The Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award Returns

It has been some time since the Geek last bestowed the highly coveted "What A Maroon! Award."  This has not been due to a dearth of candidates.  Quite the contrary, the past several months have been awash to the scuppers with moronic policies and the severely intellectually challenged folks behind them.  Simply, there have been entirely too many possibilities to single out just one each and every week.

Fortunately, a person has emerged from the fog of merely inept, incompetent, brain dead wonks and pols inside the Beltway.  Finally there has been an act of such unmitigated idiocy that the Award must be bestowed.

The envelop, please.  Riiippp.  Raise the slip of paper inside.  Read the distinguished name of the winner.

"And, the winner is.....(drum roll.)  Lick lips in anticipations.  "The winner is Hillary Clinton!"  Applause.

That's right, bucko.  The recipient is our most distinguished Secretary of State.  Ms Clinton gets the Award not for her efforts to push back on the eviscerated foreign aid budget.  Nor for her opposition to the cuts to the Foreign Service appropriation.  No.  Those were not moronic.

Well, what then?  Is this belated recognition for Hilary's hard work to bring about the Libyan policy morass?  No, although a strong case can be made for her receiving at least an honorable mention in this area.

SecState Clinton deserves the "What A Maroon!" Award for her recent collaboration with the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC,) the Turkish proponent of political Islam and historian manque, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, in the area of preventing religious defamation.  In an announcement datelined Jeddah, Ms Clinton and Dr Ihsanoglu declared the US would host a series of meetings to focus on the implementation of a UN Human Rights Council resolution 16/18.

This measure passed by the discredited Human Rights Council last March is intended to combat in an "urgent" fashion the growth of something called "Islamophobia."  While carefully avoiding the use of either the word "Islam" or "Muslim," the intent of the resolution to single out the faith of the Prophet for special protection is clear.  The fifty plus Muslim majority states of the OIC have long pushed for the criminalization of any written, spoken, or graphic consideration of any aspect of Islam in any manner other than the adulatory.  After many failures, the OIC and its supporters such as Russia and China succeeded in getting 16/18 passed by a minority of the HRC members.

It is always essential to keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the OIC membership is well known for limiting free expression and inquiry.  The same is true of states which have sided with the OIC in its efforts to stifle open expression and the equally free inquiry which accompanies expression.  Some OIC states, such as Pakistan, whose delegation introduced 16/18 as well as its numerous predecessors, has blasphemy laws of the most draconian sort enshrined in law.

It is equally necessary to recall that OIC states such as Egypt are (in)famous for the easy availability of antisemitic billingsgate such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Throughout the Muslim states, Judaism is defamed in the worst imaginable ways and in all media.  Christianity is no better treated.  Nor is Hinduism.  Or Buddhism.  Or minority groups within Islam such as the Alawites of Syria.  All religions other than the most mainstream versions of Islam are fair targets for "defamation."  Even the two largest subgroups of Islam, the Sunni and the Shia are willing, even eager, to "defame" the other.

Of course this "defamation" is not seen as such by the Muslims.  To a good Muslim, the other faiths are either bastions of the infidel or expressions of apostasy.  Thus, it is impossible by definition to "defame" them.  Having not submitted to the unique Muslim view of the deity, adherents to all other faiths are fair game for whatever vitriol any Muslim cares to spill forth.

Logically, as the only "true" faith, only Islam merits protection as only Islam can be "defamed" by the vile slanders of the infidels and apostates.  It is not extreme to assert that even the most objective, fact based, well documented assessment of Islam is automatically "defamatory" if it comes from the tongue or pen of an infidel or apostate.  Considered from a Muslim perspective, the HRC resolution and all national policies or actions which arise from its application can serve to protect only Islam as only Islam resides in the realm of true faith.

As a dedicated adherent of political Islam, the OIC Secretary General is willing to do whatever is necessary to advance and protect the interests and position of Islam.  Thus, it is not surprising that he seized upon the Norwegian tragedy to argue that now more than ever the states of the West must move quickly and effectively to turn the theory of resolution 16/18 into legal practice.  The unfortunate reaction of so many in the Western and American elites to the berserker act of Brevik gave added power to Ishanoglu's argument.

The elites in the post-Brevik days continued and amplified their assertion that any criticism of Islam or any linkage of Muslims with terror serves the end of alleged "rightwing extremists" with the results such as those in Norway.  This exercise in absurdity and political correctness automatically plays into the censorious hands of the OIC.  Somehow, even the most objective and well-documented negative interpretations of Islam or the relation between the tenets of the faith and violent political actions are seen by the left leaning elites as being responsible for the action of Brevik.  Without any documentation, the same people argue that a myriad of potential Breviks are lurking all through Western and American societies waiting to be triggered into violence by some less than hosanna laden treatment of Islam or Muslims.

Showing her elite credentials and leftward bent, Ms Clinton signed onto the OIC's gag-the-infidels gambit.  No matter what her intentions are and no matter what the outcome may be, the secretary's agreement to a series of meetings oriented to putting 16/18 into practice gives the Muslim "speechophobic" move a legitimacy it does not deserve.  Her action provides an imprimatur to a resolution which strikes at the heart of the most basic and critical right resident in Western societies.

Free inquiry and expression is a protean right.  It is also a right from which many others emerge.  It is so basic to Western liberties and Western economic, social, political, and cultural development that it is simply impossible to separate free speech from the West as it exists today.  The utter absence of any real free inquiry and expression in the countries of the OIC goes far to explain why these states are comparatively backwards in all respects.

The irrelevance of rights, including that of free expression and inquiry, in Muslim majority states is not surprising.  Islam, unlike other major faiths, has no inherent concept of rights.  Islam is all about duty.  Believers have duties to the deity and to other believers, but, as good slaves, they have no inherent rights.  In sharp contrast, other faiths, particularly those preeminent in the West, not only acknowledge the existence of rights, rights which are inherent to the human condition, but exalt those rights by stating clearly and repeatedly that the exercise of rights requires the concomitant acceptance of duties.

To the faithful Muslim, the Western emphasis on rights constitutes a world through the looking glass.  It is not comprehensible to the good and faithful Muslim with his focus on knowing his duties and executing them with willing joy.  The Muslim has a duty to protect his religion against the words of the infidels and apostates.  His duty goes so far as to seek to prevent the infidel and apostate from sullying the faith by even an honest and objective narrative treatment.  The Muslim has a duty to exalt his faith above all others, which means he is allowed to attack the "false" beliefs.  His double standard is not hypocritical but rather is an honest expression of duties and beliefs.

Ms Clinton is not a Muslim as far as is publicly known.  She is, however, an American.  As a holder of an office of trust and confidence under the Constitution, she has taken an oath of office swearing to protect and defend the Constitution to the best of her ability.  She is a lawyer by education.  Putting the two aspects of Ms Clinton's life together, it must be concluded that she understands the OIC backed resolution is repugnant to the Bill of Rights.

She became a "maroon" of the highest order when she did not meet the demand that the US support 16/18 with any reaction other than gales of derisive laughter.

A Democracy Fails

Israel was established as a Western heritage democracy.  In and of itself this was an amazing phenomenon.  There was little in the history of the Jews, either in Biblical days or in the long centuries of the diaspora which linked democracy with the Jewish tradition.  Yet the driving personalities of the Zionist movement as well as those who fought for an independent Jewish state insisted on bringing the democratic ideals of Western and Central Europe to the country which was simultaneously ancient and new.

The seamless merging of ancient and modern can be seen in two defining characteristics of Israel and the Zionists who worked so long and hard to bring the dream to fruition.  The long dead language of Hebrew was brought back from the linguistic graveyard.  Democracy was embraced.  King David could walk the streets of Israel today and understand all that was said around him.  But the Biblical King would not begin to understand the democracy which is, or to err on the side of accuracy, was basic to Israel.

One of strongest reasons so many Americans supported Israel with ardor and depth during the Fifties, Sixties, and beyond was its highly evident commitment to democracy.  When someone stated that Israel was the only outpost of democracy in the Mideast during the first forty or fifty years of the state's existence, it was simply a recognition of reality.  In more recent years, the same claim must be seen not as a statement of fact but rather the product of the propagandist's tendentiousness.

It is important to keep in mind that there was no tradition of democracy in the historical experience of the Jewish people either before or after the savage Roman repression of the second uprising.  Only insofar as Jews participated in democratic processes as such developed fitfully and painfully in the several European states or in the US was there any direct experience with the complex nature of democracy.  In a very real sense, the pioneering Zionists and the Jews who answered the call of freedom implicit in the creation of the Jewish state brought democracy in all its manifold ways and complexities with them, political freight carried in their knapsacks as they got off the boat on the sandy shore of the land which would become Israel.

