Comment at end
30th July, 2009
Just a quick marker especially for the TROOFERS out there.
As the Iraq Inquiry gets underway, expect the ‘TRIAL of Tony Blair’ to gain momentum. Many people are likely to be disappointed.
Covered here by the Guardian’s Michael White and here at The Telegraph. More, MUCH more to follow.
And the press should watch their Ps & Qs.
See my TRIAL of Tony Blair posts
Comment at end
29th July, 2009
The irony of this is just TOO sweet.
Absolute Radio had the pleasure of Mr Cameron’s presence this morning. What a wally!
The Twitter/twat clip here, video & audio
Asked “Are you on Twitter?” Mr Cameron replied, “No, I’m not. Politicians do have to think about of what we say – the trouble with Twitter … the instantness of it. Too many twits might make a twat.“
He obviously touched a chord, even if he didn’t know what he was saying, as has been suggested. The studio crew fell about it at this. And it seems that some reckon his background means that he didn’t realise that “twat” was a swear word. Probably true, or he wouldn’t have said it in that context! Worrying.
And some want the Conservatives back to raise standards! Archbishop Cramner, a Tory supporter, has a lovely phrase at his site which he should send to Dave – “urinated afar”. Now, THAT is class.
This is being “in touch” with the people, Cameron-style. Our next prime minister - thinking about what he’s saying!
God help us when he is NOT thinking!
This is the other “swear word” section of the interview: “the public are pissed off over the expenses.“
David Cameron, PM-in-waiting “working” at what he’s saying in a simple way, “otherwise you’re not going to take people with you.”
Full unedited interview from Absolute Radio’s Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show.
And since some of the phone callers were interested in his clothes, socks, style etc … he needs to watch this:
“You’ve either got or you haven’t got CLASS!
How it draws the applause of the mass …es.”
Oh, and STYLE …
“If you’ve got it you stand out a mile.”
Oh, and CHARM …
“You’ve either got or you haven’t got charm,
Style and charm sort of go arm in arm”
TONe-EEEEEEEEEE!
Comment at end
29th July, 2009
Until now the question of Obama’s place of birth has been largely ignored by the British press. The Guardian now has this, though couched in the usual ‘neo-cons’ condemnation. Describing the Right’s questions as “racist”, (the fall-back position of the Left), Chris McGreal completely misses avoids the point.
Mr Obama has not yet shown his authorised birth certificate to the American people, but only a certificate of live birth (COLB), suspected by some to be a forgery.
I have NO firm opinion on Mr Obama’s right to be the American president. But it has always seemed odd to me that President Obama is unwilling to show his full birth certificate.
The reliable website Snopes says Obama WAS born in Hawaii. And at Yahoo Answers is this debate – “Why won’t Obama show his birth certificate?”
In this video the audience gets as near to a riot as middle class Americans ever do. They are moved to their feet by a woman leading them to recite the pledge of allegiance. (Great when the platform too are all forced to join in, don’t you think?) Maybe we should try it here at the next British based gathering of Hizb ut-Tahrir!
God Save The Queen!
Note the reference to this in some of the Guardian comments: “if you were born in a barn that doesn’t make you a horse.”
Now where have we heard that before? Oh yes, from Anjem Choudary in his HardTalk interview with Stephen Sackur. He said he had NO allegiance to Britain – the land of his birth. Nor to the Queen. Nor to the Prime Minister.
When? August 2005, a few weeks after the 7/7 London bombings.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
As for Obama – I do NOT suggest that he is the enemy. But only he can settle it.
So … where’s the birth certificate?
Mike Castle on PeeBo’s Birthcertificate
Because of this video conman Castle and 10 others will no longer be doing any more public Town hall meetings according to the sunday News Journal in Delaware. Instead they will be phone Town Halls by invite. This is unacceptable. You dont represent people by running away from their questions.
Call and fax to express your concern.
Hey Mike, When’s the next one? I have a question too.
Its about your willingness to vote for forced vaccinations.
Washington Office
1233 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
p: 202.225.4165
f: 202.225.2291
Wilmington Office
201 N. Walnut Street, Suite 107
Wilmington, DE 19801-3970
p: 302.428.1902
f: 302.428.1950
Dover Office
300 South New Street
Dover, DE 19904
p: 302.736.1666
f: 302.736.6580
Georgetown Office
p: 302.856.3334
Mike Castle, Republican Rep from Delaware state wide, Town Hall on Health Care 3 days after his Vote FOR CAP & TRADE one of the Cap and Tr8tors. YOUR FIRED!!!!!
