Al Gore will have no trouble finding in Monday's Supreme Court ruling more evidence that global warming is a reality, indeed a dire threat.

He will soon say -- you can take this to the bank -- words like: "Now, even a majority of the Supreme Court has recognized the danger of global warming." And he'll be right in the sense that the Court invokes the magic word "consensus" for a physical fact that itself is unproven, unprovable and exists purely in the realm of speculation.

Al Gore has made himself, in his curious way, the personification of a society's impulse to manufacture political certainty out of irresolvable scientific uncertainty, of which the Supreme Court is the latest culprit/victim. You can see this by arranging the questions related to global warming in descending order of urgency.

The most urgent, by definition, is Mr. Gore's claim that the atmosphere is in such a calamitous state that we have "no more than 10 years before we cross a point of no return." How does he know, asked interviewer Charlie Rose last year?

Mr. Gore's answer: "I accept the fact that the most respected scientists whose judgment I think is the best are now concerned that we may be in that territory."

The second question is whether human-produced carbon dioxide is driving this dangerous warming. Invariably, Mr. Gore cites a single observation: that such a belief is the "consensus" of scientists.

Only at the third question -- is there evidence that global warming is actually occurring? -- do we enter the realm of the observable. Air and sea temperature can be measured. The standard observation is that the planet has fitfully warmed by one degree Celsius over the past century, but this figure is produced by massaging inconsistent readings from many times and places. Different assumptions would produce different trends, or none at all. And that's without considering whether a planetary "average" temperature is even a meaningful datapoint (some have likened it to averaging all the phone numbers in the phone book).

In any case, evidence of warming is not evidence of manmade warming.

It would surprise the public, and even the Supreme Court, to know how utterly the science of global warming offers no evidence whatsoever on the central proposition. What fills Mr. Gore's film, books, speeches and congressional testimony are scientific observations and quasi-scientific observations, all right. They concern polar bears, mosquitoes, hurricanes, ice packs and everything but whether humans cause global warming.

Some of this evidence may suggest, weakly or strongly, the existence of warming trends in particular parts of the world (such local trends, both cooling and warming, have been observed in many places and many times). More dubiously, some may indicate a generalized warming. But none offers any evidence that carbon dioxide is causing warming. Mr. Gore's method is the equivalent of trying to prove that Jack killed Jane by going on and on about how awful it was that Jane was killed.

Polemicists in favor of human-caused global warming liken skeptics to tobacco lobbyists who denied the link between smoking and lung cancer. In fact, it makes a useful analogy.

Suppose the world consisted of exactly one smoker who could be observed only from a distance to test the theory that smoking causes lung cancer. If he died of cancer, it wouldn't prove smoking causes cancer. If he failed to die of cancer, it wouldn't prove smoking doesn't cause cancer.

The link between smoking and cancer is made by observing millions of smokers and nonsmokers. Indeed, what led scientists to seek systematic evidence of a link in the first place was anecdotal evidence that smokers, of whom there have been millions, appeared to die in unusual numbers from lung cancer.

Nothing remotely similar has been involved in developing the hypothesis that carbon dioxide creates warming. The relevant observations are a mess: Measured global temperature has both risen and fallen for considerable periods during the past century, even as CO2 has risen steadily. The geologic record suggests the world was much cooler in the past despite CO2 concentrations higher than today's. Unlike smoking and cancer, there's no anecdotal observation for the hypothesis that CO2 causes planetary warming. It may or may not be true, but to believe it is a "scientific truth" is to make a leap of faith, not science.

The consensus that human activities are causing global warming is purely a social invention -- there's no way of showing it to be so, and no self-evident reason for preferring to believe it's so. The "consensus" is, in truth, a product of itself.

Now we are prepared to get the joke. It came during last fall's Supreme Court oral argument about global warming, when the learned Justices, allowing the word "consensus" to serve as evidence of manmade warming, devoted themselves instead to a solemn discussion of how many inches of sea-level rise, and thus how many square miles of coastal inundation, the EPA is guilty of failing to prevent by refusing to regulate U.S. tailpipe emissions (which account for just 8% of human CO2 output).

Sen. James Inhofe is notorious for saying the theory of manmade global warming is a "hoax." Obviously we need a better theory than Mr. Inhofe's of when head-counting is a useful way of estimating the validity of a factual proposition and when it isn't. Until then, it's perhaps sufficient to say that many people believe in manmade global warming because many people believe in manmade global warming; Al Gore believes in it because many people believe in it; many people believe in it because Al Gore believes in it; and so on, right up to the highest court in the land.

