Posse Incitatus

The center weakens

The Dubai Ports affair underlines a growing sense of unease we have been feeling for some time.  Coupled with the Cartoon War - and the fierce reaction against it in the blogosphere - it seems to the Posse that Western "tolerance" is slowly reaching its limit.

Even among the anti-American left, there is a slow, almost grudging realization that radical Islam isn't interested in coexistance; that it is fundamentally imperialist and reactionary.  Its tools are terror and its methods merciless.  The fact that they will issue death sentences to any and all that offer even the mildest criticism is enough to penetrate even the foggiest multicultural worldview.

At the same time, many Western institutions - particularly the Catholic Church - are slowly rousing themselves for the coming struggle.  In Poland, a new campaign reminds people that even now, Christians are being martyred by radical Islam for nothing more than their faith.  (Via the less hated Instapundit)

What is noteworthy is that these victims are utterly innocent:  children in developing nations; parish priests - and, perhaps most ominiously - people who were killed for refusing to convert to Islam.

The War on Terror has always been based on two fundamental questions:

1.  Could the war be narrowly focused on only "radical Islam"?

2.  Does the West have the stomach for any sort of military confrontation?

The Cartoon War, more than anything else, has suggested that the answer to the first question may be "no."  Despite extraordinary pains to show tolerance and respect for moderate Islam, despite unprecendented shows of compassion toward mainstream Muslims, the Cartoon War illustrated that the "Muslim street" remained a source of ready anger at the West.  All of the lives and treasure sacrificed to free Afghanistan and Iraq, to aid Indonesia and Pakistan - all of this goodwill - appeared to evaporate because of a handful of mild caricatures.

At the same time, war-weariness in the West has taken on a new dimension - an increasing desire to "finish the job" by using less focused but more overwhelming force.  The West always possessed the capacity to demolish the Islamic world provided it was willing to accept a huge loss of noncombatant lives.

The antiwar left has always been indifferent to casualties so long as they served their purpose.  Now that they once again taste the fear of jihad and begin to realize that flight cannot bring safety, they are more willing to revert to type and support killing people they don't know.

Let there be no mistake, there are still huge swathes of the West willing and eager to accept dhimmitude.  But for many, there is a growing backlash and sense of determination that in the end, this must come to a fight.  That the Abyss must be faced down and destroyed, whatever the cost.

Privately, the new Pope believes this may be the case.  Islam has been a source of war since its founder decided to take up the sword rather than submit to injustice as Christ did.

Speaking among other Christians, there is a growing (and often very hesitant admission) even among pacifists that true war, total war is coming.  Islam cannot reform and it cannot be safely ignored.

While commenters have talked about the "Arab Street," the Western Street is slowly rousing itself.

For years they have been told to be tolerant, to redirect their anger and distrust and now their patience is about spent. 

The Church has faced down Islam before, and the prayers, teachings and indeed some of the Orders that did so are still there.

Will it come to a final struggle?  The Posse does not know.  But we know that the likelihood of the War on Terror expanding to something more wide-ranging is greater now than at any point since 2001.

UPDATE:  Similar thoughts over at Blackfive. 

The UAE ports thing: Screw your buddy

In the military, it is customary for unit members to look out for one another, to share the burden and sacrifice for the common good.  From time to time, however, the opportunity arises for one member to benefit at the expense of the others.  For example, a private may have misplaced a piece of gear immediately prior to inspection.  Seeing someone else's gear that is unsecured, he helps himself, fully aware that his friend and comrade will now be punished.

The term for this is "screw your buddy," and it correctly refers to the fact that this behavior is ultimately self-defeating.  Taking advantage of someone on whom your life may someday depend is always a bad idea.

Which brings us to the horrific treatment of the UAE in regards to the ports deal.

Laying aside the rank hypocricy of the Democrats reinventing themselves as fierce hawks, demanding answers and proudly positioning themselves to the right of the administration on Homeland Security, this affair is a disaster for American public diplomacy.

Let there be no mistake, we generally like Michelle Malkin, but here she is clearly out of her depth.

She - and many of her fans - are no doubt thrilled that they've managed to throw some sand in the gears, but ultimately they are operating against American interests.

The UAE is a key American ally.  This does not mean, as Malkin and others imply, that they should be sycophants who operate on our beckon call.  Allies, even close allies, will disagree from time to time.  So for her to point out every area of disagreement is highly disingenous.

The degree to which to the UAE may have helped Iran's nuclear program is unclear, but what is clear is that the UK, France and Germany have done even far more harm with their foot-dragging and unwillingness to take a harder line.  It is also clear that the UAE lives within easy missile range of Iran, which makes its diplomacy a lot more complex.

And as the Strategy Page notes, the UAE is no more prone to producing terrorists than the UK or the US itself.

The entire debate has an unsavory undercurrent to it, namely that all Arabs are suspect and that the only "good" one is either dead or 6,000 miles away.

Perhaps the most laughably notion is that the British would take security more seriously than the UAE.  Funny, we think the UAE would have a lot less scruples about dropping the hammer on Muslim terrorists than the p.c.- obsessed British.  A company at the UAE would probably laugh itself silly at the notion of being sued for anti-Arab bigotry, but a British one would take it quite seriously indeed.

