Week of October 8, 2001
[Note: Some now-dead links have been removed from archived items.]

OUR GOOD FRIENDS THE SAUDIS (CONT'D): "The Saudi government is illegitimate, decadent, and evil," I wrote on September 15. The Saudis oppress their own kingdom and export terrorism and Wahhabism. They practice a sexual apartheid that makes South Africa's racial apartheid look relatively humane—and Iran's treatment of women positively enlightened. Now every day brings reports that tie the Saudi royal family more closely to the horrors of September 11. The latest is this Drudge Report preview of a Seymour Hersh New Yorker story coming out Monday. Saturday's New York Times had this report on the administration's gradual admission that Saudi assets have been funding terrorism.

The stability-conscious Bushies won't want to acknowledge the problem, but this war will not end until there's a change of regime in Riyadh, preferably one that leaves the royal family a lot poorer. Protecting the monarchy always required a cynical disregard for American principles, the sort of thing that engenders hatred in the Muslim world. Now it requires a disregard for American interests. Yes, we need the oil. But they need the money that comes from the oil, and to get that they need Western companies. Saudi Arabia can't go it alone.

The CIA overview of Saudi Arabia is here. Check out the low literacy rates and the peculiarly high ratio of adult males to females: 1.41, compared to .98 in the U.S. and 1.06 in China, where we know there's a problem. What happened to all the women? When Glenn Reynolds' soccer moms get wind of this story, they're going to be ready to level Saudi Arabia. [Posted 10/13.]

SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: How about we tell the Palestinians they can have Saudi Arabia if they'll move and leave the Israelis alone? The Palestinians are hard working and entrepreneurial, unlike the Saudis, so they might actually make something of the opportunity afforded by all that oil. And, while their leaders are thugs, it's unlikely they'd be any worse in the terrorism, oppression, and fundamentalism departments. The Palestinians aren't going to get Jerusalem. Maybe they'd settle for Mecca and Medina. [Posted 10/13.]

MUSICAL RELIEF: My friend Mike Snell (husband of Lisa, whom readers will remember from her piece about what schools teach kids about terrorism and why they won't let little boys play PowerRangers) sent me this link to the story of a Julliard student who spent September 17 playing first for the families of people missing from the World Trade Center and then for soldiers who'd spent the day digging through the rubble. Before a friend sent the link to him, writes Mike, "I was certain that all the best stories had already been told. It is worth a visit because it showcases one young man's unique and independent relief effort together with the curative potential of music." [Posted 10/13.]

TAPE ANALYSIS: The always brilliant Chuck Freund, an expert on the history and techniques of propaganda, explains why the Bush administration is foolish to suggest that American broadcasters shouldn't show Al Qaeda tapes and proves his point by analyzing the weaknesses revealed in the two tapes shown so far. "While the tapes contain threats, and may contain hidden signals, they may also reveal inadvertent confessions and unintentional admissions," he concludes. "It is important that we see these tapes and come to our own contingent conclusions about them. We live on the front. It is not a case of 'allowing' us to see them; it is necessary that we see them." [Posted 10/11.]

AT HOME WITH OSAMA: The Swedish satire site Spermaharen ("sperm hare," a schmoo-like critter) offers this pre-September 11 photo of Osama bin Laden "at home" in a People-style spread: "I bought this couch from IKEA; the bookcase I inherited from grandma...." Check out the toenail polish. (Thanks to Nils Andersen for translation help.) More of what Glenn Reynolds, following Jesse Walker, calls the Bugs strategy, and there's even a rabbit involved. [Posted 10/11.]

PANIC MONGERS: I know journalists like to sow fear, because it sells papers and builds TV ratings. But why do talk show hosts have to ask every guest to explain why they're afraid to fly? I just heard NPR's Terry Gross interview Walter Kirn about his novel Up in the Air, whose protagonist is a frequent flyer who basically lives in airplanes and airports. Kirn describes the book's pre-September 11 world as seeming a bit like a "pastoral" now. All of which was fine. But then Gross prodded Kirn to say how scared he was of an upcoming flight to Los Angeles from his Montana home, his first flight since the attacks. In response, he made LAX sound like the next ground zero and the prospect of flying the moral equivalent of war.

