Columnist.
On Thursday, Australian authorities claimed they thwarted a plot by supporters of the Islamic State to grab random people off the street and then behead the captured citizens on videotape. Australia's attorney general said that the massive raid, the largest counterterrorism operation in the nation's history, involving more than 800 police officers and raids of at least 12 properties, was necessary because, "If the ... police had not acted today, there is a likelihood that this would have happened." Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed that the raids were prompted by intercepted phone calls, from an Australian of Afghan descent believed to be Mohammad Ali Baryalei. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he is suspected to be the "most senior Australian member of the terrorist group Islamic State, having traveled to Syria in April last year." A proselytizer for the "Street Dawah Movement," Barylei "was outspoken and wouldn't shy from speaking the truth regardless," a former fellow Dawah member told Fairfax Media. "He wasn't pleased with living in Australian society and wanted to live in an Islamic society away from open alcoholism, homosexuality, fornication, drugs and capitalism."
By all means, let's destroy Islamic State, but let's talk about it first. We are in a very strange place right now. President Obama is rushing into a war he doesn't want to fight. He can barely bring himself to call it a war. Obama didn't merely ignore the threat of Islamic State for the better part of a year, he ridiculed the notion the terror group was anything but a "jayvee team." Now suddenly, he wants to go to war.
"Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state." -- President Barack Obama in his address to the nation on Wednesday. About the second point reasonable people can quibble. The terrorist army that calls itself the Islamic State is certainly trying to build a state -- and not just a state, but a super state or caliphate. They're not there yet; their delivery of social services seems spotty at best, though they do collect taxes and uphold the law (in a fashion).
"I should have anticipated the optics," President Obama said by way of acknowledging that golfing right after making a statement about the beheading of James Foley looked bad. "Part of this job is also the theater of it," he said. "It's not something that always comes naturally to me. But it matters." For those who remember that this is the same guy with the Greek pillars, the campaign stop in Berlin, the newly minted "seal" of the president-elect, it was an odd confession. Obama likes theater just fine; he just doesn't like having to read from a script not of his choosing. That is probably why it took him so many tries to come up with the right words for what we will do about the Islamic State. One wonders whether he looked at the prepared remarks, turned to Valerie Jarrett and asked, "What's my motivation?"
We've all heard the expression: "A man's best friend is his equipment." You haven't? Well you must not work for the Pentagon. There, military dogs are considered mere "equipment" and as such can be left behind when the troops come home. It's a bit more complicated than that. Military dogs are enlisted (drafted actually) to identify enemy locations, to seek out bombs and protect bases. It is dangerous, often traumatic work. The dogs are credited with saving countless U.S. and allied lives, which is why the Taliban actively targets our dogs of war. While on active service, each dog is given a higher rank than its handler.
On the Internet, you're never really alone. Name any fad, any cause, any hobby or passion -- Shaker furniture? Dungeons and Dragons, Bolivian tree frogs? -- and you're only a few clicks away from someone who shares your obsession. That's great. It's also horrible. Because while there's no harm in tree frog fans sharing pictures and stories inspiring others to fly to the Andes to take pictures of exotic creatures, the Internet also lets evil people share stories and pictures inspiring others to cut off the heads of various infidels and apostates. Though I'm perfectly comfortable with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and similar platforms doing what they can to undermine the PR campaigns of fanatical murderers, my point here isn't necessarily that such things should be banned or censored (even if that were technologically feasible). I weary of reflexive responses to barbarism that involve curtailing the freedoms of Americans in order to not offend savages.
So much for non-ideological foreign policy. When Barack Obama ran for president he vowed to be non-ideological. He was a pragmatist and a problem-solver. It wasn't just that George W. Bush's ideology was awful, ideology itself was a kind of sinful stupidity. "What is required," Obama declared the day before his first inauguration, "is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels." On foreign policy in particular, Obama had been singing this tune for years.
I never liked it when George W. Bush used the term "evildoers" to describe al-Qaeda and other terrorists. A lot of other people objected as well, but for different reasons. I didn't like the term because it always sounded to me like he was saying "evil Dewar's," as in the blended Scotch. (This always made some of Bush's statements chuckle-worthy -- "We will not rest until we find the evil Dewar's!") I prefer single malts, but "evil" always seemed unduly harsh. The more common objection to "evildoers" was that it was, variously, simplistic, Manichean, imperialistic, cartoonish, etc. "Perhaps without even realizing it," Peter Roff, then with UPI, wrote in October 2001, "the president is using language that recalls a simpler time when good and evil seemed more easy to identify -- a time when issues, television programs and movies were more black and white, not colored by subtle hues of meaning."
