Flypaper Strategy Working: Evidence

Impearls links several reports indicating that the “Flypaper” strategy is working.

David Warren first articulated this strategy for the public. It’s the notion that having the Americans in Iraq would draw jihadis from around the world to blow themselves up in Iraq instead of in New York, Paris, etc.

Impearls concludes:

It’s also worth observing how the suicide bombers we hear about every day in the news from Iraq are actually arriving from abroad. From the reports I’ve seen, essentially none of the fanatics willing to blow themselves up taking many Iraqis along with them are Iraqis themselves. So much for the idea that it’s primarily the Iraqis who hate Americans and the Coalition and want us out; rather it’s radical Islamofascist foreigners from around the world who are desperate to prevent Iraqis from taking destiny in their own hands to establish a modern, decent democratic society in the heart of the Muslim world.

But, as Thomas Friedman speculated a while back, what happens if the Flypaper strategy works too well. That is, what happens if Iraq settles down and the US leaves? Will that risk the security of the West because then the jihadis will no longer be distracted by the Iraqi theater?

And consider the moral dimension of remaining in Iraq. Consistent with the logic of Flypaper, it’s in the West’s interest to keep things at a slow boil in Iraq. So long as things don’t get too violent there, the West can keep the flypaper there as a means to draw jihadis away from attacking Western targets. However, this also means that Iraqi civilians take the brunt of the attacks. Not exactly the humanitarian impulse the West had in mind in liberating Iraq.

UPDATE: Belmont Club explains just how well the flies are sticking to the paper.

New Crime Fighting Superhero!

In the spirit of “Batman Begins” and Henry Morgentaler’s argument that abortion cuts crime rates, I present you with Steve Sailer’s idea for the new postmodern super-hero:

“I can see it now: The Aborter ©. By day, he’s a mild mannered abortion clinic doctor by day, helping rid the world of unwanted babies… By night, he’s on par with The Punisher, [ridding the world of unwanted people whose mothers were too selfish or religion-warped to have them aborted as fetuses]… He also has sonar vision (don’t ask how that happened, you don’t want to know!) that can also detect “bad seeds”, while they’re in the womb!”

He could punch holes in the top of unwanted people’s skulls and vacuum out their brains.

Evangelicals in Iraq

The Washington Post reports on new Evangelical churches in Iraq that have sprouted up since the US invasion. While helped out by mostly American Evangelicals, their increasing numbers are due to conversions away from Catholic and Orthodox denominations. They are not converting Muslims, though the article implies they’re trying (though their evidence rests on statements made by the Catholic bishop who worries - perhaps with good reason - about Christian/Muslim relations).

Even so, Evangelicals number “perhaps a few thousand,” compared to the 800,000 or so Christians in Iraq. However, they’re prospering because its converts regard the traditional churches as moribund, perhaps due to years spent laboring under Saddam Hussein.

Or perhaps another explanation. While the article notes the use of videos, guitars, and happy hymns - everything you’d find in a metropolitan Dallas megachurch - the real focus for these people seems to be their personal relationship with Jesus. That’s likely what they’re finding in the Evangelical churches, and not in the other Christian ones.

The history of the last 2 centuries would look a lot different without these kinds of movements - think of the various Great Awakenings in the US. Think of the rise of Evangelicals and Pentechostals in Latin America, Asia, and Africa (as detailed in Philip Jenkins’s book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity). Indeed, Olivier Roy argues in Globalized Islam that the “neo-fundamentalists” are in fact very modern, by, for example, speaking the language of the modern self. The word “I” shows up more than any other word in the last will and testament of Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker.

Iraqi Evangelicals represent an important aspect of modernity in Iraq. Whether their numbers will grow is open to question. Given the unlikelihood of Muslims converting to Christianity, I doubt they’ll have much direct impact on their community. However, their indirect impact will be more important. Will their individualized religious experience and expression rub on other Iraqi Christians and indeed on Muslims? Will Iraqi Catholics start looking and talking more like Protestants in their demand for greater lay authority, based on their equal sharing of the Holy Ghost? Will Shi’ite Muslims challenge the authority of their clerics (and not just back rogues like Moqtada al-Sadr).