Watch “Mike Castle on Forced Vaccination and the 4th Amendment”—-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfmc2n…
Don’t take the vaccine this fall, read about Gardicil
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE….
————-infowars.com————— ——————– make a difference, find out where your reps and senators are having public events and challenge them on camera, then post.
Watch these Documentaries for your childrens sake.
End Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6US0…
The Obama Deception
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNA…
Thanks Alex, Jason, & Luke
Kenyan Ambassador Finally Admits Obama Born in Kenya
I’m not sure WHAT he “admits.” I don’t even think the ambassador himself quite knew what he was saying here, or which (loaded?) question he was anwsering.
But the questions will NOT go away, Mr Obama.
Comment at end
29th July, 2009
Did you hear about this on the BBC – radio or TV? If you did it would have been highly watered down, as illustrated here at Biased BBC blogspot.
And even ‘This Is London’ runs this story by leading with the news of specialist training for the Police on countering honour killings. Not … repeat NOT the part about the indescribable sufferings of the young man who is not expected to live after this horrific attack.
Earlier this month, a married Muslim woman was warned by Scotland Yard that she was at risk after her 24-year-old lover had acid poured down his throat and was stabbed by four attackers.
The man, who is a Dane of Asian origin, is not expected to live after suffering 90 per cent burns from the acid, which destroyed his tongue and blinded him. The case has revived concerns about honour violence. Today the Crown Prosecution Service’s legal director Nazir Afzal, who has been leading efforts to prevent such attacks, gave details of the new crackdown.
Well, thank goodness for Mr Afzal! But what is our country coming to when it is more important to lead with the story on the police’s training than it is to start with this ATTEMPTED MURDER?
I got to this story through some of the dreadul “honour killing” stories here at Infidels Unite/Counter Jihad here the pictures are not pleasant, be warned.
From This is London:
‘Every police officer in London is to be given training on how to detect “honour”-based violence.
A key part of the drive to reduce the number of victims and bring more offenders to justice will be a DVD.
It will contain information on how apparently insignificant incidents can trigger so-called honour violence against women.
Each Met officer will also be briefed on obtaining expert advice to pursue cases and receive guidance on protecting potential victims while efforts are made to stop their persecution.
Senior detectives will be given more intensive training in the form of a two-day course in which information from survivors, women’s groups and charities will be used to highlight the problem.
In a further move to boost convictions, the number of specialist honour violence prosecutors in London is being increased as part of a national effort to double the number of Crown Prosecution Service lawyers with expertise in this area.’
I am more concerned that a young man is lying in hospital fighting for his life after unimaginable suffering from horrific ‘punishment’ from ‘people’ who have been given a safe haven for life under the protection of the British state. Since we can’t DEPORT these mindless barbarians, and they know it, ANY action is better than none.
In the Islamic countries they and/or their families originally came from they could look forward to sharia punishment, if found guilty.
Here, they’ll be unfortunate to get more than seven years, halved automatically. Oh, and if they are forced to kill or attempt to kill anyone ‘honourably’ again, they may find themselves housed in a place like this:
A new British prison.
No wonder so many illegals and valueless medievals can’t wait to cheat their way into our country.
Comment at end
28th July, 2009
Following on from my previous post on the press’s and political silence on Hizb ut-Tahrir’s recent get-together at which they kindly told us about their plans for Londonistan and immodestly let those with eyes to see actually SEE the threat from their creeping caliphate, I just noticed this from Martin Bright at The Spectator.
Assuming it isn’t a rhetorical question I’ll make a few suggestions, after you’ve read Mr Bright’s words:
Martin Bright:
‘It was with great sadness that I left the New Statesman. I always said it was a privilege to work as its political editor. I wish anyone who writes about politics for the New Statesman well. It’s a difficult gig, especially in the present political atmosphere.
But Harry’s Place has just published this recording of the magazine’s self-styled Senior Editor (Politics) Mehdi Hasan. The transcript is here:
“The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as, quote, “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as; not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.”
What can I say? Nothing at all. I am speechless.’
Open your eyes, Mr Bright, and close that incredulous gaping mouth.
If YOU haven’t noticed this attitude before, what hope our politicians?
