Mark Steyn's Blog, page 20

Lying in State

Rich, re the silence of the State Department, I understand that America has decayed from a land of laws to a land of legalisms but the position that no one at State can say a word about Benghazi because there's now an FBI investigation, and so it's a sub judice police matter, and Sgt Friday has flown out with an extra long roll of yellow "DO NOT CROSS" tape and strung it round the smoking ruins of the US consulate and the "safe house" is stark staring nuts.

This is a security fiasco and a strategic debacle for the foreign policy of the United States, not a liquor store hold-up. What is wrong even with the bland, compliant, desiccated, over-credentialed, pansified, groupthink poodles of the press corps that they don't hoot and jeer at Victoria Nuland? I know why she's doing it; I know why Hillary Clinton is desperately trying to suggest that some movie trailer on YouTube is the reason that a mob in Benghazi knows the location of the US Ambassador's safe house. But why would anybody else even pretend to take this stuff seriously? Elderly Soviet propagandists must be wondering why they wasted their time jamming radio transmitters and smashing printing presses when they could just have sent everyone to Columbia Journalism School.

More on the insane, post-modern unreality of the dying superpower in my weekend column.   

Disgrace in Benghazi

So, on a highly symbolic date, mobs storm American diplomatic facilities and drag the corpse of a U.S. ambassador through the streets. Then the president flies to Vegas for a fundraiser. No, no, a novelist would say; that’s too pat, too neat in its symbolic contrast. Make it Cleveland, or Des Moines.

The president is surrounded by delirious fanbois and fangurls screaming “We love you,” too drunk on his celebrity to understand this is the first photo-op in the aftermath of a national humiliation. No, no, a filmmaker would say; too crass, too blunt. Make them sober, middle-aged midwesterners, shocked at first, but then quiet and respectful.

The president is too lazy and cocksure to have learned any prepared remarks or mastered the appropriate tone, notwithstanding that a government that spends more money than any government in the history of the planet has ever spent can surely provide him with both a speechwriting team and a quiet corner on his private wide-bodied jet to consider what might be fitting for the occasion. So instead he sloughs off the words, bloodless and unfelt: “And obviously our hearts are broken#...#” Yeah, it’s totally obvious.

And he’s even more drunk on his celebrity than the fanbois, so in his slapdashery he winds up comparing the sacrifice of a diplomat lynched by a pack of savages with the enthusiasm of his own campaign bobbysoxers. No, no, says the Broadway director; that’s too crude, too ham-fisted. How about the crowd is cheering and distracted, but he’s the president, he understands the gravity of the hour, and he’s the greatest orator of his generation, so he’s thought about what he’s going to say, and it takes a few moments but his words are so moving that they still the cheers of the fanbois, and at the end there’s complete silence and a few muffled sobs, and even in party-town they understand the sacrifice and loss of their compatriots on the other side of the world.

#ad#But no, that would be an utterly fantastical America. In the real America, the president is too busy to attend the security briefing on the morning after a national debacle, but he does have time to do Letterman and appear on a hip-hop radio show hosted by “The Pimp with a Limp.” In the real State Department, the U.S. embassy in Cairo is guarded by Marines with no ammunition, but they do enjoy the soft-power muscle of a Foreign Service officer, one Lloyd Schwartz, tweeting frenziedly into cyberspace (including a whole chain directed at my own Twitter handle, for some reason) about how America deplores insensitive people who are so insensitively insensitive that they don’t respectfully respect all religions equally respectfully and sensitively, even as the raging mob is pouring through the gates.

When it comes to a flailing, blundering superpower, I am generally wary of ascribing to malevolence what is more often sheer stupidity and incompetence. For example, we’re told that, because the consulate in Benghazi was designated as an “interim facility,” it did not warrant the level of security and protection that, say, an embassy in Scandinavia would have. This seems all too plausible -- that security decisions are made not by individual human judgment but according to whichever rule-book sub-clause at the Federal Agency of Bureaucratic Facilities Regulation it happens to fall under. However, the very next day the embassy in Yemen, which is a permanent facility, was also overrun, as was the embassy in Tunisia the day after. Look, these are tough crowds, as the president might say at Caesar’s Palace. But we spend more money on these joints than anybody else, and they’re as easy to overrun as the Belgian consulate.