These reflections are extremely speculative, but I think they suggest the kinds of questions Westerners need to consider when contemplating the future of Iraq and perhaps the rest of the Middle East. Only time will tell.

Applying the rules fairly…but only for Alberta

When Newfoundland and Ontario wanted sweet-ass side deals and unilateral alterations to Canada’s equalization formula, federalism was a mere inconvienence to Paul Martin. When the cities wanted to entirely by-pass Canada’s federal arrangements, Paul Martin was all for it. After all, Martin is a flexible federalism man who believes in “asymmetrical federalism.”

How times change. That was before Alberta needed some of that asymmetrical sweetness, a meager side deal to help with a disaster that is destroying lives as we speak. Then, all of a sudden, the federal Liberal Party decides to conform to the letter of the federalism law and refuses to budge an inch:

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said it’s up to Alberta — not Ottawa — to decide whether federal flood assistance dollars will start flowing toward the waterlogged province…..But Ms. McLellan said Ottawa won’t write a cheque until the provinces decide what level of financial help they require.

”The province submits their receipts and claims to us, we assess them and the dollars flow,” Ms. McLellan said. ”[But] no request has been made.”

That’s right Alberta, deal with the problem yourself, submit your receipts, and you might get a partial reimbursement once the red tape can be maneuvered through. Where is the urgency associated with Paul Martin’s dealings with Ontario’s “fiscal gap?” Where is the willingness to be innovative, to not be held up by mere rules?

This might help to explain it: The federal Liberals are pre-occupied with something other than Alberta’s disaster:

Ms. McLellan said the federal government is also looking at setting up a nationwide emergency warning system, which has taken on new importance in the wake of the floods.

”But we are very interested in having a national system so that people are working towards the same standards,” Ms. McLellan said.

That’s right: As Alberta drowns, the federal Liberals are investigating new ways to ensure national standards. In other words, the Alberta flooding is sufficient impetus to cause the Liberals to think about how not to treat Alberta an iota better than they would treat any other province. Ontario’s fiscal gap represents a crisis which justifies disregarding federalism in favour of a side deal. Newfoundland’s resource problems justify ripping up Canada’s equalization arrangements. A genuine Albertan crisis justifies…caution and a need to ensure national standards.

Did Albertans really need another demonstration of the fact that the rules of Canadian federalism only exist to constrict the colonies? Ontario doesn’t live by the rules; the arbitrer simply changes them once they pose problems.

And you know what, you useless federal blood-suckers? I think your reprehensible behavior toward Alberta in the middle of its crisis is great. You know why? Because every time you demonstrate your manifest uselessness for us, you enhance the view that Alberta can go it alone. In other words, you add legitimacy to the Alberta Agenda and members to Ted Morton’s leadership team.

Keep it up.

Crossposted to Rempelia Prime

CBC Host Argues with Priest about Same-Sex Marriage

A priest from Paul Martin’s home riding underwent argumentative questioning about same-sex marriage on CBC radio in Montréal this morning. We’ve got the highilight clips for you.

In an interview that sometimes sounded like a hostile cross-examination, Daybreak Montréal host Dave Bronstetter first asked Father Francis Jeremiah whether he thought Martin was a sinner. When the priest objected to the inappropriateness of the question, Bronstetter asked whether he had banned gays from church services. The accusation was baseless, so of course the priest just denied it.

Listen here.

When that line of ambush didn’t work, Bronstetter tried to argue that doctors have proved that homosexuality is normal. But this claim is just a rhetorical trick called the fallacy of equivocation — that’s when someone tries to trick you by using a word out of context. Here Bronstetter is trying to trick you by confusing the medical meaning and normative meaning of words like normal and abnormal.

But Father Jeremiah didn’t fall for that either, so Bronstetter next played the old Biblical slavery card. The priest of course objected, pointing out that opinions about slavery and opinions about gay marriage should not be equated. Bronstetter denied he had said that – and then immediately repeated it, before changing the subject by playing the “God loves gays” card.

