Zut Alors!
Tim Cavanaugh | July 12, 2005, 10:12pm
Daniel Pipes throws a curveball today. After counting off the increasingly familiar soft-on-terrorism case against the UK (protector of killers, de facto terrorism sponsor, Star Wars bar scene, etc.), he plants two kisses on the cheeks of Britain's neighbors across the Channel:
While London hosts terrorists, Paris hosts a top-secret counterterrorism center, code-named Alliance Base, the existence of which was recently reported by the Washington Post. At Alliance Base, six major Western governments have since 2002 shared intelligence and run counterterrorism operations - the latter makes the operation unique.
More broadly, President Chirac instructed French intelligence agencies just days after September 11, 2001, to share terrorism data with their American counterparts "as if they were your own service." The cooperation is working: A former acting CIA director, John E. McLaughlin, called the bilateral intelligence tie "one of the best in the world." The British may have a "special relationship" with Washington on Iraq, but the French have one with it in the war on terror.
France accords terrorist suspects fewer rights than any other Western state, permitting interrogation without a lawyer, lengthy pre-trial incarcerations, and evidence acquired under dubious circumstances. Were he a terrorism suspect, the author of Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, Evan Kohlmann, says he "would least like to be held under" the French system.
Like Al Pacino, Pipes is just gettin' started, and from here the article goes into a defense of the French government's hostility toward religious expression, which hardly started with Islam and doesn't exactly follow the American model of soft secularism. Even if that gives you pause, the whole article is worth reading and puts an interesting twist on what has, I think, been a pretty underwhelming performance by the Brits in the last week.
Last year Pipes confronted Berkeley loonies with a whip and a chair, and I alone escaped to tell thee.
Rick Barton | July 13, 2005, 1:11am | #
(Pipes') article goes into a defense of the French government's hostility toward religious expression
This is not such a shock coming from Pipes. He has a history of writing against individual liberty. Pipe's uncritical and total dismissal of conspiracy analysis in his;
Conspiracy : how the paranoid style flourishes and where it comes from is anti-intellectual and in it he commits some key errors of fact and logic. As to logical error: Pipes presents some bad conspiracy theories as sufficient cause to dismiss the whole discipline.
More to the point though is that Pipes takes great pains to try to establish and so emphatically insist on the bizare equation of conspiracy theories with pornography! But why?
A look at his words might reveal a motivation that is frightening considering his influence:
"Indeed, conspiracist writings constitute a quite literal form of pornography (though political rather than sexual). The two genres became popular about the same time, in the 1740's..." (p. 49)
And then he goes on to write:
"The United States has far and away the most complete freedom of expression of all the countries in the world (one survey of censorship calls it "libertarian to the extreme"), so conspiracist ideas banned elsewhere for their violent and noxious qualities find American publishers." (p. 118)
"Lauck's (a Nebraska neo-Nazi)stint in a German
jail for activities perfectly legal in the United States confirmed the exceptional nature of First Amendment freedoms and pointed to the alarm in foreign states about the American role in spreading conspiracism" (p. 119)
These quotes are concerning. First, he tells us that conspiracy writing is in fact real pornography and then he seems to lament the American freedom of speech as; "libertarian to the extreme", after all it does permit conspiracist ideas to "find American publishers." while they are banned else where and with seeming good cause, and after all, they do contain; "violent and noxious qualities". He than tells us that our First Amendment freedoms are behind foreign states "alarm" "about the American role in spreading conspiracism". (This "alarm" seems rather contrived considering the flimsy evidence for it that Pipes offers)
Well now; what is another attribute of pornography? (which of course, Pipes emphatically tells us conspiracy writings are but a form.) Pornography is a form of expression in America that has a history of being made illegal. It's reasonable, after reading his passages in
Conspiracy to conclude that Pipes' agenda is to lay the foundations for making some conspiracy writings illegal.
Consider that nowhere in
Conspiracy does Pipes allow how that this "libertarian to the extreme" freedom of expression we enjoy (recent Supreme Court decisions not withstanding) should not be changed. And, after all, he sees in our First Amendment freedoms, culpability for; "the American role in spreading conspiracism".
drf | July 13, 2005, 9:55pm | #
as someone who lived amongst the danes for more than 20% of my life (and i have a graduate degree from a danish university), i hereby take great offense to the notion that the danes would have prior knowledge of 9/11.
that's absurd. unless it involved giving nato info to the DDR, their intelligence service is useless!
To Rick's point:
the Mossad is the most sophisticated (ruthless?), advanced, and savvy intelligence force the world has known. It has to be. Israel is surrounded by a bunch of enemies. It is plausible that they had some advanced knowledge of some sort of attack, maybe not the extent to what it was, but of an attack. A minor attack (say, a hijacking) would have been good for their purposes in keeping their big brother close. Hell, a good friend and fraternity brother is in Iraq now, and his common saying is "you ask if i'm for the war??? hell, I'm Jewish!!", the implication from him is that being Jewish would increase the likelihood of being for Iraq. Why would he say that?