Mehdi Hasan (The New Statesman’s Political Editor) Exposed Part 1 – Atheists & Disbelievers are “cattle” and of “no intelligence”: Plenty of confused liberal commenters at Bright’s site have had a go at justifying Hasan’s words and even insist that they have been taken out of context. Ditto at Harry’s Place.
Oh folly. Thy name is Britain.
UPDATE: NO MENTION OF THIS GATHERING FROM THE GREAT BRITISH DHIMMI PRESS , WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THIS TELEGRAPH BLOG WRITER (jump to below). That silence has been noted here. Notice where they got the story? I searched 10 pages on google for the recent HuT conference and found NO mainstream press mention. Would any REAL politician of REAL principle in Britain please make yourself heard? (Can I take that silence as a “no”?)
28th July, 2009
The conference was streamed live across the Internet and watched across the world.
The London Khilafah (Caliphate) conference followed a month long series of conferences in Lebanon, Kuwait, Gaza, Sudan, Tanzania, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US and Australia including a landmark gathering in Indonesia of thousands of leading scholars supporting the re establishment of the Khilafah and addressed by the global leader, Ameer of Hizb ut Tahrir, Sheikh Ata abu Rashta.”
“Was born!” … NOT the year he gave birth to Islamic fundamentalism by going into Iraq.
HuT’s worldwide HQ is in London. Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it? Well, doesn’t it?
In my recent post I felt the same response as the YouTube video uploader here.
Ed West (pictured)
Conference season starts a bit early for Islamists hoping to make Britain part of the Islamic caliphate (Khilafah), and Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain’s national Conference, “The Struggle for ISLAM and the call for Khilafah” in London today will certainly be one of the less tedious get-togethers this year (although less chance of a boozy one-night-stand, admittedly).
You may have heard of the group. They were built up by sponging radical cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad, who once called the 9/11 hijackers “magnificent” and spouted the cause of jihad against the West while scrounging £250,000 off the British taxpayer. Hizb have come close to being banned for their support of Islamic extremism, but our weak, enfeebled government, desperate not to upset anyone, worried it might drive them underground. Well, they sound like they’re really inside the big tent right now:
The conference was opened by Dr Abdul Wahid, Chairman of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain’s Executive Committee, who addressed the increasing anti-Islamic propaganda in the West and globally. Using the issue of terrorism and extremism Western governments have embarked on a campaign to prevent the Muslim world establishing an Islamic government, the Caliphate that will free the Muslim world from the terror and hegemony that has been brought upon it by the West. On a daily basis, Muslims are subjected to insults and attacks in the media on their Aqeeda, the hijab, Shariah and Khilafah. He argued that, in this critical time, Muslims needed to hold onto Islamic values living in the West, and resist the attempts to reform Islam, and to support the call for the Islamic Khilafah in the Muslim world – to end decades of oppression, colonisation and dependency.
The conference highlighted how the method to re-establish the Khilafah is based on the Life (Seerah) of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), which clearly laid out a non-violent intellectual and political struggle to bring about change. Hizb ut-Tahrir has continued with this method for over 50 years and calls Muslims all over the world to this path for change.
The conference concluded by emphasizing the key role the Muslim community in the West plays in terms of supporting the call for Khilafah in the Muslim world and carrying the Message of Islam to the wider non-muslim society, breaking the stereotypes and presenting Islam with sound argument and good example.
Right, so you want to support the establishment of a worldwide Islamic dictatorship, and at the same time “break the stereotypes” of Muslims.
There’s an argument that a group such as this, with its thinly veiled respectability, is more dangerous than an obvious barking mad organisation like al-Qaeda. Former member Ed Husain said: “Britain remains vital to the Hizb, for it gives the group access to the global media and provides a fertile recruiting ground at mosques and universities”.
There was a time when Hizb could have been laughed off, but the larger Britain’s Muslim population gets the more harshly we have to deal with people who talk about the caliphate, for the sake of British Muslims who prefer Christian Democracy as much as anyone.
A representative of the group once told the BBC: “I think Muslims in this country need to take a long, hard look at themselves and decide what is their identity. Are they British or are they Muslim? I am a Muslim. Where I live is irrelevant.” In that case, get out, for all our sakes, because anyone attending this conference or who is in sympathy with this group has no place in our country.