It is also critical to recall that the Jews of Western and Central Europe were not the only Jews involved in the project called Israel.  Arrivals from the autocracies of the Mideast constituted a great and growing part of the citizenry.  Later, vast numbers of Jews arrived from the wreckage of the Soviet Union.  The latter like their coreligionists from the Mideast had no direct experience with democracy.  They had no basis on which to predicate an understanding of the mix of processes of trade offs, of compromises, of partial successes which jointly make up the intricate interior of democracy.

For many years, Israel against all odds remained a vibrant democracy.  Not even the addition of refugees from the autocratic antisemitic states of the Mideast threatened the effectiveness and buoyancy of democracy, Israeli style.  The robust nature of Israeli democracy was demonstrated repeatedly under extreme stress.  Neither a surprising initial defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War nor unending terror attacks undercut or distorted the democratic processes.

Democracy it appears could survive and prosper no matter what until Israelis themselves turned against the concept and its instrumental effects.  While a portion of the Israeli sellout of their own democracy can be assigned to the impact on the polity of the influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union, that was only a minor factor.  The major cause of the erosion of democracy has been the combination of an increasingly fundamentalist form of the Jewish faith with an evermore strident sense of nationalism.

In this dynamic, quite evident after 1990, the Israelis have echoed the Muslim states surrounding them.  From the time of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the contemporaneous "Holy War" against the Red Army in Afghanistan, the force of the more austere and fundamentalist schools of Islam have combined with growing nationalism to produce the plethora of groups espousing political Islam.  This includes those groups and leaders embracing violence as an acceptable tool of politics.  The Israeli responses have included the growth of a similar, even identical, mix of religion and nationalism to the disadvantage of real democracy.

This process can be tracked easily by looking at the ever lessening status of the political Left in Israel.  Looking back at the salad days of Israel, one sees the Left as ever triumphant at the polls.  The Right was marginal at best and irrelevant most of the time.  Only since the First Intifada has the Right emerged to power.

In recent years, the nature of Israeli politics has become one of the Right versus the Further Right.  In the current Israel, the Left has become instrumentally a mere ghost, a marginal figure with less substance than a desert mirage.  Electoral contests are between the "Moderate" Right and the Further Right.  All too often it has been and is the Further Right which wins.  In the recent past, the biggest loser has been not the Left per se or the "Moderate" Right but the nature and character of democracy itself.

During the current administration of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Knesset has lurched evermore to the farthest shores of the Right.  The Nakba Law, the loyalty oaths, the overkill reaction to the "flotillas," and, most recently and disturbingly, the anti-boycott law are all demonstrations of the way in which the Further Right is willing to lethally distort the appearance of democratic processes and structures to enervate democracy and imperil the future of the state.  While some manifestations of religion linked nationalism run amok such as the demand that Israeli universities sing the national anthem at all conceivable occasions are bizarre but not harmful, others such as the recently passed full fledged assault on freedom of speech--the anti-boycott law--are fatally injurious to any meaningful exercise of democracy.

There is no fundamental difference between the abridgement of free political speech contained in the law prohibiting any Israeli from speaking or writing in support of the boycott on products originating in the "settlements" constructed on land seized during the Six Day War and the continued attempts by the renamed Organization of Islamic Cooperation to prevent something called "defamation" of religions and religious figures.  Both are misguided efforts to protect something "sacred" from any criticism or opposition by limiting rights of expression.

The status of the "settlements" is contentious to say the least.  There are many activists in many countries, including Israel, who consider the new cities built on land occupied by the IDF forty-four years ago to be illegal at worst and illegitimate at best.  As a result, there is and has been an effort to boycott products originating in these areas.  Since the government of Israel does not identify those goods or products originating in the settlements, the only course of action available to those who wish to boycott settlement products is that of boycotting all goods made or grown in Israel.  This is true even for Israelis who have no desire to see their country de-legitimized or otherwise harmed.

Urging boycotts on the settlements including denial of services by Israelis to the settlements is a legitimate political tactic for those Israelis who see their government's hanging on to the settlements as inherently wrongheaded.  The goal of the new law--which is probably, almost certainly, violative of the several basic laws held by the Israeli Supreme Court to be equivalent to a constitution--seeks to deny this tool of political speech to Israelis and others in Israel who oppose current government policy.

The Israeli Further Right is like Muslim political advocates in that it refuses to compromise.  The Further Right goes to the mat on everything.  It is dedicated to an all-or-nothing approach to politics which is anathema to democracy.  Under the sway of the Further Right, Israel bodes well to become just one more standard issue Mideastern state lacking the will and ability to practice genuine democracy with all its messy deal making, horse trading, and compromises which leave no one completely happy.

Absent a genuine democracy, Israel loses a powerful claim on American understanding and support.  Actions such as the anti-boycott law are repugnant to American norms and values.  Even the powerful efforts of the Israel Lobby will not be able to hide this reality from politically articulate Americans and their congressional representatives.  Not even the best efforts of AIPAC can convince Americans that Israel deserves support when its governmental actions show the country to be one more semi-autocracy with some democratic trappings.

Israel must rediscover its roots.  Not the ones in the Hebrew Bible, but the ones carried ashore by the early Zionists and the refugees from the hectatombs of Europe.  For its future, Israel must get back to its past, to the past containing genuine democracy and all the risks which accompany democracy.  Artificial, monolithic consensus, the consensus of enforced silence, serves Israel very poorly.  To secure its future, Israel and the Israelis must channel their past, the noisy, vibrant democracy which characterized the place for decades.  Only then will they have a genuine claim on American sympathy and support.

Like Cockroaches They Are Back Again

The insecure, fear ridden Muslims are back at the old trick again. No, this time, they're not blowing something or somebody up. Rather, the fifty-seven member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) are trying to ram their collective censorship boot down our free speech dedicated throats. Running point in this latest attempt to stifle even the most mild, well-mannered, and fact based criticism of Islam and Muslims are two key American "allies," Egypt and, (drum roll, please) Pakistan.

The chosen forum is the UN Human Rights Council. No surprise in the choice. OIC members along with such other stalwart defenders of open inquiry and expression as Russia, China, and Cuba have an absolute majority in this body. Since raw power assures the reactionary and primitive states of the OIC can pass whatever bit of repressive resolution might be wished, it is shocking that the OIC member states try to offer a rationalization for their effort.

It seems that the Always Vigilant Protectors Of The One True Faith have discovered that a new form of "racism" is abroad in the West. The new form is termed, "Islamophobia" and manifests itself by any number of icky-poo things directed at Muslims including criticizing the faith itself, casting factual aspersions upon the Muslim historical narrative, and, actually expressing disapproval of Islamic characteristics such as stoning adulterers, chopping the heads off of apostates and blasphemers, putting women in garbage sacks, and, The Greatest Blood Libel Ever, animadverting that men who shout, "Allahu Akbar!" before flying aircraft into buildings or pushing the clicker on the suicide vest might be Muslims.

The Egyptian delegate wound himself into a state closely approximating apoplexy when he charged, "People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia..." The diplomat also claimed that these unfortunate people suffer "intolerance, discrimination and marginalization."

The Egyptian's play was quickly backed by his colleague from Pakistan. The Pakistani demanded that the Council's Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom investigate this "racism" particularly "in Western societies."

Wowie! Zowie! If these two diplomats were Jewish, it would be fair to say they possessed chutzpah in truckload quantities.

The nerve of these duplicitous purveyors of tergiversation. The OIC members as well as the OIC itself want the world to believe that they are motivated by a sincere desire to protect all religions from abuse. They hope that people generally are so intellectually challenged and historically ignorant that their protestations (to quote the Pakistani representative at the HRC) of a need to "create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity" will be believed.

Fer sure, dudes. If this really, really, really is the goal of the OIC, perhaps the group and its members can establish a greater street cred by answering a few simple questions.

In what "Western societies" and the polities they have created is it illegal for a Muslim to proselytize openly? In what "Western societies" and the polities they have created is it illegal for a Muslim to pass out copies of the Koran on a public street? Or wear symbols of their faith? Or denounce Christianity? Or Judaism? Are not any and all Muslims free to question, criticize, or flat out defame Christianity or Judaism or any other religion throughout the "Western societies?"

