Tag Archives: George W Bush

CAIR doth protest too much (Part 2)

For the second time in roughly as many weeks, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has publicly denounced President Bush for his efforts to clarify the nature of the enemy we face in this War for the Free World. The latest blast came in the wake of Mr. Bush’s major address Tuesday to the Military Officers Association of America, in which the President once again denounced the ideology that animates our Islamofascist foes.

A Tour de Force

While the entire speech deserves a close read, the following are among the highlights of the President’s powerful remarks (emphasis added throughout):

 

-"The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience – but they’re not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane.

-"These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They’re driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power.

-"They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a ‘caliphate,’ where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks — in his words – ‘a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate.’

-"This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri — he’s al Qaeda’s second in command — declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in ‘every land that was a home for Islam, from Spain to Iraq.’ He went on to say, ‘The whole world is an open field for us.’

-"We know what this radical empire would look like in practice, because we saw how the radicals imposed their ideology on the people of Afghanistan. Under the rule of the Taliban and al Qaeda, Afghanistan was a totalitarian nightmare….And Afghanistan was turned into a launching pad for horrific attacks against America and other parts of the civilized world — including many Muslim nations.

-"The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims, these extremists say there can be no compromise or dialogue with those they call ‘infidels’ — a category that includes America, the world’s free nations, Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the Free World.

-"These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them.

-"….Captured documents show al Qaeda’s strategy for infiltrating Muslim nations, establishing terrorist enclaves, overthrowing governments, and building their totalitarian empire….Through this strategy, al Qaeda and its allies intend to create numerous, decentralized operating bases across the world, from which they can plan new attacks, and advance their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free world.

-"These violent extremists know that to realize this vision, they must first drive out the main obstacle that stands in their way — the United States of America. According to al Qaeda, their strategy to defeat America has two parts: First, they’re waging a campaign of terror across the world. They’re targeting our forces abroad, hoping that the American people will grow tired of casualties and give up the fight. And they’re targeting America’s financial centers and economic infrastructure at home, hoping to terrorize us and cause our economy to collapse. Bin Laden calls this his ‘bleed-until-bankruptcy plan.’

-"Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a propaganda strategy. Bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to ‘launch,’ in his words, ‘a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.’

-"These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of Afghanistan, so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition forces drove them out five years ago. But they’ve made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq — the nation bin Laden has declared the ‘capital of the caliphate’….For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.

-"As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists….The Shia extremists want to deny them this right.

-"This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation’s resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.

-"Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda.

-"Iran’s leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran’s President declared in a speech that some people ask – in his words – ‘whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable.’

-"The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans — and now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons….The world’s free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

-"The Shia and Sunni extremists represent different faces of the same threat. They draw inspiration from different sources, but both seek to impose a dark vision of violent Islamic radicalism across the Middle East. They oppose the advance of freedom, and they want to gain control of weapons of mass destruction. If they succeed in undermining fragile democracies, like Iraq, and drive the forces of freedom out of the region, they will have an open field to pursue their dangerous goals. Each strain of violent Islamic radicalism would be emboldened in their efforts to topple moderate governments and establish terrorist safe havens."

-"We know what the terrorists believe, we know what they have done, and we know what they intend to do. And now the world’s free nations must summon the will to meet this great challenge. The road ahead is going to be difficult, and it will require more sacrifice. Yet we can have confidence in the outcome, because we’ve seen freedom conquer tyranny and terror before. In the 20th century, free nations confronted and defeated Nazi Germany. During the Cold War, we confronted Soviet communism, and today Europe is whole, free and at peace. And now, freedom is once again contending with the forces of darkness and tyranny."

Can You Hear Me Now?

The essence of President Bush’s extraordinary statement today might be found in the following paragraphs:

 

 

    I know some [in] our country hear the terrorists’ words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say. History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake….Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?

    America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We’re taking the words of the enemy seriously. We’re on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed.

Breaking the Code on CAIR

It is instructive that CAIR transparently does not want the American people to listen to the truth about the enemy we face. In its statement issued after the President’s address, the Council opined: "By focusing almost exclusively on the views of groups like Al-Qaeda and failing to address the concerns of the vast majority of Muslims worldwide who reject terrorism, President Bush grants undeserved legitimacy to extremists and marginalizes true moderates."

This contention is as wrong as was CAIR’s earlier statement in response to Mr. Bush’s absolutely accurate statement that we are "at war with Islamic fascists," in which it claimed Mr. Bush was equating – and defaming – Islam by pairing the two words. In both cases, the Council seeks to obscure the facts, sow confusion in the minds of Americans and, perhaps most insidious, promote an unwarranted sense of victimhood on the part of Muslims, here and abroad.

No one should be surprised that the Council on American-Islamic Relations persists in playing such a role. Its founding by Hamas operatives and sympathizers was monitored by the FBI. Three of its officers have been convicted of involvement in terrorist plots. And its affinity for the Islamists and service to their cause have prompted even Democrats like Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin to express concern about the organization’s ties to terror.

The Bottom Line

With due respect to President Bush, the question is not so much will the American people listen, as they should, to the words of the Islamofascists? Rather, it is whether they will stop having to listen to the words of the Islamists’ fellow travelers like CAIR, because the organization is no longer treated by the federal government as an interlocutor with or representative of tolerant, peaceable Muslims or allowed to use American airwaves to propagandize our countrymen?

The disloyalists

There was only one thing truly astonishing about the revelation last week that Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department during George W. Bush’s first term, was the source of Bob Novak’s first column about Iraq war critic Amb. Joe Wilson and his CIA agent wife, Valery Plame. That was the fact that Novak subsequently described the man who first "outed" Plame’s place of employment as "no partisan gunslinger."

