Sunni-Shia Cooperation
It’s still too bloody hot, but there will be no whining allowed.
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have it much hotter, and there
is much they have to deal with, and to defeat. Guerrilla-style
attacks on the oil pipeline running to Turkey and a water treatment
plant are evidence of growing strength among those fighting to
thwart the evolution of a stable Iraqi government.
Funding for the Sunni and Shia imams who preach hatred of the
Coalition is mounting, and coordinated from somewhere. One of the
most dangerous elements — led by a young Shia imam named Moqtada
Sadr — is reportedly being funded by Sunni money. The cooperation
between these normally feuding factions is more than disturbing. It
is evidence of a kind of cooperation rarely seen in the Arab world,
and left undisturbed could become a larger problem for all moderate
Muslims, which means for us as well.
The money funding unrest in Iraq is coming from more than once
source. Iran is certainly involved. It has allies and agents among
the clerics and many in the Shia community. But their actions are
just as certainly being coordinated with Syrian and Jordanian
efforts to prevent democracy from taking hold. The cooperation and
coordination among Shia and Sunni should be a surprise to
absolutely no one. But it will be so shocking to many in the West,
especially in Europe, that they will deny it is even happening. But
it is.
Those of us who have repeatedly discounted the supposed enmity
among those radicals — as a barrier to cooperation in attacking
Western interests — are being proved right at this very moment in
Iraq. The amounts of money finding its way to Sadr and his ilk will
be shown to have originated in the accounts of radical Sunni. And
the largest and most wealthy of the radical Sunni live just where?
Take Dennis Miller’s hint about a nation that’s a veritable Mecca
for the lovers of terror.
Why Liberia Doesn’t Matter and Idi Amin Did
While the Mecca for terrorism thrives, we are sticking our noses
into a mess that doesn’t implicate American interests. Liberia —
the west African nation founded by repatriated former slaves — is
in shambles. Charles Taylor, the most recent thug to occupy the
president’s chair, was finally forced out when Dubya said he had to
go. But now a bunch of Marines are on the ground to do Heaven knows
what.
The only argument supporting this deployment is that Liberia
provides some beachhead in Africa for us to use against the serious
and ever-growing strength of Islamist terror groups there. If that
is what we intend, that is what we should say. Mr. Bush risks much
— principally being talked into the ever-growing and expanding
type of mission Lil’ Billy got into in Somalia. So far, he has not
explained why American interests are so much at stake in Liberia
that the loss of one soldier is worth the possible gain. He owes
that to the troops, even more so than to us. It seems very hard to
believe that Liberia can be a base for any significant effort
against terror in Africa. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see
it.
The demise of former murderous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is
exciting some smug and caustic commentary. The fact is that for
every Idi Amin that dies, there seem to be two that take his place.
But Amin had a considerable value to the free world. Not as the bad
example he was, but as to how such must be dealt with.
In late June 1976, Palestinian hijackers took Air France flight
139 to Uganda’s Entebbe Airport with hundreds of passengers,
including about 77 Israelis, aboard. There was much knuckle-rubbing
at the U.N. and in Washington. Amin’s troops — under his personal
supervision — moved the hostages to an airport terminal building
while the hijackers threatened to execute the hostages. On the
Fourth of July an Israeli special operations force landed at
Entebbe, freeing all but two of the hostages, and shooting any
Ugandans and Palestinians who stood in their way. The lessons of
the Entebbe raid are that terrorists find allies in many unlikely
places, and that their allies must be dealt with in the same manner
as we deal with them, with decisiveness, force, and finality. If we
can learn from Idi Amin, we can learn from almost anything. Maybe
even a blackout.
A Real Wake-Up Call
People dealt with the widespread blackout in Ohio, New York,
Detroit and parts of Canada with the kind of weary, “what else can
go wrong?” reaction summer brings. The calm, good-natured response
of most people is a testament to the adjustments we have all made
since 9-11. There is a faint glimmer in the air of the common bond
Americans shared before the Vietnam era. Maybe the Gipper was
premature. Now it really is morning in America. In the blackout,
people helped each other, and instead of hanging Michael Bloomberg
in effigy (which must be left to New York cigar smokers, now in
hiding) everyone seemed so grateful that terrorists weren’t
responsible. But for tall the good cheer, this blackout proved a
major vulnerability we have to end.
As usual, Mr. Bush got it right by calling the blackout a
“wake-up call.” But it’s more than that. One of the biggest reasons
that old Gray-out Davis made such a hash of the California budget
was his decision to buy at short-term rates some very expensive
electricity from other states. California — itself the height of
enviro-whacko irresponsibility — hasn’t built a power plant in
over a decade. Forget nukes. The Marin County Mafia and the
Hollywoodenheads have conspired to prevent the construction of any
power plants at all.
The blackout was so widespread because the power grid is
dependent on so few sources of electricity. The grid is nothing
more than a network for distributing power. It creates none.
Worrying about the power grid is diverting attention from the basic
problem. Even with the best power grid, you are only moving someone
else’s electrons around. Generating more electricity is the only
real answer.
As usual, the Dems and the bureaucrats — in this case, the
jerks from FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — want
to impose a grid system like the one that cascaded to blackouts
last week on regions of the country where power is cheap and pretty
reliable, like the South. What they would do is force low-cost
suppliers to make up for the lack of generation of power in places
where it is high-cost, like the Northeast. Better to scrap FERC,
and give the states real incentives to build the power plants they
desperately need, both nuke and non-nuke.
There are too many directions in which that thought must be
pursued. We cannot fail to provide adequate and reliable power, for
our national security — both physical and economic — depend on
it. The enviro-whackos who prevent power plants from being built,
and who have essentially banned nuclear power from any growth in
America, will have to be outvoted and outfought in Congress and the
states. Even then, building power plants will cost enormous amounts
of money, which will bankrupt state and federal budgets unless
corresponding spending reductions are made in other programs. The
choice is between cutting the nanny government down to size, or
seeing the most urgent priorities fall prey to the political whims
of the Libs. Ain’t it always?