While you are at it, boys (it is not possible to address the question to those of the distaff given the strictures of Islam) please name any Western state where conversion to Islam from any other religion is a punishable offense? That is, punishable by any measure, a civil fine even, unlike the death penalty which is authorized in Muslim countries for the "apostate."

In a similar vein, Sincere Upholders Of Islam, please name those "Western societies" where a woman's testimony in court is held to be worth less than that of a man? Or, those "Western societies" which disenfranchise a person on the basis of their having mammary glands? Or those "Western societies" which authorize the police to arrest (or administer on-the-spot physical chastisement) to any woman caught in the company of a man other than her blood relative or husband?

In how many "Western societies" are revolting antisemitic works not only sold in bookshops and in the bazaars, but spewed forth on television and radio (including those broadcasters owned or controlled by governments) available to the degree they are in, say, Egypt? In how many "Western societies" do clerical, political, or civil society leaders call for killing people simply on the basis of their faith?

The list could go on, ad nauseam but the point has been made.

The OIC members, including the two American "allies" referenced, are engaged in one more attack on the values of the West, on the very roots of Western greatness. Beyond that, their effort demonstrates yet again that the fear ridden and insecure nature of Islam and the societies and polities predicated on Islam are not simply reactionary, trying desperately to roll the centuries back and transform as much of the world as possible to a simulacrum of the Arabian Peninsula in the Seventh Century, but that they are primitive enclaves in a world which has passed them by.

That's the ground truth, Islamic majority societies, and the polities they have created have been responsible for little or nothing positive over the past thirteen centuries. Islam, by its very nature, by its reliance upon the "will of Allah," has not and cannot practice genuine science. By virtue of its many strictures, Islamic societies can not add measurably to the general store of human knowledge, artistic brilliance, scholarship, or make any other significant contribution to the overall improvement of the human condition.

Other than a certain crude capacity for the waging of war, for killing people and breaking things, Islam is not to be noted. Well, it can be argued that Islamic polities have demonstrated a skill at repression, suppression, and oppression, but these are not generally numbered among desirable accomplishments.

Perhaps there exists a dim awareness deep in the semi-consciousness of the assorted Islamic majority states that they are not the jewels in the crown of humanity. Perhaps it is this awareness of inbuilt primitiveness which makes the OIC membership (and so many individual Muslims) so insecure in the value of their faith that extraordinary measures of self-defense are indicated.

As these states and their citizens lack the self-confidence, the sure sense of self and its value which immunizes against both insult and criticism, they have no choice other than to seek to stop the voices, halt the pens, of those who would be so bold as to question, criticize, and utter unpleasant truths. The OIC and its members must try to silence the opposition lest they perish.

The Muslims and their fellow travelers on the Oppression Express may have the votes in the Human Rights Council. But that is all they have. The other side, the civilized states and their relatively secure and self-aware citizens, have both truth and history as allies.

So it has been. And, so it will continue.

Once Again Fear Trumps Free Speech

Admittedly Pakistan is in a world of hurt currently. In this context it is important to recall that the country brought most of this unpleasant present upon itself. In large part the cause of its current place midway between the hammer of the contemporary world and the anvil of Islamism is the necessary consequence of decisions made by General Zia during the Eighties.

One of General Zia's splendid ideas was to force feed Islamist doctrine on the nation's youth through an ambitious program of building madrases. This seemed a good idea in several respects. The emphasis on religious indoctrination was believed to be a sure way to bring greater social and political cohesion. The construction costs in the main would be borne by Saudi Arabia and thus indirectly by the US, Europe, and Japan. Finally, the madrases would provide a simultaneous means of keeping young men off the job market while providing willing personnel for Zia's far less than covert war against India.

A second Zia-made contribution to Pakistan's current world of hurt was his taking over the war in Afghanistan, first against the Soviets and then to assure a pliant tool gaining power in Kabul. That tool, Taliban, was a direct product of the madrass construction program. The US contributed mightily to this aspect of the developing evil stew in Pakistan by willingly giving money without restriction to Zia's regime and then blithely ignoring just what was happening in the post-Soviet withdrawal internal war period.

Even though General Zia long ago left the scene, the Law of Unintended Consequences which his actions necessarily invoked now drives the dynamic in Pakistan in all of its bloody and repressive features. As the slow-on-the-uptake Pakistani government, Army, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence finally came to realize, the growth of Islamism (or political Islam, if you prefer) came to be an existential threat to the status quo.

The actions taken by the government, army, and ISI as a result of this belated awakening have been a mixture of repression and placation. The army has launched a series of operations against Pakistani Taliban with mixed success. At the same time the government has made efforts to placate Islamist opinion.

In the most recent of these obnoxious genuflections to the very vocal adherents of political Islam, the government has ordered the banning of Facebook and YouTube. The reason given for this draconian action was, as is drearily expectable, the charge of "blasphemy."

More specifically, the Pakistani government alleges that it is in a royal snit over the Facebook site inviting one and all to "draw Mohammad." The specifics regarding YouTube's exercise in blasphemy are not so clearly delineated. However the Pakistani Ministry In Charge Of Protecting Muslim Sensitivities assures the world that the site is awash with videos which somehow or another deprecate Islam, the Prophet (PBUH), and whatever just makes Muslims all over go weak in the knees from the insults.

The Pakistani ministry has shown the sort of open minded attitude which one can expect from an official governmental protector of all things Muslim. The responsible(?) official has invited representatives from both of the offensive sites to send representatives so as to "resolve the dispute in a way that ensures religious harmony and respect."

Duh?

Is it credible that this Pakistani equivalent of the pope commanding King Henry to stand barefoot in the snow of Canossa will be taken seriously or that such will result in repentance on the part of the purported malefactors? Does this official exemplar of Pakistani sweet reason really, really believe that the Internet will genuflect before the alleged sensitivities of Muslims?

The answer, unfortunately, is, "Yes."

Pakistan has a record of blocking "offensive" Internet sites. Along with other Muslim majority countries such as Iran, Morocco, Indonesia, and Turkey, Pakistan has played the embargo game before albeit for short periods. Taken together, the record of Muslim countries rivals that of China in blocking access to the Internet on the part of citizens.

Driven by naked fear, these governments have done their dead level best to isolate citizens from the contemporary world. These are all governments which live in fear of social turbulence, political unrest, and the potential of violence on the part of citizens who come to realize just how much the government has suppressed, prevaricated, and manipulated perceptions for the sole benefit of the governing elite.

In the case of Pakistan the fear is prompted by the existence of Islamist jihadists who by and large exist because the government made them. The Taliban of Pakistan and akin groups are creatures of Islamabad. Now, like the fictional monster created by Frankenstein, they have escaped the control of their maker and threaten the continued existence of the men who manufactured them.

Of course, the restrictive efforts of the Pakistani government are assisted powerfully by the widespread hypersensitivity present in all-too-many Muslims. Unlike adherents to other monotheistic faiths, Muslims are routinely indoctrinated with fear. Fear that they are marginal. Fear that they are victims of discrimination. Fear that they are under constant attack.

A pervasive climate exists within much of the Muslim opinion molding community not only in Pakistan but throughout the Islamic majority societies. That climate can best be described by the word, "insecurity." There are too many opinion molders and thus far too many Muslims who are insecure in the worth and validity of their belief system. This is self-evident given the constant drive for censorship sponsored by Islamic governments.

A person--or a group--which is secure in fundamental beliefs need not seek the false security afforded by limiting free expression. Christians, Jews, even Buddhists, are repeatedly subject to critical, even insulting, expressions from people who do not share their community of faith. Yet they do not demand "respect for religion," particularly one which is imposed by legislation or fiat.

The government of Pakistan has been at the forefront of efforts to impose a global convention under the auspices of the UN which has as its only intent the "protection" of Islam against any criticism, any questions, any raising of doubts on the part of its adherents. It is an effort to protect Muslims which can be rooted only in the belief that Islam and Muslims alike are too weak, too insecure, too fear ridden to accept dissenting or disapproving views.

Of all the Muslims alive today, the most insecure, the most fear driven are those who subscribe to political Islam, Islamism. These people and the groups they comprise are so unsure as to the worth and validity of the faith to which they subscribe that they are more than simply willing to employ any and all methods including the most violent and indiscriminate to achieve their ends. Ends which include absolute protection against questions or criticism by world domination.

The equation is simple: free speech makes free people. Freedom is the most fear producing of all possibilities to an Islamist. These people can exist only in a society of complete submission as the word, "Islam," makes abundantly clear.

