Britain and America

Romney pulls out for the sake of the war on terror

Samuel Coates, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, reports on Mitt Romney's resignation speech.

Talk show host Laura Ingraham gave Romney a strong introduction, saying that he was a security conservative, a social conservative and an economic conservative and that she was proud to be the only introducer with the job of introducing the conservative candidate. She also spoke of how Reagan battled on to the convention when people were saying he should stand down for the good of the party (curiously, so did Mitt!). I wonder if she was told?

Romney walked on to the stage to mass placard waving and cheering. He spoke of the "unique" sacrifice America had made in the cause of liberty in the 21st century - only taking enough land after its victories to bury its dead - and that if it didn't change course it could be the new France (crowd boos). There were several nods to Christians, he said the majority of Americans believed in God or at least in "a purpose-driven life" (the title of a bestselling Christian book), and criticised intolerance of such faith.

He spoke in particularly strong terms about:

• fighting the "culture-killing poison of dependency"
• how "depressing the private sector depresses the well-being of all"
• the danger of China and India overtaking America in the same way America did the UK and France
• being held hostage by the oil needed from "the likes of Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad"
• getting the dividend bit of Bill Clinton's "peace dividend", but not the peace bit

He said he disagreed with John McCain on a lot of things but that he was absolutely right on doing whatever it takes in Iraq and the fight against radical, violent Islam.  I half-expected a slight jibe to follow this concession, but it didn't come. He criticised Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for wanting retreat and defeat. Then, to a gasping crowd that had been giving him a rapturous reception, he said that continuing to stand made it easier for one of those two to win. That because he loved America and because he "cannot allow the next President to retreat in the face of evil extremism", he felt he must stand aside. If his candidacy was only about him, he went on, he would have continued.

In short, he did an Obi Wan Kenobi, and in doing so endeared himself to those who, like me, saw him as little more than a politician's politician. It was a great speech. If a British Conservative had said the things he said about the blend of issues that he focused on, I'd be right behind them.

He'll have his eyes on 2012 now. He's set himself up well.

America fears European terrorists

The main story on BBC news this morning is American fears that terrorists from within Europe may now pose one of the main threats to US security.  Michael Chertoff, Head of the Homeland Security Department, told the BBC that extra security checks on European visitors to America might be necessary.

Currently European visitors to America are on a visa-waiver programme and only have to complete entry forms for when they arrive in the USA.  People from the Middle East often have to apply six weeks before wanting to journey to the United States for pre-clearance by US authorities.  America is not expected to introduce such tough restrictions on travel from Europe.  The diplomatic and commercial fallout would be too great.  What might be possible, however, is that travellers will have to submit forms 12 to 24 hours before arriving in the USA.  This might be done online or by submitting their forms at the airport in Europe from which they travel.  This would give US authorities valuable extra time to identify people of questionable intent.

Barack Obama offers hope but does he possess wisdom?

Joe Loconte is concerned about Barack Obama's preparedness to be America's Commander-in-Chief with so many gathering storms on the horizon.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—For a flickering moment, at the start of the New Hampshire Democratic debate on Saturday night, Barack Obama had the stricken look of the school boy who discovers he can’t answer the opening essay question on the final exam.

For months Obama mostly has dismissed any serious discussion of America’s national security threats with his tidy mantra: “I’m for a politics of hope instead of a politics of fear.” Hope is our friend, he constantly reminds us. And he’s definitely not for fear. No more fear-mongering politics, please. "We can't afford the same politics of fear that invokes 9/11 as a way to scare up votes." We just can’t afford it anymore. It’s scary to scare up votes that way. So I’ll say it again: “I don’t want to talk about fear.”

But there was the debate moderator, Charlie Gibson of ABC News, and all Charlie wanted to talk about was fear and the politics of fear.

GIBSON: Let me start with what is generally agreed to be, I think, the greatest threat to the United States today, and, somewhat to my surprise, has not been discussed as much in the presidential debates this year as I thought would be, and that is…nuclear terrorism.

What a minute! That’s the Bush Administration’s bogeyman routine! They’ve even turned news anchormen into their marionettes! Where’s that talking snowman when you need him?!

GIBSON: And for some background, here’s ABC’s Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross.

BEGIN VIDEO CLIP

BRIAN ROSS, ABC CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: After more than six years of trying, the United States still does not have a reliable way to spot nuclear material that terrorists might smuggle into the country, much as ABC News twice did in demonstrations without being caught. And after six years of trying, the United States has yet to capture the man who says it is his religious duty to get nuclear weapons: Osama bin Laden.