Wall Street Journal
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Climate of Opinion
April 4, 2007; Page A14

bmw4545 @ 06:16 AM

Just months after 9/11, videotapes were confiscated in Afghanistan showing al-Qaeda terrorists training to takeover a school. Six months later, spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith boldly declared al-Qaeda's "right" to kill 2 million American children. In 2004, an Iraqi national with known terrorist connections was caught with a computer disk containing information detailing Department of Education crisis planning for U.S school districts.

Last year, two Saudi men - one wearing a black trench coat despite the Florida heat -- terrified a busload of Tampa schoolchildren by boarding a school bus and remaining for the entire ride to school, all the while laughing and speaking Arabic.

And just this month, the FBI and Homeland Security Department issued a "routine advisory" bulletin to state and local officials warning that foreign members of "extremist groups" either already possess or are attempting to procure licenses to drive school buses. Additionally, according to the AP:

"[The bulletin] noted ‘recent suspicious activity' by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them."

The dispatch went on to say that some of these same unnamed foreigners have been able to buy school buses right here in the homeland.

Yet the news of such a potentially immediate threat to our children was carefully spoon-fed to us on a Friday afternoon -- not a good indication of transparency -- with a curious lack of concern as a chaser.

A Tepid Warning of an Incendiary Threat

While the report did spark some media fire the weekend it was announced, now -- not two weeks later -- the embers are all but cold. As parents, we are now forced to discover why. Surely, there's something awry in the cloudy ping-pong game of facts being played by FBI and DHS spokespeople, who have absurdly dismissed any possible terrorist linkage.

For starters, officials have shown neither the fortitude nor the decency to properly identify the suspects authorities -- and diligent parents -- should be on the lookout for. Moreover, after stating that law enforcement agencies should "watch out for kids' safety," they then claim that "parents and children have nothing to fear." Really?

So, just what is the extent of the threat and who are these unnamed, undescribed "extremist groups?" We've been down this road before. Refusing to specify race or ethnic background is probably a clear sign that we're not talking about some backwoods militia. And, while there are whispers of an al-Qaeda connection, no officials have yet been willing to go on record with any affirmation.

If they were protecting sources or other secrets vital to their investigation, why issue such an impotent warning at all?

No, it seems more likely that the PC police are now protecting the feelings of Arab male Wahabbist Islamic extremists - or themselves from accusations of profiling - even at the risk of our children's wellbeing.

Of course, anyone doing so would be culpable for delivering our most vulnerable of citizens to our most ruthless of enemies, literally inviting their all-too-well-known barbaric extortion methods.

Terrorism, of course, promotes its goal by its very name. And, what better way to terrorize and demoralize than to target our children -- to exploit the inborn drive of all living creatures to protect their young in order to inflict maximum emotional impact on our country? And what easier a soft target than a bus or classroom filled with many highly visible yet defenseless victims and few, if any, in a position to actually protect them? Plus -- can anyone imagine a more horrific hostage crisis?

The Beslan Horror - An Omen All But Ignored

Sadly, envisioning such a nightmare doesn't require a vivid imagination, as images are readily available by simply googling the word "Beslan." Indeed, the Beslan school massacre remains, to date, modern history's most horrendous example of a cowardly assault on school children. And we ignore its lessons at the peril of our young.

On the first day of school in September of 2004 in the Russian town of Beslan, approximately 100 pro-Chechan Islamic terrorists - many embedded as school workers -- seized over 1,200 children and adults in School Number One. While the details of the siege are quite disturbing, they must be absorbed in order to properly understand the threat before us.

Men, women, and children (including babies) were herded into an unventilated gym, where temperatures rose to 115 degrees. Hostages were given no food or water and women (and some children) were repeatedly raped. Adult and stronger male students were forced to help fortify the building; then shot without mercy; their bodies tossed out a second story window into the courtyard.

Hostiles warned Russian Security Forces that if stormed, they would detonate the building and that for every one in their ranks killed, 50 hostages would be butchered. Armed guards stood amongst prisoners on "deadman switches" which were wired to explosives. Others wore "black widow" suicide vests, which could be triggered by remote control at the whim of their sadistic leaders. Doorways and stairways were booby-trapped and children were forced to sit on windowsills as human shields from snipers.

Unspeakable sadism and horror continued for three long days, and can be graphically experienced by those wishing to do so by a 9 minute slideshow put together by officialmastersofchaos.com (Video). Warning - this is pretty ghastly stuff.