Does the president think the world is a TV show? One of the things you learn watching television as a kid is that the hero wins. No matter how dire things look, the star is going to be OK. MacGyver always defuses the bomb with some saltwater taffy before the timer reaches zero. There was no way Fonzie was going to mess up his water-ski jump and get devoured by sharks. Life doesn't actually work like that. That's one reason HBO's "Game of Thrones" is so compelling. Despite being set in an absurd fantasy world of giants, dragons and ice zombies, it's more realistic than a lot of dramas set in a more plausible universe in at least one regard. Heroes die. The good guys get beaten by more committed and ruthless bad guys. No one is safe, nothing is guaranteed. There is no iron law of the universe that says good will ultimately triumph.
The events in Ferguson, Missouri, have launched a familiar spectacle: the race to be wrong first. Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American man, was shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The Washington Post had more on the story about what one witness called an "execution-style slaying": "Lawyer Freeman Bosley Jr. said Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown's, has told the FBI that Officer Darren Wilson confronted the two because they were walking in the middle of the street.
There's an old rule in journalism: All you need are three good examples to prove a trend. And by that measure, writer Robert Draper had more than he needed to declare a new "libertarian moment" in American politics. In a New York Times Magazine cover story, Draper made exactly that case. His chief evidence: Young people are more libertarian today, and libertarian ideas are having a renaissance on the right. Also, self-described "libertarian-ish" Sen. Rand Paul's star is on the rise, thanks in part to national exhaustion with foreign interventions. Plus: recent victories for legalized weed and gay marriage.
The hawks (including me) were wrong about a lot, but some got one thing right. It's going to be a long war. In the early days after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about a "clash of civilizations" and a long "existential struggle" facing the West. I once asked the late Christopher Hitchens what he felt on that terrible day, and he said he felt no small amount of joy. Not for the suffering and death, but for the fact that the West finally had been awakened to the terrible but necessary struggle before us. And for a time, many liberals bought into the idea that America was heading into a generational struggle with jihadism. There were a slew of books on the subject. Peter Beinart, for instance, wrote "The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again." As the subtitle suggests, there was a lot of partisan mischief in his argument, but it rested on the premise that liberals must accept that "Islamic totalitarianism" -- his phrase -- has replaced communism as our enemy. On this, at least, Beinart and company, briefly agreed with George W. Bush that the war against "Islamic fascists" (Bush's term) was the "decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."
In the summer of 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama was asked if he was worried that his proposed withdrawal from Iraq would result in ethnic cleansing or even genocide. He scoffed at the premise. "By that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now -- where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife -- which we haven't done," he told the Associated Press. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."
World War I started one century ago. Wait! Don't stop reading. For most Americans, the war is like algebra or frog anatomy -- something you have to study briefly in school but then never have to think about again. Unlike World War II, with its unambiguous villains, epic battles and clear victory, World War I is a hot mess. Countries and forgotten empires declared war on each other in no small part because a bunch of aristocrats in funny clothes said they had to.
With the usual fanfare and self-regard we have come to expect from the New York Times editorial board, the prestigious paper has changed its mind about pot. It now believes that the federal ban on the substance should be lifted and that the whole issue should be sent back to the states to handle. Not only did it issue a big Sunday editorial (the equivalent of a secular fatwa in my native Upper West Side of Manhattan), but it has since been flooding the zone on the issue with essays from members of the editorial board.
Let us now praise Democratic hypocrisy. Throughout my life, various Republicans have suggested amending the Constitution in one way or another. A few years ago, they suggested revising the 14th Amendment to get rid of automatic birthright citizenship. Before that, some proposed amending the Constitution to lock in the traditional definition of marriage. Ronald Reagan wanted a presidential line-item veto added to the Constitution. On nearly every occasion, Democrats opposed such efforts, not just on the merits but on the puffed-up principle that we mustn't "tinker" or "tamper" with the genius of the Founding Fathers' constitutional design.
"Sorry to email you late on a Friday, but I need your urgent support," Nancy Pelosi wrote me. The House minority leader went on to explain that "for the first time in history, Congress voted to sue a sitting president." And, "Today: the White House alerted us that they believe 'Speaker Boehner ... has opened the door to impeachment.' "What Republicans are doing to President Obama is historic -- and offensive," she wrote. And then, in a bright bold red text that can't be done justice in black and white, she chided me, "With everything happening right now, I'm a little disappointed to see that you haven't had a chance to chip in to defend President Obama.
"Here's the difference between us," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained on "Fox News Sunday." "We're using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles." It's a classic talking point. It's also objectively true, and that truth is very frustrating for Israel's critics. All one needs to do is delve into the muck of Twitter and read the timelines for such hashtags as #GazaUnderAttack and #GenocideInGaza: "They're killing the women and children to ensure there won't be a new generation of Palestine." "One Holocaust can NEVER justify another."