Listen as Bronstetter gets riled up.

Bronstetter ended by hinting that the priest was trying to play up the issue to embarrass Paul Martin. That didn’t work either, as Father Jeremiah pointed out that he had simply been preaching about the advantages for children of having a mother and a father.

Here’s the last clip.

Canadian society is deeply divided about same-sex marriage. But whatever side you’re on, no one can listen to this interview without concluding that Bronstetter is biased on the issue, and that his bias afftected the fairness and balance of the story.

Here’s what the CBC’s “Journalistic Standards and Practices” says about bias and prejudice by its reporters.

Journalists will have opinions of their own, but they must not yield to bias or prejudice. For journalists to be professional is not to be without opinions, but to be aware of those opinions and make allowances for them, so that their reporting is, and appears to be, judicious and fair.

If you think Dave Bronstetter violated this policy, tell the CBC Ombudsman about it. The program is called Daybreak Montréal and the interview appeared on the morning of June 21, 2005.

Bush has done more for Africa than any American President … hard truth for Celebrities and French.

There was an interesting article in the UK’s Telegraph reporting that Bush has done more for Africa than any other American president.

“Bob Geldof has reportedly warned a top recording artist not to publicly criticise the White House during the worldwide television broadcast of the Live 8 concerts next month.

The warning came after Geldof insisted that President George W Bush had done more for Africa than any other American leader.”

Hard to believe? Just ask U2’s Bono:

“Bono was exceedingly pro-Bush, calling him “the most important and toughest nut”, a stance that has annoyed singers such as Billy Bragg and Sinead O’Connor, who think he is risking his credibility by getting too close to the leader.”

And not only, are Billy Bragg and Sinead O’Connor unimpressed, reportedly, so are the most civilised of the civilised, the French:

“Geldof confessed that he had been forced to defend the Bush administration in a visit to France, where “they refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American president for Africa”. Geldof said: “But it’s empirically so.”"

An interesting article, a little humble pie for the rabid Bush haters of the world. You have to hold a certain respect for Bono, not your usual self-important celebrity, those more adept at labelling injustice and moralising rather than actually doing something about it. Bono says he’s going to engage the leaders of the world to help Africa, so he does it, and he makes no bones about the fact that Bush is doing the most.

And well, as for the French, what can one say. Their president is a crook. Their foreign policy recently ran aground by their own public opinion of the EU constitution. And the language of civility and high morals has excused more than enough French complicity with tyranny over the years. The French like to talk a good talk about Africa but we should all know what that means: stable dictatorships that are good for French business.

A good article. Glad to see at least one news organisation reported it.

Check it out here.

Globe and Mail Continues Ontario Media’s Character Assassination Campaign against Harper

The Ontario media are continuing their campaign of low blows and cheap personal insults against Stephen Harper.

Remember the ridiculous irrelevancies used to slander Preston Manning — all the endless cheap shots about his glasses, hair and voice? Now they’re starting in on Harper’s appearance, mixed in with more insults about his personality.

Here’ some examples, all taken from just one editorial in today’s Toronto Globe and Mail:

“not a pretty picture”

“pants begging to be hiked up”

“unnaturalness”

“stiff”

“remote”

“waspish”

“snappish”

“petulant”

“lack of class”

“not a regular guy”

Can anyone remember such insults, aimed sneeringly at the personal level, against any leader who isn’t from the West?

Of course not. The Ontario media, led by outlets like the Toronto Globe and Mail, would never do this to their own.

For the Ontario press, Westerners will always be fair targets for these kinds of personal attacks — aimed against the person, not against policies or ideas – because to them, Westerners will always be second-class Canadians.

The Media Are Misrepresenting Harper’s Speech: Listen for Yourself

When the media tell you about how angry Stephen Harper is, they always point to his speech in response to Paul Martin’s address to the nation on April 21. That was the night Martin promised to call an election a month after Gomery reports.

The media don’t think you’ll listen to Harper’s actual words, so they feel free to make up any story they want — but we’ve posted the speech below so that you can decide for yourself.