ENDS ARTICLE
RELATED
Prison Planet – the Crowd of Conspiracy Creeps (aka Caliphate Clan) – dumps the blame on the Western Conspiracy. That must be the reason Tony Blair tried to BAN this crowd of creeps after the London terror attacks of 7/7/2005. And, sadly, failed. His great conspiracy kind of backfired.
Oh, no, hang on … sorry I almost missed this convoluted consideration that conspirators contrive -
Blair only proposed banning it as part of the conspiracy to KEEP it.
R-i-g-h-t.
Back in your prison, dear inhabitants of planet ‘WHAT THE HELL?’
1. November 2006 – HuT posted videos on Youtube – Watch videos referred to here.
August 2005 – just after 7/7 terror attacks – “Blair accused of adding to the anger.” Excerpt:
“Tony Blair is fomenting anger and frustration in the Muslim communities by branding widely held Islamic ideas as extremist, a (Hizb ut-Tahrir) conference was told yesterday.
Organised by the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir, the conference in a central London hotel attracted nearly 1,000 people including 100 women.
Awwwww… bless!
2. Daniel Pipes on Islamist infiltration in Britain (at Westminter Journal)
Comment at end
Pope Benedict XVI oversees a vespers service for St. Peter and St. Paul's day in the St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica in Rome on June 28, 2009. The pontiff said recent scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul 'seem to conclude' that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint. AFP PHOTO/ Filippo MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)
The exhibit, Untitled 2009, is part of the Made In God’s Image exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow and was thought up by local artist Anthony Schrag. The intention was for gays and transsexuals who felt left out of religion to “write their way back in” to the holy book.
But visitors offered pens by gallery staff had other ideas, and have scrawled a series of puerile and obscene remarks.
One person wrote: “This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all,” while another wrote: “Mick Jagger and David Bowie belong in here,” and another described the book as “the biggest lie in human history”.
Some remarks were simply offensive, with one person writing “—- the Bible”.
The message “I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this,” was written on the first page of Genesis.
The subsequent complaints have led to the organisers of the exhibit putting the holy book on show in a locked case and inviting visitors to write their comments on blank sheets of paper instead.
But it was too late to appease the Pope.
The adviser to the head of the Catholic Church said the project was “disgusting and offensive”.
“They would not think of doing it to the Koran,” he added.
Mr Schrag undertook the project alongside members of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Edinburgh.
The exhibit also features footage of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth.
MCC minister Jane Clarke told the Daily Mail she was “saddened” that people had abused the interactive offer.
“I had hoped people would show respect for the Bible,” she said.
ENDS ARTICLE
Perhaps Alex Salmond, that other Scottish idiot, will have something to say about this. Don’t hold your breath.
Comment at end
28th July, 2009
But this poll – 52% for withdrawal, 43% against – hides the true story, surprise, surprise!
WHAT THE PRESS DON’T REMIND US
In fact, since a poll in November 2008, support for remaining in Afghanistan has actually RISEN. See BBC November poll report here, saying that at that time 68% wanted Britain to withdraw WITHIN TWELVE MONTHS, compared to 24% who didn’t agree!
So, support for remaining in Afghanistan has risen by 19%!
As he mourned for his soldier son, killed in Afghanistan recently, these were the thoughts of a Welsh father:
Stuart Elson, the father of Lance Corporal Dane Elson, 22, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, who was buried in Bridgend on Friday, said at the funeral: “I don’t know if we should be at war in Afghanistan.
“What I do know, as a police officer in Barry, is that we need to take action to stop terror from coming our way.
“Dane was part of that action and paid the ultimate price like so many others, so we may all sleep a little safer and easier in our beds tonight.”
Whatever could he mean? As a policeman in a small Welsh seaside town this proud father of a dead soldier is aware of the threats? Was he asked to expand on these thoughts? No of course not. Why not? The press. (More on this story here.)
Dale was born in Zimbabwe, brought up in England, and was buried with a Welsh flag over his coffin.
Stuart Elson used one word as his son was buried — “HERO”.
UNWINNABLE?
It is described by armchair politicians as the ‘unwinnable’ war in Afghanistan. Who describes it as “unwinnable”? The press. Some make ‘hopeless’ references to “history’s lessons”. Who? The press. Then there is the natural revulsion over troop deaths in July in Helmand? Under whose comparative assessment? The press’s.
So back to the wider issue, and it is wide, as here and here and here, for those who haven’t noticed.
ISRAEL/PALESTINIAN CONFLICTS
With hands outstretched Obama continues (for public consumption anyway) with his “soft power” approach towards those who understand little but tough action.