The Posse looks at it this way: if our goal is to separate radical Islam from the moderates, we will have to run some risks; we will have to, at some point trust our Arab and Muslim allies.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, we are asking Muslims of all walks of life to trust us.  Each day they put their lives in the hands of our troops.  Many are running horrific risks because of their alliance with us.

Our question to Malkin is this: at what point to we put our lives in their hands?  How much do Muslims in the Middle East have to risk before we trust them?

Does Dubai have to endure a sustained bombing campaign before it is worthy to transship our commerce?

Unless she suggests the Sith-like foreign policy of Ann Coulter ("Wipe them out - all of them") there has to be a point where the US is willing to trust its alleged partners.  Trust is a two-way street.

If Malkin and her mob manages to put the kibosh on this ports deal, we should not be surprised if Dubai decides that its interests lie elsewhere. 

UPDATE:  Mudville Gazette has more on why the deal should go through. So does LT Smash, but his site seems to be down.

Reaping what they have sown

Based on the reaction of Iraqi government officials and leaders, the Posse believes we may have been too pessimistic in our appraisal of events yesterday.

Indeed, the term "blowback" seems quite applicable.  Sunni Arabs in Iraq may now be facing the awful possibility that there is no help and that if atrocities like this continue, their lot will get much worse.

It is an old story, familiar to anyone who has ever watched a gangster movie: the cops, who had tolerated a certain level of crime suddenly crack down after an innocent bystander or outstanding officer is killed.

Instead of blaming the the law, the rival gangs turn on whoever it was that brought "the heat" to bear.

We do not doubt that right now, in small rooms across Iraq, Sunni tribal leaders are protesting their innocence as beads of perspiration mount.  No, they know nothing about this atrocity, no, they would never support anyone who did this.  But they may no someone who does, and he can be found in the neighboring village...

The rise and fall of empires

The real fear with Iraq was never that the US would suffer a military defeat, it was that the artificial state constructs that have shackled the area since the end of World War I would come apart, unleashing rapid and uncontrollable events.

The left and State Department Realists never understood that this process was inevitable.  At some point the Saddamite dynasty would collapse from its own weight and oppressiveness.  Such is the implacable history of the region.  It has been the fate of Kings since Babylon.

The only question was the manner of the collapse, and whether the replacement would be a new dynasty or something different.

The hope was that a free Iraq would become something more than the newest dictatorship on the block, that it would replace its imperium with a federated republic.

The repeated provocations of the Sunni extremists may succeed, however, in creating the total civil war that they crave.  Such a conflict would not be confined to Iraq, however, but would convulse the entire Middle East.

In this sense, commenter niall is correct that the situation resembles that of 1914 more than it does that of 1939.

Intense ethno-religious nationalism is running head-long into conventional European statecraft and balance-of-power theory.  As in 1914, the zealots brought down the entire system.

Will the same happen here?  It is hard to say.  The Posse considers the situation still murky and it is possible that Iraqi nationalism and Kurd self-interest will win out.

On the other hand, it is very easy to create a scenario where the fighting spills out of control into the epic clash of civilizations the Islamofascists desire.  A Shi'ite crackdown followed by open Sunni revolt and invasion (perhaps from a destablised Saudi Arabia) might send the whole region into the Abyss.

Only time will tell.

Will they make cup out of his skull?

The Posse has been extremely busy, but we were interested to see that the left has finally taken down Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

Almost exactly a year ago we pointed out that Summers was merely an effigy of the hated Chimpy W. Hitlerbushburton.  He was their proxy punching bag, nothing more.

Summers' craven crawling apologies only whetted the apetite of his pursuers. 

We agree with Dr. Sanity that Summers largely did this to himself.  Had he courageously stood his ground, told the wilting flowers of academia to deal with his remarks like adults, he would have brushed the whole affair aside in a month.

Instead, he broadcast his weakness and made the left believe that it had power once more. 

And like all appeasers, he was devoured.

The brinksmanship continues

What if they held a war and no one knew?

The mainstream press continues its strange avoidance of the Cartoon War and the underlying issues at stake - particularly (and ironically) press freedom.

Via Michelle Malkin, a wire report on attacks on the British and German embassies in Teheran.  Unlike in Syria, the embassies were not destroyed and local security forces apparently made some effort to protect them.

But the provocation is clear.

The Posse remains optimistic about Iraq, but it seems to us that our success there may also be setting us up for difficulties elsewhere.

Namely, that much of the Muslim world doesn't believe the contest was a "fair" one and seeks to widen the war.  The shame-based culture that has bred radical Islam still pines for the climactic clash between east and west.  While the Middle East may be cooling off, the cities of Europe are now heating up.

What makes this particularly dangerous is that Europe is the ultimate "soft target."  Its militaries are generally weak and degraded.  Each boasts a hard core of elite units capable of overseas deployments, but the masses are nothing more than heavily armed police officers.