As I say, I’m inclined to be generous, and put some of this down to the natural torpor and ineptitude of government. But Hillary Clinton and General Martin Dempsey are guilty of something worse, in the secretary of state’s weirdly obsessive remarks about an obscure film supposedly disrespectful of Mohammed and the chairman of the joint chiefs’ telephone call to a private citizen asking him if he could please ease up on the old Islamophobia.

Forget the free-speech arguments. In this case, as Secretary Clinton and General Dempsey well know, the film has even less to do with anything than did the Danish cartoons or the schoolteacher’s teddy bear or any of the other innumerable grievances of Islam. The 400-strong assault force in Benghazi showed up with RPGs and mortars: That’s not a spontaneous movie protest; that’s an act of war, and better planned and executed than the dying superpower’s response to it. Secretary Clinton and General Dempsey are, to put it mildly, misleading the American people when they suggest otherwise.

One can understand why they might do this, given the fiasco in Libya. The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly. How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.#page#

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

#ad#In a rare appearance on a non-showbiz outlet, President Obama, winging it on Telemundo, told his host that Egypt was neither an ally nor an enemy. I can understand why it can be difficult to figure out, but here’s an easy way to tell: Bernard Lewis, the great scholar of Islam, said some years ago that America risked being seen as harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. At the Benghazi consulate, the looters stole “sensitive” papers revealing the names of Libyans who’ve cooperated with the United States. Oh, well. As the president would say, obviously our hearts are with you.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the local doctor who fingered bin Laden to the Americans sits in jail. In other words, while America’s clod vice president staggers around pimping limply that only Obama had the guts to take the toughest decision anyone’s ever had to take, the poor schlub who actually did have the guts, who actually took the tough decision in a part of the world where taking tough decisions can get you killed, languishes in a cell because Washington would not lift a finger to help him.

Like I said, no novelist would contrast Chris Stevens on the streets of Benghazi and Barack Obama on stage in Vegas. Too crude, too telling, too devastating.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2012 Mark Steyn

The Sleeping Laughingstock

Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave?

Actually, no. Instead, the black flag of al-Qaeda flies over the U.S. embassy in Tunis.

But don't worry, when your president's so cool he's doing gigs in Vegas, what happens in Tunis stays in Tunis.

As a Canadian, I'm interested to see that America has belatedly adopted the divided responsibilities of the Westminster system. Proceeding from the Pimp with the Limp show to Letterman to Beyoncé and back again, Barack Obama makes a perfectly adequate (if somewhat cheesy and downmarket) ceremonial queen.

But who's he appointed as prime minister to do the tedious business of running the government (and attending those boring national-security meetings)?

Riotwatch Update: Un-Islamic Mustache Sighted

Okay, so it's not just films, and cartoons, and dogs and teddy bears and Winnie-the-Pooh's Piglet and decorative swirls on Burger King ice-cream tubs, but also non-sharia-compliant mustaches:

A Pakistani man with a 30-inch mustache said he moved to Peshawar from his native town in the Khyber Agency after Islamic militants shaved him...

Afridi, 47, who operates an electronics business, spends 30 minutes a day grooming his mustache. He sports thick hair in a straight line from his mouth that tapers into thin points curling up to his forehead on both sides.

"My mustache style is unique," he said. "It has made my tribesmen proud as no one in Pakistan has such a mustache."

But in Bara, his hometown, the mustache angered members of Lashkar-e-Islaami. They arrested him, took him to a cleric who confirmed their belief the mustache was not in accordance with Islamic law and then shaved him at gunpoint.

Why has the Tweeting Desk of the U.S. Embassy remained silent on the hurt caused by disrespectful mustaches?

Mr. Afridi remains defiant:

"I left my dear homeland, my friends and relatives and prepared to sacrifice all that but will not compromise my mustache," he said.

If we could have President Obama's and General Dempsey's backbones replaced by waxed Pakistani mustaches, we might have a sporting chance.

UPDATE: Several readers have demanded to see a picture of the non-Sharia-compliant mustache. Here it is. I must say the splendid Raj English of the Karachi Express Tribune puts the bloodless prose of UPI to shame:

The iconoclastic facial hair caused him to abandon his hometown of Bara in Khyber Agency after the militants declared it ‘un-Islamic’...

The pride of Afridi’s life was shaved at gunpoint. Refusing to be cowed by the militants’ threats, however, he decided to move to Peshawar so that his moustache may thrive unfettered.