GIBSON: Well, Osama bin Laden, as he pointed out, has said it is his duty to try to get nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has been reconstituted and re-energized in the western part of Pakistan. And so my general question is, how aggressively would you go after Al Qaeda leadership there? And let me start with you, Senator Obama…

Thanksgiving in War Time

WASHINGTON, D.C.—When America publicly gives thanks to the Almighty, it opens a window into the soul. In times of war we glimpse the torments and the hopes of a nation struggling to realize, or salvage, its founding ideals.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Thanksgiving Day proclamation saw a divine role in the forces for freedom and union during the Civil War. “It has pleased Almighty God,” he said, “to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion.” Lincoln’s army would suffer signal defeats as well, viewed by Confederate leaders as proof that Almighty God was on their side. Nevertheless, as the conflict wore on, it became impossible to imagine that God was indifferent to the crisis over slavery or the struggle to resolve it. Two years later, with victory in sight, Lincoln would offer thanks for the “fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity.”

As Europe was convulsed by the carnage of the Great War, Woodrow Wilson saw not only “the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster.” He managed to see blessings as well: the chance to join a global struggle against the forces of aggression and lawlessness. “We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence,” he said in his 1917 proclamation, “by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves.” Cynics about American power remind us that America’s entry into the conflict did not “make the world safe for democracy.” They forget what in fact it did accomplish: the speedy conclusion of the war, the saving of thousands of lives, and the preservation of what was left of any democratic ideal in Europe.

Rudy visits a Britain that isn't spending enough on defence and is appeasing domestic Muslim extremism

I've written for National Review Online about Rudy Giuliani's visit to London: Rudy Visits "Wobbly" Britain.  The article represents another opportunity for me to make some of the points that I made at the time of the Iran hostages episode - Britain is still ill-equipped for the war on terror.

Click here to listen to a National Public Radio report on the financial reasons behind US presidential candidates' visits to London.

Related link: America still accounts for half of world defence expenditure

Karen Hughes welcomes falling Muslim support for terror

One of the most encouraging things to emerge from Iraq is growing resistance to al-Qaeda.  Al-Qaeda's brutality has appalled Sunni tribal leaders who have witnessed the terrible barbarity of Osama bin Laden's terrorist thugs.

Another encouraging development is the growing hostility of Muslim global opinion to terrorism.  Karen Hughes wrote about this in yesterday's Washington Post.  Hughes, US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, quoted evidence from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey:

• 90% of the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan have unfavourable views of al-Qaeda and bin Laden himself.
• "Support for terrorist tactics has fallen in seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries polled as part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project since 2002; in most cases, those declines have been dramatic."
• "Perhaps most significant, Muslim populations are increasingly rejecting bin Laden's attempts to pervert their faith. WorldPublicOpinion.org found in April that large majorities in Egypt (88 percent), Indonesia (65 percent) and Morocco (66 percent) agree: "Groups that use violence against civilians, such as Al Qaida, are violating the principles of Islam. Islam opposes the use of such violence."

Al-Qaeda warns Britain to expect "very precise response" to recent honouring of Salman Rushdie

Overnight Britain had a video warning from al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri that his terrorist group was preparing a "very precise response" to the recent knighthood for Salman Rushdie.  Conservative Member of the European Parliament, Dan Hannan supplied BritainAndAmerica with this reaction:

“Whenever something terrible happens, it is human nature to fit events into your existing belief system. If you are already convinced that Britain should not be allied to the United States, you will see terrorism as a response to our foreign policy choices. If you already believe that inequality is the worst problem in the modern world, you will tell yourself that “poverty breeds violence”.
   
The trouble is that the terrorists themselves evince only a marginal interest in these questions. We’d be better off taking them at their word. When they say that their real enemy is Western liberalism, we ought to listen carefully. After all, Osama bin Laden never cited Israel or Iraq among his grievances until comparatively recently: he was responding, as it were, to the Michael Moore interpretation of his actions. And, as this new statement reminds us, modern Islamist terrorism has had domestic British freedoms in its sights for far longer than our soldiers in the Middle East.
   
Yes, alright, foreign policy might be an aggravating factor at the margins. The radicals occasionally cite Chechnya, the Balfour declaration, the Crusades, the loss of al-Andalus. But when they say that their ultimate objective is to replace our way of life with a different way of life, we ought to believe them.”

Related link: Dan Hannan on terrorism being 'a middle class pursuit'

America still accounts for half of world defence expenditure

A special report in this week's Economist contains interesting data on the strength of the US military compared with other nations but it also warns that it is facing acute pressures.