Ironically, the government of Pakistan is willing to submit to the dictates of the Islamists who seek the destruction of the government which bows before them. The only losers are those Pakistanis who seek to live a simulacrum of a free life, think and express ideas without the specific permission of a religious authority, that is Pakistanis who are secure in their identity and their faith (if any.)

A Follow On To Yesterday's Post

Once upon a time the Geek's mother sat him down and said, "Geek don't ever discuss either religion or politics--and above all else don't talk about them together." Mom was right. People tend to see or hear what they want to see or hear and not what is actually said or written.

So it was with yesterday's essay on "Christianism" as the first cousin of "Islamism."

The Geek has been contacted by some good, sincere Christians who took his essay to mean that he was under the impression that all Christians wanted to roll back the calender to pre-Enlightenment times and wanted to install some sort of Christian theocracy.

Of course the Geek wrote nothing of the sort. The fault must, of course, reside with him and not the readers who missed his point, leaping to the erroneous conclusion that the Geekster had turned anti-Christian in his dotage. To make the record clear: The Geek is not against any particular religion or even religion in general.

The Geek is, however, very much in opposition to groups or individuals who attempt to enforce or impose their belief system through either the power of the state or the even more potent force of fear.

Islamism is a subset of Islam in which the goal of the proponents is the eradication of the "House of War" as all non-Muslims are dubbed by the sacred writings of the faith. Similarly "Christianism" is a subset of Christianity in which the political goal of the adherents is the creation of the mythic days of long ago when the Great Chain of Being was the official paradigm for a secure, orderly, harmonious, and just social and political order.

To both the Islamist and the Christianist the accomplishment of the goal reigns supreme. The presumed benefits, it is believed by members of both groups, would be so beneficial to the entire human race that all methods might be used with ethical justification.

The Islamists, particularly those who have embraced jihad have made it abundantly clear that even the most violent and fear producing tactics are acceptable, even laudable, in pursuit of the goal of defeating the "House of War" and those Muslims deemed to be apostates.

Given the nature of the majority of Muslim majority states in which the instruments of democracy are either weak or absent, the rush to violence can be understood even if not applauded. Also quite easy to understand is the frustration and anger bred within the Islamist community by the existence of major disparities in political power, social status, and economic security which exist in so many Muslim majority states. The perceived failure of either society or polity to solve the many problems along with the palpable lack of judicial, economic, and political independence, transparency, and incorruptibility provide a sound basis to advocate a return to the putatively"pure" faith of the early years of Islam as illustrated by the Koran and the life of the Perfect Man, Mohammad, and his Companions.

The motivations of the Christianists in the US are also easy to both see and understand. When the Christianists critique contemporary America, they emphasize their perception of moral decay on a massive scale along with rampant materialism, a degenerate focus on the rights, privileges and worth of the individual, the corruption of business and politics. In these criticisms the Christianists take a position identical to that of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood after his short stay in the US immediately after World War II.

In their criticisms the Christianists are no different from a large number of Christians, Jews, and secular humanists. One need not be a Christianist or even a Christian to view with dismay the end effect of the multitudinous changes which have manifested themselves in the US during the post World War II period.

There is nothing unique, nothing new, nothing noteworthy in the Christianist indictment or its bill of particulars. It has all been said before. Many, many times.

The difference between Christianists and all other Christians--and non-Christians as well--is their view of the necessary solution and the means which might be justified in securing that solution. The Christianist is identified not by religion per se or the nature of the complaints but simply by the nature of the solution and acceptable methods.

This is precisely the same mechanism by which the distinction between Islamist and all other Muslims might be parsed. Or, to err on the side of accuracy, parse themselves.

Now for the hard part. Take a deep breath, we are going to enter some deep historical, anthropological, and psychological water.

The first, most important task for a community of faith to undertake is one of decision. A decision must be made between several options. The community may remain silent, detached from social, economic, and political matters, focusing instead upon the religious development of every member of the community. Or, the community may choose to actively join the political process with a view toward becoming an integral part of the governing elite. Finally, the community may decide to stand back, apart from the political class, and engage in the prophetic activity of criticism and exhortation.

At different times in the history of the US and Europe, the assorted communities of faith have chosen each of these options. The distillation of historical experience demonstrates that a community of faith has the greatest, most positive impact upon the larger society when it uses the third option--the prophetic option.

The avenue of avoidance, of ignoring the problems, turbulence and disorder of the larger society so that maximum efforts can be made on the individual's development in the faith by definition assures a smaller impact on society generally. Still, a close reading of the historical record for both Europe and the US shows clearly that leaders in all fields of endeavor have been guided and motivated by the principals and beliefs of their faith. Sometimes the outcomes have been bad. At other times the result has been good, even very good. On balance, the latter has been more common than the former.

The lure of power is more seductive than any aspect of sex. Indeed it has been observed that power is the greatest aphrodisiac known. Thus it is not at all surprising that communities of faith have joined not only the political process but the governing elite as well. Historically, right on down to the years of the Bush/Cheney administration, this option has been the worst choice.

OK. That is one set of basics. Take another breath. Time for the second round.

In the US a community of faith has three avenues available to it in seeking to address the problems it believes demand solution. These are the same three alternatives available to all groups seeking to solve problems, change the status quo in any manner.

The three avenues are these: persuasion, litigation, coercion.

It must be understood that communities of faith--including those of the Christianists-- deserve access to the Public Square on an equal footing with all comers. Unfortunately, perhaps tragically, communities of faith have been denied their rights to the Public Square increasingly over the past fifty years. This wrong-headed denial of access has been incorrectly predicated upon the requirements of separating church from state.

As a result faith predicated speech in the Public Square has been denatured to the more-or-less formula sort of "God talk" which typifies election campaigns. Far from being a triumph for the secularists amongst us, the suppression of faith derived speech in the Public Square has been a defeat for all of us.

Arguably the blockage of communities of faith from the Public Square has been a major contributor to the sense of alienation and victimization which has characterized much of the rhetoric coming from Christianist groups.

Persuasion is not guaranteed to work. Certainly history demonstrates that efforts to persuade a large and diverse population of the necessity of a given action do not bring quick results. Nor do they bring results which are necessarily satisfactory to the initial proponents.

Everything connected with politics whether local or national is inherently messy, slow, untidy in outcome and the result of necessary compromise. This is guaranteed to dissatisfy many people, particularly those for whom the compromised "cause" constitutes a matter of core belief, basic principle, or, most importantly, personal identity.

It is the slow, messy, and uncertain nature of persuasion in the Public Square which leads groups to seek a quicker, more certain, and more complete solution through litigation. While never predictable in outcome, litigation does have more rules and less ambiguity than the Public Square. It is easier to convince a single judge or a majority of the justices than it is to win an outright victory free of any taint of compromise in the Public Square.

The problem comes with the nature of the final decision. It is imposed from on high, from a remote and unaccountable authority backed by the full weight of the state. Thus the outcome of litigation can (and sometimes does) run counter to the views held by the majority of the public.

In and of itself this is not a fatal difficulty. The courts exist in large measure simply to protect the minority against the power of the majority. Without this factor in play the vox populi could easily become the voice of tyranny.

Over the centuries communities of faith have both initiated litigation or, in the role of defendant, been the cause of major changes in law and social or political attitudes. Resorting to (or even welcoming) litigation is a valid approach for any community of faith including Christianists.

Coercion is the third option. It is a valid approach simply because it works. After all how long could the state exist without the mechanisms of coercion at its disposal? Communities of faith have a long and distinguished record of employing non-violent means of coercion to achieve their goals. The American civil rights movement of the Sixties is an outstanding example of the potency of non-violent yet coercive means to achieve a goal against very significant opposition.

There is no reason that Christianists (or Islamists for that matter) cannot or should not use the methods of non-violent coercion which have been employed often and well by other communities of faith. Used in conjunction with persuasion coercion of this sort has been proven highly effective in altering deeply rooted behaviors in a majority population.

Violent coercion can be justified only on the basis of the pragmatic consideration. It works. The anti-choice movement in the US which is in large measure manned by Christianists has shown the effectiveness of sub-lethal coercion, sub-lethal terror, particularly when punctuated by high profile episodes of lethal coercion, genuine terrorism by anyone's understanding. Violent protests, facility destruction, and the occasional homicide have proven far more effective in preventing women from exercising this particular aspect of reproductive choice than have either litigation or access to the Public Square.

With the possible exception of the use of sub-lethal but still violent coercion there is nothing in the use of methods which distinguishes the Christianist from all other communities of faith or any pressure or special interest group of a purely secular nature for that matter.