The good and the great of Obama’s administration are presently in the Middle East talking to Syrian leaders and of course, the Israeli leader, Benyamin Netanyahu. And, in what some might describe as a sop to a rattled ally, Israel, Robert Gates has now given Iran a date – September – to come back to America with a response to Obama’s “open hand” offer, and to seriously look at their nuclear programme.
Meanwhile the British government-in-waiting, David Cameron’s ‘Conservatives’, are, as usual, silent on their policy on these issues. Equally silent is Europe as individual states, despite its rightwards swing in recent EU elections.
We know where Mr Obama stands right now, although that could all change soon when reality hits home. But Mr Cameron? What does HE say about dealing with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and international AND homegrown terrorism?
NOT A LOT.
So is this the opportune moment to ask if interventionism has had its day? I think it may be.
We can be forgiven for a new democratic President moving away from too much interventionism; that’s why they voted for him – or part of WHY. But the idea that a new Conservative party in Britain will ALSO be non-interventionist is worrying indeed.
It’s true that Britain is no longer one of the top world powers, but we are in the top handful and we should be determined to remain there.
EVEN LABOUR IS UNSURE OF ITS POSITION
David Miliband and Gordon Brown are still supportive of the struggle in Afghanistan, true. And for that they should be thanked. Whether Miliband’s suggestion of talking to ‘moderate elements’ in the Taliban will bear fruit is another question.
But many in their party see Afghanistan in the same bracket as they see Iraq – ‘Blair’s War’ (and Blair’s folly.) In fact Tony Blair was right on both of these issues, as I believe time will show. AND, if the public hold their nerve. The Vietnam war was lost (just as it was about to be won) by American public opinion, NOT by the forces or politicians. Is the same about to happen in Afghanistan?
Denis MacShane, former Europe Minister under Blair, still espouses interventionism. But if you feel that few other British politicians do since Tony Blair’s departure, sadly, you’re right.
MacShane said on the Week in Westminster on Sunday night that Americans are still asking – “Who do we talk to in Europe? “
This has been asked before.
If a touch of reality sets in we may find that Americans talk to Tony Blair, perhaps the premier interventionist of our age.
A STORY OF SUCCESSFUL INTERVENTIONS
Fond of citing what they see as the “disastrous” Iraq war, and the “impossible Afghanistan” situation, the opponents of ANY interventionist action blithely forget the inarguably successful interventions – Sierra Leone and Kosovo to name but two in Blair’s ten years.
Of all countries – I mean ALL countries in the world – we Brits should be proud of the peace and democracy we have helped bring to numerous conflict zones around the world. Instead we hand-wring and threaten to vote hand-wringers into power.
We should be particularly proud of the interventionist stance taken by Tony Blair. Instead we do something that future historians are going to look at with the same puzzlement that they presently regard the ousting from power after the second world war of the victorious war leader Winston Churchill.
We turn our backs on the moral leadership of great leaders, and even damn them as morally inferior.
How odd. How British.
And, lest we have forgotten, INTERVENTIONISM, like charity begins at home.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Olivia O’Leary reported on the BBC Radio 4′s Westminster Hour on Sunday on the position of Ireland since peace in 2007. It was well worth hearing for those who have forgotten WHY Ireland might well vote YES to The Lisbon Treaty referendum re-run. Listen here until next Sunday night.
Excerpt, O’Leary:
“It was a salutory lesson to us coming from Ireland to find how little we figured in the great British scheme of things. Tony Blair was an exception to that and his efforts are reflected in Northern Ireland today. The process of peace there has allowed Irish people and Irish journalists at Westminster to move away from the old wounds and concentrate on a more normal relationship with our nearest neighbour on ordinary things like trade, on relations within the EU, on the sporting and cultural and family links that bind all of us on these islands. We’re not such strangers any more, you see. Maybe we never really were.”
By Shmuel RosnerPosted Friday, July 24, 2009, at 9:58 AM ET
Only a fool would be surprised by the series of explosions that occurred July 14 on the outskirts of the village of Khirbet Slem in southern Lebanon. The sudden detonation of Hezbollah’s arsenal was indeed unusual—but the incident drew attention to something that had almost been forgotten: The presence of international peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon, mandated in U.N. Resolution 1701, has not achieved its goal of “disarming and disbanding Hizbollah,” the Shiite Lebanese militia backed by Iran. It hasn’t even come close. (The resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah also declared, “There will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State.”) When U.N. troops approached the site of the blasts, they were stoned by local villagers attempting—successfully—to prevent the force from getting anywhere nearer to the ordnance.