The graphic above shows that the US accounts for approximately half of all global defence expenditure.  Its share of defence expenditure is disproportionate to its share of world GDP and ten times greater than its share of world population.

Britain is the second biggest spender although the strength of its armed forces (200,000) is much, much smaller than China (2.3m), India (1.3m) and Russia (1m) - see graphic on the right.

The Economist article notes that the USA will struggle to undertake any other major military operation because of its commitments in the Middle East:

"These days American units get nothing like the recommended 2:1 ratio of dwell time to deployment. Some army brigades currently get barely a year to rest and re-train after serving 15 months, a ratio of 0.8:1. By this measure, American ground forces get a fifth as much rest as their British counterparts—and British commanders say that anything less than two years at home for each six-month deployment (a 4:1 ratio) could “break the army”."

Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, is planning a 62,000 personnel increase in America's ground forces.  This approximate 10% increase is only likely to be possible however with an increase in remuneration (for officers, in particular, where shortages are most pressing) and a reduction in standards:

"The quality of new recruits is starting to drop, with more in the lowest aptitude ranking, more high-school dropouts and more receiving waivers from disqualification (for example, for using drugs or having a criminal record). The age limit for recruitment has risen from 35 to 42, while fitness levels are lower. Some complain that training standards have also suffered, as the army adopts gentler means to get more recruits through boot camp."

Related link: UK defence spending at lowest level since 1930s

Joseph Loconte: A Deliberate Failure of Imagination

Joseph Loconte, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and commentator for National Public Radio, is the editor of The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.

U.S. authorities announced last weekend that they had prevented a suspected Muslim terrorist cell from launching a "chilling" plot to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport—a scheme to kill thousands of civilians and create economic chaos by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through densely populated neighborhoods. “Had the plot been carried out,” warned U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, “it could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction.”

Yet just 24 hours later, Democratic presidential hopefuls debated America’s war on terrorism as if the airport terror plot were a fraternity prank run amok. The CNN-sponsored debate—which included Senator Joseph Biden, Senator Hilary Clinton, Senator Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kuscinich, Senator Barack Obama and Governor William Richardson—showcased the debilitating failure of political leaders to think deeply about the threat of radical Islam.

Sen. Obama was asked if the Bush administration’s strategy to thwart terror at home has been a success, since the United States has not suffered any terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. Without hesitating, Mr. Obama delivered his studied judgment of the matter: “No.”

Obama conceded that “there are some things that the Bush Administration has done well,” but failed to name them. The Patriot Act, electronic surveillance techniques, aggressive interrogation of terror suspects, the killing and capture of scores of al Qaeda leaders and operatives—none of these unpleasant features of America’s war on terror received any credit.

Joseph Loconte: When Terrorism Hits Close to Home

Joseph Loconte, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and commentator for National Public Radio, is the editor of The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.

In what surely ranks as one of the most aggressive advocacy campaigns in its history, the BBC is pulling every diplomatic lever possible to secure the release of journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza over 10 weeks ago. Appeals from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, statements from Prime Minister Tony Blair and leading Anglican bishops, BBC vigils worldwide, rallies in Trafalgar Square, an online petition with over 100,000 signatures—the outpouring of support has been evocative and impressive. Yet it raises troubling questions about media coverage of terrorism and the culture of religious radicalism that sustains it.

Seized from his Gaza City office on March 13, Johnston allegedly is being held by a terror group called Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam). Last month the organization delivered a videotape to al-Jazeera television—the network of choice for Islamo-fascists everywhere—demanding the release of cleric Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian being held in Britain. Last week we learned that the British government entered into talks with Abu Qatada to see if he might aid in Johnston’s safe release. In a letter sent to the Islamic Observatory Center, Qatada was unambiguous: "I announce my full readiness to go on a trip to Gaza, with a delegation from BBC, to meet with the brothers, the abductors, concerning the release of the journalist Alan Johnston."

No surprise that Qatada would like to rejoin his "brothers" in Gaza: Found guilty of participating in terrorist activity in Jordan, Qatada lost a February appeal to avoid deportation to face trial. Dubbed Osama bin Laden’s "spiritual ambassador in Europe," Qatada is regarded as one of the UK’s most dangerous extremist preachers. He has been linked to al-Qaeda cells in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. His vitriolic videos were found in the Hamburg flat used by Mohamed Atta—the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. He reportedly gave "spiritual advice"—as the BBC delicately puts it—to Richard Reid, the would-be Atlantic flight shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, both jailed for terrorist activities.