So, how come there is any utility to the use of the term, "Christianist" in describing a particular sub-set of Christianity generally? It isn't as if they resemble the Islamists let alone the jihadi.

Well, bucko, the distinction gains its utility from the issue of goals far more than it does methods even if methods employed finally does play a part, even a major one in distinguishing the Christianist from others of the Christian faith.

Whether a single issue entity such as Operation Rescue, a more-or-less moderate group such as the Discovery Institute, or a totalistic (and so far very fringe) bunch such as the Christian Dominionists, all Christianists seek the end to all perceived contemporary problems, turbulence and injustices by turning back the calender to a presumed historical Utopia.

Of the assorted Christianist organizations, Operation Rescue and others of similar nature have the most limited retrogressive goal. They will be satisfied, at least in major part, by going back in time to the years before various court decisions including but not limited to Roe v. Wade provided women with a wider selection of legal mechanisms to control their reproductive destinies.

As the "Wedge Document" as well as various writings make abundantly clear the Discovery Institute as well as other entities in the Creationist camp want to roll the calender back to the centuries preceding the Enlightenment in both its Scottish and French forms. In the estimate of leaders within this segment of the Christianist movement the sins attendant upon the Enlightenment far outweigh its benefits. The campaign against Darwin (to use the incorrectly and grossly oversimplified icon of the totality of evolutionary biology) is intended simply to be the nose of the camel in the post-Enlightenment tent.

The Creationists have used the Public Square in a sort of stealth jihad to gain control of school systems on both the local and state level in order to ban the teaching of evolution unless accompanied with a Creationist or Intelligent Design slant on the comings and development of life on Earth. The expansion beyond Darwin is explicit in such intellectual castrations as eliminating the Big Bang and continental drift from curricula. Even when ultimately rejected by voters or the courts, the effort is to deny the Enlightenment and bring back the supposed halcyon days of stability, harmony, and justice presumed to have existed during the static days of the Great Chain of Being.

The extremists of the Christian Dominion have the most expansive goal. Their intent is to establish a theocracy in the US. In this vision a Godly, harmonious and just society would be brought into existence by the application of the plethora of laws in the Old Testament and complete obedience to the laws of the deity as interpreted and applied by the clergy. (Sound familiar? Thought so, just insert Koran and Shariah in the appropriate spots.)

While there is no realistic probability that the most extreme goals such as those of Christian Dominionism will come to pass, this is no reason to ignore the potency of the Christianists. Nor is it any reason to overlook the similarities in motive and method between the Christianists and the Islamists.

Most importantly the existence of Christianists just like the obvious presence of Islamists in the world today provides the most robust justification for fully understanding not only religious doctrine and belief systems per se, but for appreciating the close, even intimate relationship between religion and politics.

And, this, mom, is why the Geek put your well meant advice aside.

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.

The Muslims Keep Wanting To Gag Us

Two stalwart proponents of the "right" of Islam and its adherents everywhere to be free of the slightest whiff of criticism by anyone for any reason, Algeria and Pakistan, have reportedly taken the point in the never ending campaign to stifle free expression in the name of preventing something called "religious defamation."

Diplomats from these two notedly repressive states have been working the halls of the UN seeking support for a draft protocol which will lead to an international convention banning any and every word, drawing, or other expression which might be seen by some hypersensitive Muslim as somehow "defaming" some aspect of Muslim theology, history, current acts (including shooting people while shouting, "Allahu akbar!"), or any other whim of the putatively "offended" individual or group.

The reasoning propelling the quest is disingenuously disguised as an exercise in "human rights." The proponents of this Global Gag Order which include (surprise! surprise) the totality of the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference allege that any "defamatory" expression impairs the "human right" of the believer to exercise his beliefs.

The effort currently underway in the UN General Assembly goes far beyond the previous exercises in passing non-binding resolutions over the opposition of Western nations, including usually but not always the United States. The goal is to enshrine protections for Muslims and Islam in the code of international law and thus personal conduct.

The OIC is plunging ahead with its new approach in order to ride the momentum started by the ill-advised, poorly thought through and generally dangerous Obama administration decision to cosponsor a semi-gag rule in the UN Human Rights Council along with Egypt. (Egypt is another state where repression is commonplace, persecution of religious minorities a daily fact of life, and where internal anti-"defamation" laws are routinely employed to silence dissent and suppress debate on policies both sacred and secular.)

The OIC pointmen are arguing that it is not so much that they are seeking to limit free expression but "to strike a balance between that right and respect for others." Right, dude, fer sure.

Given that international conventions are applied (at least most of the time) by national courts, there is no doubt the "balance" will be struck at vastly different points by different national judicial systems. This is another case where the differences will work not to the advantage of free expression but to its harm.

The use of the term "balance" as well as the invocation of the totem of "human rights" is a slick move by the OIC and its frontline workers. Both serve to undercut any resistance from the West by waving the magic wand of multi-culturalism along with that of cultural relativism. These two pernicious concepts provide extra grease on an already very slippery slope by inducing a sort of soporific head nodding of agreement among many of the Western elites, the chattering and academic classes in particular.

The US representatives at the relevant UN committees and bodies have, in the words of one, "been waging trench warfare" against the OIC measure. Still, given the slickness of the current packaging, the lengthy timeline involved, and related features, the measure has a good or better chance of ultimate adoption--provided the Muslims are persistent.

There is no doubt but the Muslims will be persistent. Alone among the major religions (and as far as the Geek can determine the minor ones as well) Muslims are so fearful as to the nature, basis, and character of their own faith; its historical record; and the actions of some of its present day adherents as to demand special protection, unique immunity, and international guardianship against the normal hazards of daily intellectual life. Only Muslims cannot take even the most legitimate and factually justified criticism.

Beyond being simply persistent, the Muslims can take comfort that the US population contains large and vocal factions ready, willing, and able to support suppression of expression in the name of religion. An example, an early harbinger of this is to be found in Nebraska.

True, the subject at hand seems far from free expression, but the distance is far, far less than first meets the eye. In the Cornhusker State, the elected University Board of Regents is considering the imposition of a ban on stem cell research far broader than either state law or federal regulation imposes.

The Board of Regents appear to be poised to prohibit any fetal stem cell research using any cell line other than the twenty-one authorized by that famed friend of untrammeled science, George W. Bush. The mere prospect of the restriction in free research has already hampered, even stopped the development of the regenerative science effort at U Nebraska. If passed, it will continue to do so--and probably have ripple effects which will ultimately serve to the detriment of every (non-athletic) department in the university.

The justification provided by backers of the Thou-Shalt-Not-Research measure maintain that they do not intend to restrict freedom of inquiry, but rather to protect the "human rights" of the fetus. They also aver that the scientists should be researching the potential benefits from adult stem cells.

The second point is well taken; scientists should not overlook nor ignore any line of inquiry. Similarly, good science should not and cannot be dictated by religious considerations of an admittedly emotional but yet highly abstract sort.

The ground truth is simply that freedom of inquiry and expression are a very basic human right. Arguably, these two constitute jointly the most powerful driving force in all areas of human progress from the hardest of hard sciences to the ineffable but central matters of ethics and epistemology.

There is a second ground truth in play here. Whether free expression or its twin, free inquiry, there are religiously driven opponents who will take the counsel of their deepest fears, their most hidden of insecurities, and act to suppress speech or inquiry which for whatsoever reason, true or false, good or bad, real or artificial which may cross the individual believer's mind.

Gag orders kill more than "defamation" or lines of scientific inquiry. Gag orders kill societies, nations, cultures. More, by giving expression to the deepest, darkest fears, and insecurities lurking in our midst, the gag order kills our essential humanness.

Fear Of Free Speech In The EU

It appears as if the European Union has joined the list of those afraid of free speech. The worthies of that organization don't put it that way, of course. No. The intent of the new Equal Treatment Directive is to spare the sensitivities of those who might be somehow, someway, someday offended by somebody's oral or written statement.

In a trenchant and not particularly biased analysis Paul Belien, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, has shown the way in which a basically fairminded and proportionate effort to assure that people suffering from a physical handicap would not be discriminated against in access to goods and services including housing bloomed under the ministrations of the Society of Perpetually Indignant and Concerned to a portmanteau attack on freedom of speech and opinion. Kowtowing to the supposed needs of homosexuals and the very real demands of Islamists, the Directive (which must yet be approved by all twenty-seven member states' Foreign Ministers and which was an initially tightly focused proposition) has become a very ambiguously worded device to gag all potential critics of, among other things, Islam, or even Islamist jihadism.