For the last three years, the force deployed in Lebanon has managed to avoid trouble by maintaining “largely good” relations with Hezbollah—as the Associated Press put it. Of course, Resolution 1701 only “authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities.” But that’s a tricky definition. Capabilities as assessed by whom? Capabilities limited to what price in money and blood? With what consequences? Apparently, visiting a site where explosions have occurred is not within UNIFIL’s “capabilities”—but at least it can maintain “largely good” relations with Hezbollah.
It’s easy to mock the guardsmen in southern Lebanon, but Lebanon is just one example, and UNIFIL is just one unfit force. That’s because, quietly and unceremoniously, the era of successful international intervention has passed. The achievements of Bosnia and Kosovo, the refusal to accept a coup in Haiti, the debatable achievements of Iraq and Afghanistan, even the remorseful self-flagellation over Rwanda—all marked the time of can-do interventionalism. Intervention wasn’t always clean, it wasn’t always forceful enough, but it was a goal to be aspired to. Not anymore.
Consider the failure in Darfur—which I have already written about here twice. Consider Zimbabwe, where dictator Robert Mugabe has made a mockery of international disapproval, demands, and even assistance. Consider Iran, a country where election fraud was condemned and people took to the streets, all to no avail. In these three cases—and many others—the international community has offered little more than soothing words and hollow statements. What’s more, it has not even felt the need to mourn its inability to turn words into action. President Barack Obama was hailed for being opaque in the case of Iran, and his liberal supporters, who care intensely about Darfur, stayed mum when the new president made no detectable progress on this issue.
In this new world, caution is more important than intervention. What some have described as Obama’s “cult of pragmatism” is really a nice way of saying that Americans no longer have a taste for intervention. And without American leadership, there will be none.
Intervention was always a dangerous path, and the more powerful the country involved, the less likely the world was to take a stand. (China and Tiananmen comes to mind, as does Russia’s invasion of Georgia.) What has changed is the world’s appetite for force, even against less daunting regimes. The default way to explain this growing reluctance is to blame George W. Bush. And of course, the bloodbath of Iraq has made intervention less appealing to the public. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, writing a year ago in the New York Times, argued that “the era of intervention is over.” She continued, “The invasion of Iraq … generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes.”
But blaming Bush is an excuse rather than a reason. Cases like Sudan and Zimbabwe and Lebanon all show that American fatigue is not the only explanation. Also at play is the increasing ability of rogue leaders to deter the international community. To do this, they follow two simple rules learned from past interventions:
In Zimbabwe, this mix of menace and delay worked perfectly, as a recent Washington Post editorial convincingly argued:
[A]fter African nations brokered the formation of Zimbabwe’s coalition government, strongman Robert Mugabe must be pleased with the results. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, whose victory in last year’s presidential election was nullified by violence and fraud, is now charged with managing the economy; with help from foreign donors, he has managed to bring it back from the dead. World-record hyperinflation has been stopped; shops, schools and some hospitals have reopened; and a cholera epidemic has eased. Zimbabweans are finding it easier to obtain food and medical care and to send their children to school. At the same time, Mr. Mugabe’s control over the state remains unbroken.
In Iran, Obama’s desire to “engage” has made it difficult for him to support the opposition; meanwhile, the regime’s threats are far from subtle. “The Iranian nation warns the leaders of those countries trying to take advantage of the situation, beware! The Iranian nation will react,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned. Of course, warnings aren’t enough—as Saddam Hussein learned—and negotiation alone, with no persuasive threat of violence, can bring down a regime or an organization. But combining the two is a formula perfectly tailored to current international sensibilities. It has worked well for Sudan and for belligerent North Korea.
Americans often search for explanations by looking inward to apportion blame—by pointing a finger at Bush or Obama, expressing an urgent need to prioritize the economy, or rehashing the vices of liberalism and the sins of conservatism. While all these factors no doubt contribute to the current mood, looking inward is not enough—indeed, it’s just another sign of Western narcissism. The end of interventionalism is not just a sign of the mellowing of the West; it is also an indication that the enemy is getting stronger—and smarter.
ENDS ARTICLE
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