A courageous sprig has come up at the State Department. As we all know but few care, the Administration launched a war not a year ago and lost it in the span of weeks, much like the Arabs habitually throw themselves, in futility, against Israel. Of course we refer to the War on Fox. The President himself denounced Fox as a fraud, a propaganda outfit masquerading as a news corpse. But this hastily prepared air campaign was destroyed on the ground by native incompetence. Fox seemed scarcely to acknowledge the attack and the President sued for terms from Admiral O’Reilly prior to this year’s Super Bowl. But that has not dimmed the Administration’s fighting spirit. Secretary Clinton is the point man in a new and expanded offensive not against Fox merely but against all domestic American broadcast and cable news, freighted as they are with commercials and arguments that are not informative. After losing so catastrophically against a small fragment of the American media, what practical chance does the Administration have to overcome ALL of American media, however dire the need to silence it? It becomes possible only with the recruitment of a new ally in that struggle; the state owned and controlled Middle Eastern media giant, Al-Jazeera.

The state organ of Qatar, a sharia-based monarchy, might seem an odd recipient of praise from an American Secretary of State, even moreso a frank declaration that this home of islamist friendly call-in shows should be lauded as “real news” in contrast to anything available on your basic DirecTV package. Except that Hillary is late to a booze-free burkha party that has been in full swing for a month or more. It was a month ago that Al-Jazeera bought a full page ad in the New York Times to communicate to the Great Satan a flood of recommendations from Americans for Americans of Al-Jazeera programming. Mostly these endorsed their Egypt coverage but as usual the art of blurbing obscured whatever distinctions, say, Sam Donaldson was making between the man-on-the-street feed from Cairo and Sharia and Life, a popular talk show hosted by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the fellow leading chants encouraging jew murder from Tahiri Square last week.

The media bigs, it seems obvious, were engaging in a little public self-criticism to burnish their claims of fairness, disinterest and sophistication. This is a safe assumption because that is nearly all that they do. But it is also safe to say that they would have stopped well short of asserting that there is, comprehensively, NO real news available from domestic sources, as Madame Secretary did because this would call in to question their credentials, careers and expense accounts. But they have sat still for it so far. To be clear, this was no simple denunciation of Fox. The Clinton Statement encompasses ALL domestic media; the indispensible CNN, the beloved MSNBC, the Eyeball and the Peacock. Radio and television. Since PBS/NPR includes both commercials and arguments, they too, regrettfully, find themselves wrapped around an axle. And complain not a bit. Why not?

Simple. While the newsies certainly don’t want to be made redundant, or more redundant, they are more concerned with The Struggle, a shifting, amorphous program to show unity in the face of the enemy of the moment and that enemy, viewing public, is us. More specifically it is the bullheaded persistence in the American public of suspicion, if not outright hostility to islam. Now, precious little interest is paid to the foundations, if any, of this bigotry. Not that these worthies are FOR sharia, although how bad could it be? Worse than Bush? Certainly not. But these precious clothes-horses are against those who are against sharia as their immediate ideological parents were anti-anti-commies, not commies in full. They fear only the backlash not, as you might neurotically fear, the lash. The mediaites do all they can to keep from fanning the flames of your paranoia. Yesterday’s gun attack on US soldiers in Germany, by a young Kosovar screaming Allahu Akbar might well be the result of amish revanchism for all the pertinent detail in news coverage of the ambush. A more vintage and disgusting example is in the continued scrubbing of the stink of jihad from the Fort Hood massacre. But all these events are more than media absenteeism as they are participated in vigorously by the White House as well. As Krauthammer put it, these attacks are given all the moral and existential weight of a bus accident; and this is by a carefully construed policy.

So what could be the legitimate aim of this policy? Let’s not call it scurrilous or foolish right off. After all, finding something we can name “policy” lately is a stroke of luck in itself. So what could be the point of removing evidence of jihad from these attacks now occurring so regularly? There is really only one way to explain it. Our media and political betters are certain that while jihad is an overblown red herring there is a truly dangerous volcano a-brewing among the redneck plurality that would translate into medievel pogroms against muslims if left to run its course.

If you find this an insulting set of mind, put that aside for now and we will approach this broad policy consensus on its own terms. Even Frank Rich, who finds Al-Jazeera refreshingly “illuminating” must recognize that these random crimes, often committed ostentatiously by muslims, are problematic for The Struggle. Sure, muslims are not committing crimes any worse or any more often than, say, these patriot-types, but when Hannity gets a hold of something like this he whips up the Kentucky gun club with his distortions. We do all we can to keep the turbans and koranic verses out of the headlines but we can only do so much. If only there were fewer of these troubled teens blowing themselves up, or at least a bit less with the Allahu Akbar, I mean come on, help us out!

And that is the goal of this glad-handing admission of Al-Jazeera into the club of respectable media, a club Fox is of course excluded from stridently. Hannity or Greta are far more objectionable than the gloating masterminds of suicide bombings, or if they are not, at least a tongue bath of Al-Jazeera might bear some fruit by calming the rage as an invitation to the yearbook committee might convert a bully to a nerd while taking a touch of the koran-thumping tone off the beheadings. If this is achieved then the anti-anti-jihadis might fare better in keeping the lid on.

But there is one serious problem with the plan even if you admit all the smarmy presumptions foregoing: the muslims themselves do not agree that these actions are “crimes” at all. At worst they are acts of war, a just war that is the duty of every faithful muslim to prosecute. Strong pluralities say that “martyrdom operations” are an expression of True Islam, not the perverse exploitation of the Religion of Peace as asserted by George Bush and Barack Obama.

So the true task the pressies have set for themselves is actually much larger and more difficult than they realize. Editing jihad from the koran would not be practical, it seems, so instead the moral authorities are trying to sell a new product; it is jihad as an internal, spiritual struggle rather than a literal holy war. This is the line taken by all leading, muslim talking heads. The idea of violent jihad is a misapprehension or at least an anachronism and possibly a ginned-up slander. Modern Jihad is not at all like Mohammed slaughtering an entire city; not at all. Jihad does not include beheadings or bombings or any sort of killing. And islam, truly, doesn’t command anything too strict or harsh, if defined properly. Since this is the opinion of every expert on islam that has ever been on Joe Scarborough, we can forgive their confidence.

But if they were to pay some genuine attention to Al-Jazeera they might learn something. They might learn of the passionate thirst in the Middle East for the rankest anti-semitism. They might learn of the high regard the most “radical” imams are held in across the region. They might learn, contrary to Katie Couric, that a “muslim Cosby show” would be either in breach of sharia or of our cultural norms; the two cannot be reconciled. They might realize that their new formula of jihad, doctrinal accuracy aside, has appeal only for themselves or the already converted and none for the young men of poverty, ignorance and desperation that constitute its necessary target. These guys already know what they like and Coke Zero ain’t it.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: race & culture, terror & war // Add Comment »