Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award VI

This time around the high coveted and hotly contested "What A Maroon!" award goes, not to pastor Terry Jones, who has proved himself too brilliant a captor of the media and world "leaders" beyond count to even enter the running, but to the President of the United States, Barack Obama. The Clueless Smiley Nice Young Man From Chicago has outdone his previous performances as Global Apologist In Chief with his cringing adoption of what might be kindly called, "a passive prevent-defense."

Handed a perfect opportunity to go on the offensive against the advocates of political Islam and their snivelling co-religionists currently holding purportedly responsible positions in governments from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, Pakistan to Indonesia, Mr Obama instead went on the pure defensive. Instead of holding the banner of American "exceptionalism" high for the world to see, rather than proclaim the existence of the First Amendment for all ears to hear, Mr Obama retreated behind the cordon of fear.

He (correctly) stated that torching a pile of Korans would put American lives at risk. He (incorrectly) restricted the heightened risk to American military personnel in Afghanistan. It was alright when General Petraeus singled out the enhanced risks attending American troops in Afghanistan, for the POTUS to do the same was disingenuous at best, a means of framing the narrative in a way which attempted to invoke patriotism and evade the reality that most risks would pass on to the unarmed, the unprepared, the unsuspecting, the tourists, the business wallahs, the humanitarian workers.

By focusing on the presumed threat to troops, Mr Obama tried to place himself above the fray, above the most critical issue involved in the Great Jones Fire Threat. The real issue sits at the heart of the vast difference which separates the United States from the bastions of Islam, from the repressive Islamic states as well as the proponents of violent political Islam.

The issue is simply freedom versus submission. Had the current American president the backbone of a banana split, he would have pointed out that in the US unlike the feudal states of Islam (including those with a transparently thin veneer of democracy) a citizen is free to say what he thinks free of any governmental let or hindrance. In the US the basic law of the land protects even the most obnoxious among us to speak--either literally or symbolically--and there is absolutely nothing the federal or state governments can do about it.

The meaning of Islam is "submission." In states having a Muslim majority, the idea of submission goes far beyond that of the believer submitting to the perceived will of Allah. It embraces the notion that the government has the right to control the speech (and presumably the thoughts) of all those living under its sway. The proof of this contention is found in the numerous quotes from Muslim clerics to the effect that pastor Jones could not be contemplating this incendiary exercise absent the approval of Mr Obama's administration and the demand that pastor Jones be arrested and his church be permanently shut down.

Mr Obama ought to have had the moral and intellectual courage to state clearly that the First Amendment was one of the features which marked the exceptional nature of the US as well as the even more exceptional freedom of its citizens. He ought to have challenged the Muslim majority countries as well as the proponents of violent political Islam to demonstrate even one percent of the faith in citizens and their institutions which our First Amendment requires.

At the same time Mr Obama could have made a strong reference to the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy. In this affair as in the pastor Jones contretemps, the basic law of the US prohibits any governmental action beyond the requirements of local land use authorities to block the construction of a building, even one whose location is disapproved of by some three quarters of We the People. American freedoms, the freedoms still available under the Constitution, are an ax which cuts in all directions with remarkable equality. Mr Jones has his rights and the folks behind the mosque and community center have theirs. Neither must nor can be forced to submit to governmental dictate.

In his moronic use of the defense, Mr Obama threw away a fine chance to show the world--including Muslims--just what the US stood for. He tossed aside a way by which people around the globe, again including Muslims, could decide which side they supported or at least the side toward which they inclined.

Instead, by his example Mr Obama gave Americans and the world generally tacit permission to surrender to fear. To submit to the coercive effect of fearing what those Mad Muslims might do if they felt insulted, or if they did not get the fullest of their demands. His invocation of the defense and eschewing of the offense have served to make more potent the panic producing potential of even implicit Muslim threats.

The bully has won. Mr Obama may not have appeased as he has so many times before but he did the equivalent by going on the defense. A defense which admitted fear is not even one full step removed from fear induced appeasement. In either case the bully is emboldened. In either case the bully will be back ready to extort more, able to gin up fear--and capitalize on the fear he engenders.

There is a grain of truth in the hoary military maxim: "The best defense is a good offense." In this case Mr Obama chose to ignore the fine offensive platform provided by the First Amendment. He hid our freedoms behind the troops who have pledged their lives to protect those freedoms. By doing so he not only weakened us and our freedoms, he made mockery of the oath sworn by all military personnel, and, come to think of it, himself.

Just How Free Are We?

A nation's power is usually divided into two categories: hard and soft. Hard power covers the military and economic capacities while soft power refers to the cultural, social and political appeals of a country.

For the US a substantial portion of our "soft" power is held in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The freedoms seemingly guaranteed by it--those of religion, speech, the press, and peaceful assembly--have a high, universal appeal.