The "Equal Treatment Directive" would not only supplant existing national laws on the subject, it goes far, far beyond the (so-far) nonbinding UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on the subject of "religious defamation." This resolution, which the US cosponsored with Egypt, was meant to be a compromise with the far more sweeping demands made by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It was also intended to be part of President Obama's "outreach to the Arab/Muslim world" gambit.

Ms Clinton has made her (and presumably, the Obama administration's as well) position on the religious defamation versus free speech matter more clear. She has been reported to have taken a strong stance against the proliferation of religious defamation laws. Her statement leaves no word for dubious interpretation

Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called 'anti-defamation' policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion, I strongly disagree. The United States will always... stand against discrimination and persecution... But an individual's ability to practice his or her religion has no bearing on others' freedom of speech.

The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faith will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions. These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse.

That seems to be that. One can only hope that the sentiment continues to prevail regardless of trends among the trendy in the European Union or cage rattling from the Muslims.

The problem with freedom of speech and opinion is that while everybody is in favor of the idea--for himself--very few are in favor of the idea when applied to purveyors or holders of uncomfortable, unpleasant and even frankly insulting views differing from one's own. As the noted and indefatigable free speech crusader, Nat Hentoff put the matter in the title of one of his books a few years back, Free Speech for Me But not for Thee.

While opponents of free speech and its necessary companion, freedom of opinion, may couch their arguments in terms of "sensitivity" or "concern for the dignity of others," they are actually motivated by fear. Fear pure and simple undergirds every attack on the rights of others and thus all to speak freely and openly on anything and everything.

Individuals who say, "That hurts my feelings," or "That offends me," are actually saying, "I'm not tough enough, not resilient enough, not secure enough in my identity, values, beliefs, personhood, to listen to that, to read that."

The same is true of groups which hold the necessity of restricting the untrammeled rights of others to speak or write in a way which is less than fawning adoration. When Muslims, when a Muslim entity such as the OIC, demands limits be placed on the rights of free expression, they are actually declaring a lack of faith in the integrity, the power, the validity of their own religious beliefs.

Both Christians and (to a much greater, even lethal extent) Jews have been vilified and attacked in speech both oral and written, both actual and symbolic. Neither has crumbled before these attacks; neither has been deterred, let alone defeated by these "hate crimes," this "hate speech." Arguably, both Jews and Christians have been strengthened in their beliefs, in their collective identity, their collective faith by "negative" speech, by "defamation."

It is of more than passing interest that Muslims alone among the "People of the Book" show this unique sensitivity to any remarks or comments which might be interpreted as "defamatory." Is it perhaps that Muslims are afflicted by some basic insecurity about the value of their beliefs?

Alternatively, is it perhaps attributable to the fear dominated aspects of Islam itself? Whatever the root might be, the bitter fruit of the plant is fear. A fear of a fear so pervasive that Muslims believe they must be protected against it no matter what the cost to other people, other cultures, other societies, other countries.

The High Minded, ever-so-sensitive, ever-so-multicultural activists of the European Union and their colleagues in the US may sincerely believe that the poor Muslims must be protected against those so foul minded as to criticize the religion. They may so despise their own cultural roots, their own national heritages that they are more than simply willing to eviscerate the freedom of expression and inquiry, speech, and opinion that so many of their ancestors bought over the centuries with their own blood. In any event, these super-sensitive, paternalistic, patronizers of the "lesser breeds without the law" are actually serving the worst interests of those they seek to "protect" at the cost of liberty.

By silencing through the force of law those who would criticize, those who would be so bold as to argue against any particular religion, any cited lifestyle, any ideology, the end result is to further fear, inhibit the opportunity to grow stronger through enduring--and countering--unwelcome speech with acceptable speech. The great club of law swings against all--and when it comes to limiting speech, that mindless bludgeon injures all--the would be protectors as well as the purported victims.

It is a cliche that the answer to bad speech is good speech, better speech. Only through the free exchange on the part of all comers to the marketplace of ideas and beliefs can progress toward a more humane world be made. The only place where free expression can be absent without ill effect is the graveyard.

A Change That Might Be For The Good

The recent announcement that the Obama Administration has reversed one of George W. Bush's ill-advised decisions is more than welcome. In a move that defies rationality (that is to say one which is based on ideology) the previous neocon crew dropped US participation in the UN Human Rights Council. The Obama-ites have reversed this.

The US must be in the fray at the Human Rights Council. To do anything else is to surrender the field to the opposition. To those such as the members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference who seek to repress freedom of expression. To those such as China, Cuba and, yes, Russia, which define "human rights" in a notably narrow and self-serving fashion.

Now, for the critical caveat. The inevitable, "but."

Whether this change of policy will be good for the US and all other countries in the world with an expansive understanding of the term "human rights" or not depends upon the details of implementation. The outcome will be good, bad or indifferent depending upon the stance taken by the US in the Council as well as the personality and dynamic of the person appointed to sit in the chair behind the sign reading, "United States of America."

The UN Human Rights Council is not a place for a tender minded, ever-so-sensitive person who frets about how empathic the US is with the customs, traditions and religious sensibilities of other governments. The UNHRC is a venue in which a tough, persistent and hard-driving representative of American (and Western) values of human dignity and liberties must wage a constant fight on behalf of the ideals and their expression which are the legacy of generations of war with repression.

If the High Minded of our society are correct, if the bumper sticker philosophy of "We are all passengers on space ship Earth," is to have any significance beyond some warm fuzziness, then all of us, all members of the Order of the Belly Button must have the same rights, the same privileges, the same dignity and the same responsibilities. Further these must be defined and construed in the broadest possible way. There can be no levelling down of these aspects of human life and the human condition.

The Geek is neither High Minded nor Lofty Thinking. The study of history precludes such. He is a realpolitiker. Nonetheless both the lessons of history and the dictates of realpolitik demand that human rights are real and very broad. Anything less opens the door wide to brutal authoritarianism. The pervasiveness of great fear. The snuffing out of technological, social and political progress. It degrades life and makes for mere biological existence.

An environment in which human rights are curtailed, in which the individual is degraded, in which expression is repressed is one rife with the potential for war and all the attendant features of that all-too-common aspect of the human experience. Over the sweep of recent history the vast majority of wars, and certainly all the most devastating ones, were started by regimes which were both authoritarian and of necessity suppressive of the rights of the individual.

The US and other countries are rather good at protecting and expanding the rights of the individual in their domestic contexts. The US is good, even very good at preaching to both the choir and those sitting far from the pulpit about human rights.

The US is not very good at fighting (rhetorically that is) for rights and against those governments which seek under whatsoever color to restrict them. Now, that may change.

It may change if, and only if, the Obama Administration follows through with a firm set of policies and a very determined representative at the UNHRC. We may have to fight a very long and very difficult diplomatic and oratorical contest in that venue, but it is something we must do for our own good. And the good of the oppressed throughout the world.

The World--The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Well, war fans, Coach Obama has announced the new game plan for the Afghanistan venue. As a hot wash, it looks good. At least it has all the features widely touted by a counterinsurgency specialist at all the US military schools ten and more years ago.

According to the model presented back then, an insurgency had several major components. All of them had to be addressed with effect if the battle for the human terrain was to be won by the counterinsurgents.

The starting point of the model was simply that most people in an insurgent environment simply want to be left alone, left in peace to do their own thing, raise their children and hope for a better life in the future. That starting condition is met in Afghanistan.

Focusing on the insurgent force(s) the model posited three circles, nested one inside the other.

The outer, largest circle was the passive mass support base, people who were willing to cooperate with the insurgents as long as doing so required minimal risk.

The next circle was the active mass support base. This group provided direct, material support to the insurgency including fighters both full and part-time.

Finally there was the hard core insurgents. The full-time, fiercely dedicated militants who were ready and able to give their all to achieve the goal of the insurgency.

On the counterinsurgent side the circles were equal and opposite. The government had its own hard core, its own active mass support base and an outer fringe of passive supporters.

Surrounding both sets of circles was the majority of the population. The ever present people in the middle whose support and allegiance or at least tacit acceptance would be necessary to final victory by either side.

The new strategy announced by President Obama contains features which are explicitly directed to the overlapping tasks of killing the hard core insurgents, demobilizing support from the insurgent active and passive mass support base and seeking to attract members of the uncommitted majority to the government's passive (and it is to be hoped, active) mass support base. This is precisely the approach which should have been taken by "shock-and-awe" delusionist Rumsfeld and the rest of the neocon ninnies at the get-go seven plus years ago.