The worst offender in the "How scared are you?" contest is MSNBC's Chris Matthews. He seems to ask every single guest, regardless of the person's expertise, to explain why flying is scary now—and, of course, it would be TV suicide to disagree with the host's risk assessment. This is some kind of weird self-dramatization, as though every single person who gets on an airplane is some kind of hero. Missed the real wars? Make yourself feel brave and important by traveling first class.

There is nothing scary about flying. Airplanes are among the safest places in America, certainly safer than the freeways and, as far as terrrorist attacks go, better than being downstream of Hoover Dam. I've taken four flights since September 11, the first on September 22 to Washington. I'm getting on another plane on Tuesday, to go to give a speech in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Nobody on the planes I've been on seemed the least bit frightened, and the last one was so packed that the best my Platinum status could get me was a last-row window seat. I slept through every flight, same as always.The only flying cowards seem to be talk show hosts. Could someone please tell Chris Matthews to stop whining? [Posted 10/11.]

AIRLINE TROUBLES: Why do the airlines always seem to be in trouble? That's what the editors at the NYT business section asked me to explain for this month's column. You can read the answer here. [Posted 10/10.]

MANDATORY LAXNESS: My friend Rick Henderson, whom many readers know from his days as Reason's Washington editor and managing editor, is now an editorial writer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He writes to say that officials in Nevada are not at all happy with the Senate's version of the airline security bill—because it would lower standards currently in place in their state.

"Nevada law requires would-be security guards to be fingerprinted and undergo background checks," says Rick, "and the local cops and the Nevada congressional delegation are loath to give up that authority." The Review-Journal's Chris DiEdoardo reports, "If the U.S. Senate's current version of the Airport Security Act becomes law, convicted felons will be able to get jobs as airport security guards as long as they can pass a drug test, speak English and aren't color blind. Although Nevada law doesn't allow felons to serve as baggage and passenger screeners at McCarran International Airport, the Senate bill would trump the stricter state statute." I feel safer already. [Posted 10/10.]

WORSE THAN I THOUGHT: Andrew Sullivan didn't check his laptop. It was confiscated! "My bag was searched at Dulles; it was emptied and taken away and then returned," he writes. "I assumed they put my laptop back in it. They hadn't. I found out it was missing on the airplane to Chicago."

Anecdotal evidence already suggests that fears of hassles and delays—added to the unpleasantness of airline travel under the best of circumstances—are doing more to keep frequent flyers off planes than fears of hijacking. If confiscating passengers' vital business tools becomes standard procedure, the airlines are doomed. [Posted 10/9.]

ANTI-WORK: David Brooks continues his attacks on people who like their work in an unseemly Weekly Standard article in which he indulges his glee at the cultural effects of terrorism: "We know America is getting better because Thursday's USA Today had a story in its business section on how people are changing their priorities. They are less interested in things like money and career and more interested in things like family, heart, God, and health." I'm not sure I'd call that news, good or bad.

Brooks also delights in a Yankelovich poll that finds that "More than four in ten now say they'd rather be restful and bored than busy and stressed out. A year ago, only 25 percent of respondents agreed with that. Meanwhile, the number of Gen-X women who say that a career is not as rewarding as they thought it would be is up to 54 percent, from 41 percent just three years ago. " Career disappointment, now that's something to celebrate.

I can only hope those guys in the special forces care more about their work than about their health or, for that matter, their families. And I really, really hope they don't have issues with stress. [Posted 10/9.]

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: Thanks to Mickey Kaus for pointing readers toward this great 1990 lecture by V.S. Naipaul on the pull of the liberal "universal civilization" against the stasis of traditional cultures, most particular traditional Islam. The lecture ends with a deep insight about what may be the most important aspect of our civilization, the quest that drives what I call "dynamism" in The Future and Its Enemies:

A later realization—I suppose I have sensed it most of my life, but I have understood it philosophically only during the preparation of this talk—has been the beauty of the idea of the pursuit of happiness. Familiar words, easy to take for granted; easy to misconstrue. This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don't imagine my father's parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.