If American reporters could write like that, they might still have long-term career prospects. And, as I said above, if only the U.S. government felt about the First Amendment the way Mr. Afridi feels about his facial hair:

Despite his wife’s protestations, Afridi said he would only surrender his moustache – over his dead body.

Riotwatch Update: Un-Islamic Moustache Sighted

Okay, so it's not just films, and cartoons, and dogs and teddy bears and Winnie-the-Pooh's Piglet and decorative swirls on Burger King ice-cream tubs, but also non-sharia-compliant mustaches:

A Pakistani man with a 30-inch mustache said he moved to Peshawar from his native town in the Khyber Agency after Islamic militants shaved him...

Afridi, 47, who operates an electronics business, spends 30 minutes a day grooming his mustache. He sports thick hair in a straight line from his mouth that tapers into thin points curling up to his forehead on both sides.

"My mustache style is unique," he said. "It has made my tribesmen proud as no one in Pakistan has such a mustache."

But in Bara, his hometown, the mustache angered members of Lashkar-e-Islaami. They arrested him, took him to a cleric who confirmed their belief the mustache was not in accordance with Islamic law and then shaved him at gunpoint.

Why has the Tweeting Desk of the U.S. Embassy remained silent on the hurt caused by disrespectful mustaches?

Mr. Afridi remains defiant:

"I left my dear homeland, my friends and relatives and prepared to sacrifice all that but will not compromise my mustache," he said.

If we could have President Obama's and General Dempsey's backbones replaced by waxed Pakistani mustaches, we might have a sporting chance.

UPDATE: Several readers have demanded to see a picture of the non-Sharia-compliant mustache. Here it is. I must say the splendid Raj English of the Karachi Express Tribune puts the bloodless prose of UPI to shame:

The iconoclastic facial hair caused him to abandon his hometown of Bara in Khyber Agency after the militants declared it ‘un-Islamic’...

The pride of Afridi’s life was shaved at gunpoint. Refusing to be cowed by the militants’ threats, however, he decided to move to Peshawar so that his moustache may thrive unfettered.

If American reporters could write like that, they might still have long-term career prospects. And, as I said above, if only the US Government felt about the First Amendment the way Mr Afridi feels about his facial hair:

Despite his wife’s protestations, Afridi said he would only surrender his moustache – over his dead body.

Re: No! No! No! No!

I agree with Mario Loyola, but I would add a fifth "No!" Even if one accepts the good intentions of General Dempsey, his attempt to ameliorate the situation actually makes it worse. In telephoning a private citizen over a movie he's made, he is giving the impression that the content of a work of "art" falls within the purview of the United States government. This is the same mistake that moronic tweeter at the Cairo embassy made. General Dempsey is, therefore, legitimating the strategy of the mob in taking out its anger over such work on U.S. government facilities. Thus, he makes it more likely that, come the next cartoon or teddy bear or whatever, embassies and other buildings will be attacked -- because General Dempsey has confirmed that this is the government's business.

This is a truly stupid move on the General's part -- and a reminder of why free societies have civilian control of the military: When you've grabbed the Terry Jones pin, you're way off the ops-room map.

Personally, I think the General and the Cairo tweeters should be fired. But nobody in American government gets fired for anything anymore . . .

'We Came, We Saw, He Died'

Two views of what happened yesterday. First, U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton:

"When the attack came yesterday Libyans stood and fought to defend our post. Some were wounded," Clinton said. "Libyans carried Chris’ body to the hospital and helped rescue and lead other Americans to safety."

Second, Libyan interior-ministry official Wanis al-Sharef:

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

From the gruesome pictures, it's not clear whether the Libyans "carrying Chris' body to the hospital" are the same ones who fingered him to the mob.

In the last print edition of NR, I chanced to mention the Secretary of State's analysis of Libya's Arab Spring:

After Qaddafi, Hillary Clinton offered the following clunker of a sound bite: "We came, we saw, he died." In reality, we're gone, they saw, and the post-American world is being born.

Her silly witless crack rings a little differently after last night's events.

