US bears all blame, say French elites

"We are all Americans!" proclaimed the uncharacteristic but dramatic and poignant headline in Le Monde, France's left-wing newspaper, on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the dastardly terrorist attacks on the United States of America. Six years later, the sympathy that rightfully characterized French reactions to infamy and abomination has regrettably vanished. Instead editorials, op-eds and commentaries in France last week almost unanimously blamed America for making the world a far more dangerous place to live, hypocritically rued what they described as America’s loss of prestige and “moral authority," and expectantly looked to French diplomats to broker some sort of international ceasefire and restore peace, love and understanding to a troubled world. They may as well look for them in Sesame Street.

Le Monde, the business daily Les Echos, the center-right Le Figaro, respected commentators on the radio, and prominent political scientists all deplored the fact that American foreign policy in general and the Iraq War in particular have -- as they see it -- directly contributed to today’s instability and insecurity.

If Bin Laden is still at large, defiantly cocking a blood-stained snoot at America through his well-publicized videos, if the Taliban fiend is once again rearing his ugly head in Afghanistan, if Iran is provocatively forging ahead with its nuclear weapons program, and if places like Pakistan, Indonesia, and Africa have become highly-inflammable tinderboxes, the blame (by this account) should unequivocally be laid at America’s door.

In Les Echos, on the 6th anniversary of the New York attacks, a regular columnist called Favilla went so far as to suggest that the American response to terrorism so far has generated so much hatred and sympathy for radical Islam among European-born young Muslims that many of them may well now be contemplating the destruction of the political and philosophical foundations of Europe.

The most striking thing about all these comments was their failure, deliberate or not, to even identify the threat coming from radical Islam. Instead, referring to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib in particular, all of them insisted on America’s perceived inability to live up to its own democratic and humanitarian ideals and its supposedly ignorant and wrong-headed insistence on seeing the world in terms of good and evil.

Favilla explained that “the gap between [American] rhetoric on human rights and [American] acts at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib has completed the moral decay of the Western World”. The same day, in an editorial called “Of The Vanity of [American] Power”, the coat-turning Le Monde snidely drew attention to what it sees as America’s authoritarian and implicitly xenophobic, if not racist, restrictions on foreigners’ “individual freedoms."

Not coincidentally, the next day, a talk show host on Canal Plus, a popular pay-TV station, devoted a fifteen-minute segment of his prime-time show to a book called “In the Hell of Guantanamo”, written by Murat Kurmaz, a German national of Turkish descent, who was apparently wrongly accused of terrorist wrongdoing and spent four years in Guantanamo. Focusing more specifically on the psychological and physical torture allegedly carried out there, the segment was basically an excuse for indicting America, interdicting whatever sympathy viewers might have had for the country at a time of painful memories for its people.

Finally, in an op-ed published in Le Figaro on this Sept. 11, Nicole Bacharan, a prominent political scientist specializing in American politics, spoke of President Bush’s “obsession," expressed rigorously expert concern that the War in Iraq has been waged so ineptly by the Bush administration that the very foundations of American democracy are being shaken, and generously called for other nations, including France, to help “restore America’s political legitimacy and moral authority."

The most appalling but sadly predictable thing about such self-serving prattle is its lack of courage and logic. Indeed if its authors are so concerned about America’s moral standing, the safety of Europe, and the fate of the Iraqi people, why don’t they deafeningly call President Sarkozy’s bluff and urge him to send French troops to Iraq to help strike down the nihilist threat?

They never will. After all parroting such benighted platitudes as “negotiation” or “appeasement” that were murderously expressed in Munich in 1938 sounds so much more morally civilized, doesn’t it?

A 9/11 tribute from abroad

Upon waking this coming Tuesday, I will think aloud: "Today is 9/11. Today is a sad day. Today is the saddest day of the year." That fateful September 11th six years ago, at about four in the afternoon here in France, I remember getting into my car to go home after an uneventful day’s work. The radio was on and I was half-listening to a news program on the BBC World Service as I leisurely made my way home. I remember being suddenly yanked out of my comfortable daydreaming into a reality that my mind initially failed to grasp when the announcer reminded listeners that “at least 1,500 people were now feared dead in the New York attack”. I immediately reached for my cell phone to ask my wife to turn the TV on to find out what was going on. When she sketchily told me that a jumbo jet had ploughed into the World Trade Center, that the Pentagon had been hit and that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania in mysterious circumstances I ended the conversation with words to the effect that this was nothing less than a declaration of war and rushed home to appalling pictures of a world in ruins.

Three years later, when the first opportunity came, my wife and I flew to the United States for a summer vacation on the East coast. I must admit that my very first encounter with an inhabitant of the New World turned out to be a little awkward. When I stepped up to the customs officer to show my passport, he asked me what the purpose of my visit to the U.S. was. I hate cheating so the answer I gave came from the heart: “Because I love America.”

The officer looked at me as if something was wrong with me, my sanity, or my mental age, and gave me a second chance when he repeated: “The purpose of your visit to the U.S. is because you love America??!!” I sheepishly said it again: “Yes, because I love America.” Still sizing me up incredulously, the officer eventually gave up and wished me a pleasant stay nonetheless, and I walked into a world that since then has never failed to amaze, fascinate, energize and inspire me.