ENLIGHTENMENT ISLAM: Charles Oliver calls my attention to this interesting website, called Ijtihad. Run by political scientist Muqtedar Khan, a Muslim immigrant from India and recent Georgetown Ph.D., the site "seeks to promote freedom of thought (hurriyah al-ra'y) and independent thinking (ijtihad) among Muslims everywhere." Khan's self-syndicated column offers a distinctly Muslim perspective that is informed by liberal ideals. From his most recent article, titled "A Memo to American Muslims":

Muslims love to live in the US but also love to hate it. Many openly claim that the US is a terrorist state but they continue to live in it. Their decision to live here is testimony that they would rather live here than anywhere else. As an Indian Muslim, I know for sure that nowhere on earth, including India, will I get the same sense of dignity and respect that I have received in the US. No Muslim country will treat me as well as the US has. If what happened on September 11th had happened in India, the biggest democracy, thousands of Muslims would have been slaughtered in riots on mere suspicion and there would be another slaughter after confirmation. But in the US, bigotry and xenophobia has been kept in check by media and leaders. In many places hundreds of Americans have gathered around Islamic centers in symbolic gestures of protection and embrace of American Muslims. In many cities Christian congregations have started wearing hijab to identify with fellow Muslim women. In patience and in tolerance ordinary Americans have demonstrated their extraordinary virtues.

It is time that we acknowledge that the freedoms we enjoy in the US are more desirable to us than superficial solidarity with the Muslim World. If you disagree than prove it by packing your bags and going to whichever Muslim country you identify with. If you do not leave and do not acknowledge that you would rather live here than anywhere else, know that you are being hypocritical....

Today the century old Islamic revival is in jeopardy because we have allowed insanity to prevail over our better judgment. Yes, the US has played a hand in the creation of Binladen and the Taliban, but it is we who have allowed them to grow and gain such a foothold. It is our duty to police our world. It is our responsibility to prevent people from abusing Islam. It is our job to ensure that Islam is not misrepresented. We should have made sure that what happened on Sept. 11th should never have happened.

It is time the leaders of the American Muslim community woke up and realized that there is more to life than competing with the American Jewish lobby for power over US foreign policy. Islam is not about defeating Jews or conquering Jerusalem. It is about mercy, about virtue, about sacrifice and about duty. Above all it is the pursuit of moral perfection. Nothing can be further away from moral perfection than the wanton slaughter of thousands of unsuspecting innocent people.

WAHHABISM: According to this article in The New York Times, what I called the "Bin Laden Doctrine" is standard Wahhabi dogma: "above all, the Wahhabis believe their faith should spread, not giving ground in any place they have conquered. "

Wahhabism is the extreme, anti-modern form of Islam that our good friends the Saudis have been spreading worldwide for decades. (Calling Wahhabism "fundamentalist" is accurate but misleading to Americans. These guys aren't like Jerry Falwell, who basically wants to restore the culture of the 1950s, or Bob Jones, who'd prefer the 1880s. Their closest equivalents are the far-fringe Christian Reconstructionists, who want to impose a theocracy the likes of which has never existed in the West.)

"It may be hard to accept it, but you have to take Islam as a whole," said a Saudi tells the Times. "When a guy says let a women uncover her face, what they are really aiming for is to be completely uncovered, to live like the West. This is just the first stone they are removing from the building. Where will it end if we allow every aspect of our lives to be taken away?"

Stephen Schwartz explores Wahhabism in an interesting piece in The Weekly Standard:

Wahhabism's bloodstained record explains why so many Muslims around the world fear and hate Islamic fundamentalism—and why certain marginal types are drawn to it. As an acquaintance of mine put it, in Muslim Morocco, the footloose young sons of the lower middle class and proletariat can take one of three paths. They may adopt Western ways, drink and acquire girlfriends, and be envied. They may take up the life of an ordinary observant Muslim and be respected. Or they may join the Wahhabis—funded by the Saudis and organized by such as bin Laden—and be feared.

