Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Since his election to the papacy in April of 2005, Pope Benedict has bent over backwards in an effort to assuage the concerns of Muslims over issues that place them in conflict with the west. It is therefore something of a surprise that he would knowingly challenge radical Islamists by quoting a long dead 13th century Byzantine vassal Emperor on the “evil and inhuman” practice of forced conversion to Islam.

The fact that both his words and intent were twisted by the fanatics in order to gin up the emotions of their ignorant followers should not have come as a surprise to the Pontiff given similar reactions to other faux “outrages” like the Muhammed cartoons and the fake story about the desecration of the Koran by US soldiers at Guantanamo. This makes one wonder if indeed the challenge was deliberate and designed to augment his main thesis regarding radical Isam; that violence and reason are incompatible and therefore, ungodly.

What is surprising about Benedict’s challenge is that he had given no inkling up to now that he was interested in rocking the boat when it came to relations between Rome and the Muslim faith. He had actually condemned the publication of the Muhammed cartoons saying:

“In the international context we are living at present, the Catholic Church continues convinced that, to foster peace and understanding between peoples and men, it is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected”.

Benedict added that “believers should not be the object of provocations that wound their lives and religious sentiments.” While many free speech advocates criticized this stance as appeasement, the statements made by Benedict were fully in line with Vatican policy regarding respect for the symbols and beliefs of other religions.

It was thought when the Pope ascended to the throne of St. Peter that he would perhaps offer more of a challenge to radical Islam than his predecessor. In fact, Benedict seemed to go out of his way to avoid this kind of confrontation with Islam. His entreaties to fellow Europeans for interreligious dialogue with Muslims as well as a call for tolerance and understanding of Muslim practices and traditions was felt by some to undercut any effort at Muslim assimilation into European civilization. This may have been unfair given the Catholic Church’s careful nurturing of their relations with mainstream Muslim groups, especially in Europe.

As recently as July the Pope condemned Israel in their war with Hez’ballah, criticizing their attack on a “free and sovereign nation” while telling the people of Lebanon that the Vatican “assures its closeness to these people who already have suffered so much to defend their independence.” The Vatican has also long advocated a separate Palestinian state and Bendict’s recent criticism of Israel regarding the war in Gaza and the West Bank was placed in the context of resuming peace negotiations with Hamas.

The Pope’s solidarity with Muslims doesn’t stop with his condemnation of armed conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza. He has also severely criticized the United States for its invasion and occupation of Iraq. In short, wherever Muslim sensibilities have been touched by Western challenges, the Pope has addressed their concerns in a sensitive and conciliatory manner.

Why then did the Pontiff break with the past and throw down the gauntlet at radical Isamists? The dilemma for the Pope as well as the West has always been a question of whether or not to engage the fanatics by challenging them or try and address their grievances and appease them. Has the Pope finally decided to cast his lot with those who seek to challenge the extremists? It would appear that the Pope has done so and on a plane that he seems uniquely suited to occupy; bringing his considerable intellectual gifts and moral authority to bear in an effort to encourage moderates to step forward and work with him to marginalize the terrorists.

Risk attends both the engagement and appeasement strategies. Engagement, we are told, plays into the radicals hands and strengthens the terrorists. By challenging the fanatics, we create more terrorists and make it more difficult for moderate Muslims to support us. On the other hand, getting to terrorism’s “root causes” appears to be an exercise in futility while agreeing with the extremists critiques of the western response to terrorism only seems to embolden them.

The Pope seeks a higher plane in the conflict. By risking offense, he goes beyond the superficial dialogue between Christian and Muslims of the past and begins a conversation where it should have been all along; on the nature and practice of Islam in the modern world and how that religion can co-exist with a west infused with Christian values.

In this, the Pope’s recent critique of western materialism and secularism which drew plaudits from several moderate Muslim groups in Europe can be seen as a starting point in that it lays out common ground between pious followers of both faiths. And his lecture condemning violence in the name of God also contained several well aimed swipes at those in the west who abandon faith in the name of reason. Both the Pope’s criticisms can be echoed by Muslims opposed to violence in that what even moderates fear the most is that modernity necessarily means the secularization of their culture. They have seen what has happened to Christianity in Europe and are adamantly opposed to the abandonment of Islamic values.

Perhaps the violent reaction to the Pope’s words was anticipated by the Vatican. Even if it wasn’t, the extremists tend to prove the Pope’s point. Unfortunately, even so-called moderate Muslims have been forced to either echo the ignorant criticism of the extremists or keep a low profile.

But once the smoke clears from this episode, there may in fact be a second look by moderates at what the Pope said. This Op-Ed by Souheila Al-Jaada in The Daily Star of Lebanon is encouraging in that regard:

At the same time, rather than lash out at provocative statements, Muslims should welcome such criticisms of the faith because they offer religious leaders an opportunity to explain Islam through dialogue and by example. Muslim leaders should respond by emphasizing the commonalities that bind Christians and Muslims together. They should stress the fact that the two faiths believe in the Ten Commandments. Both revere the Prophets Abraham, Jesus, Noah, Isaac, Jacob and many others. Both religions place the Virgin Mary in high esteem and the Koran includes an entire sura, or chapter, entitled “Maryam,” or “Mary” in Arabic.