A Partisan and a ‘Gunslinger’

The truth is that Rich Armitage is the consummate partisan gunslinger. It’s just that his partisanship is not usually defined by his allegiance to the Republican Party and certainly not to its current standard-bearer, President Bush. Rather, more often than not, Armitage slings his gun – or, more accurately, wields his stiletto – in the other sense of a partisan: one who wages war from behind enemy lines.

During the first term, Colin Powell and Rich Armitage lost policy battle after battle to the President’s loyal subordinates. It fell to Armitage to try to overturn or undermine those policies Powell opposed, in the interagency process, through leaks to the press (whose appreciation has been reflected in generally kid-glove treatment of the revelation of his role in the Plame affair), via back-channels with foreign governments and, not least, through attacks on his bureaucratic rivals.

The Gunslinger’s Drive-by Shootings

A prime example of such attacks was the Armitage-encouraged campaign against John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. During their four years together in the Powell State Department, the Deputy Secretary made no secret of his hostility towards then-Under Secretary Bolton. He encouraged insubordination, bureaucratic end-runs and personal attacks against Mr. Bolton by individuals assigned to State’s powerful regional bureaus and its intelligence organization.

Some of those responsible for such behavior – like Armitage cronies Carl Ford and Tom Fingar – subsequently sought publicly to sabotage the Bolton nomination, engendering a Senate filibuster that was only ended when Mr. Bush gave his choice for the UN a recess appointment. It is to be hoped that the Foreign Relations Committee will rectify this travesty by voting this week to confirm the re-nominated Amb. Bolton, whose past year of service at the United Nations has forcefully demonstrated the baseless nature of the partisans’ attacks on this outstanding public servant.

Rich Armitage’s mean-spirited partisanship is especially evident in the fact that neither he, nor Mr. Powell nor their lawyer, then-State Department Legal Advisor William Taft IV, saw fit to inform the White House that Armitage was the source of the Novak leak. The reason, according to reporters Michael Isikoff and David Korn: Armitage did not want to give the White House a pretext for placing the blame where it belonged – with the disloyal denizens of the State Department’s seventh floor.

To be sure, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was informed, in the hopes of minimizing the danger that the Deputy Secretary would be indicted and tried. But, in an act of real betrayal, the elected President who appointed Messrs. Powell, Armitage and Taft and his senior subordinates were kept in the dark – even as Fitzgerald’s inquiry subjected several of the latter, and the administration more generally, to relentless hectoring from Democrats and the media, career-imperiling grand jury appearances and dangerous distractions in time of war. Had the White House known the truth, the whole inquisition may have come to a screeching halt virtually at its outset.

Which brings us back to the point about the partisan at the center of this scandal. It was no accident that the people who came under most intense scrutiny thanks to Rich Armitage’s disloyalty were presidential advisor Karl Rove and the Vice President’s then-chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Both recognized that the Powell-Armitage State Department was not on the President’s team with respect to virtually any aspect of the administration’s post-9/11 foreign and defense policies. Weakening, if not removing, such counterweights to Foggy Bottom’s influence and agenda would have been a fringe benefit arising from the Deputy Secretary’s lack of transparency.

State’s Disloyalty Continues

Unfortunately, the sort of destructive and disloyal behavior Deputy Secretary Armitage epitomized continues to be practiced in high reaches of the State Department. Notably, Under Secretary of State Nick Burns has pursued in recent months diplomatic initiatives on such sensitive matters as North Korea’s missile tests and Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions that have mutated the President’s policies beyond recognition – and played into the hands of critics who accuse the Bush national security team of lacking coherence and competence.

Indeed, it is one of the great ironies of this presidency that an administration which prides itself on loyalty has for so long tolerated its systematic practice in the breach by the Department of State. The costs of such disloyalty have already been high: a government seen by friends and foes alike as distracted, at best, and, at worst, paralyzed by divided counsel, communicating mixed signals and signaling an irresolution that invites contempt and aggression.

The Bottom Line

Recent speeches by two of the people most loyal to Mr. Bush and his policies, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and by the President himself, have squarely addressed the danger we face: Islamic fascists are on the march and we dare not ignore their menace – or fail to meet it effectively. These brave men have made clear that appeasement is not an option. If they wish to be taken seriously, let alone to secure the support of the American people for their policies, however, they must ensure that the President’s team is no longer undercut by disloyalists among the administration’s own senior ranks.

Commending Senators Hagel and Chafee

As the Islamofascist regime in Iran rebuffs UN efforts to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons, the Security Council will once again become the scene of frenetic diplomatic activity.

America is fortunate to be represented in such negotiations by one of its most capable and tenacious representatives to the United Nations, Ambassador John Bolton. An opportunity to express the Nation’s appreciation for this extraordinary public servant and to strengthen his hand in sensitive meetings with friends and foes alike will occur when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meets on 7 September to vote on Amb. Bolton ‘s re-nomination by President Bush.

The Center for Security Policy strongly supports the Bolton re-nomination . It is recognizes both the high quality of Mr. Bolton’s performance over the past year and the necessity of maintaining continuity in the post at a time when myriad critical issues are on the UN’s agenda. It urges the Foreign Relations Committee to recommend favorably the Ambassador’s confirmation to the full Senate without delay.

The Center for Security Policy is particularly appreciative of the perspicacity and courage exhibited by two key Republican members of the Committee – Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island – when the Bolton nomination faced intense, mostly partisan and entirely unfounded criticism a year ago. Sens. Hagel and Chafee both voted to confirm Mr. Bolton.

