by Mark Weston | Feb 28, 2008 | Middle East and North Africa
News that Turkey is to publish a modernised revision of the Hadith – the traditions that govern the practice of Islam – will come as a shock to those Turks who think the government wants to turn their country into a hardline Islamic theocracy. Rather than returning to the past, the AK Party is attempting to bring Islam into the present, modifying those traditions that beat down women, encourage “honour killings” and trash other religions in order better to reflect the values of 21st century society.
Not before time, I hear you cry. But don’t get too excited; some Muslim countries see Turkey as a traitor to Islam due to its support for America and its aggressive secularism, while others are just too far gone in the retreat to the dark ages to take any notice. There is resistance at home, too; as one Islamic sheikh darkly warned, “There are established views on Islam and how it should be practiced that have been in place for 1400 years. And they aren’t going to change any time soon.”
by Charlie Edwards | Feb 28, 2008 | Conflict and security, UK
Courtesy of The Times. We will be posting more on the UK Government’s CT legislation in the future.
by David Steven | Feb 28, 2008 | North America
Hilary Clinton’s futile and self-defeating attacks on Barack Obama are obscuring a much more significant phenomenon. At the margins, a robust, effective and alluring (to some) anti-Obama narrative is in gestation. And it’s going to be interesting to watch this migrate into the mainstream with every step Obama takes to the White House.
A good place to see what’s brewing on the fringes is this extraordinary column from the pseudonymous Asia Times columnist, Spengler. Like his namesake and fellow apostle of Western decline, Spengler revels in his role as a contemporary Cassandra. Based on scant evidence, he has peered into Obama’s soul and has come away repelled by what he sees.
The root of the problem, Spengler argues, is Obama’s parentage. His mother hated America so much that she married outside her culture and race, not once but twice. His father was ‘an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career’, typical of a class of Kenyans who collaborated with their colonial masters and became “hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.”
Her second husband, meanwhile, the Indonesian Lolo Soetero, took his new family into “the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediately following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.” Young Obama may not have become a Muslim, but his early experiences have left him anti-American to the core.
Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother’s milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion.
He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.
And behind this deracinated and tragic figure is the obligatory harpy, his wife Michelle. She, Spengler argues, burns with the rage felt by all ‘descendants of slaves’ and thinks nothing of ‘bitch slapping’ her husband when he fails to live up to expectations. Like Lady Macbeth, she will drive her weak-willed spouse down to the road to inevitable ruin, whether of himself or America.
So there you have it – a mother who betrays her race and a father who betrays his. A step father and wife who help produce a toxic rage. The result: the Presidential candidate as cuckoo, the archetype of an “embittered outsider manipulating the system from within to achieve his goals.” Spengler finds only one consolation:
It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama.
I think Obama can survive this stuff – but come the Autumn and assuming Hilary doesn’t make an extraordinary comeback – he’s in for an ugly ride…
by Richard Gowan | Feb 28, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
This is now nearly a day late, but I can’t resist juxtaposing two stories from Tuesday’s New York Times – stories which oddly enough, the NYT ran entirely separately. Put them together though, and you may find the magic equation for who will win in November. Story #1 concerned John McCain’s cheerful admission to journalists that “he needed to convince the American people that the troop escalation in Iraq was working and that American casualties there would continue to decline. If he did not, he said, “I lose” the election.”
Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made clear that he believed his prospects in November would rest in large measure on the way the situation in Iraq played out.
“If I may, I’d like to retract ‘I’ll lose,’ ” he said. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me.”
Mr. McCain said he believed opinion was shifting to his point of view, referring to a recent USA Today poll that, he said, showed that “now the majority of Americans believe the surge is succeeding.”
Fair enough. Now here’s story #2: the Pentagon has projected that U.S. troop levels in Iraq will still be at 140,000 in July – that’s 8,000 more than the pre-surge figure. And, judging by comments from the Joint Chiefs’ Head of Operations, the numbers may stay nice and high:
General Ham stressed that his projected number of 140,000 was subject to change depending on security conditions, but it was the first time the Pentagon had publicly estimated the total.
Asked if the total would be below 132,000 by the time President Bush leaves office next January, General Ham said, “It would be premature to say that.”
In other words, the military strategy in Iraq is likely to favor Mr McCain all the way through to November. No surprise, then, that he and Barack Obama have spent the last day trading insults on Iraq. But please don’t take my welcome for the European parliament’s new report on securing Iraq to be an indirect McCain endorsement – the Dashboard remains studiously neutral.
