A trenchant excerpt:

As close to self-parody as they come, these speeches make clear what motivates those Americans, on campus and off, who remain in a state of moral denial even after getting a Technicolor view of evil: multiculturalism. This ideology goes way beyond preaching the tolerance that is a bedrock virtue of a pluralistic society to insisting that all cultures are equally good–regardless of whether they beat their women, practice slavery or torture political dissidents.

In earlier generations, the schools, the workplace, the entire society, pushed immigrants toward assimilating into the great American “melting pot.” But as multiculturalism took hold, to require immigrant children to learn English, or be taught about the specialness of American history and the greatness of the ideas of the Founding Fathers, or to pledge allegiance to the flag, came to seem a sign of gross cultural insensitivity, even of racism.

It’s a long piece, but well worth the read, particularly for parents with children in college. In fact, in rereading it, I find it impossible for me to recommend it enough.

…conversations on the streets, in the shops and in the markets of this beleaguered capital suggest that a growing number of Afghans – worn out by more than 20 years of war and grinding poverty – wish bin Laden would simply leave.

There is little they can do, however, because few would be willing to challenge the rigidly Islamic regime that rules most of Afghanistan.

There seems to be little anger or bitterness toward the US described in the article–to the degree they are aware of it, they consider the WTC attacks to be very wrong. It would be nice to see a few stories like this reported in Islamabad or Riyad, or the New York Times, for that matter…

According to this story from The Telegraph UK the mullahs in Tehran must be getting pretty nervous. Apparently they’re cosying up to the Taliban (who they have heretofore considered enemies, being of a different flavor of Islam) to keep the original Afghani Shah from returning to power (which is one of the options being considered by the anti-Taliban alliance). They probably figure that with a return to monarchy in Afghanistan, and the pro-western unrest in their own streets, a return of a Persian Shah can’t be far behind…

The Academic

(Usually a professor of English, sometimes of political science or government, in his/her mid 50s ? their long questions require a very short answer.)

Q. Like some bull in a china shop, you charge into, as it were, some in fact quite complex issues of culture, race, class, and gender in the Middle East that simply cannot be resolved by brute military force used in a very unsophisticated, unfocused, and I must say frightening way that we saw only too well in Vietnam. We have foolishly spent much of the world’s sympathy accrued after September 11 in just the sort of unnecessary saber-rattling you so recklessly advocate. I have argued at length elsewhere that the United States must take very seriously complaints coming in from almost every corner of the Islamic world regarding its treatment of Muslims, from Palestine to Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and its predictable inability to hear the voices of those who by any reasonable definition are genuinely oppressed.

All too often we offer only the worst of our culture to those in dire need of basic necessities; if we must intervene in the internal affairs of others ? something in itself extremely problematic, and which I remain very troubled by ? it would be far better to craft a second Marshall Plan with no strings attached than to rain down bombs on children. September 11 was an unfortunate event, for which proper criminal and judicial measures ? albeit with special care to prevent the ominous onset of a police state ? must be addressed; but simply lashing out at suspected sympathetic governments will only compound the problem, and leave a legacy of hatred and impoverishment that will last for generations. By your logic we should bomb the havens of Boston or Frankfurt, where in fact terrorists were known to have lived quite safely.

A. Bin Laden would agree with almost everything you have said.

and

The Ignoramus

(Most often a student activist, and the most interesting of all the questioners, since he reveals instantaneously the erosion of the American educational system during the last three decades ? arrogance coupled with ignorance proving a fatal combination.)

Q. Why don’t you mention that the U.S. killed 2 million babies in Iran last year?

A. Wrong country, wrong number, wrong year ? wrong planet?

What happened on September 11 was, to Americans, much worse than Pearl Harbor, and most people understand that the stakes may be much greater, because of the new kinds of weapons available to our adversaries.

This will not be a Marquise of Queensberry war, except insofar as we perceive it to (temporarily) be in our strategic interest to make it so. While we aren’t officially tipping our hand now, Afghanistan is surely just a beginning, and when it is over, the Middle East will have a much different landscape, both geographically and politically. We may restore the Hashemite Kingdom to the Saudi Peninsula, we may restore the Ottoman Empire, or come up with some entirely new order there, but the current way of life there was doomed by bin Laden two months ago. For this, the people of that region may ultimately be grateful, but the outcome will not be the one that he desires.

We will suffer casualties, perhaps greater than any war in our history, both military and civilian, and we understand and accept that, but we will endure, and ultimately, we will prevail.