Consequently, on the eve of their being asked once again to vote for Amb. Bolton , the Center has purchased television air time in the Omaha and Lincoln , Nebraska and Providence , Rhode Island media markets to thank the Senators for their past support and to encourage them to re-approve his confirmation on the basis of Mr. Bolton’s performance to date that has fully validated their confidence in him. The ad concludes by saying to the two legislators: "You did the right thing before. Do it again now."

The Center’s announcement today follows its organization last month of a powerful open letter to Congress signed by dozens of America ‘s most accomplished defense and foreign policy practitioners extolling Amb. Bolton ‘s record. These recent efforts parallel the Center’s campaign during the 2005 confirmation fight, which included, among other things, its release of earlier joint letter and television advertisement.

Commenting on the Center’s new TV campaign, its President, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., observed:

Over the twelve months since John Bolton assumed his current responsibilities, he has confirmed that the confidence Senators Hagel and Chafee and a bipartisan majority of the Senate reposed in him last year was well-placed. At a juncture when the United Nations is in a position to help with serious crises from Lebanon to Iran to North Korea, to undertake sweeping institutional reform and to mount and underwrite massive humanitarian operations worldwide, it is only appropriate that the Foreign Relations Committee and the full Senate now vote swiftly to confirm Mr. Bolton as America’s Permanent Representative to the UN.

The ad’s script reads as follows:

Last year, Senator Chuck Hagel [in Nebraska media markets]/Lincoln Chafee [in Rhode Island ‘s market] voted to confirm John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Senator Hagel/Chafee agreed with President Bush that we needed a man like John Bolton to get useful things done at the UN – and stop harmful things from happening there.

One year later, Ambassador Bolton has validated that judgment – advancing American interests and holding the UN accountable.

On September 7th, Senator Hagel/Chafee will have a chance to vote for Ambassador Bolton again.

Senator Hagel/Chafee: You did the right thing before. Do it again now.

 

The battle for India

By Robert T. McLean


With the conflicts and disorder of the Middle East consuming the attention of much of the civilized world, there is yet another battle raging on — though few in the West are even slightly aware of its potential consequences or that it is even taking place. This one involves the world’s great powers and will likely shape the international environment for the foreseeable future. The Bush Administration’s early March nuclear deal with New Delhi has set the United States on the proper course in this struggle, but if Washington is to emerge victorious, it must not let any short-term success come to be understood as the ultimate triumph and simply move on.

Much has been made about both the rise of China and a burgeoning India. Their elevated importance in a globalizing world has drawn commentators in both the East and West to predict that the 21st Century will ultimately become the Asian Century. A notion welcomed by both Russia and China as an avenue to create “multi-polar world order,” this potential shift in power has embroiled the Bush Administration in an unspoken competition for future primacy in Asia.

Right after the July 17 conclusion of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in an effort to strengthen their trilateral partnership. Initially articulated by former Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov in a moment of frustration during NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, the strategic triangle, as it is now frequently called, has progressed in its development yet maintains the vision of its architect.

Primakov was one of the pioneers of those with influence in Russia who advocated a foreign policy aimed at balancing the United States. Moscow has teamed with Beijing in this endeavor and together the two have recently come to view New Delhi as the key to success. Shih Chun-yu wrote in the Chinese state-owned Ta Kung Pao: “The Sino-Russo-Indian trilateral cooperation is only at its initial stage,” but when “the three nations agree to join forces, the consolidation will generate [an] unmeasured impact on international relationships.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko explained that this alliance is only natural as “Moscow, New Delhi and Beijing have common positions on many issues and support a multi-polar world order system.”

Indeed, there are numerous factors that could compel the Indians to join in this eastern bloc. Russia possesses both the natural resources and technology that New Delhi covets. Bureaucratic inertia — almost synonymous with India– in arms purchases from Russia is something the Bush Administration must counter if the United States is truly to build closer military-to-military relations with India, and organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are presently unmatched by what Washington can offer Singh. India was granted observer status in the SCO last year and while its intentions regarding full membership are unclear at this time, the Russia and China led alliance would allow New Delhi a greater influence in Central Asia, which it desires, and at least ostensible cooperation in counterterrorism efforts.

India, like China, is also rapidly seeking to fulfill its expanding energy needs. While recent competition between Beijing and New Delhi for hydrocarbons resulted in benefiting the sellers as it only increased prices, the two have found a channel to cooperate in this regard that has proven mutually beneficial. On August 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that China and India — through their respective state-owned companies, Sinopec Group and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) — acquired a fifty percent stake in the Latin America-based Omimex de Colombia. In late 2005, national oil companies from both countries joined to purchase stakes in Al-Furat Petroleum Company in Syria. This concentrated partnership will likely help alleviate the traditional hostility long existent between these Asian giants.

With all that the Russians and Chinese have going for them in their pitch to India, the United States has done remarkably well as of late. The Bush Administration inherited few initiatives that Washington could build on, but the president has taken advantage of some inherent qualities that both the United States and India possess and some burdens that each must address.

The United States and India are both longstanding democracies that happen to be fighting Islamic fanaticism and facing the prospect of China’s uncertain intentions that accompany its ever-expanding regional and global influence. Despite an increase in economic cooperation between Beijing and New Delhi — according to some analysts, China should become India’s largest trading partner next year — geographic and historical factors continue to contribute to mutual suspicion. Less than helpful in this situation has been the strengthening of the traditional alliance between Beijing and Islamabad. Compounding this problem is China’s construction at the Port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which essentially gives Beijing a naval presence on both sides of the Indian subcontinent.