But the most important similarity that we must remember is that both religions hold firm to the Golden rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

It is those “commonalities” that Benedict can build upon in order to bring moderate Muslims to the task of confronting the violence perpetrated in the name of the Prophet. He has expressed his solidarity in the past with many issues that confront Muslims in their efforts to co-exist peacefully with the west. One hopes that both sides take the opportunity afforded by the controversy to dig deeper than ever before into the complex relationship that has existed between two of the world’s great religions. At stake may be the difference between a world at peace and a world at war. In that sense, they couldn’t be any higher.

Should we take this sort of thing seriously? After all, Juan Cole informs us that this kind of talk is perfectly understandable:

The Vatican continues to decline to apologize, only saying that no offense was meant by the Pope’s remarks.

Some commentators have complained about Muslim sensibilities in this regard. But in my view, this sensitivity is a feature of postcolonialism. Muslims were colonized by Western powers, often for centuries, and all that period they were told that their religion was inferior and barbaric. They are independent now, though often they have gained independence only a couple of generations (less if you consider neocolonialism). As independent, they are finally liberated to protest when Westerners put them down.

There is an analogy to African-Americans, who suffered hundreds of years of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow. They are understandably sensitive about white people putting them down, and every time one uses the “n” word, you can expect a strong reaction. In the remarks the pope quoted about Muhammad, he essentially did the equivalent of using the “n” word for Muslims. It is no mystery that people are protesting.

Shooting old women in the back, burning churches, and threatening the life of the leader of a billion Catholics is an excellent demonstration of Muslim “sensibilities” I must say. Cole’s analysis is spot on. Who woulda thunk it? All the burning, and killing, and screaming, and gouging, and stabbing is the fault of the West and our mean old ancestors who told the fanatic’s ancestors that their religion was dirt. Failing that, it is the legacy of those superior airs put on by the Brits and the Frogs that is causing our Muslim brothers so much pain.

Of course, the good professor conveniently forgot to mention the most famous footstools in history - the Ottomans - and their bloody, inhuman rule over the Middle East. By the time Napoleon saw the pyramids, the Ottoman’s had made themselves at home in the region for nearly 300 years. Known as “the sick man of Europe” the Ottoman’s proved that they not only could out-atrocity the west on any given day, but also proved that they could be pretty damn good colonial oppressors themselves even when they weren’t feeling 100%.

Of course, the Ottomans didn’t worship Jesus. They didn’t recognize the Pope’s authority. They never saw the inside of a synagogue (except to set fire to one), nor did they worship, Bal, Babel, Ra, Isis, or any other regional deity. They followed the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed.

So much for the Cole theory of Post Colonial Stress Syndrome.

Then again, there’s that curious analogy al-Cole uses to instruct us stupid Americans in how it feels to have your religion called “evil and inhuman” by a long dead and rotting 15th century vassal emperor of Byzantium. It’s exactly the same thing as calling your black neighbor a ni***r.

True, you’re more than likely to get bopped in the nose for using such a racial obscenity. But I daresay you would probably get to keep your head. Nor is it likely that said justifiably outraged black man would follow you home and torch your house, kill your children, behead your wife, steal your possessions, and force your relatives to abandon the religion of their fathers and convert to Islam.

Other than those differences, Cole’s analogy rings true, doesn’t it?

Juan Cole is not an apologist for radical Islamists. He is an enabler. In that sense, he and all who try and pass off the behavior of these extremists as a reaction to anything is either childishly naive or a prevaricator of the first order. The radicals do not need an excuse to kill their enemies. They are told to do so by those who have hijacked Islam and then instruct their fanatical followers using an interpretation of the Koran so far from the true meaning of that book that they can twist and obfuscate anything the Prophet said to justify their murderous urges.

A better analogy is our own homegrown terrorists who use the bible to justify the murder of abortionists. There is nothing in any bible I’ve ever read that could ever countenance murder. Whether you believe abortionists are killing innocents or not, it should be pointed out that it ain’t your call, friends. As we should render unto Caesar, we should obey the law. The abortionists will get their just due in the hereafter. And if you believe in that, then you know they’ll pay for their crimes in ways that makes anything the Christian extremists do to them pale in comparison.

To be fair, Cole graciously tries to show the Pontiff a way out of his death sentence. All he has to do is grovel:

All he has to do is say he is sorry if it appeared he was slamming Muhammad and Islam, and that this is what the Catholic Church actually feels about the issue:

* The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ, “the way the truth, and the life” (John 14, 6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself (4).

There’s much more that Cole quotes, all of it from a 1965 Second Vatican Council pronouncement on the relation of the Catholic church to non-Catholic religions.

Yeah…that’ll do the trick. Try reason and light on people with blood on their hands and hate in their hearts. I suggest for practice, the Pontiff rehearse the speech before a brick wall. That way, he won’t be disappointed when the targets of his sweet reason react with less enthusiasm than the edifice.

Cole usually has something helpful to contribute to the debate over the meaning of Islam and its relationship with the west. I find much of his writing learned and even fascinating. But there are many times recently when he has allowed his obvious sympathies to override his judgment and even perhaps his scholarship.