What is so unique and awe-inspiring about America that still deserves praise and profound deference six years after that horrific attempt to throw us “into a thousand years of darkness”? Paradoxically “universality” encapsulates the essence of America’s uniqueness.

The genius of the Founding Fathers was to devise a system of government that not only worked well for thirteen colonies but also proved adequate and successful for thirty-seven more states. How could the rest of the world deny the potency of a simple formula based on individual freedom from government, constitutional checks and balances, and federalism?

The maverick vision, determination, and dauntlessness of men like Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan to face down enemies morbidly bent on spreading collectivist Utopias, led to the triumph of the free enterprise system. How could the rest of the world deny the morality and efficiency of the most emancipatory economic system the world has ever produced?

None of this would have happened without America’s faith in the individual’s transcendent destiny and in the restraining mechanisms that Tradition has passed on from one generation to the next. How could the rest of the world deny that life is not an outlet for secular instincts? In all these areas and in others, the duty of America is to lead the world by example.

Although America’s image abroad has suffered even more since 2003, Americans should never be ashamed to be Americans. Americans should always be proud of their achievements as a nation since 1776. Americans should always be proud of their investment in freedom and democracy at home and around the world.

On this September 11, 2007 -- and eternally --the duty of America is to keep that French-given beacon in New York Harbor illuminatingly bright to give hope to the “huddled masses” who silently, awkwardly perhaps (as I did), but tenaciously always, proclaim “God bless America!”

Osama's deadly invitation

From Bin Laden's new videotape: "There are two solutions to stopping it (the war). One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out. The second solution is from your side. I invite you to embrace Islam." [Editor: "Badge Man" is an experienced federal law enforcement official whom I know personally. Specializing in counter-terrorism and radical Islam, he writes here anonymously because of the sensitivity of his current job assignment. Now his analysis.]

Bin Laden is accurately citing Islamic law. Per the Sharia, it is the duty of a Muslim to kill non-believers in this situation. Additionally, per Islamic doctrine, the non-believers must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam before they are killed, hence he invites Americans to "embrace Islam" or die.

You may recall last fall when President Ahmadinejad asked President Bush and the American people to embrace Islam. The press ignored it and the US government laughed. This is no laughing matter. In Islam, this is the equivalent of a declaration of war. Once again, not knowing the doctrine may bring great harm to us.

Those who believe Bin Laden is dead should consider the following: When Bin Laden is killed, it will be announced worldwide because ISLAMIC DOCTRINE states a Martyr must be declared. This is why the suicide bombers and others write letters and make videos - it IS THEIR DOCTRINE if they want to be a true Martyr.

As a Muslim, when you die the two angels who have been on your right and left shoulders your entire life count up all the good and bad in your life. If the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven. If not, you go to hell. And you go to heaven or hell on the day of judgement - not now. Muslims clean dead bodies in preparation for burial so they will be clean when/if they come to heaven. Martyrs are buried as they died, bloody and mangled etc. This is so Allah can see they died in the Jihad. Martyrs go straight to heaven - martyrdom is the only way to guarantee entry into heaven.

If any of this is foreign or hard to believe, I again reiterate - if you are in a position of leadership and do not know/understand the doctrine, you have a responsibility to do so. I strongly encourage you to make time to read Islamic doctrinal writings written by Muslims for Muslims.

Please go online now, purchase "Reliance of the Traveler." Then, read it and study it. Life will make a lot more sense if you do.

Their doctrine says it, they repeat it from every possible platform, they believe it, and they are acting on it to kill us on the battle fields, and on our streets. Maybe a little study time isn't so inconvenient when put in that perspective.

If Britain were Islamized

A few years ago Prince Charles broached the idea of himself as “Defender of Faith” -- as opposed to the monarch's centuries-old title “Defender of the Faith -- hoping to include -- and thereby appease -- Britain’s Muslims. The guffaws and smirks were heard even here in the United States! In a worldwide Jerusalem-based caliphate, presided over by the Mahdi or the 12th Imam, there is no place for a Kafir King and his Kafir Kingdom. Does not the Prince realize the only thing he can expect from an Islamized Britain is beheading? One can imagine Prince Charles’ snuff video being filmed on the altar of Canterbury Cathedral during the ceremony of its conversion to a Mosque! The beheadings might include the Archbishop and his clergy as well as the Prince and his entire family, in reverse order of seniority, in front of a sea of joyous bearded faces! So much for the Prince’s delusion of coexisting in peace! As in ancient times, the King would be forced to witness the slaying of his sons before his very eyes!

A word to the indifferent intellectual elite: you'd witness, at the same time, the dismantling of the ancient British university system. In Islam with Mohammed being the final Prophet, there is no reason to study anything else! Every discipline in the University system would be destroyed and replaced with men memorizing Suras of the Qu’ran and the Hadiths. (Women, being creations of Satan, would necessarily be locked away and clapped in burkas.)

And for those in the media, if you think you’ll be untouched, speak with your colleagues who have been to the Hizbollah-controlled portions of Lebanon or the Palestinian West Bank. Judge for yourself if your precious freedom of the press and your role as a “check on power” would survive an Islamization!

Update after 8/26 radio

Here's the Josh Hager memorial website. My Sunday interview with his dad, Kris, will be posted here as an audio file some time Monday. Frank Gaffney, another of my guests, had this sobering article on "Eroding Sovereignty" in the 8/21 Washington Times.