Fortunately, a majority in Congress understand the implications of nuclear cooperation between the United States and India. On July 26, the House of Representatives passed the United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006 recognizing India as a nuclear weapons state. The Senate is expected to pass its own version of the bill next month, but it is imperative that excessive additional conditions are not placed on New Delhi as such an alteration of the original text of the agreement could jeopardize the entire bilateral strategic partnership. Although ties are consistently improving between Washington and New Delhi, setbacks this fall could push the Indians to conclude that the politically homogenous governments in Beijing and Moscow are more reliable partners than the politically tempestuous United States.

However, in the end it most likely that the nuclear agreement will become law and President Bush and Prime Minister Singh will continue to strengthen their relationship. While New Delhi has yet to sign on to the Proliferation Security Initiative, the biennial American led RIMPAC naval exercises held this summer included India as an observer nation for the first time. India’s desires to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council should also play to Washington’s advantage. While this is unlikely to occur in the near future, the United States could highlight the actual roadblocks in this effort as both China and Russia strongly oppose Japan’s — who along with Germany and Brazil would likely have to accompany India in any addition — request to be admitted as a permanent member.

Ashley J. Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in an extremely influential piece last year: “Unlike his predecessors, President George W. Bush has demonstrated a strong desire to transform relations with India, guided by his administration’s understanding of the geopolitical challenges likely to face the United States in the twenty-first century.” The Bush Administration has not yet won what the CIA has described as the most important “swing state” of the century, but the same demonstration of commitment and resolve that the president has displayed in Iraq should ensure that no Asian bloc arises to threaten the new American Century.

War on the Home Front

In recent days, it has become harder than ever to deny the true nature of the conflict in which we find ourselves. As President Bush put it recently, "We are at war with Islamic fascists." To be sure, the mounting evidence does not preclude some from denying this reality. The facts are sufficiently clear, however, that we must begin to question the judgment, if not the motivations, of those at home who persist in trying to obscure the central threat we face from the totalitarian political ideology known as Islamofascism.

Islamofascism on the March

One straw in the wind could be found in Sunday’s New York Times which prominently featured an article entitled "And Now Islamism Trumps Arabism." Although the author, writing from Cairo, used throughout the euphemism "political Islam," the import was unmistakable: With its attacks on Israel and its survival of Israeli retaliation, the Iranian- and Syrian-supported Islamofascist terrorist group, Hezbollah, has added luster and new recruits to longstanding efforts to subject the entire Muslim world – and, in due course, all non-Muslim populations – to Taliban-style Islamist rule.

The manifestations of this rising tide have become evident not only in the Muslim world – Arab and Persian, Sunni and Shiite alike. Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States are among a number of Western nations that narrowly averted terrorist attacks, all of which appear to have been orchestrated by adherents to one form or another of the Islamofascist ideology.

The Facts About Islamofascism at Home

Particularly worrying is the fact that at least some of the would-be perpetrators of such murderous attacks fall into a category increasingly described as "home grown" – that is, suicide-bombers who do not come from abroad, but are citizens of the country they are trying to afflict. Detecting and counteracting such individuals has proven to be even more challenging than the task of preventing their fellow ideologues from getting into the targeted nations.

While it is true that Western societies are increasingly arresting individuals suspected of involvement with terror who are native-born, to call them "home-grown" is misleading. This term understates the role being played by foreign Islamists who have been allowed to establish elaborate recruitment and indoctrination operations inside such societies, including the United States.

For example, mosques and their associated schools (madrassas), prison and military chaplain programs, college campus organizations and increasingly businesses induced to accommodate Islamist demands for employee prayer rooms, time off for prayers, etc. are being used as vehicles for inspiring and/or compelling adherence to the radicals’ ideology. Many of these operations receive generous funding from the most important promoter of Islamofascism in the world today, Saudi Arabia.

Enter CAIR

So what are we to make of the claims of a prominent spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, who has publicly denied that Islamofascist imams in some U.S. mosques preach and teach in their schools the destruction of America? In response to a question from CNBC host Larry Kudlow last Thursday, Hooper declared "I’ve been in a lot of mosques in America. I’ve never heard that. It’s not something that’s – I know of in the Muslim community. It’s put out and bandied about by anti-Muslim bigots constantly."

This is, of course, patent nonsense. Most, if not all, of those convicted of ties to terror (a population which includes, by the way, three former CAIR officials) have been associated with radical imams and mosques, Islamist missionary organizations like Tablighi Jamaat, and/or Saudi-funded campus or prison recruitment operations.

This is no accident. For example, Freedom House has carefully documented that the Saudis have been providing their mosques in America (Saudi Arabian-financed entities are said to hold the mortgages for as many as 80% of them) with materials that promote jihad against Americans and other "infidels."

For too long, organizations like CAIR (which was reportedly spawned as a political front for the Islamofascist terror organization, Hamas), have been given a pass as they make misleading statements and otherwise sow confusion about the nature of this war. Especially intolerable is their practice of branding those who challenge them and their conduct as "anti-Muslim bigots." (Ibrahim Hooper evidently used such unfounded charges to prevent Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. from debating him on Kudlow’s show last week. See Mr. Gaffney’s letter on the matter to CNBC President Mark Hoffman)

The Bottom Line

Now that we have no choice but to be clearer about the nature of our enemy in this war, we must stop treating those who apologize for, or otherwise do the bidding of, the Islamofascists as anything but what they are: Part of the problem. The FBI and the law enforcement community more generally, the military and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should stop allowing CAIR and its ilk to provide "Muslim sensitivity training" to their personnel.