For Cole, it isn’t that the crocodile will eat him last. It’s that he thinks all those forms around him in the water are nothing but logs.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll discuss the Pope’s remarks and the reaction to them. We’ll also look at a little noticed group of elites that are working to get the US out of Iraq short of victory.

WE HAVE INSTALLED A NEW SCRIPT FOR THE “LISTEN LIVE” BUTTON IN HOPES THAT IT WILL WORK BETTER.

To access the stream, click on the “Listen Live” button in the left sidebar. Java script must be enabled. It usually takes about 20 seconds for the stream to come on line.

NOTE: If you’re still having trouble accessing the stream, try using Firefox and/or closing some programs.

IF YOU STILL CANNOT ACCESS THE STREAM, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO THAT EFFECT.

Even though the Pope’s remarks about violence and Islam were buried midway into a long lecture to scientists and theologians about faith and reason, is it possible that the Vatican knew full well that his comments would draw the kind of reaction from the Muslim world that we see erupting in the streets of the Middle East and elsewhere?

I would say it is more than possible. Given the way that the Vatican vets anything the Pope says in public, it would seem likely that at some point in the review process, someone would have pointed out that connecting the words “evil and inhuman” with anything associated with Islam would cause an uproar.

Just as with any major Presidential address or a speech given by the Secretary of State here in this country, the Vatican has several different departments that review anything uttered by the Pope, especially on foreign soil. The Pope’s speeches are reviewed to make sure not only that they reflect Vatican policy but also are consistent with religious dogma. And I feel certain that anything in a Papal speech that would mention another religion would have to be okayed by both the Secretariat of State as well as the Congregation in charge of interfaith relations. Either one of those two departments would have been able to tell the Pope what he could expect from the Islamic street after using the term “evil” in relation to anything having to do with the Prophet or the Muslim religion.

In fact, the more I think about it, in order not to believe that the Pope knew his remarks would cause a firestorm, you would either have to think that the Vatican bureaucracy are a bunch of fools or that a small part of the Pope’s lecture slipped through the cracks and wasn’t vetted properly. Either scenario just isn’t very plausible.

There was some speculation in the media that the “blunder” by the Pope was due to his lack of media savvy and a doctrinaire approach to his public pronouncements. The problem with this critique is that the lecture he gave a Regensburg was not about the Catholic faith as much as it was about a fascinating dissertation on the history of reason in Western thought. In fact, there was little if anything doctrinal in what Benedict said at his old University. There was reminiscing about how his education progressed and a scholarly look at how the relationship between secular reason and divine faith have developed since the Greeks. But there were no major pronouncements about theology and certainly no opportunities to lay down the law regarding anything having to do with the Catholic faith.

As far as being “media savvy,’ the 78 year od Pontiff is stiff and uncomfortable in his public appearances although he seems to be getting better as he goes along. But the thought that the Secretariat of State would not have realized that the Pope’s words would have been taken out of context and used to incite violence strains credulity. The job of the Secretariat in vetting Papal pronouncements is to make sure that just such an eventuality is covered.

Would the Pope then deliberately roil the Muslim world and incite hatred against the Catholic church? The “apologies” issued by both the Secretariat of State and the Pope himself are careful to avoid regretting anything the Pope said and instead express regret about the reaction to the speech.

Ed Morrissey thinks that even this partial apology gives legitimacy to Muslim complaints. In an impassioned Open Letter to the Pope, Morrissey points to the expressions of regret being a sign of weakness:

When you apologize and retreat, they understand that as a triumph for their religion, a victory won with force and threats rather than through intellectual engagement. This encourages more of the same. The West had the opportunity to stand up to the same angry hordes earlier this year during the controversy over the Danish editorial cartoons that depicted Mohammed, and many of us gave into the threats and violence rather than stand up for the freedom of speech, religious practice, and editorial commentary. In both cases, Muslims ironically proved the point of the criticism leveled at them.

I have to disagree with Ed. I think there are larger forces at play here - larger even the outrageous killing of a nun in Somalia or the apparent kidnapping of a priest in Iraq. If this is indeed the first salvo fired by the Catholic church against radical Islam (which is driving the violence causing more “moderate” Muslims to respond or be marginalized), it is a possibility that this is a real effort by the Vatican to rally more moderate, thoughtful Muslims to the anti-terror banner. So far, nothing has worked in trying to engage the millions of Muslims who disagree with the jihadists. But by holding up a mirror and forcing these moderates to look their own religion in the face, perhaps the Pope believes he can start a dialogue that would help set Islam along a different path. Instead of the moderates being marginalized, such a turn of events would marginalize the extremists.

This is pure speculation, of course. But I am having a hard time believing that the Pope’s words were a “blunder” or some kind of a media faux pas by the Vatican. And if the Pope’s words were deliberately provocative, one can only conclude there was some other reason why he might have used the obscure example of a dialogue between a 15th century emperor and Islamic scholar to make a point about the differences between Muslims and Christians.

I remember several months ago reading about a bi-partisan group that had been set up to make recommendations about what the United States could be doing differently in Iraq that would improve the situation.