Those (Rick's and Jeff's (my friend's) are legit questions. They don't smack of anything other than political affiliation. We can figure out the increased probability of a self-identified "conservative fundamentalist southern christian"'s politics, too. And being aginst those politics or wary of that individual's motives should be okay, too.
For many people, being against the war in Iraq is the same as being anti-American. That's absurd. Being skeptical and questioning of the Sharon government is not anti semetic, either. That's absurd, too.
Should those of us who don't support the goals of AIPAC be bannished to the klan or some neonazi bullshit group? no way. but it often feels that way if you dare criticize the Likud gov't.
When I lived in Austria (about 1.5 years), I lived in the 2nd district. Across the canal, exactly, from where the Hotel Metropol once was. That was GESTAPO HQ. there's a memorial there. To catch the 1 or 2 trams or the U2 or to go to Schwedenplatz, I walked by it every day.
My place was next to a building that used to be a Synogogue. Until Krystallnacht. It was razed that night. But - the good guys triumphed and won. Today the buliding is being restored and is an active place of worship.
"We are each other's only friends in Europe" said Zev, a younger Orthodox, to me one day. He is right. That cultural fact doesn't change. Nor does that cultural fact get affected by politics. It wouldn't in a Hillary gov't. It doesn't in a Sharon gov't. It doesn't now. That cultural/personal tie won't get broken by questioning political motives. Even political motives gone horribly wrong.
For many the political state is different from the ethnic/religious state. Ask people who identify Irish if they approved of terror acts against the UK. Ask ethnic Germans how they feel about a few years ago. There is a difference.
Rick posts discussion points about a political decision in this huge game called international power politics. We all can consider than accept or reject those points based on the evidence we deem most important. Or on the scale of relevance and importance of evidence. Just because some point makes us uncomfortable (think: religious right), doesn't mean the thought or motive is anti the culture. It could just be critical of the politics.
Rick has been very clear in his honor of the individual, and individual liberty. He has spoken out in favor of religious freedom and governmental favor to none: very libertarian positions. To accuse him of something as awful as antisemitism, which, indeed, is the right wing equivalent to the accusation of "racism" or "elitism", without specific reason is mean spirited and deflects the point of his debate.
His debate separates the culture and the individuals from specific political practice. He equates governmental action with negative consequences. He has not once equated personal belief or personal religious practice with anything other than positive individual behavior. He has never blanket judged a culture. He has made statements about government practice. There is a difference.
Damn. I wish you could have been in some of my grad school classes where people wanted me to "apologize" for slavery (my family came to america in the early 1890s), and held those views or held christian conservative views as "american" (culturally held beliefs and practices). You'd see how bad that is...
Dan | July 14, 2005, 12:49pm | #
Rick Barton can relax about the Jews. This just in.
Top Stories
Gibson’s Father Convinces Jews To Give Up World Control
By Dan Barash
Mar 25, 2004, 08:30
Bowing to intense pressure from Mel Gibson’s father, Jews announced today that they would no longer control the world. In a press release, Jews stated, “Although we have thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of world domination for the last 300 years, we feel it's time for gentiles to take control of their own affairs. We plan to spend more time with our families and pursue other interests.”
Without Jews in the film industry, expect more Passion films, such as The Passion of the Bad Boyz, The Passion of the 007, and Batman 12: The Passion of the Latex-Fetish Bat-Freak.
Hutton Gibson stated he was pleased with the announcement, but expressed concern he was losing a scapegoat for all of his problems. He said he would be launching a search for a new minority group to demonize.
Many Jews expressed relief that they could give up burdensome responsibilities. Retired accountant Jerry Friedman, who controls all media in Montana, said, “I would just as well let the citizens of Montana manage their own TV and newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, Montana is a fine state. But it gets awfully cold, and there’s nowhere to get a good bagel.”
Attorney Allen Franks said he's glad he no longer has to manage Bulgarian monetary policy. “It was getting to be quite a hassle,” he said. “I already have a full time job and can’t even balance my own checkbook, let alone control the finances of an
entire nation.”
Homemaker Judith Levine said she would “...miss the hustle and bustle of setting the international price for magnesium every day. But my son is about to be Bar Mitzvah'd, and oy! Such a party we're gonna have you wouldn't believe!”
Is the future of comedy as we know it in his hands?
Hollywood producer Sidney Greenbaum was pessimistic about the announcement. “Do you really think goyim know how to make movies?” he asked. “They'll all end up being high budget, technicolor snuff flicks if you leave things up to Mel and his kind.”
Comedy experts expressed concern that the business would suffer if Jews suddenly withdrew. According to one insider, “Take away all the Jewish comics and writers, and all you have left is Carrot Top. That’s not a world I want to live in.”
A potluck dinner in honor of Jews contributions to mankind will be held at the Hoboken Holiday Inn on April 3. All gentiles are welcome to attend. Participants will be encouraged to share an an offensive Jewish joke.