While numbers vary with their source, across the bloody 3-day standoff some 700 people were wounded and 338 killed, including 172 children. The memories of the rows of little body bags stretched out in a makeshift morgue are destined to haunt the ages. The murderers, many of whom are still at large, and their methods must also share a special place in our memories - such that similar inhumanity to children is never permitted to occur here.

Children of a Jihadist's God - Acknowledging the Terrorist Mindset

We live in a crazy world in which more than a few Palestinian parents proclaim pride in the "martyrdom" of their own children and promote a culture in which suicide bombers are revered as teen idols. To them, youngsters are seen potentially as both weapons and high-visibility targets. And, while most Islamic scholars can cite passage after passage declaring the killing of children as an abomination, to the extremists, children are obviously a disposable commodity. They've been strapping explosive belts onto their brainwashed kids and rejoicing in the shrapnel and guts of their own bloodline painted onto charred walls for decades.

And, as any IDF soldier will readily tell you, "brave" Palestinian terrorists routinely take innocent children of their own people as human shields (video).

But last week, jihadist cowardice sank to a new low when Iraqi terrorists used the presumed innocence of two young children to breach a military security checkpoint in Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, told reporters that the vehicle was waved through because two children were visible in the back seat:

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back. The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."

I must take issue with the Major's final assessment. This new ploy does, indeed, represent a change for these barefoot barbarians in that they've taken a cue from their murderous brethren in Palestine, sacrificing innocent children to further their loathsome cause. The significance of this malignant mindset must never be trivialized.

It's up to us to see to it that the kids ARE alright

Of all the "soft" targets the United States has to offer these madmen, it's hard to find any more vulnerable than a school.

And, as al-Qaeda has a history of plotting spectacular and awe-inspiring attacks, you'd be equally challenged to find a more inviting one.

Plus, as explained by Joliet, IL Police Sgt. Dwayne Killian, an instructor in school safety drills, a few successful attacks on schools might be seen as a method to topple the U.S. economy:

"To protect their children from possible terrorist attacks, parents would pull them out of school and day-care centers and stay home from work to be with them -- and the economy collapses."

Abu Gheith's 2002 warning; school plans in the hands of terrorists; Saudi's terrorizing American schoolchildren on buses; 172 Russian school-kids slaughtered; "extremists" seeking to get behind the wheels of bus-loads of our children; jihadists sacrificing children to kill a few Americans; now a new story of a nutjob in Manilla taking 30 kids hostage on a bus - ENOUGH!

It's become glaringly obvious that -- contrary to the words of both the FBI and the famous song by The Who - our kids are not alright. And it's high time that we parents see to it that appropriate and resolute action is taken to change that condition without delay.

Granted, fortifying our schools against such incursions is a daunting task. Nevertheless, the carefree days of obliviously sending the tots off in the morning with blind faith in their safekeeping are over. And, while authorities claim to be working on "hardening" schools as targets, it's hard to discount this amazingly lame shot at reassurance from the FBI/HMS memo:

"Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate."

Comforting? Try reprehensibly bungling. Do we need any more confirmation that there are "foreign nationals" out there bent on our destruction? That the privilege to drive hundreds of our precious and beloved children every day should be reserved for U.S citizens only and then only after extensive background checks? That these checks should not be less stringent (as is often the case) than those of the schools' janitors or lunch ladies, which, in this age of Columbine, run-away sexual abuse of children and the nefarious plots discussed herein, are themselves often recklessly relaxed?

In the unlikely event that you need further convincing that it's time to become actively involved in your school district's safety plans, here's a stark reminder of terror's reach that Sgt. Killian routinely gives educators:

"Osama bin Laden promised that the terrorist attack on a Russian school in 2004 will happen many times over in the United States."

Dare we leave these dots unconnected any longer?

Marc Sheppard is a technology consultant, software engineer, writer, and political and systems analyst. He is a regular contributor to American Thinker.
March 29, 2007 --Terrorists Targeting Students: The Kids are not alright

bmw4545 @ 06:15 AM

In mosques all around the world, a crier known as a muezzin calls the faithful to prayer five times a day. He shouts to the four compass points one after the other, “Allah is the greatest... Make haste towards prayer... Make haste towards prayer... Allah is the greatest.”

This public display of obdurate virtue is well-known, but it is less well-known what goes on inside the mosques where Muslims gather for their prayers. The Islamic religion has always had an element of secrecy about it, including keeping the holy city of Mecca off limits to anyone except Muslims.

