Via Photon Courier comes this amazing article by Per Ahlmark, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden. Money quote:

The images many Europeans hold of America and Israel create the political climate for some very ugly bias. You have the Great Satan and the Small Satan. America wants to dominate the world—exactly the allegations made in traditional anti-Semitic rhetoric about the Jews. Indeed, modern anti-Zionist rhetoric portrays Israel's goal as domination of the whole Middle East. Such ideas are reflected in opinions polls in which Europeans claim that Israel and the US are the true dangers to world peace.

Ian Buruma, the British writer, claims that this European rage against America and Israel has to do with guilt and fear. The two world wars led to such catastrophic carnage that "never again" was interpreted as "welfare at home, non-intervention abroad." The problem with this concept is that it could only survive under the protection of American might.

Extreme anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are actually merging. The so-called peace poster "Hitler Had Two Sons: Bush and Sharon," displayed in European anti-war rallies, combines trivialization of Nazism with demonization of both the victims of Nazism and those who defeated Nazism.

Much of this grows from a subconscious European guilt related to the Holocaust. Now the Holocaust's victims—and their children and grandchildren—are supposedly doing to others what was done to them. By equating the murderer and the victim, we wash our hands.

This pattern of anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism returns again and again. "The ugly Israeli" and "the ugly American" seem to be of the same family. "The ugly Jew" becomes the instrumental part of this defamation when so-called neoconservatives are blamed both for American militarism and Israeli brutalities and then selectively named: Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Kristol, etc. This is a new version of the old myth that Jews rule the US.

Earlier this year, the editor of Die Zeit, Josef Joffe, put his finger on the issue: like Jews, Americans are said to be selfish and arrogant. Like Jews, they are in thrall to a fundamentalist religion that renders them self-righteous and dangerous. Like Jews, Americans are money-grabbing capitalists, for whom the highest value is the cash nexus. "America and Israel are the outsiders—just as Jews have been all the way into the 21st century," Joffe says.

The links between anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Americanism are all too real. Unless Europe's leaders roundly condemn this unholy triple alliance, it will poison Middle East politics and transatlantic relations alike.

That was amazing. I was beginning to wonder if any Europeans really got it—at least, outside the UK.

RTWT.

Posted by: Attila at 01:28 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There are all kinds of sub-issues related to the Sandy Berger story. I still don't have clarity on the down-his-pants (or in-his-socks) vs. in-his-pockets issue, and I'm not sure I care about that: he concealed this material in his clothing, and that's that. He claims that only the handwritten notes were in his jacket and pants (and possibly socks), but we'll see. I'm a good deal more concerned with the two events he claims were accidents: removing top-secret documents, and destroying top-secret documents.

This guy was National Security Advisor. One would think that he can handle the basics of the job—like preserving the integrity of classified documents, and knowing what he's putting into his leather portfolio.

Clearly, he's either incompetent, or covering up for Clinton.

But even if this is all the result of carelessness, it's an egregious lapse. Clinton should be embarrassed that this guy, who cannot handle the basic requirements of his job, was his National Security Advisor. Instead, he's laughing it off, which may say something about how seriously he takes the security issues facing this country to this day.

My newspaper-reading friends tell me you still have to dig to find mentions of this story in either the LA Times or the NY Times, which is outrageous.

Stephen Green had a good opening volley on the story, and is covering it well; be sure to scroll around on his main page after reading this entry.

The Irish Lass has a nice roundup; once more, you might take the time to do some scrolling, since she's all over this.

Prof. Reynolds remarks:

[T]he decision to charge someone, even someone admittedly guilty, is always a matter of discretion, and criminal charges against a former National Security Adviser are a rather big deal. It's easy to understand why the Justice Department might be reluctant to bring such charges even if it's satisfied that all the elements of the crime are present.

To which Dr. Joyner replies:

Quite true. I'd like to get a better explanation of exactly what Berger was trying to accomplish and let this one percolate a bit more before deciding what punishment, if any, is appropriate. Berger gave many years in the public service and, so far as I'm aware, this is the first time he's even been accused of anything remotely sinister. Even aside from the baffling issue of why, I would be interested in knowing--if it's knowable--what harm Berger's theft caused.

There has to be a consequence for this type of behavior, though. If a former National Security Advisor-- invested with so must trust that it never even occurs to anyone that he needs to be monitored while in a room with highly classified material--can plead "oops" on something so blatant, I don't know how we can ever hold a soldier accountable again.

As usual, you'll also want to go to James for the best links to hard news sources on this issue.

Byron York, writing in National Review Online, has two major points. To begin with, he feels there's no way this was accidental:

It appears that some of the evidence in the case casts doubt on Berger's explanation. First, Berger has reportedly conceded that he knowingly hid his handwritten notes in his jacket and pants in order to sneak them out of the Archives . . . Berger's admission that he hid the notes in his clothing is a clear sign of intent to conceal his actions.

Second, although Berger said he reviewed thousands of pages, he apparently homed in on a single document: the so-called "after-action report" on the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot of 1999/2000. Berger is said to have taken multiple copies of the same paper. He is also said to have taken those copies on at least two different days. There have been no reports that he took any other documents, which suggests that his choice of papers was quite specific, and not the result of simple carelessness.

Third, it appears that Berger's "inadvertent" actions clearly aroused the suspicion of the professional staff at the Archives. Staff members there are said to have seen Berger concealing the papers; they became so concerned that they set up what was in effect a small sting operation to catch him. And sure enough, Berger took some more. Those witnesses went to their superiors, who ultimately went to the Justice Department . . . . The documents Berger took — each copy of the millennium report is said to be in the range of 15 to 30 pages — were highly secret. They were classified at what is known as the "code word" level, which is the government's highest tier of secrecy. Any person who is authorized to remove such documents from a special secure room is required to do so in a locked case that is handcuffed to his or her wrist.

York finds Berger's focused pilferage highly interesting, since it appears that the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot has been the subject of a lot of debate and considerable criticism:

The report was the result of a review done by Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, of efforts by the Clinton administration to stop terrorist plots at the turn of the year 2000. At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.

The after-action review became the topic of public discussion in April when Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned it in his public testimony before the September 11 commission. "This millennium after-action review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 and cites luck as playing a major role," Ashcroft testified. "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

In May, a government official told National Review Online that the report contains a "scathing indictment of the last administration's actions." The source said the report portrayed the Clinton administration's actions as "exactly how things shouldn't be run." In addition, Clarke was highly critical of the handling of the millennium plot in his book, Against All Enemies.

It is not clear how many copies of the report exist. Nor is it clear why Berger was so focused on the document. If he simply wanted a copy, it seems that taking just one would have been sufficient. But it also seems that Berger should have known that he could not round up all the known copies of the document, since there were apparently other copies in other secure places. Whatever the case, the report was ultimately given to the September 11 Commission.

What a clumsy, stupid thing to do. If the intention was what York is implying—to cover up the Clinton Administration's incompetence and lassitude regarding national security—Berger should have the book thrown at him. He is, essentially, Clinton's Rosemary Woods.

Posted by: Attila at 07:33 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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