Similarly, the U.S. government should refrain from granting those like CAIR access to security-sensitive facilities and operations. Incredibly, in June, according to WorldNetDaily, a senior DHS official personally provided CAIR representatives a "VIP tour" of the Customs screening center at the world’s busiest airport, O’Hare International – at the same time British authorities were trying to prevent the penetration of their airport security systems by Islamofascist terrorists.

Finally, the media must not allow, as CNBC recently did, CAIR’s bullying tactics to prevent its representatives from being held fully to account. Such practices will only perpetuate the kind of muddled thinking that has to date kept the U.S. from waging the indispensable "war of ideas" against the Islamofascists, both at home and abroad.

Indonesian rocks the cradle of Islamist insanity

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s Wall Street Journal profiles an extraordinary asset in the war of ideas against those who President Bush has correctly identified as “Islamic fascists.” Dhani – a rock idol on par in his country with Bon Jovi or Bono who uses his music to promote an anti-Islamist message – may seem an unlikely candidate for such a role, as this megastar was educated in a Wahhabist school sponsored by Saudi Arabia – traditionally an incubator for future jihadists.

Dhani and others such as former Indonesian President Abdurahman Wahid are affiliated with the Winston-Salem-based Libforall Foundation led by C. Holland Taylor. The Center for Security Policy and its Muslims Speak Out (MSO) project were privileged to partner with Libforall in bringing President Wahid’s message of anti-Islamism to an American audience via video-teleconference on June 26. The Center is pleased that Dhani has agreed in principle to participate in a future MSO event this fall.

The courage and authority of visionary moderate Muslims such as Dhani and Wahid represent the greatest hope that Islamic people and others throughout the Free World will prevail over their common enemy: Islamofascism.

 

 

This Muslim Rocker Preaches Tolerance to a Strong Drumbeat
By Mary Kissel
The Wall Street Journal, 15 August 2006
“Why did I choose an Arabic beat? Because the Muslims think it’s a Muslim song. It’s not! It’s a universal song.”

So explained Dhani, the pony-tailed, baby-faced founder of one of Indonesia’s most popular rock ‘n’ roll bands, Dewa, on a recent afternoon here. Blasting a track from the group’s latest album, “Republic of Love,” Dhani explained how his faith, Sufism — a mystic, tolerant form of Islam — informs his music. Despite appearances, Dhani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is a very different kind of rock superstar. He’s promoting moderate Islam — vocally — in a linchpin country in the war on terror.

Crammed into the back seat of his minivan while Dhani lounges upfront, I struggled to scribble down his words, barely audible as the booming bass shook the seats. “Wahai jiwa yang tenang!” (“O serene soul!”), blared the opening riff from the first song, “Warriors of Love,” with a strong drumbeat backing it up. The tune’s title in Indonesian, “Laskar Cinta,” is a play on “Laskar Jihad” (“Warriors of Holy War”), Indonesia’s homegrown, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. But the song couldn’t be more different from what they preach; Dhani sings about religious freedom, weaving in Quranic references easily recognizable to Dewa’s primary audiences in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, and neighboring Malaysia.

It’s a conscious strategy; a cynic might even dismiss it as a marketing ploy. Dhani explains that he tucks messages of tolerance and peace beside Western, straight rock beats and halting, syncopated Arabic rhythms. Western-minded types and even radicalized Muslims buy his albums — and, one hopes, his tolerant vision, too. So far, so good: The group’s new album is on track to sell a million legal copies in Indonesia alone; estimates put the volume of pirated versions at three to four times that number. The current disc’s lead track was No. 1 in Indonesia for three weeks, running from last December to January, and the video reached MTV’s top 10 chart. EMI plans to release an English-language version of Dewa’s music into foreign markets soon.

It’s ingenious, and infectious; indeed, some of Dewa’s tracks could easily be mistaken for those of a Saudi Arabian pop band — one whose members listened to Queen and classic rock as kids. But as the final verse of “Warriors of Love” fills the car, it echoes this holy verse: “O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another, and not to despise each other.” A tad more thoughtful than “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and not exactly what Dhani’s hardline Islamic groupies are taught in their madrassas.

Dhani, 34, is an unlikely proselytizer for peace. His grandfather participated in the Daru Islam Islamist guerrilla movement, which counted among its members the terrorist group leader who plotted the Bali bombings a few years back. Dhani’s father, Eddy, followed in his father’s footsteps, figuring prominently in an organization bent on preaching Wahhabism. Dhani’s Indonesian-born mother, Joyce, proved a more moderating influence — she converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam when she married. (But “she learned Islam from me, not my father,” Dhani confides quietly.)

As a youngster, Dhani attended a Wahhabist school. (Wahhabism, the prominent Muslim sect in Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, promotes a strict observance of Islam; Sufism is historically dominant in Indonesia, among Muslims.) But the Wahhabist message didn’t sit well with Dhani: In his teens, the young rebel dropped out of high school and started Dewa, also sometimes called Dewa 19, a reference to a personnel change when the band members were 19 years old. The name, an acronym of the founding members’names, ironically means “God” in Sanskrit. The group’s catchy tunes caught on quickly; today in Indonesia, Dhani is a superstar on par with Bon Jovi or Bono.

Yet Dhani’s message is arguably far more powerful — and meaningful — than those Western rockers’ ditties. Since the fall of Suharto’s autocratic regime in 1998 and the advent of democracy, support for hardline Islamic political parties in Indonesia has grown. While such groups are by no means supported by the majority, mostly moderate Javanese, recent events — such as public calls to impose sharia, or Islamic law, the prosecution of the editor of Playboy’s Indonesian edition, and virulent anti-Western demonstrations — speak to Wahhabism’s creeping influence on the archipelago, as does a quick count of the scarves on women’s heads in metropolitan Jakarta.