That veil of mystery has been penetrated from time to time by outsiders, including Sir Richard Francis Burton, the great 19th century explorer and author who disguised himself as a Muslim in order to enter the holy city and the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building which is the mystical center of the religion and toward which Muslims pray five times a day no matter where on earth they are located.

In recent years, because of the increase in terrorism led by Muslims worldwide, there has been a growing need for information about the Islamic religion. But most non-Muslims today know just as little about what happens inside a mosque as they did before Burton’s pilgrimage and before 9/11.

That lack of knowledge has allowed a public debate to take place about whether Islam is a religion that “teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace” (as President Bush described it) or whether it is a religion that teaches domination, destruction and subjugation.

For a variety of reasons — including fear, political correctness and tolerance — most Westerners have been unwilling to make a true and honest inquiry into this question, but this month we may have started to see a few chinks in the wall of silence.

It started in England last week when Channel 4’s “Dispatches” news show did a special report called “Undercover Mosque,” in which a reporter attended services in mosques that “claim to be dedicated to moderation and dialogue with other faiths.” Instead, the reporter found what the show’s Website called a “message of religious bigotry and extremism being preached.” That included general hatred for non-Muslims and more specifically calls for the overthrow of the British government and democracy.

This weekend, the light continues to shine in dark places as both CNN and Fox are showing documentaries dedicated to unveiling the threat of Islam to our way of life.

Fox News’s report, called “Smokescreen: Hezbollah Inside America,” tells the story of a Hezbollah cell that operated for several years in Charlotte, N.C., before being broken up a year before 9/11. The connections of this criminal enterprise stretch back to Lebanon and Iran, and though al-Qaida has gotten more publicity, Hezbollah is considered as big a threat to the United States, if not more so.

On CNN, reporter Christiane Amanpour introduces a new show called “Special Investigations Unit,” which again focuses on the British Muslim community to illustrate the threat to Western society in a report called appropriately “The War Within.” Amanpour apparently links the radicalization of Britain’s Muslims to the War in Iraq, which I certainly don’t agree with, but even so I am glad to see the word get out that we face an enemy that intends to destroy us.

In a column on the CNN Website, Amanpour wrote, “we found shocking evidence of the bigotry, intolerance and hatred preached by some Muslim fundamentalists in the UK. We met men like Anjem Choudary of the now-banned Al-Mahajiroon extremist group, who denounces democracy and predicts Britain will be ruled by Sharia, Islamic law.”

Despite this clear and “shocking” evidence, however, the CNN reporter takes two steps back when she concludes that the violent, intolerant Muslims are a small minority in Britain. She holds out hope that “mainstream Muslims” will reclaim their religion, and speaks of a “deep sense of Islamophobia” on the rise in Britain and across Europe, as if fear of people who want to kill you is somehow a mental illness.

It is this almost pathological tendency toward self-blame which has the capacity to undo us. But the evidence abounds that there are millions of Muslims who intend to destroy our culture or to subjugate it, and no evidence that any substantial number of Muslims intend to do anything to stop them. Indeed, if Muslims speak out against intolerance and oppression of the “infidels” — namely us — then they themselves risk being put to death.

Perhaps, Amanpour should once again read the words of Osama bin Laden:

“This war is fundamentally religious... Those who try to cover this crystal clear fact, which the entire world has admitted, are deceiving the Islamic nation. They are trying to deflect the attention of the Islamic nation from the truth of this conflict... Under no circumstances should we forget this enmity between us and the infidels. For the enmity is based on creed.”

Yes, bin Laden blames part of the war on the fact that “you (Americans) attacked us and continue to attack us” in Palestine and Somalia, but much more relevant to the “enmity” that exists between Islam and the Judeo-Christian world are bin Laden’s words such as this:

“ What are we calling you [Americans] to, and what do we want from you?

“(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.... and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He [Allah] sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

“(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

“(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honor, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest....

“(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:

“(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Sharia of Allah in its Constitution and laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.”

So bin Laden, with the blessings of his mullahs and Islamic teachers, freely admits that he and his kind will not be happy until they have converted the West to Islamic law, Islamic religion and Islamic customs.

The war against terror is not about fighting to prevent a bombing here or there; it is about fighting for survival.

The evidence should be clear to anyone who hears the muezzin’s cry. The call to prayer is a call to action, and as long as we in the West continue to ignore the very real, very vocal threat of Islam, then we will continue to be victims of our own good nature.

There is really no secret about the nature of Islam, and these television shows of the last few days don’t really teach us anything we didn’t know already if we were paying attention.