The Iraq Study Group appears to be a little more than that. In fact, my Washington sense tells me that the group is not set up to see how things could improve but rather what would be the least painless way to leave Iraq for US domestic and foreign policy interests.

First, there are the group’s affiliations:

The United States Institute of Peace is facilitating the group with the support of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

The pedigree of each of these groups is impeccable. Largely non-partisan, their ranks of experts have filled positions in the White House of both Democratic and Republican Administrations as well as the rest of the national security establishment.

Indeed, in some ways they are the national security establishment. And a glance at their boards of directors reveals the heaviest of hitters in both government and industry. Check out the board at CSIS for a good example of what I mean.

Another tell on what the real agenda of the Iraq Study Group is can be found in their mission statement:

At the urging of Congress, the United States Institute of Peace is facilitating the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by co-chairs James A. Baker, III, former secretary of state and honorary chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and Lee H. Hamilton, former congressman and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Iraq Study Group will conduct a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region, and consequences for U.S. interests.

Was this group set up to try and forge a bi-partisan consensus on how to win the war? Here’s the Washington Post take:

The group has attracted little attention beyond foreign policy elites since its formation this year. But it is widely viewed within that small world as perhaps the last hope for a midcourse correction in a venture they generally agree has been a disaster.

The reason, by and large, is the involvement of Baker, 76, the legendary troubleshooter who remains close to the first President Bush and cordial with the second. Many policy experts think that if anyone can forge bipartisan consensus on a plan for extricating the United States from Iraq – and then successfully pitch that plan to a president who has so far seemed impervious to outside pressure — it is the man who put together the first Gulf War coalition, which evicted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

It’s no secret that most of the pundit elites in Washington abandoned any hope of victory in Iraq long ago. Conservative defections have included such luminaries as George Will, Bill Buckley, and Bob Novak. And if you read the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post and New York Times religiously, you probably have noticed that a strong, bi-partisan consensus has already emerged among our foreign policy elites to exit Iraq.

Baker, of course, is the key. His job will be to sell the President on the coming draw down of American forces. What Baker thinks of his job was made clear in the WaPo article:

But in an interview in the current issue of Texas Monthly, Baker dashed the idea of “just picking up and pulling out” of Iraq. “Even though it’s something we need to find a way out of, the worst thing in the world we could do would be to pick up our marbles and go home,” he said, “because then we will trigger, without a doubt, a huge civil war. And every one of the regional actors — the Iranians and everybody else — will come in and do their thing.”

The study group appears to be struggling to find some middle ground between such a pullout and the administration’s strategy of keeping a heavy American troop presence until the Iraqi government can maintain security on its own.

In other words, no “cut and run” but rather the slow, inexorable drawdown of US forces whose exit will not so much reflect the ability of the Iraqi government to defend itself from internal enemies but rather how the pull out will be perceived by the rest of the world - including how it will play domestically.

Cut and run - even if it’s done slowly - is still cut and run.

The immorality of this strategy is shocking in its implications. The foreign policy elites have apparently decided that the war is unwinnable but that it would harm American interests if we simply up and left. Therefore, they are going to ask young American men and women to risk their lives not for victory, but…for what? To save face? To keep politicians from looking bad? To fool the American people?

In fact, any exit from Iraq that doesn’t leave a stable government capable of maintaining a modicum of peace on the streets would be seen by the entire world as a crushing defeat for the United States. How we get there by “extricating” ourselves is a fairy tale I’m dying to hear.

What the Washington Post sees as Bush stubbornness - the President is “impervious to outside pressure” - is actually the only rational policy for Iraq.

Not “staying the course.” There absolutely must be changes to our force structure including additional troops sent immediately to try and secure Baghdad. Other important alterations in strategy (not policy) would help with some of the other challenges faced by our troops. But the policy of helping the Iraqis until they are capable of defending themselves must be the correct one. Anything less and we might as well leave now. We simply cannot ask our troops - even if they are professional soldiers - and their families, to make the kinds of sacrifices they have already made for some kind of nebulous outcome in a conflict that has already cost more than 3,000 American lives and 20,000 wounded not to mention almost 50,000 Iraqi lives.

Another indication that the Iraq Study Group is not interested in even trying to redefine victory:

The administration’s more hawkish supporters, meanwhile, are nervous about Baker’s involvement, counting him as one of the “realist” foreign policy proponents they see as having allowed threats against the United States to grow in the ’80s and ’90s. Gary J. Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute voiced concern that the Iraq group was not listening to those advocating a more muscular military strategy to defeat the insurgency.

But Schmitt added: “People can worry about what Baker is going to say, but the president has a way of doing what he is going to do. There could be a lot of wishful thinking on the part of the older Bush crowd that the son got into trouble and now he’s going to listen to Baker the strategist.”

Our foreign policy elites want to abandon Iraq without appearing to do so. They apparently won’t offer any advice via interim reports until after the November elections. When they do, I expect their recommendations won’t offer anything new as far as a strategy for winning.

For that, they should be condemned because they are unwilling to face the unpalatable alternative that would place our soldiers in harms way in order to satisfy something less than victory.