Dhani has responded not only through his music, but by joining a small — but growing — group of religious moderates who are trying to educate Indonesians about tolerant forms of Islam. Organized by LibForAll, a small U.S. foundation based in Winston-Salem, N.C., its members include former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a great Sufi leader; Abdul Munir Mulkhan, a prominent former member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah, one of the world’s largest Muslim organizations; and Azyumardi Azra, an outspoken Islamic intellectual, among others.

The risks are great for vocal religious moderates like the ones affiliated with LibForAll. Last year, after Dewa released an album that featured the word for “Allah” in Arabic script on its cover, Dhani was labeled an apostate. Fearing for his wife, Maya, and their three children, Dhani moved them into a hotel. Only when Abdurrahman Wahid held a press conference supporting the rock star did Dhani feel safe enough to move them home again.

Dhani seems unperturbed by his mission. When I asked him about it, he laughed, talked about his faith (his children are named after Sufi saints), and turned the car stereo up.

As we crawled through traffic, one of Dhani’s troupe reminded me that Dhani isn’t the first to have this calling. In a neat historical parallel, Dhani’s savior and mentor, Mr. Wahid, is a direct descendant of Siti Jenar, a 16th-century Sufi prophet who also preached tolerance in the face of a militant Islamic group in Java. He was executed for his faith, and legend has it that his blood sprayed “Allah is good!” in the sand as he died. He was later heralded as a true prophet of Allah. In the notes for his latest album, Dhani thanks Syekh Lemah Abang (“Reddish-brown earth”) — a reference to the town where Siti Jenar once lived.

Dhani laughed again when I asked him if the story of Siti Jenar’s death is true, and if he’s been compared to the prophet. He nodded, and smiled. And then he turned the music up again.

Ms. Kissel is The Wall Street Journal Asia’s editorial page editor.

 

Mixed signals

Last week, the Bush Administration sent profoundly mixed signals about its attitude towards the War for the Free World and the enemies who threaten us and other freedom-loving peoples.

Getting it Right

On the one hand, there was the President’s commendable reaction to the murderous plot to destroy as many as ten passenger aircraft bound from Britain to the United States. Mr. Bush correctly, and courageously, declared that "We are at war with Islamic fascists."

This is not the first time President Bush has used such a formulation but the timing of this statement – coming as it did amidst intense media and public interest in the breaking story out of the UK – caused his characterization of our foes as Islamic fascists to receive considerable attention. It also prompted the "usual suspects" (organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR) to rush forth to denounce such a clear and accurate depiction of the totalitarian character and political agenda of our enemies. (See the Center’s response to CAIR’s broadside and its own letter to President Bush).

Although his critics accused the President of misrepresentation, it was they who engaged in such a practice. For example, CAIR falsely charged that he had "equated the religion of peace [Islam] with the ugliness of fascism." In fact, Mr. Bush did something altogether different – and laudable: He made clear that those who use Islam to justify and provide political cover for their totalitarian aggression are at odds not only with America but with Islam, itself.

Such dangerous ideologues cannot be appeased. They must be destroyed.

Getting it Wrong

Unfortunately, at virtually the same moment that Mr. Bush was helpfully clarifying what we are up against, his subordinates were busily handing Islamic fascists their greatest victory since they drove the United States out of Somalia in March 1994: an artificial and unsustainable ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

The content and timing of the UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously last Friday represent a defeat for the Free World – most especially the United States and Israel – and will protect and greatly embolden their Islamofascist foes, Hezbollah and its sponsors, Iran and Syria. The Center for Security Policy’s Senior Mideast Fellow, Caroline Glick, has enumerated the reasons why in a powerful condemnation in Sunday’s Jerusalem Post. Among them are the following:

"…In practice, [the resolution] makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hezbollah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale."

"…The resolution places responsibility for determining compliance in the hands of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has distinguished himself as a man capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense, while ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war crimes. By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hezbollah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself."

"The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hezbollah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hezbollah’s sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression."

"[The new Security Council resolution] puts both the question of an arms embargo and Hezbollah’s dismantlement off to some future date when Israel and Lebanon agree to the terms of a ‘permanent cease-fire.’ In addition, it places the power to oversee an arms embargo against Hezbollah in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a member."

"From a U.S. perspective, the resolution drastically increases the threat of a radical Shi’ite revolt in Iraq. Hezbollah is intimately tied to Iraqi Shi’ite terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr. In April 2003, Hezbollah opened offices in southern Iraq and was instrumental in training the Mahdi Army, which Sadr leads. During a demonstration in Baghdad last week, Sadr’s followers demanded that he consider them an extension of Hezbollah, and expressed a genuine desire to participate in Hezbollah’s war against the U.S. and Israel."

The Bottom Line

President Bush is to be commended for his effort to make plain the danger posed by Islamofascists. By so doing he has also implicitly underscored the imperative of waging this war on the ideological level – what Donald Rumsfeld has called the "battle of ideas." For far too long, America has done far too little to fight and win on this front of the War for the Free World. We can no longer afford to do so.

Tragically, the Bush Administration has simultaneously dealt itself a major tactical setback – and perhaps a serious strategic one – in that war. By negotiating and supporting a ceasefire that leaves some of the most virulent and aggressive adherents to the Islamofascist ideology in business, it has not only strengthened Hezbollah. It emboldened its state-sponsors and fellow-travelers the world over.