The question, of course, is whether our love of diversity will continue to be greater than our love of life. If so, it promises to be our ruin. Because however much we Americans pride ourselves on our tolerance — that tolerance will not protect us from zealots; rather it will protect the zealots from us

bmw4545 @ 07:44 AM

Arlington, Va—“Your money or your property” may soon become the mantra of politically connected developers nationwide as the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s announcement today that it will not consider the appeal of an eminent domain case involving attempted private extortion.

The case the Court declined to review arose out of the Village of Port Chester, N.Y., one of the nation’s worst eminent domain abusers. The Village’s chosen developer approached property owner Bart Didden and his business partner with an offer they couldn’t refuse. Because Didden planned to build a CVS on his property—land the developer coveted for a Walgreens—the developer demanded that Didden either pay him $800,000 to make him “go away” or give him an unearned 50 percent stake in the CVS development. If Didden refused, the developer would have the Village of Port Chester condemn the land for his private use. Didden rejected the bold-faced extortion. The very next day, the Village of Port Chester condemned Didden’s property through eminent domain so it could hand it over to the developer who made the threat.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved this extortion scheme using eminent domain under the Kelo decision, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled eminent domain could be used by the government for private development—handing over one person’s home or small business to a developer who merely promises to pay more taxes or create more jobs with the land. The 2nd Circuit ruled that because this is taking place in a “redevelopment zone,” it couldn’t stop what the Village is doing.

“This abuse will only grow worse until the courts do their job and set some limits on government’s power of eminent domain,” said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represents Didden and represented the Kelo property owners. “The Court wrote in Kelo that ‘conferring a private benefit on a particular private party’ would still violate the Constitution. Well, here was that exact case—where a developer was trying to use eminent domain to extort cash from a property owner; about as private a benefit as it gets—and yet they punted. The Court will have to review an eminent domain case sometime soon, and the Institute for Justice intends to pursue this area of litigation until the rights of property owners are fully protected from this abuse of power.”

Didden expressed disappointment with the government officials responsible for protecting his rights. “What really surprised me about this whole ordeal was the total lack of concern my situation earned from the Village politicians, to the County District Attorney’s office, all the way into the federal courts. A private citizen using the government’s power is extorting me. And the government that should protect my rights is nowhere to be found. If anything, the government is making this extortion possible.”

U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Eminent Domain Extortion Case
Federal Court Allows Developers To Demand Cash Payments Under Eminent Domain Threat
WEB RELEASE: January 16, 2007
CONTACT: John Kramer (703) 682-9320

bmw4545 @ 06:22 AM

Life and Death

The simple back-and-forth of war can create the illusion that both sides have a legitimate point to make even when this is not so, and it is clear that Hezbollah's cause has greatly benefited from war's "equalizing" effect. This Shiite militia seems to have known that merely fighting Israel would gain legitimacy for its cause. A cease-fire would make it a "partner" in peace. The Goliath Israeli military would make it a David whose passion proved the truth of its cause. But amidst all the drama of this war there has been very little talk of exactly what Hezbollah's cause is.

And, of course, it is not just Hezbollah's cause. There is Hamas, one more in a family of politicized terrorist groups spread across the Muslim world. Beyond these more conventional groups there is the free-floating and world-wide terrorism of groups like al Qaeda. In Europe, there are cells of self-invented middle-class terrorists living modern lives by day and plotting attacks on modernity by night. And around these cells there is often a nourishing atmosphere of fellow traveling. Then there are the radical nation-states in league with terrorism, Iran and Syria most prominent among them. From nations on the verge of nuclear weapons to isolated individuals -- take the recent Seattle shootings -- Islamic militancy grounded in hatred of Israel and America has become the Muslim world's most animating idea. Why?

I don't believe it is because of the reasons usually cited -- Israeli and American "outrages." No doubt Israel and America have made mistakes in the Middle East. Certainly, Israel was born at the price of considerable dislocation and suffering on the part of the Palestinians. And yes, there will never be a satisfying answer for this. Yet every Israeli land-for-peace gesture has been met with a return volley of suicide bombers and rockets. Palestinians have balked every time their longed-for nationhood has come within grasp. They have seemed to prefer the aggrieved dignity of their resentments to the challenges of nationhood. And Hezbollah launched the current war from territory Israel had relinquished six years earlier.