Before you listen, here’s some examples of the stories the media are telling about Harper’s speech, taken from a panel of journalists on the Newsworld program Politics last Friday.

Chris Hall of CBC Radio News:

I don’t think there’s any question between the cause-effect here of his response, Stephen Harper’s response, to Paul Martin’s public plea…. It came out he was angry, he was bitter, he was dismissive … and as a result there’s a concern that he’s seen as a man who’s intolerant.

Jim Travers of the Toronto Star:

As Chris is saying, the reaction that came over television … was way too hot, way too intense, and it did him some damage.

Rob Russo of the Canadian Press:

What happened the night of the speech was he opted for the politics of rage.

Well, listen for yourself. Is the media giving you fair and accurate reporting or are they engaged in gross exaggeration? Is it an honest portrayal of Harper’s speech or an unfair, even slanderous interpretation?

Do you hear “rage” that’s “way too intense” from “a man who’s intolerant”? Or are the media not telling the truth?

The speech is split into four mp3 files to make downloading easier. Each is about a minute and a half long.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Debunking the nine per cent solution: Fighting the futility of federalism

Which Alberta MLA penned the following statement?

“No disrespect to Confederation is implied when the citizens of Alberta take for their motto: “Alberta first, last and forever.”

a) Ted Morton (PC)
b) Gordon Kesler (WCC)
c) William Aberhart (SC)
d) Alwyn Bramley-Moore (Lib)

While a,b or c may be the obvious choices, the answer is ‘d’, Alwyn Bramley-Moore.

While the fore mentioned have earned their places in Alberta history as defenders of provincial rights (although Kesler’s was fleeting, and Morton’s is a work in progress), Bramley-Moore’s place is especially significant.

Alwyn Bramley-Moore, Member of the Alberta Provincial Parliament for Alexandra Constituency penned these views in a book entitled Canada and Her Colonies or Home Rule For Alberta two years after he was elected to the legislature in 1909: Four years after Alberta entered Confederation.

Serving in the government of Premiers Rutherford and Sifton, Bramley-Moore became aware early on of the futility of attempting to deal with a distant, disinterested federal government. Specifically, his government had initiated lobbying to have the right to natural resources ceded to the province, the same rights that all provinces–except Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba– were given immediately upon entry to Confederation.

Their fruitless attempts to wrestle these rights away from the federal government gave Bramley-Moore a unique perspective about the true nature of Confederation;

“Nothing could have more forcibly brought home to my mind the injustice of a state of affairs by which a Provincial Government assumes the liabilities incident to the development of a vast country while the natural resources of that country are owned and controlled by a foreign Government.”

Almost a century later the essential conditions of Confederation have not changed. While Alberta was able to acquire the ownership of it’s natural resources in 1930, some 14 years after Bramley-Moore gave his life on the battlefields of France as a member of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, it still finds itself effectively neutered when it comes to affecting political change on a federal level.

Observations made by Bramley-Moore in 1911, when Alberta had a mere seven representatives in the House of Commons, ring true nearly 100 years later:

“Of what account are seven members among 200? Any influence they could exert would be infinitesimal. A 3 1/2 per cent solution may be efficacious when it comes to medical practice, but in the arena of the political conflict its effect is nil.”

With some 28 members representing Alberta out of a total of 308 Members of Parliament in 2005, the nine per cent solution is only marginally less infinitesimal, and hardly any more effective.

After a century of failed efforts by western politicians to affect any kind of reform on a federal level, a change of tactics is necessary if Alberta is to address the long standing grievances that threaten the province’s continued prosperity.

As long as Alberta is a member of Confederation, it is necessary that the province have representation in our federal Parliament. However, Albertans must come to the realization that it is not necessary to water down western values to appeal to the Eastern electorate in order to push the agenda of democratic reform and devolution to the forefront of Canadian politics.

For the next generation of Alberta’s representatives in Ottawa, the priority must be to work with any and all parties and politicians to achieve decentralization and democratic reform in both the House of Parliament and the Senate. While this is occurring federally, our provincial legislators must work together with our federal representatives to promote the best interests of Albertans. All of this is contingent upon Albertans stepping up to the plate and electing a provincial government intent on defending and expanding provincial rights to their fullest extent. It also means Albertans must stand outside the existing political parties and create a new movement, possibly an Alberta Party, to send Alberta-first representatives to Ottawa.