UPDATE

Evidently, Rudy Guiliani resigned from the group several months ago citing “time considerations.” You don’t think it could have anything to do with the fact that he knows the group’s recommendations will not sit well with conservative hawks? And that Rudy may need the hawks come 2008?

Just wondering…

This has been “The story that won’t die.” And indeed, the chatter in the blogosphere and on the outskirts of the mainstream media is growing.

The first I saw of it was at Jawa Report in a post that described a Pakistani journalist who interviewed al-Qaeda members in Pakistan. They told him of a plot against targets inside the United States that was ready to go and set for the month of Ramadan (beginning later this month). The plot included “nuclear materials” - probably a dirty bomb or bombs of some kind. The al-Qaedans mentioned Adnan Al-Shukri Jumaa, a man on the FBI Most Wanted list as the main plotter and they referred to the plan as an “American Hiroshima.”

My BS-O-Meter was blinking red at this point. We’ve heard almost since the day after 9/11 that al-Qaeda was going to hit us again only this time with nukes. Congressman Curt Weldon famously walked around the Capitol building in 2004 carrying a suitcase that he said was big enough to contain one of the nuclear weapons al-Qaeda had already stashed inside the United States. And every couple of weeks it seems there’s a story in Newsmax or World Net Daily about someone else predicting nuclear catastrophe for America.

But the story wouldn’t die. One of the commenters at Ace of Spades swears she saw Al-Shukri Jumaa last year when the terrorist was trying to rent a house. Now the sometimes accurate, sometimes not NE Intelligence Network has published the interview between the journalist Hamid Mir and Abu Dawood, the newly appointed commander of the al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. In it, Dawood claims:

* Final preparations have been made for the American Hiroshima, a major attack on the U. S.

* Muslims living in the United States should leave the country without further warning.

* The attack will be commandeered by Adnan el Shukrijumah (“Jaffer Tayyer” or “Jafer the Pilot”), a naturalized American citizen, who was raised in Brooklyn and educated in southern Florida.

* The al Qaeda operatives who will launch this attack are awaiting final orders. They remain in place in cities throughout the country. Many are masquerading as Christians and have adopted Christian names.

* Al Qaeda and the Taliban will also launch a major strike (known as the “Badar offensive” against the coalition forces in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan.

* The American people will be treated to a final audio message from Osama bin Laden which will be aired within the next two weeks.

The name Abu Dawood is almost certainly fictitious as it refers to a prominent historical figure who is mentioned in the Islamic Sunnah which contains stories of the Prophet’s life. And whether he is in fact the new Commander of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is something I have been unable to verify.

The reputation of journalist Mir is more intriguing. He appears to be a first class reporter who has twice been fired for writing stories exposing scandals in Pakistan. The reputation of his current employer Geo TV is very good with Mr. Mir’s show Capitol Talk attracting big ratings as well as newsmaking politicians in Pakistan.

What then to make of his story?

Allah’s “worry meter” remains at mid-level on this story which is a sensible place for it to be. After 9/11, we can never quite go back to dismissing these kinds of stories out of hand. However, considering that Washington leaks like a sieve, one would think that any special concerns about an imminent attack that was being monitored by our intelligence agencies would have hit the papers by now.

Remember that during the summer before 9/11, CIA Chief Tenet famously said “The system is blinking red” to describe the threat level. And despite a certain level of dysfunctionality in our intelligence organizations, I can’t believe that they wouldn’t at least get a hint of the kind of massive attack described in Mir’s interview.

So, it is probably a good idea to be aware of the threat while not taking it very seriously. Then again, if we were to get another audio tape from Osama in the next couple of weeks and if the Taliban launches a massive attack in Afghanistan, it may be time to go to the mattresses by stocking up on canned goods to carry you through at least a couple of weeks - perhaps a month. And buy yourself a radio that can run on batteries ( I found after 9/11 I had no such radio or TV).

Let’s hope it’s one more al Qaeda nuke story that never pans out.

This has to be the strangest blog kerfluffle in history.

Ann Althouse wrote a post in which she made the mistake of trying to reason with an outraged liberal feminist who took offense at Ann’s comments about a picture of lefty bloggers snapped after their lunch with former President Clinton. Althouse subtly tried to make a point about the female bloggers arrayed around Clinton like flies drawn to a honeypot when into the comments section, Jessica from the blog Feminsting showed up to identify herself in the photo (she’s standing directly in front of Clinton) while availing herself of the opportunity to take a completely off the wall shot at Althouse:

“The, um, ‘intern’ is me. It’s so nice to see women being judged by more than their looks. Oh, wait…”

In a somewhat jocular fashion, Althouse responded:

“Well, Jessica, you do appear to be ‘posing.’ Maybe it’s just an accident.”

Althouse, who blogs from the Moonbat Capitol of the World (Madison, Wisconsin) should have known better. Her half jest was met with a lecture by Jessica:

It’s a picture; people pose. And I’m not sure I understand your logic anyway. If I “pose” for a picture (as opposed to sulking and hunching over?) then I deserve to be judged for my looks? I don’t see anyone talking sh*t about the other bloggers smiling pretty for the camera.

Cry Victim! And let slip the blogs of war!