This is the most important point for Western leaders to understand right now: The West has multitudes of potential Muslim allies in the anti-terror war. They are the ordinary, sane inhabitants of every Muslim nation, who detest the fundamentalist violence from which they have suffered and which is symbolized, now and forever, by the mass murder in New York.

There is another historical lesson to be drawn. Wahhabism—whose quintessence is war on America—seeks to impel Islam centuries back in time, to the faith's beginnings, yet it is neither ancient nor traditional. Indeed, it achieved its culmination, the establishment of the Saudi kingdom, only in the 1930s, in parallel with fascism and Stalinism. Although it appears to be a rejection of modernity, Wahhabism can usefully be thought of as a variant of the nihilistic revolutionary ideologies that spilled oceans of blood in the twentieth century but finally collapsed—truly, the discredited lies consigned to history¹s graveyard of which President Bush spoke.

The Saudis' Wahhabi evangelism reaches to the United States, where Saudi money has funded many mosques. The typical American Muslim is no Wahhabi. But, based on sketchy reports and second-hand information, I'm not sure about the typical imam. (There are plenty of people of all religions who tolerate, or even support, clergy more fanatical than they are; consider the liberal Jews who shovel money at the Chabadniks who think them apostates.)

Ever since that Oprah-emceed memorial service at Yankee Stadium, I've been wondering why all the imams involved were African American, except for one guy who looked to be Indonesian. Wahhabism was definitely not well represented. Indeed, one of the Muslim participants was an African-American woman. Her head and body were completely covered in an orange garment but her face was fully on view—and she hugged the mayor and governor after her reading. Pious Muslim women reading in mixed services, showing their faces, and hugging Christian men! Our friends the Saudis would not approve. [Posted 10/9.]

KUMBAYA WATCH: This animated movie from the NewGrounds.com wargame site brings a South Park-like sensibility to Operation Enduring Freedom. [Posted 10/9.]

LOST LUGGAGE: Andrew Sullivan reports that his "laptop and luggage were lost once again on a return flight to DC from Chicago." He's a trusting soul to check a bag on such a short trip, not to mention his laptop. (Never, ever check your laptop!) But the airlines and FAA want to make such experiences more common, by limiting carry-on bags. The new policy helps airlines that haven't invested in passenger-pleasing larger overhead bins, as Continental and American have. It also cuts screening costs. What it doesn't do is stop determined hijackers. For that, you need adaptable in-air resistance, whether from air marshals, airline crews, passengers, or all three.

Some are complaining that the new policy, which limits carryons to one piece of luggage and a personal item such as a briefcase, laptop, or purse, discriminates against women. "If you're a woman traveling just for a couple days on business, you need your pocketbook, your computer and your clothes in a carry-on bag," says Christine Martin, a USA Today "Road Warrior" told that paper. The thought crossed my mind as well, but it is, on reflection, nonsense. If you're a woman traveling for just a couple days, you hardly need any clothes and can fit a purse and most of its contents into your carry-on suitcase and, for stuff you need easy access to, your pockets or briefcase/computer bag.You just can't bring six changes of clothes.

A 1998 article I wrote on carry-on luggage restrictions is here. When you read it, keep in mind that I'm only 5'5" and not particularly strong, which severely limits how much I can lift into an overhead bin. Contrary to what some readers gathered from the article's description of how long I can live out of a carry-on suitcase, I keep my luggage light. [Posted 10/9.]

AIRLINE SENSE: One of the best articles I've seen on airport security is this one by John Tierney in The New York Times. What's great about the article is its respect for factual details and local knowledge. (John also quotes my colleage Bob Poole, who knows what he's talking about.) A sample:

Like most of John's columns, this one also includes some gentle humor, in this case self-deprecating. But you'll have to read it yourself to get that. [Posted 10/9.]

Buy Virginia Postrel's The Future and Its Enemies in hardback or paperback.