Our point is that were there to be a serious uprising - one bent on actual killing - Europe would have great difficulty responding and may well recoil from doing so.  We saw this after the French riots - more apologies, more concessions.

In some areas, the indigenous population is pushing back, but the elites who call the shots are scared and have no fight left in them.

It is the 1930s all over again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate. -Chaucer

Avec Amour,

SITHKITTEN

The disloyal opposition

Al Gore's strange anti-American rant may have earned him a pretty penny, but to the Posse it bespeaks a deeper problem: the increasing disloyalty of the Democrat Party.

The Posse has mentioned this before, and though the self-immolation of the Dems continues to benefit the Republicans, over the long haul is ultimately poisonous to the body politic.

A few weeks ago the Posse engaged Kevin Baker in a debate as to whether the left was preparing to take their disconnection from reality into a more violent direction.  We said then that we didn't believe it was so: the left is too cowardly to actually fight.  Their decision to quit the field in the Cartoon War reinforces our belief.

To put it bluntly, there is no cause for which the American left will put themselves in the slightest danger.

But they will put others in danger, and that is the real peril.  They do this by underfunding the military, sapping its morale and readiness, refusing to use it when appropriate and generally deferring action until it is too late.

The Clinton years were all about avoiding responsibilty, ducking the threat of terrorism and essentially hiding from the outside world until it came back with a vengeance.

Far from being "reality-based," the left's plan was to hide from reality, to pretend terrorism could be checked by international courts, warrants and tough talk.  After the USS Cole was attacked, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's response was this:

We are operating in a world that is filled with a variety of threats, but that doesn't mean that we can crawl into an ostrich-like mode.  We are eagles, and I think that it is very important that the United States stay involved, that we understand the threats. And we will continue to do what we have to do.

Eagles without claws, as it turned out.

This is the real danger the left presents.

The question remains: can the Democrats recover?  Can they once again find pride in their nation to the extend that they are willing and eager to stand up and defend it?  Will they once again develop the sense of patriotism that causes them to assume the United States is in the right until proved otherwise?

In the short term, we believe the answer is "no."  The Democrats will not reform until they have experienced still greater losses.  Only when they have no other options and the current, myopic leadership has left the national stage will they move forward.

The Posse views this as regrettable, but unavoidable.

Just as Europe will get worse before it gets better, so the Democrats must go deeper into the night before they dare to stir themselves to strike a match.  Until then, they will curse the darkness in vain.

Hunting accidents

The Posse, like many gun rights supporters, was demoralized by the news that the vice president doesn't know how to check his targets.

Even at the tender age of 14, we understood that there were shots we simply couldn't take.  No matter how inviting the target, if every member of the hunting party wasn't in our line of sight, we let the bird go.

Alphecca laments that Cheney has caused embarrassment and will have set back the cause of gun rights.  And indeed, it is a regrettable episode, not the least for the victim.

However, there is always a bright side.   In this case, it is that the anti-gun zealots who hide behind the facade of "gun safety" will be unable to hide their glee and will call for further restrictions of what they always claim to support: hunting.

The end result is further marginalization from the mainstream.

The proper response on their part should be the same as ours: gun safety is important, and the vice president should join us in supporting its inclusion in school curricula.

But they will not do this, though it is in their best interest to do so.  No, they will be unable to resist the urge to gloat and call for even more restrictive controls on unrelated items.

So in that respect, he has done a small service to the gun rights community.

But we still wouldn't go hunting with him.

Sharia on the installment plan

Both Captain Ed and the Belmont Club point to the both astonishing and predictable news that the EU is considering a code for voluntary self-censorship for newspapers.

It is astonishing because since 1968, Europeans have gone out of their way to demonstrate contempt for the old taboos.  Conventional morality, Christianity and of course Americans were all singled out for redicule.

Yet this is also predictable given the European unwillingness to face any kind of danger and their increasingly suicidal policy of appeasement.

The question is whether the Cartoon War marks the beginning of a European resurgence or the last act of defiance by a defeatist and soon to be enthralled people.

This policy is merely the leading edge of a drive toward Sharia law.  The legal system increasingly recognizes polygamous marriages.  The current demand - that non-Muslims abide by radical Islamic interpretations of what are permissible topic for publication - is another step.

The most intriguing part of this slide into Sharia is that it is extra-legal and undemocratic.  We don't mean that Sharia is incompatible with democracy, rather that these decisions - recognizing Muslim polygamy and curtailments on free speech - were made without recourse to a popular vote.

One of the defining characteristics of modern totalitarianism is its extrajudicial nature.  The Soviet Union's constitution was a lofty document that was utterly ignored in practice.  Similarly, the Third Reich operated under the Weimar constitution.  Hitler never bothered to draft another one.

Here we see a similar approach: instead of a public debate on these policies, they are being "informally" adopted.  In the case of polygamy, it is merely a bureaucratic exercise.

In the case of Sharia self-censorship, fear of violence is the motivating factor.

This works best for both parties.  It spares Europe's elites from having to cast a ballot either for or against free speech and it allows the Muslim radicals to take full advantage of the law protecting free expression for their hate-filled harangues.