Althouse put on her lawyer’s hat and once again, tried reasoning with the unreasonable:

Jessica: I’m not judging you by your looks. (Don’t flatter yourself.) I’m judging you by your apparent behavior. It’s not about the smiling, but the three-quarter pose and related posturing, the sort of thing people razz Katherine Harris about. I really don’t know why people who care about feminism don’t have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist. So don’t assume you’re the one representing feminist values here. Whatever you call your blog….

For the rest, you’ll have to follow various links to lefty blogs to get a sense how this dispute has descended into the most vile personal attacks. The episode morphed from a discussion about Clinton’s well known treatment of women and how feminists have been hypocrites for their unwavering support of his satyristic behavior into attacks on righty bloggers for what liberals see as hypocrisy about emphasizing female breasts. Atrios (predictably) pasted a picture of Helen Reynolds on his blog in one such attempt. And Jane Hamsher weighed in with equal predictability, attacking conservatives for…something…”

The obsession by creepy wingnuts with oggling Bill Clinton’s jock and any boobs that get within 60 feet of it continues. Mrs. Snickering Right-Wing Beat-Off hoists herself into the fray, but one has to wonder looking at the bizarre and disturbing photo above — are her agressions displaced?

The photo is of lovely Pamela of Atlas Shrugs and Glenn Reynolds at the PJ Media kickoff luncheon.

And then Hamsher got to the nub of the matter; conservatives are sexually repressed:

These people make the 19th Century Viennese look sexually well-adjusted.

A perusal of other lefty sites (and the comments at Althouse’s blog) reveals this to be the primary critique of the left regarding the right and female breasts; we are ashamed of our bodies and therefore simply aren’t liberated enough to enjoy the sexual act. And this brings us back to young Ms. Jessica and her “pose” in the photo from the Clinton lunch.

Actually, from a personal standpoint, I find Jessica a very attractive young woman. What my opinion of her would be after she opened her mouth and began to speak, I can only imagine.

Most men I know have had “dates from hell” with women like Jessica. Usually of the blind variety, the evening starts off well enough but rapidly degenerates into an intellectual quagmire as nothing the male says or does assuages the outrage felt by the brave victim standing up for truth, justice, and the female orgasm.

That said, I’ve often felt that feminists are almost as fixated on the female form as males. At least from the perspective of how that form is both a trap and an edge that most women use to excellent advantage. Where the feminist and the American male differ, however, is in the perception of that most marvelous of evolutionary adaptations found in the human species; the female breast.

Jessica features breasts in some prominent positions on her website as Althouse points out. And while I must confess that when looking at her picture from the Clinton lunch, I was much more taken with her general womanly form than impressed by her mammary endowment, I can nonetheless see where those men who are fixated on the female breast would take her “pose” as an effort to accentuate the positive so to speak.

For in the end, most feminists (indeed, most women), do not understand the male member of the species. We are a diverse lot when it comes to our sexual hot buttons. Some prefer the posterior rather than anterior. Others are moved to poetry by the length and shape of a woman’s leg. Still others are held in rapture by a set of mesmerizing eyes. For myself, there is something about a woman’s back, the way her slender shoulders droop languorously into a well formed, yet softly beckoning upper arm that sets my heart racing and blood pumping.

And yet for all of us, the sight of a naked woman’s chest or the thought of one almost universally elicits a desire to copulate. It has ever been so and I imagine will always be thus. To deny the humanity of this simple, powerful evolutionary urge or to decry its existence is ludicrous.

I understand that many feminists take issue with the way the female breast is used in our society - especially in marketing various products to males. Does it cheapen or denigrate women to be portrayed thusly? I have never bought into the notion that such advertising “objectifies” women any more than women objectify themselves when accentuating their physical attributes via clothing or makeup (a tradition that predates modern marketing) at the expense of their numerous other gifts. It could be that in hierarchal societies where males have absolute dominance, such behavior is forced upon women as their only means to exercise control over their own lives. But today? In this or most any other western country? I wonder if the long running feminist outrage over the exhibitionary nature of the female form isn’t losing much of its relevance in a society that recognizes and indeed celebrates the achievements of women in all walks of life.

This doesn’t obviate the very real discrimination against women in the workplace. Nor does it excuse the behavior of some men who abuse women physically and psychologically. But I think it does reveal a new paradigm that most liberal feminists ignore while stubbornly clinging to old verities about the position of women in western society. The world is changing. And those changes, allowing women to joyously express their own sexuality in ways unthought of by many of us in our youth, is a symptom of a tidal shift in attitudes by both men and women about a host of issues dealing with the interpersonal relationships between a man and a woman.

In short the feminists are winning. But acknowledging that singular fact would make their critiques and even the Movement itself virtually irrelevant overnight. It is a supreme irony that one of the very issues that feminists belabor the loudest - the objectification of women and the exploitation of their bodies - has lost much of its potency thanks to the attitude of most non-feminist women toward sex and the by play between a man and woman in the bedroom.

So go ahead, Jessica. Stick out that chest and be proud. Celebrate your power over men using the tools that 175,000 years of homo sapien evolution have given you.