(That assessment is given with the predicate that for domestic political reasons and to placate the sensitivities of High Minded Western Europeans, the US had rejected the rational approach of a punitive expedition which would have been quick, dirty, conclusive and left Afghanistan as it was found--a collection of tribes in uneasy coexistence open to Pakistani hegemony.)

The Obama strategy kind of, sort of addresses the sanctuary problem. Doing something effective with the FATA is absolutely essential if the US is going to achieve the necessary strategic minimum of abating the threat of transnational terror acts planned and commanded from that region.

Cross-border sanctuaries bedeviled the US throughout the War in Vietnam. Bombing raids and cross-border incursions never settled the problem and, arguably, enhanced them. The use of deep penetration special operations forces including indigeneous but American led paramilitary groups provided the start of a solution but were never carried out for sufficient duration with sufficient forces.

The single largest swamp of doubt in the Obama strategy is the will and capacity of Pakistan to work with positive results to end the insurgency in the FATA. So far there is no indication that Islamabad either understands the counterinsurgency model outlined above or, if it does, has both the will and capacity to at accordingly.

The Pakistani military and paramilitary forces have undertaken any number of highly visible operations in the FATA but without noticable effect. The sweeps have generated refugees and resentments in wholesale quantities which has (if history is a guide) benefited the insurgents and only the insurgents.

The "peace" agreements recently concluded with "moderate" Islamists are not any sign of Islamabad demobilizing support for the Taliban insurgents. The men who signed on behalf of the "moderate" Islamists are themselves neither moderate nor pro-status quo. The groups which hold sway now in Swat and areas of the FATA are totalists in pursuit of the same ends as the trigger-pullers and suicide vest wearers. Identity of ends implies identity of interests, identity of support for Islamism and identity of opposition to the current regime.

Without Pakistan as a full and effective collaborator in the border area, the US in Afghanistan is in the same position as it was with relationship to Cambodia and Laos during the War in Vietnam. The insurgents and their external supporters have both base areas and lines of supply readily available on soil controlled by ineffectual or pro-insurgent governments.

Overall, the preliminary assessment of Coach Obama's new game plan must be mixed. It does not have a real thrust to the sanctuary conundrum. It is very good on paper in the pure counter insurgency component. But, paper ain't practice. And, there is a very wide and deep gulf of difficulty between the words on paper and the doings in the field.

So much for the "good." Now for the "bad."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) tops the list of the bad today. This creation of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking legalists of Europe and elsewhere has shown once more (if such needed to be demonstrated yet again) that High Minded behavior that ignores the messy realities of human activity automatically invokes the Law of Unintended Consequences. Take a dekko--

Omar Bahsir has cocked a snoot at the ICC and the High Minded generally with his recent trips. True, he has been properly cautious flying only to countries coterminous with Sudan. (The first real, albeit theoretical risk will come when and if Omar jets off to Doha for the Arab League get together.)

The Trips of Omar have not been intended nor have they served simply to make a rude gesture toward the ICC. They have been intended to underscore the degree of antipathy held by the African Union and, more to the point, the Arab League for the ICC issued arrest warrant. They also serve to ramp up the pressure on the UN Security Council to suspend the warrant.

The Tribulations of Omar have had the unintended consequence of highlighting the alleged "double standard" held by the West regarding presumed violations perpetrated by the IDF in Gaza. This argument will gain great force with the accusations currently hurled at Israel regarding the actions of its forces during Operation Cast Lead.

Then, of course, the ICC action put the refugees of Darfur squarely in the cross hairs. The ejection of major international aid groups and other subsequent actions by Omar Bashir's regime were both predictable and (in the eyes of the regime) justified. Considering that the regime has shown itself quite willing to see the population of Darfur die in large numbers, there is no reason to believe that it will suddenly turn tender in its affections for the displaced and mal-treated Muslims of the predominantly black refugee population.

There is also no reason to believe that threats to hold Bashir responsible for the consequences of the ejection of aid workers such as were made by SecState Clinton prior to her we-feel-your-pain visit to Mexico will have any useful effect. How many arrest warrants can the ICC issue on one man? How many new charges can it bring? What difference will that make?

The ICC and its High Minded backers are definitely "bad" on this issue. One can only hope that the Security Council will bring some political sanity to the matter. That would be "good."

And now, the "ugly."

Seeing the "ugly" in international affairs in the past few days isn't as hard as it seems. The UN Human Rights Council runs away with the title.

And, why is that?

By a vote of 23-11 with 13 abstentions, the foes of free expression and those of a cowardly disposition passed the measure long pushed by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference which seeks to ban something called "defamation of religion."

The relevant language reads, "Defamation of religion is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of adherents and inciting religious violence." Zeroing in on the real deal, the resolution continues, "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

Oy veh! The chutzpah of the OIC is nothing short of overwhelming. Either that or the panjandrums of the group are living in an alternative reality. While the resolution has no binding effect and similar language has been removed from the draft outcome document for Durban II, this exercise in Orwellian distortion and speech suppression is nonetheless the nose of the camel in the tent of the West.

There are already misguided public opinion molders and political figures in Western countries such as the goo-brained Canadian whose name the Geek gags at writing who have honestly (?) argued that religions and their adherents deserve special protection lest sensitivities be irritated. By this reasoning (if that word is accurate) the British medical journal Lancet deserves severe castigation for having editorially accused Pope Benedict XVI of having "publicly distorted science" in his recent remarks regarding the non-utility of condoms in preventing HIV infection.

Hey, the Pope likes cats. He's gotta be a sensitive sort of guy, right? And, his religious postulates regarding sexual conduct are a matter of Church doctrine. He and they have been defamed within the scope of the wording adopted by the Human Rights Council.

Suppressing speech, expression generally, inquiry, are all ugly. Almost as ugly as shouting, "Allahu akbar" while flying an aircraft into a building, pushing the clicker on a suicide vest while in a mosque or stoning, burning or beheading women. But, the Geek can't write that, given that Islam is "defamed" by his words.

Right. Fer sure, dudes.

Mr President--Yellow Ain't Your Best Color

The Obama Administration has withdrawn US participation in the planning process leading to Durban II. The US will not, in all probability, be represented at what is widely dubbed the "Hatefest."

There is absolutely no doubt that the vile clique with Iran at the position of drum major has prepared a draft Outcome Document which is a reprise of the vitriol directed at Israel which characterised Durban I. There is likewise no doubt that the repressive men from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and their fellow travelers are further degrading Durban II with their all-out assault on free expression under the (transparent) cover of protecting religion (read Islam) from "insult" (whatever that might mean.)

These brute facts are no excuse to leave the process, to boycott Durban II.

These brute facts compel the opposite. The US and like minded countries must stay in the fight.

To surrender the field to Iran and Company is utterly, totally, completely wrong. It is utterly, totally and completely counterproductive.

True, the highest probability is that Durban II will be a conclave of antisemitism with or without our presence. This international band of Islamist Klansmen will, with the support of other, non-Islamic governments, seek a global gag order on assorted forms of free expression.

No doubt. Whether we are there or not the bad guys will outvote the good ones.

So what?

It isn't all about votes and resolutions. It is not about who carries the plenary sessions.

If not that sort of thing, what's it all about?

Glad you asked. Durban II including every dreary planning session, every miserable quibble over the Outcome Document, is really about ideals, values, rights. It's all about who stands for what. And, mark this, who stands against what.

It's all about the fight. It's all about the "Bully Pulpit" provided by the conference and the run-up to it.

It's all about letting the people of the world know clearly and unequivocally what the United States stands for. And, who stands with us.

And, mark this, who stands in opposition.

It is the opportunity for clear words, strongly stated, to capture the attention of people around the globe. It is the opportunity for diplomatic hissy-fits to demand the full view and coverage of the media both old and new.

Whether the Obama Administration and We the People want it or not, we are in a war of ideas and ideals, of values and worldviews. Whether the Obama Administration and We the People want it, like it, or not, the current battle like those which have gone before it, will have a profound and durable effect on the course of humanity.

Durban II is a skirmish in the war. It pits (or will do so if the Obama Administration exhibits both courage and realism) two clear cut visions of the future against one another.

On the one side resides fear of change expressed as repression and reaction. On the other resides hope for the future and openness to change expressed in the willingness to see ideas clash and people differ for the sake of a better tomorrow,

On one side at Durban II is the belief that tomorrow must be like a long ago yesterday in the Arabian desert. The other side is the side which acknowledges that tomorrow will be different from today, and, hopefully better by far than any yesterday.