Should Albertans choose to accept the challenge and elect both a slate of Alberta Party MP’s to Ottawa, and a provincial government intent on defending provincial rights to the legislature, one of two scenarios would likely unfold:

1.) An Alberta Party, free to align itself with the remaining Conservatives, the Bloc or even the Liberals or NDP, may find itself holding the balance of power, and in good position to wrestle concessions away from the party in power. Combined with efforts by an Alberta first government, this approach could bring about reforms on any number of issues where traditional/ third/fourth parties have continually failed, or…

2.) Alberta Party MP’s will be marginalized and ignored, unable to form effective partnerships or coalitions within Parliament. The federal government will continue to demonize the province, using Alberta’s provincial government as a political pariah to promote their own centrist agenda.

Either way, we will have been given an accurate measure regarding the desire for change among Canada’s ruling elite. Should the first option come to fruition, the strategy may be adopted by other provinces, with provincial governments moving to increase their areas of jurisdiction. This would bring into being a decentralized Confederation that would be well on it’s way to accommodating western alienation, Newfoundland aspirations and Quebec nationalism under one umbrella.

Should we see the second option come to pass, then it is quite possible that Alberta’s fate outside of Confederation will be sealed. The people of this province will be given proof positive that the system does not work to address Alberta’s grievances, despite similar successes enjoyed by Quebecois nationalists. Should MP’s present a list of demands similar to the one proposed recently by senator-elect Link Byfield, which subsequently go unrealized, then Alberta voters may be wise to heed the words of Alwyn Bramley-Moore;

“A radical procedure, and a rather practical one in its way, would be to hoist the flag of independence… After a banquet or two and a patriotic oratory, the province might express a desire to be reinstated in the Confederation, and then she would be in the position to make a bargain”

Unfortunately for Canada, should it come to this point, the time for making deals will be over.

Cross posted to Dispatches From The Western Alien Nation.

Ontario’s Anti-Western Prejudice Goes Back to Diefenbaker

Here’s a first-hand account of Toronto’s reaction back when John Diefenbaker was elected. It’s by Larry Zolf, a prominent CBC fossil, who was there:

I came to Toronto from Winnipeg … in early 1957 just a few months before Dief’s upset victory. As a Westerner in Toronto I was overjoyed to see Dief win.

But as time passed and I went from Westerner to Torontonian, my attitude to Diefenbaker changed too. I had to admit that Dief’s wagging jowls, his jabbing forefinger, his hot style of politics did not go over very well in cool Toronto, my new home.

To Torontonians, Dief was a wild, incoherent plainsman with little or no talent, who had made the Conservatives a laughing stock in Canada. The [Avro] Arrow fiasco only convinced Toronto that Dief and his cowboys and ploughboys had no administrative or financial skills of any kind whatsoever; they were only hicks and rubes who would reduce all of Canada to little sod huts on the prairies.

You’ve read here again and again (scroll the archives) about the anti-Western prejudice of Ontarians against any leader from the West.

That, and that alone, is why Harper’s personality is now under attack by the Ontario press.

Before Harper’s personality, it was Manning’s appearance. Before Manning’s appearance, it was Clark’s luggage. Before Clark’s luggage, it was Dief’s “wagging jowls [and] jabbing finger.”

No irrelevancy is too trivial, and no personal insult too low, to be used to dismiss or destroy a leader from the West.

If by some accident a Westerner ever becomes PM, Ontario will destroy him personally. That’s what they did to Diefenbaker, and that’s what they’re trying to do to Harper.

To Ontario, Westerners are just “hicks and rubes” who belong in “little sod huts on the prairies.” That’s what Ontario thought 50 years ago, and that’s what they still think today.

Ontario will never, ever allow a Westerner to be Prime Minister. Not now, not a half-century ago, and not ever.

« Previous Page — Next Page »