Now if only we could convince you to keep your mouth shut…(just kidding).

Pope Benedict tried again today to quiet the storm of controversy that erupted over his remarks about Islam and violence given during a lecture to scientists and theologians last week.

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that he was “deeply sorry” about the angry reaction to his recent remarks about Islam, which he said came from a text that didn’t reflect his personal opinion.

“These (words) were in fact a quotation from a Medieval text which do not in any way express my personal thought,” Benedict told pilgrims at his summer palace outside Rome.

The pope sparked the controversy when, in a speech to German university professors Tuesday, he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as “evil and inhuman.”

“At this time I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” the pope said Sunday.

The remarks follow a similar statement released yesterday by the Vatican in which the Pope expressed “regret” for remarks made during the lecture and that “some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers.”

Note here that all the Pope did was substitute the word “sorry” for “regret.” He is still speaking of the reaction to the speech while not apologizing directly for the content. He clarified that the words which gave offense were not his own but rather the statements of a 15th century Byzantine ruler.

Will this appease the church burners and potential papal assassins who are currently being allowed to run wild in the streets of the Middle East? If their “outrage” was indeed due to the Pope’s remarks, then it should have a salutary affect on their hurt feelings.

But of course, the violence is not about “outrage” over anything. It is simple blood lust directed against people of another faith. The Imams and other religious leaders who have ratcheted up this violent response to the Pope’s words find it a most convenient device to control their flocks of ignorant, 7th century peasants while extremists with a political agenda seek to use the violence for their own nefarious purposes.

Most disturbing is that once again, so called “moderate” Muslims have jumped aboard the extremist bandwagon and piggybacked their own causes and concerns on top of the those of the mob in order to horn in on the publicity and victimhood occasioned by the Pope’s statement:

In Turkey, however, where the Pope is due to visit in November, the deputy leader of the ruling party said Benedict had “a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the middle ages”. Salih Kapusuz added: “He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini.”

Representatives of the two million Turks in Germany, where the comments were made, also expressed deep annoyance. The head of the Turkish community, Kenan Kolat, said they were “very dangerous” and liable to misunderstanding.

The next step is for these “moderate” Muslims to solemnly condemn the violence (churches were firebombed all over the West Bank) while piously calling for “dialogue” and “understanding.” And sure enough, the guilt tripping west will meekly obey, taking part in high profile meetings with local Muslim leaders who will chide the west for their “ignorance” and demand special considerations for the Muslim community. The fact that these “considerations” are designed to further isolate Muslims from the rest of western society thus increasing the power and influence of the Muslim leadership is the ultimate goal of these “moderates.”

It’s nothing less than a con game and we should be on to these grifters by now. Unfortunately, the “moderates” know exactly which buttons to push in order to increase their status as victims in the eyes of guilt ridden western liberals while feeding their anti-religious bias against the Pope. Comparing Benedict to Mussolini and Hitler is about as absurd as it gets and yet, the charge resonates with many on the European left who see the conservative Pontiff and the papacy in general as holdovers from a time when religious wars racked the continent. Certainty about right and wrong behavior or who is good and who is evil as expressed by the Pope and the Catholic church smacks of anti-modernism where it is preferred that relativism be substituted for the moral certitudes found emanating from the Vatican.

All of this is irrelevant to the mobs who have obediently turned out to protest words and ideas that are far beyond their comprehension. The subtlety found in the Pope’s lecture regarding reason and violence - with God being pure reason and hence violence being incompatible with his existence - could have been embraced by people of all faiths if they bothered to look at the Pontiff’s words in their totality. But as we have become all too aware recently, trying to explain the violence by positing a cause and effect scenario is useless. It is not any particular causal happenstance that drives the fanatics into the streets and urges them on to burn churches or kill Christians. It is a disease. It is for the sake of violence alone that the mobs act as they do, the rationale being no rationale is necessary.

I can see why the Pope has issued this second, personal statement trying to explain that he meant no offense in his words. I fear however, that he and most other well meaning western leaders fail to grasp the true nature of the extremists who lurk behind the mobs, goading them on in order to achieve ends that have little to do with religion and everything to do with power and influence.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has the horrible news of an Italian nun shot in the back three times and killed by a Somali gunman. The sister was working at the local hospital and was gunned down by what Malkin correctly refers to as “Animals. Cowards. Barbarians.”

The attack came hours after a Somali cleric called for the assassination of the Pope.

And Michelle points out that Benedict did not apologize for the content of his lecture but rather for the reaction to it.

If ever one needed proof of the shallowness and intellectual laziness of the mainstream media, the hysteria they’ve managed to gin up over remarks by the Pope regarding the Islamic faith, taken wildly out of context, serves as a potent reminder of just how sorry is the state of journalistic ethics and integrity in the west.

Reporters and editors have a duty to reveal not only what is said but accurately tell us what is implied - especially when a hot button subject like religion is involved and when the words are uttered by eminent personages such as a Pope or President. By lifting one quote out of context made by Benedict in a long, thoughtful speech on religion and reason, the western media has once again inflamed the passions of intolerant, hypersensitive Muslims and caused even moderate Islamic governments to condemn the Pope and demand an apology lest more radical elements gain politically over what is certainly a non-issue.