The ceasefire effectively negotiated with Islamic fascists (albeit through Lebanese and European surrogates), will surely prove an interlude, not a permanent suspension of hostilities between Hezbollah and its sponsors on the one hand, and the Free World on the other. The length of that interlude and the magnitude of the danger we will confront thereafter can only be surmised at this juncture. It seems a safe bet at this juncture, however, that if the fighting resumes on the Islamofascists’ terms and timetable, the threat to Israel, the United States and other freedom-loving nations will be substantially greater even than it is today.

Letter to President Bush on CAIR

11 August 2006

Hon. George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

On behalf of all those who wish for your success in waging what can best be described as "the War for the Free World," I want to commend you for your forthright statement yesterday that "We are at war with Islamic fascists."

Such a statement is, of course, not only accurate. It is essential to the American people’s understanding of and support for this war that they grasp what we confront: A totalitarian ideological movement whose adherents are determined to destroy non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

You have been attacked by some who seek to obscure the difference between tolerant, peaceable and law-abiding Muslims and Islamofacists. But it is your critics who are misrepresenting the facts when they claim, for example, that you have "equated the religion of peace [Islam] with the ugliness of fascism." We believe that you are doing something altogether different – and laudable: You are making clear that those who use Islam to justify and provide political cover for their totalitarian aggression are at odds not only with America but with Islam, itself.

One other virtue of your depiction of our immediate foe as a totalitarian political movement is that it underscores the imperative of fighting it at the ideological level – the "war of ideas." There is much to be done with respect to this front, and we are eager to assist you in making progress there.

In fact, as you may recall, when I had the opportunity last February to present you with a copy of our book, War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, I told you my colleagues and I had written it for you – to help you fight and win this conflict, using tools that had not yet been brought to bear as effectively as possible. To do that, however, it has been essential to "know the enemy." With your courageous declaration of yesterday, you have made great strides in that direction and set the stage for the other steps we have recommended.

Thank you for your leadership in this War for the Free World. Please redouble your efforts to inform and mobilize the American people so that our country can make common cause with anti-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims the world over to defeat our common foe: Islamofascism.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
President & CEO

CAIR doth protest too much (Part 1)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has, in characteristic high dudgeon, lashed out today against President Bush for his statement yesterday that "We are at war with Islamic fascists." As usual, CAIR is casting itself in the role of defender and spokesman for all Muslims. In so doing, it portrays the latter as a community of victims who are defamed anytime someone points out that there is an ideology – call it Islamofascism – that masquerades as a faith, yet is distinct from Islam. What utter rubbish.

Blowing Smoke

In its press release issued today, CAIR announced that its chairman, Parvez Ahmed, had written President Bush complaining that his comment about Islamic fascists "contributes to a rising level of hostility to Islam and the American-Muslim community." Actually, Mr. Bush is doing just the opposite. By recognizing the totalitarian political movement that is seeking to subject the world’s population – Muslim and non-Muslims, alike – to its ideology, the President is at long last clarifying that we are not fighting "terrorism." Rather, we are fighting identifiable enemies who adhere to an Islamist ideology and use terror as an asymmetric weapon to advance its political objectives.

By making a distinction, on the one hand, between those Muslims in America, and elsewhere, who are peaceable, law-abiding and tolerant, and, on the other, Islamofascists who are killing and intimidating them as a precursor to dominating the rest of us, Mr. Bush is doing the exact opposite of what CAIR’s Ahmed claims: "equat[ing] the religion of peace [Islam] with the ugliness of fascism." He decidedly is not "feed[ing] the perception that the war on terror is actually a war on Islam." To the contrary, he is indicating that those who use Islam to justify and provide political cover for their totalitarian aggression are at odds not only with America . We can – and must – wage war against the former, while helping the majority of Muslims protect their faith from the predations of the Islamofascists. but with Islam, itself

What is Going On Here?

CAIR’s bitter assault on the President seems over the top, even for an organization much given to hyperbolic attacks on those who dare challenge its efforts to defend, excuse or otherwise help Islamists and their causes. (The Islamists preferred technique is to suggest that its critics are "racists" and "bigots.") Quite possibly, that is because Mr. Bush’s declaration about the nature of our enemy suggests that the carefully cultivated and undue influence long exercised over his Administration by CAIR and its fellow-travelers (see, " A Troubling Influence") is at an end.

In fact, as Dr. Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chandra made clear in a scrupulously documented article in the Spring 2006 edition of The Middle East Quarterly (" CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment"), the Council on American-Islamic Relations is not the kind of company the President and his subordinates should have been keeping in the first place:

There is [a] side to CAIR that has alarmed many people in positions to know. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to deal with it. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York ) describes it as an organization "which we know has ties to terrorism." Senator Dick DurbinSteven Pomerantz, the FBI’s former chief of counterterrorism, notes that "CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups." The family of John P. O’Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having "been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism" responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls it "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas." (Emphasis added.) (Democrat, Illinois ) observes that CAIR is "unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect."

The Bottom Line

At the very least, President Bush has every reason from now on to do as he should have at least since 9/11: Conduct his outreach to the Muslim community through organizations and individuals not associated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its usually Saudi-funded Islamist friends.

Center for Security Policy’s President, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., made these and similar points in his own letter to President Bush today . Mr. Gaffney commended the President for his forthright and accurate depiction of the enemy we face most immediately today, Islamofascism, and urged him to adopt the steps identified in a book published last year by a number of Center for Security Policy associates and staff entitled War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World (Naval Institute Press, www.WarFooting.com).

Wanted: A real energy security bill

Today President Bush will, with much fanfare, sign the long-awaited "comprehensive" energy bill into law. Regrettably, the bill fails to do what needs most to be done: Make dramatic strides towards reducing the Nation’s vast – and growing – requirement for oil, especially that imported from unstable and/or malevolent regimes. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman sarcastically quipped last Friday, "Wow, I am so relieved that Congress has finally agreed on an energy bill. Now that’s out of the way, maybe Congress will focus on solving our energy problem."