If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her. And now much of the West is in a similar position, living in a state of ever-heightening security against the constant threat of violence from Islamic extremists. So here, from the Muslim world, comes an unappeasable hatred that seems to exist for its own sake, a hatred with very little actual reference to those it claims to hate. Even the fighting of Islamic terrorist groups is oddly self-referential, fighting not for territory or treasure but for the fighting itself. Standing today in the rubble of Lebanon, having not taken a single inch of Israeli territory, Hezbollah claims a galvanizing victory. * * *

All this follows the familiar pattern of a very old vice: anti-Semitism. The anti-Semite is always drawn to the hatred of Jews by his own unacknowledged inadequacy. As Sartre says in his great essay on the subject, the anti-Semite "is a man who is afraid. Not of Jews of course, but of himself." By hating Jews, he asserts that his own group represents the kind of human being that God truly wants. His group is God's archetype, the only authentic humanity, already complete and superior. No striving or self-reflection is necessary. If Jews are superior in some ways, it is only out of their alienated striving, their exile from God's grace. For the anti-Semite, hating and fighting Jews is both self-affirmation and a way of doing God's work.

So the anti-Semite comes to a chilling place: He easily joins himself to evil in order to serve God. Fighting and even killing Jews brings the world closer to God's intended human hierarchy. For Nazis, the "final solution" was an act of self-realization and a fulfillment of God's will. At the center of today's militant Islamic identity there is a passion to annihilate rather than contain Israel. And today this identity applies the anti-Semitic model of hatred to a vastly larger group -- the infidel. If the infidel is not yet the object of that pristine hatred reserved for Jews, he is not far behind. Bombings in London, Madrid and Mumbai; riots in Paris; murders in Amsterdam; and of course 9/11 -- all these follow the formula of anti-Semitism: murder of a hated enemy as self-realization and service to God.

Hatred and murder are self-realization because they impart grandeur to Islamic extremists -- the sense of being God's chosen warrior in God's great cause. Hatred delivers the extremist to a greatness that compensates for the ineffectuality in his world. Jews and infidels are irrelevant except that they offer occasion to hate and, thus, to experience grandiosity. This is why Hezbollah -- Party of God -- can take no territory and still claim to have won. The grandiosity is in the hating and fighting, not the victory.

And death -- both homicide and suicide -- is the extremist's great obsession because its finality makes the grandiosity "real." If I am not afraid to kill and die, then I am larger than life. Certainly I am larger than the puny Westerners who are reduced to decadence by their love of life. So my hatred and my disregard of death, my knowledge that life is trivial, deliver me to a human grandeur beyond the reach of the West. After the Madrid bombings a spokesman for al-Qaeda left a message: "You love life, and we love death." The horror is that greatness is tied to death rather than to achievement in life.

The West is stymied by this extremism because it is used to enemies that want to live. In Vietnam, America fought one whose communism was driven by an underlying nationalism, the desire to live free of the West. Whatever one may think of this, here was an enemy that truly wanted to live, that insisted on territory and sovereignty. But Osama bin Laden fights only to achieve a death that will enshrine him as a figure of awe. The gift he wants to leave his people is not freedom or even justice; it is consolation.

White guilt in the West -- especially in Europe and on the American left -- confuses all this by seeing Islamic extremism as a response to oppression. The West is so terrified of being charged with its old sins of racism, imperialism and colonialism that it makes oppression an automatic prism on the non-Western world, a politeness. But Islamic extremists don't hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism -- not their continuance -- forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression, not more, opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism. * * *

But the international left is in its own contest with American exceptionalism. It keeps charging Israel and America with oppression hoping to mute American power. And this works in today's world because the oppression script is so familiar and because American power cringes when labeled with sins of the white Western past. Yet whenever the left does this, it makes room for extremism by lending legitimacy to its claim of oppression. And Israel can never use its military fire power without being labeled an oppressor -- which brings legitimacy to the enemies she fights. Israel roars; much of Europe supports Hezbollah.

Over and over, white guilt turns the disparity in development between Israel and her neighbors into a case of Western bigotry. This despite the fact that Islamic extremism is the most explicit and dangerous expression of human bigotry since the Nazi era. Israel's historical contradiction, her torture, is to be a Western nation whose efforts to survive trap her in the moral mazes of white guilt. Its national defense will forever be white aggression.

But white guilt's most dangerous suppression is to keep from discussion the most conspicuous reality in the Middle East: that the Islamic world long ago fell out of history. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. America has done a good thing in launching democracy as a new ideal in this region. Here is the possibility -- if still quite remote -- for the Islamic world to seek power through contribution rather than through menace.

Shelby Steele, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of "White Guilt" (HarperCollins, 2006).

bmw4545 @ 05:51 AM