Even a cursory reading of Benedict’s speech reveals the Pope to have a passionate and firm belief in tolerance. His elegant thoughts on God and reason have a beauty that transcends any individual faith and speaks to the spiritual in all of us. Not blessed with the towering intellect of his predecessor, Benedict nevertheless lays out a case for a God that, rather than being in conflict with science, in fact defines reason itself. The universe exists as it does because God is perfection. And being perfect, it is impossible for Him to exist in contradictory terms.

The Pope made a strong case that science and faith can exist side by side in the modern world, that there is nothing inherently wrong with exploring the mysteries of the universe because finding answers will ultimately reveal God as pure reason:

The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

This is the essence of the Pope’s address; a call for a new definition of reason that surmounts what he considers to be artificial barriers between science and faith. Truly remarkable in its depth and subtlety, the Pope has come down firmly on the side of tolerance and freedom.

Then why the reference to Islam’s violent history? Why speak at all of the “forced conversions” in the early years of Islam? If the Pope is guilty of anything, it is perhaps in choosing one school of Islamic thought to make his point about the difference between a God who is reason and a God who transcends reason:

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor [of the text where this debate appears], Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

(HT: Quote from the Pope’s speech courtesy of a grad student at a Catholic Seminary in an email to Michelle Malkin)

Juan Cole points out that there are other schools of thought in Islam that are in opposition to this thinking:

The pope says that in Islam, God is so transcendent that he is beyond reason and therefore cannot be expected to act reasonably. He contrasts this conception of God with that of the Gospel of John, where God is the Logos, the Reason inherent in the universe.

But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu’tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them. The Mu’tazilite approach is still popular in Zaidism and in Twelver Shiism of the Iraqi and Iranian sort. The Ash’ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).

And Cole points to forced conversions in the history of Christianity as well (some of them on this continent) which undercuts Benedict’s point about violence and reason to some extent.

Cole believes Benedict should get himself some new advisors on Christian-Muslim relations for making what he considers to be an ill-considered point. This is pure sophistry. As are western calls for the Pope to “apologize.” These calls echo those from what Malkin correctly refers to as “The Religion of Perpetual Outrage.” And for the western media to lazily fall into the trap of the professional grievance mongers in the Islamic world who are always ready to work themselves (and their ignorant followers) into a lather over “insults” to Islam only shows how frighteningly naive and truly shallow many in the media are - especially about matters pertaining to faith and religion.

Case in point; the New York Times:

The Vatican issued a statement saying that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue. But this is not the first time the pope has fomented discord between Christians and Muslims.

In 2004 when he was still the Vatican’s top theologian, he spoke out against Turkey’s joining the European Union, because Turkey, as a Muslim country was “in permanent contrast to Europe.”

A doctrinal conservative, his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity, not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.

The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

It is indicative of the politically correct, nonsensical attitude of many in the media that the Times would have found the Pope’s historically accurate statement describing the vast religious, cultural, and political differences between Turkey and the western European nations in NATO a cause for friction between Muslims and Christians. It isn’t that the differences don’t exist mind you. One just doesn’t voice those differences in public. Such statements are considered impolite in the PC world occupied by the Times and other western media outlets and are best left unspoken.

As for the rest, the Pope, after all, is Catholic. And as we’ve discussed here before, it riles the Times and others that the Catholic faith refuses to change its dogmas and canons to reflect the enlightened views of the Times’ editors.

No, the Pope should not apologize. Instead, the MSM should be covering the wildly out of proportion response by militant Islamic nutters who are tearing up the streets in the Middle East and elsewhere to “protest” what they consider to be this insult to their faith.

If only they could get half as worked up over those who murder in Islam’s name, the world would certainly be a much more peaceful place to live.

UPDATE

Malkin also has a gruesome reminder from the internet jihadists about what happens to those who “insult” Islam.

UPDATE II: POPE APOLOGIZES

Ed Morrissey has the latest statement from the Pope where he “is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers.”

This probably won’t satisfy the Islamist nutters rioting in the streets (now that they have the media’s doting attention) but it was perhaps inevitable given the controversey that erupted over the taking of his words out of context.

Also, check out my favorite Catholic’s take on this. The Anchoress echoes some my themes while making this point about the apology:

Now, we read Benedict blunder shows he has failed to master media machine. This is Benedict’s blunder, you see. As if he has any control over how the press presents a story.

Indeed.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

We’ll have the latest on Musharraf’s deal with the Taliban in Pakistan. We’ll also examine yesterday’s vote on detainee policy as well as the political impact of the GOP strategy to highlight issues regarding the War on Terror leading up to the mid terms.

WE HAVE INSTALLED A NEW SCRIPT FOR THE “LISTEN LIVE” BUTTON IN HOPES THAT IT WILL WORK BETTER.

To access the stream, click on the “Listen Live” button in the left sidebar. Java script must be enabled. It usually takes about 20 seconds for the stream to come on line.

NOTE: If you’re still having trouble accessing the stream, try using Firefox and/or closing some programs.

IF YOU STILL CANNOT ACCESS THE STREAM, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO THAT EFFECT.