It is to our detriment that our side--the side of freedom, opportunity, openness, a willingness, even an eagerness to see and work for a better future--simply resigns before the skirmish even gets underway.

There is no benefit in forfeiting a skirmish, a battle, a war.

There is only loss.

We have to go into the ring. Throw the diplomatic hissy-fits. Give no ground. Confront loudly, boldly. Capture the attention of the world with drama. With truth. Let the world see up close and personal just what the opposition is all about. Call them down on their rigid, fear driven intolerance. Demonstrate the opposition's commitment to a long dead past, its love of repression, its will to kill ideas that differ from their particular party line.

Do it with the intent of allowing and encouraging the people of the world to choose sides. Think of it as being akin to the real impact of the Marshall Plan--a mechanism for self-selection of side.

If we do this rather than withdraw in a finger pointing huff we will benefit.

But, and get a grip on this, we will not be the only beneficiaries of a good, loud fight at Durban II.

The other beneficiaries, you ask?

The minorities within Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan and dozens of others who do not want to live under backward looking Islamic (let alone Islamist) regimes. The minorities who do not want to live under Sharia and the dictates of those "clerics" who interpret it.

These people do not fear the future. To err on the side of accuracy, they do not fear change.

"Wait one, Geek! How does that scan? I'm missing something."

When the in-depth studies done in Islamic countries examining such core matters as the preference for living under a full-strength Sharia regime are closely parsed as to motivation, the answer becomes clear. People in countries as disparate as Indonesia and Jordan, Egypt and Azerbaijan say they want Sharia for three basic reasons.

The first reason is "preservation of traditional morals." The second is "to prevent adultery." The third is "to regulate women's dress and behavior."

Here's the point: Historically, people, including those in the US, when confronted by rapid and seemingly incomprehensible change, react by seeking to control the behavior of women. This desperate gambit is an attempt by men to keep at least one solid pillar in the storms of change.

"Huh?"

Yep, bucko, American history, particularly during the periods of intense and rapid change such as those occurring during the urbanization of the post-Civil War decades, the aftermath of the two World Wars, and the Sixties show a reactionary thrust against the behavior (particularly in public) and words of women. In our own society there were repeated calls for a sort of American Sharia.

Check it out for yourself. The information is all there and you don't need a PhD to connect the dots.

(Note for the feminists our there: This male orientation to reaction is not a simple matter of sexual politics and the presumed need of pale penis people for control and domination. Rather it grows from the simple, biologically determined evolutionary reality that men have to be inherently conservative to survive in hostile environments doing risky things. The same forces assure that women are far more open to change, even eagerly seeking it. Think of it this way: Men are lakes. Women are rivers.)

The people in the Muslim dominated societies who do not desire industrial strength Sharia need to know they are not alone. They need to know that there is strong support for their position. They need to know that the US and other countries (in one of those current buzz phrases the Geek detests) "are there for them."

Ethics and realpolitik both dictate that the US can no more leave these people in the ditch than it can or should toss its interests under the locomotive.

Backing out of Durban II including the planning process does just this. While taking this cowardly course may be easy and may very well satisfy some human rights and Jewish groups, it is tossing the game. And, Mr President, real men don't do this.

Mr Obama, you promised "hope" and "change." Durban II is a battlefield for both. Take off the white jacket with the yellow stripe on the back and put on a set of BDUs. The time to fight is now. The place to fight is Durban II.

"Jews Infect Food With Cancer"

That's the view of a Muslim cleric preaching on al-Nas TV a little less than a month ago. The Egyptian cleric, Ahmad Abd Al-Salam, went on with similar antisemitic vitriol in order to prove his point.

His point?

"The Jews are never remiss – they invest their utmost efforts, day and night, in conspiring how to corrupt the Islamic nation, the nation led by the Prophet Muhammad. " He concluded by remarking, "This is why we hate them." ( http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2035.htm)

The Mideast Media Research Institute's Anti-Semitism Documentation Project archives are laden with similar clips from Muslim clerics and political figures from across the Mideast. Taken in total these outbursts of hatred constitute the richest, most frightening exhibition of hate-mongering and violence-promoting statements extant today.

These religiously based sermonettes and akin statements have the net effect--whether intended or not--of promoting violence against Jews generally. They are a blot upon the human race. And, they go by unchallenged and unremarked by the mainstream media of the world.

These hate filled incitements to violence certainly are not challenged by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Oh, no, no way! The OIC is too sensitive to the presumed existence of a phantom. A phantom the OIC wants to battle relentlessly.

Unlike the "Jewphobia" which is present somewhere on television or in print throughout the Muslim states every day of every month, the OIC chooses to fight the figment of its collective imagination--something it calls "Islamophobia."

The OIC has become so afrighted of the lurching golem, Islamophobia, that it is robustly promoting a UN effort to ban free speech. It seems that the OIC has defined its mythical beastie as consisting of any--even truthful--exposure of the links between the religion of Islam and acts of violence or terror. The OIC wants absolutely no criticism nor commentary (unless laudatory) of Islam.

No mention of "honor killings," no whisper of stoning women and other forms of gender specific torture, no allusions to suicide bombers yelling, "Allahu Akbar" as they push the clicker and exterminate men, women and children.

Certainly, the ever-so-sensitive men of the OIC want no quoting of the Quran or Hadith--or at least those parts which justify and approve of killing, enslaving or otherwise degrading the infidels which comprise the majority of the human race. And, no mentioning of jihad as the waging of holy war--lest some Muslim, somewhere, somehow be disquieted.

A bigger bunch of flat-out hypocrites is impossible to imagine.

Where is the OIC on the issue of religious defamation when it comes to the billingsgate of Muslim preachers? Where is this bloc of sensitive and concerned humanitarians when it comes to Muslim clerics and political leaders urging or inciting hatred, violence, murder directed against the Jews and other despised infidels?

Or to put it bluntly: How many members of the OIC were among the forty nations whose representatives composed the London Declaration Against Antisemitism? This document is new, so new that only one national leader, Gordon Brown, has signed it. Perhaps it is so new that the OIC's you-infidels-must-stop-talking-about-us noise machine hasn't been silent long enough to hear of it.

The London Declaration calls upon signatory states to confront and challenge antisemitic statements. Further, it calls upon them to live up to previously agreed obligations to combat antisemitism. That's all. No denial of the right of haters to spew poison against Jews. Just the duty to confront, challenge and combat with more speech--better speech, true speech.

How many OIC member states are willing to both sign and abide by the provisions of the London Declaration? How many of the OIC governments are willing to confront or challenge, let alone combat, antisemitic outbursts?

To zero in on one recent cry for holy war against the Jews, let's go to the videotape. Again it's from MEMRI. (http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2033.htm) The preacher is one more Egyptian cleric, Zaghloul Al-Naggar. He's on al-Rahma TV. His message last January 6th was simple and blunt.

"Let me be clear. Jihad is the only way to resolve this issue. With the Jews, one cannot achieve anything by means of peace, or a settlement, or open borders, or diplomatic and commercial ties. They are devils in human form."

The one way to deal with the Jews to which the cleric refers?

The interviewer asked, "So, are you calling to wage jihad?"

The cleric answers, "Absolutely."

When the OIC can find the moral and intellectual courage to challenge this sort of blatant appeal to violence, to war, to jihad, then and only then will it deserve any polite hearing before the UN or the UN's Human Rights Commission (or Council, whatever they are calling that groups of fools, hypocrites and Islamist apologists today.)

Only when the member states of the OIC step up and both sign and abide by the London Declaration will the group and its constituents have the ethical and political foundation to make demands (or even mildly worded requests) of the civilized states of the world. Until such day as the Islamic states can behave with civility toward those states and peoples of differing religious views can they make any claim of their own.

The Obama Administration has the opportunity to draw a bright and shining line with the OIC as well as any and all who wring their hands over the phantom of "Islamophobia." Not only must the US sign the London Declaration without delay. It must go further.

The Obama Adminstration must use both the planning process for Durban II and it must use Durban II itself as the forum to challenge, confront and combat the OIC and its partners in crime not only on blatant, violence provoking and justifying antisemitism but on the move to ban criticism or comment on Islam itself.

Not only does the truth set one free. The truth is an absolute defense. It is the leakproof defense against the Islamist assault on the rest of the world.

It is the sovereign remedy to the hate and bile of the Islamists and their armed expression, jihadism.

It is the first, best weapon to assure that our values and core beliefs are not sacrificed to the idols of hyper-sensitivity, political correctness and fear of Islamist violence.

The Obama Administration must use it or there is no hope--only change, for the worse.