Re: 'Free Speech is Free Speech is Free Speech'

Andrew, I hate to keep quoting my own book, even if it does come out in paperback on Monday, but it does include this passage re the Alberta Government's investigation of my friend Ezra Levant for publishing the Danish Mohammed cartoons:

Halfway through his ordeal, Mr Levant observed that one day the Danish cartoons crisis would be seen as a more critical event than the attacks of September 11th 2001. Not, obviously, in terms of the comparative death tolls, but in what each revealed about the state of western civilization in the 21st century.

After the slaughter of 9/11, the civilized world fought back, hit hard, went on the attack, rolled up the Afghan terrorist camps, toppled the Taliban. In the battle cry of a soon forgotten man called Todd Beamer, “Let’s roll!”

After the Danish cartoons, we weaseled and equivocated and appeased and apologized, and signaled that we were willing to trade core western values for a quiet life. Let’s roll over! It’s a lot less effort.

The disgraceful statements of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo (before the mob attacked) on the very anniversary of September 11 make Ezra's point explicitly. And it's pitiful to see at home the same cocky swaggering secular triumphalists who reserve the right to jeer gleefully at Mitt's "magic underwear" and sneer at the Catholic clergy as career pederasts turn on a dime and argue that Islam should be uniquely deserving of "respect."

The mob of "Islamic rage boys" gets mad about all kinds of stuff -- cartoons, dogs, teddy bears. You can never make a long enough list to satisfy them. So you might as well tell them you're not going to start.

The Tweeting Giant

Jonah, re the intrusion of foreign policy, what's interesting is how far adrift the rhetoric of bigshot Democrats, Republicans (McCain, Condi at the convention) and independents (Lieberman) is from the reality on the ground. An RPG was fired at the British Ambassador to Libya as he drove through Benghazi in June. This followed the smashing of a quarter of the headstones in the Commonwealth war graves cemetery in Benghazi, a site that had survived four decades of the Qaddafi dictatorship without being desecrated.

We are now in a surreal situation. When the British Embassy in Iran was sacked a few months back, no individual was harmed, but nevertheless the U.K. expelled every Iranian diplomat in London. As David Blair wonders in the Telegraph, what's America going to do after the murder of its ambassador and four others in Libya? Expel the Washington staff of a regime it installed and bankrolled?

Many on the right remain entirely deluded about this. Reviewing Robert Kagan's book The World America Made in NR back in April, I wrote:

The Arab Spring may be the bleak dawn of the post-western Middle East, and the Coptic Christians are fleeing in terror, and the al-Qaeda flag’s flying in Benghazi, and the only viable alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood is the Even More Muslim Brotherhood, and they’re holding the son of an American cabinet secretary in detention, but for Kagan it’s all nevertheless “an essential attribute of the American world order”, and therefore even the booming burqa sales and state-of-the-art clitoridectomy clinic are in their fashion a tribute to American influence.

Unfortunately, the chaps on the street in Cairo and Benghazi don't seem to read a lot of Kagan. So they don't know that what they're doing is the next exciting development of "the American world order"; they see it as the sharp end of the world that comes after American order. As I say in Chapter One of my own book, "When money drains, so does power." 

I was flying for much of yesterday and only fitfully checking in with the Internet. But at an airport somewhere along the way, and without having heard a word about what was unfolding in Cairo, I found the U.S. embassy had started putting my Twitter handle in their prodigious and pathetic Twitter feed for Volume One of The Decline And Feed Of The American Empire. This was a fairly typical exchange:

US Embassy Cairo ‏@USEmbassyCairo

@ahmose_i @MarkSteynOnline We believe in respecting religion

Jim Simpson ‏@jamesmsimpson

@USEmbassyCairo @ahmose_I @MarkSteynOnline What about respecting yourselves? What about respecting the country you represent?

This is so embarrassing. We are tweeters in the heart of darkness. The Taliban, the Muslim Brothers, the Ayatollahs and most other fellows paying attention already understand American impotence, the lack of will and strategic honesty, all too well. We could at least cancel the Twitter account and stop advertising it quite so explicitly.

Hello, Central, Get Me Rutherford B. Hayes

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama attempts to place a telephone call without the use of the entourage and 40-car motorcade. Disaster ensues.

As the Instaprof points out, this is the president who accused his predecessor, Rutherford B. Hayes, of telephonophobia — falsely, as it turns out.

By the way, if Rutherford B. Hayes were to come back today, he would be amazed not by the iPhone but by the fact that, in Obama's America, the entire population of Hayes’s America (just under 50 million) is now on food stamps. Impressive.