In one tension filled area covered by the Glorious First, we may be a lot less free than ought to be the case.

The area?

The open presence of faith based speech in the public square--all the public square, not just some segregated sections,

The reason?

If you're expecting the Geek to say something warm and fuzzy such as, "It's the right thing to do," you're both correct and wrong. It may be the right thing to do, but, far more importantly, it's the proper thing to do if the soft power of the First Amendment is going to have real utility in defeating the Islamists.

Defeating Islamists, you mean, like Osama bin Ladin? Geek, you've lost it for sure!

No. At least I don't think so. In fighting any form of irregular war whether a nice straight ahead guerrilla war or a mixed state insurgency with truck bombs, IEDs and the other aircraft used as cruise missiles, the most critical aspect of successful war fighting is to turn the uncommitted majority against the hard core militants.

Right now, despite all the "hard" and "soft" power at our disposal, the US is not succeeding fast enough nor completely enough to marginalize the Islamists, to make them isolated pariahs in traditional Muslim society, in short to deprive them of recruits, support, intelligence, assistance, and sanctuary.

A major reason for our relative failure to convince traditional Muslims to shun the Islamist demands for support, concealment, and recruits is the widespread belief in the Islamic world that the US is an atheistic nation.

Get a grip on that: The US is widely perceived by traditional, non-violent Muslims as an atheistic nation.

With that perception governing many, many minds in the vast crescent from Morocco to Indonesia, it is easy to understand why with every passing month the legend of bin Ladin grows and the appeal of the US shrinks.

If you want to view the question of atheism versus religion through the flinty eyes of a realpolitiker, what matters is not self-perception, but how others perceive us. The objective truth is not important. All that matters is the subjective truth in the minds of others--in this case the minds of traditional Muslims.

The Geek wants to be clear on a couple of dangerously misleading but commonly held beliefs in the US (and the EU for that matter) concerning why bin Ladin and his ilk not only want above all else to force the US to withdraw from the world (or at least a good sized chunk of it) and why bin Ladin and his fellow Islamists have such appeal for Muslims generally.

The first wrong belief is that Islamists are motivated in whole or major part by US support for Israel as well as the fate of the Palestinians. Reinforcing that motivator is the continued presence of US forces in the Persian Gulf where they "prop up" dictatorships such as those in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Get a grip!

While US foreign policy and its presence in the region (to say nothing of the invasion of Iraq) might have made it easier for the Islamists to sell their message of jihad, it is not the motivator nor is it the primary attractor of new recruits.

(If Palestine mattered a bit, then why is it that most of the jihadists are non-Palestinians and not from the packed refugee camps of the Mideast? Why are the majority younger members of the privileged class, such as bin Ladin himself or Mohamed Atta of 9/11 infamy or the physicians of the failed bombings in London and Glasgow?)

The other wrong belief is the "clash of cultures" hypothesis, particularly the form which argues that Islam is a lethal belief system combining the "will of God" with all features of political, social, and economic life, and the end goal of Islam is subjugation of the world.

While the Geek has no problem seeing Islam as a warriors' religion, he maintains that the typical Muslim is no more interested in world domination than is the person on the street in any other religo-cultural environment. Even the most submissively inclined authoritarian personality needs more than sermons, more than fatwas, more than examples to risk life in a quest for something so remote, so abstract as forcing the world to submit to Islam.

However, the subjective and pervasive image of the US as an atheistic nation gives Muslims a target that is not so abstract as well as a more powerful motivation than mere global conquest--it gives him a duty.

The duty to confront and destroy atheists and those apostates who dance to the atheistic Uncle Sam's band.

This brings us back to the United States and the First Amendment. It brings us back to the question of just how free are we?

The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."

Seems simple, doesn't it? Congress shall make no law. Extended by the Fourteenth Amendment, the seemingly simple and straightforward wording of the First applies to the states and lesser governments as well.

Hooray! Freedom for everyone. Let the speech--faith derived and secular alike--flow! The pubic square should be a ringing cacophony of voices as God Squader takes on Secular Humanist.

It isn't. The public square is quiet. The God Squaders stand over in their carefully circumscribed areas preaching to the choir as the Secular Warriors turn their backs and get on with the real work of policy and politics.

What went wrong?

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law. It doesn't mention the Federal Courts.

And, get a grip on this, it was the Supreme Court that screwed the pooch. It was the Supreme Court which invoked the Law of Unintended Consequences. It was the Supreme Court which kicked the snowball down the slippery slope with the result that we are seen as an atheistic nation.

As a Turkish Army officer once asked me, "How could your court have banned God from your public life?'

The man had it part right. The Court has made religiously based speech illegitimate in most of the public square.

That implies only the Supreme Court can bring back legitimacy to religiously predicated speech. Only the Court can repeal this particular application of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Get a grip on this. The Supreme Court is now a vital part of America's soft power.

Scary thought, isn't it?