Friedman emphasizes themes that have animated the Center’s collaboration with the Set America Free Coalition, quoting one of its leaders, Dr. Gal Luft of the Institute for the Assessment of Global Security, as saying the energy bill amounts to the $12 billion "sum of all lobbies." The columnist describes in words reminiscent of the Coalition’s blueprint and accompanying Open Letter to the American people the crisis that we face.

Specifically, Friedman notes that demand for oil is unprecedented and increasing. The growing economies of both China and India are requiring ever-larger quantities of petroleum. Worse yet, we are at war, effectively financing with our energy imports from the Mideast "both sides of the war on terrorism: our soldiers and the fascist terrorists." Not a little of that terror is aimed at crippling or destroying energy-related infrastructure.

As a result of these factors, the price of oil today is high – commanding over $61 per barrel at the moment – and likely only to become higher. There is no reason to believe that the recent ascension to the Saudi throne of the erstwhile Crown Prince will offer any relief. That is especially true if, as posited by Matthew Simmons in his compelling new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, much of the world’s putative reserve oil in Saudi Arabia is not actually there.

Tom Friedman embraces the Set America Free Coalition’s strategic approach for remedying this problem. The solution lies in the transformation of the petroleum-based transportation sector to one based on next-generation fuels and vehicles to utilize them. He notes that, as Dr. Luft has observed, ethanol derived from sugar has transformed Brazil’s energy security situation – and could, with the help of our new CAFTA and other, friendly Latin American and Caribbean partners, help transform ours.

The Center does not always agree with Mr. Friedman but it commends him for getting this issue right and for properly taking both the White House and Congress to task for enacting energy legislation that largely fails to get on with the urgent task of setting America free of its current oil addiction.

 

Too Much Pork and too Little Sugar
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times, 5 August 2005

Wow, I am so relieved that Congress has finally agreed on an energy bill. Now that’s out of the way, maybe Congress will focus on solving our energy problem.

Sorry to be so cynical, but an energy bill that doesn’t enjoin our auto companies to sharply improve their mileage standards is just not serious. This bill is what the energy expert Gal Luft calls "the sum of all lobbies." While it contains some useful provisions, it also contains massive pork slabs dished out to the vested interests who need them least – like oil companies – and has no overarching strategy to deal with the new world.

And the world has changed in the past few years. First, the global economic playing field is being leveled, and millions of people who were out of the game – from China, India and the former Soviet empire – are now walking onto the field, each dreaming of a house, a car, a toaster and a microwave. As they move from low-energy to high-energy consumers, they are becoming steadily rising competitors with us for oil.

Second, we are in a war. It is a war against open societies mounted by Islamo-fascists, who are nurtured by mosques, charities and madrasas preaching an intolerant brand of Islam and financed by medieval regimes sustained by our oil purchases.

Yes, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: our soldiers and the fascist terrorists. George Bush’s failure, on the morning after 9/11, to call on Americans to accept a gasoline tax to curb our oil imports was one of the greatest wasted opportunities in U.S. history.

Does the energy bill begin to remedy that? Hardly. It doesn’t really touch the auto companies, which have used most of the technological advances of the last two decades to make our cars bigger and faster, rather than more fuel-efficient. Congress even rejected the idea of rating tires for fuel efficiency, which might have encouraged consumers to buy the most fuel-efficient treads.

The White House? It blocked an amendment that would have required the president to find ways to cut oil use by one million barrels a day by 2015 – on the grounds that it might have required imposing better fuel economy on our carmakers.

We need a strategic approach to energy. We need to redesign work so more people work at home instead of driving in; we need to reconfigure our cars and mass transit; we need a broader definition of what we think of as fuel. And we need a tax policy that both entices, and compels, U.S. firms to be innovative with green energy solutions. This is going to be a huge global industry – as China and India become high-impact consumers – and we should lead it.

Many technologies that could make a difference are already here – from hybrid engines to ethanol. All that is needed is a gasoline tax of $2 a gallon to get consumers and Detroit to change their behavior and adopt them. As Representative Edward Markey noted, auto fuel economy peaked at 26.5 miles per gallon in 1986, and "we’ve been going backward every since" – even though we have the technology to change that right now. "This is not rocket science," he rightly noted. "It’s auto mechanics."

It’s also imagination. "During the 1973 Arab oil embargo Brazil was importing almost 80 percent of its fuel supply," notes Mr. Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. "Within three decades it cut its dependence by more than half….During that period the Brazilians invested massively in a sugar-based ethanol industry to the degree that about a third of the fuel they use in their vehicles is domestically grown. They also created a fleet that can accommodate this fuel." Half the new cars sold this year in Brazil will run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol. "Bringing hydrocarbons and carbohydrates to live happily together in the same fuel tank," he added, "has not only made Brazil close to energy independence, but has also insulated the Brazilian economy from the harming impact of the current spike in oil prices."

The new energy bill includes support for corn-based ethanol, but, bowing to the dictates of the U.S. corn and sugar lobbies (which oppose sugar imports), it ignores Brazilian-style sugar-based ethanol, even though it takes much less energy to make and produces more energy than corn-based ethanol. We are ready to import oil from Saudi Arabia but not sugar from Brazil.

The sum of all lobbies. …

It seems as though only a big crisis will force our country to override all the cynical lobbies and change our energy usage. I thought 9/11 was that crisis. It sure was for me, but not, it seems, for this White House, Congress or many Americans. Do we really have to wait for something bigger in order to get smarter.