There were those eight years ago as there are those today who maintain that the "enemy" isn't some Muslim other but We the People and our government.

Despite the well intentioned and tactically justifiable attempt to put great swaths of daylight between acts of "terror" and Islam qua Islam, it is long past time to blow a whistle on the play.

"Wait one, Geek! Don't tell us you're becoming one of them there "Islamophobes."

Not hardly, bucko. Ole Doc Geek isn't a man of the cloth. Neither is he given to the fine details of theological disputations. To the Geekmo, all religions are created equal. They all deserve their time in the public square. None inspire any more "phobia" in the Geekmeister's mind than any other.

Even given the diversity of commitment and belief which must reside in the minds of one and a half billion human beings, there are some very salient, quite clear, and horribly unmistakable facts which have been growing since long before that bright September day in 2001. These are the ground truths which have not been given proper respect in the ever-so-polite, ever-so-sensitive, neverendingly tolerant chambers of the chattering, academic, and political classes in the US (OK, and elsewhere as well).

The first of these never-to-be-spoken brutal truths is simply that the vast majority of "terrorist" acts perpetrated over the past twenty years have been conducted by people who purport themselves to be Muslims. It doesn't matter who the keeper of the numbers is or has been--the US government, the UN, independent organizations, individual students of the phenomenon--the total comes out the same.

The second of these foundation realities is simply that the acts of the suicide bombers, the rocket launchers, the trigger pullers have been and are justified, even sanctified in the sacred writings of Islam. It matters not that the majority of Muslims may not act according to these strictures and requirements or even consider them germane to their lives today. The fact remains that the sacred literature, much (though admittedly far from all) Islamic jurisprudence historically and contemporaneously supports or even compels the actions taken by the bombers and their ilk.

The third basic also comes directly from Islam. The religion is totalistic in nature. It admits of no separation between politics and belief, jurisprudence and faith, the society and the community of believers. Additionally, Islam draws a line between the House of Peace--Islam--and the House of War--everybody else on the planet. The distinction coupled with assorted strictures as well as the record of the life of the Perfect Man, Mohammad, provides the basis to carry war both defensive and offensive against the unbelievers and apostates.

Again, it is irrelevant to aver that these factors play no real role in the lives of most Muslims most places most of the time. It may be a true assertion, but it doesn't matter.

The fourth leg of the table of reality is to be found in the West generally and the US in particular. Neither the West nor, most specifically, the US can avoid being the target of those within the Islamic faith who seek to put the greatest vitality into their beliefs. By its very existence, its size, its geographic reach, its characteristics and values, the US must draw the greatest hatred, the greatest loathing.

Samuel Huntington was right whether any of us like it or not. (Be assured, the Geek does not.) The world is engaged in a "clash of civilizations." The US and the West are in a battle to the death not with Islam per se, but with those within Islam who subscribe to "political Islam" or Islamism. More to the point today we are in a battle to the end with those Muslims who accept armed political Islam (Islamist jihadism) as their duty to and under the faith.

Perhaps this seems to be too fine a parsing to be made by politicians, pundits, and academics. Perhaps these elevated minds believe it is too fine a distinction to be understood by the great unwashed of the hoi polloi who are, after all, the majority of We the People.

In either case the unwillingness or inability of the public opinion molders of the US to make the necessary, properly and historically very well based distinction between Islam and Islamist jihadism assures two outcomes. The first has become very evident with the slow but recently accelerating public disenchantment with the war in Afghanistan.

The American consensus on the "global war on terror" has gone. Period. It will not return unless and until the necessary distinctions are made clearly, repeatedly, and convincingly. We the People must be persuaded that we have a real enemy. And that the enemy is not some amorphous tactic called "terror" but a very real political ideology rooted in specific aspects of Islam which can be distinguished from other features of Islam.

The second outcome of the persistent lack of a proper definition of the enemy is a growing uncertainty as to what positive outcome we might be fighting for. This loops to a growing unease within We the People as to just what we are all about, just what our beliefs might be, our values, the sort of future (beyond material comfort and stability) we might be seeking.

Events in both Iraq and Afghanistan prove beyond a doubt that the old magic words, "democracy," "freedom," "free enterprise" and so forth to the point of projectile vomit are no longer possessed of the charm they held in past wars. Nor, can it be claimed that a victory here or there will "make the world safe for democracy" or "end war."

It may be the case that the Islamist jihadists are both collectivist (as is Islam itself) and certainly addicted to actions such as stonings, amputations, and other delights of Shariah which heap insult and indignity upon the individual. In the past the cause of the individual, the rights and dignities of every single person, have been used quite successfully to mobilize and maintain a consensus within We the People.

It may be that this set of core values is the best, the only means available today to keep We the People grimly dedicated to bear the sacrifices necessary to keep fighting against the denegrators of the individual waging war under the banner of Islam. The Islamist jihadists desire more than anything else to impose their dystopian vision upon us and the rest of the "infidel" world. They want us to submit to the religion of submission and will use any and all means available to achieve this end.

The grim robot warriors of Islamist jihad can be stopped only if We the People are willing to keep on manning the lonely ramparts. We face with the Islamist martyrdom seekers an enemy far more determined and perhaps more numerous than any we faced during the great and lesser wars of the Twentieth Century, including the Cold War.

No doubt. Fighting wears thin. Fast. We the People have already fought way too many wars against all too many collectivist enemies flying many different flags. It is tempting to say, "Enough, already! Been there. Done it. Have the scars to prove it."

In a just and fair world we would be allowed to drop the fight. Put down the burden. To take a well earned and deserved rest.

But this is not a world which is fair or just. It falls to us, the unwilling, led by the inept, to do the impossible. We have stood against German expansionism (twice), Japanese aggression, the Crimson Tide of the Kremlin, Pyongyang, Beijing, Hanoi. And, we won.

We won because we knew what we were fighting against. And, fighting for.

We can do the same today and into endless tomorrows. But, only if we have leaders both in and out of government who can tell it like it really is. Leaders with the intellectual and moral courage to say without equivocation who we are, what we fight for, and what we are fighting against.

Well, it's an idea.