Short-term memory.

 Isn’t it interesting that we’ve managed to conveniently ignore the ongoing war in the Middle East–a war which, in all probability, we will eventually be pulled into–and we’ve dealt with two full days of unending reporting on airport delays and the fact that you can’t bring your toothpaste onto the plane with you?

Not to be a “hater,” but come on! Aren’t there more important things to be checking on? Then again, I forget that most people here don’t like to think about imminent wars with jihadis. (This seems to be a favored term in certain parts of the blogosphere and seems a little more to the point than “Islamic fascists” or the somewhat tortured terms that I’ve found myself using frequently such as “radical Islamists”, “Muslim extremists”, and the like. After all, it’s jihadist ideology that we’re up against, isn’t it?) Come to think of it, it’s not even that we’re dealing with an imminent war–we are in the middle of a war, and the imminent part of it is how big it is likely to get.

Now, I know that since we live in the U.S. and we’re not dealing with clear and present Katyusha strikes, it’s hard to maintain focus on a war that’s 7-10 hours ahead of us and seems to have all its interesting moments while the nighttime news shows play on repeat (so that we just get recaps of the real action in the morning). And to be honest, since I’m going to be traveling cross-country on an airline in a week, I’m interested in knowing what I might expect at the airport.

All things considered, however, must we spend hours defining and re-defining the fact that lip gloss, hair gel, beverages of any sort, and so on aren’t allowed into airplanes anymore? It seems to me that a succinct printed list might do the trick. But then, that’s me.

A collection of impressions

Just to go through some interesting stuff I found online today:

From Helen at EU Referendum, an article about foreign policy. She writes from the UK, but a large part of this is applicable to the United States, too.

Neither is our foreign policy to be decided by our media, who, though unaccountable in a political sense (and in the case of the BBC in every sense), has taken upon itself to pontificate on all matters and demand changes in government policy on its say-so.

In itself, that does not matter. The media has always given itself airs. [. . .]

As I have mentioned before the MSM became very powerful in the sixties, in the United States especially but in Britain, too. Post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, the assumption was that it and it alone should decide on foreign and domestic policy and, as things stand, those decisions tend to be left of centre and not on the side of the West or of a democratic country, named Israel, that is fighting for its survival.

If the people, in their lack of wisdom elect somebody who does not agree with the media’s stated position then that election is ever after viewed as a political coup. [. . .]

The same media finds it impossible to understand that violence is not an abstraction that is simply a bad thing and, therefore, everyone involved in it is equally bad with the only criterion being the number of victims (though that does not seem to apply to Iraq). The idea that some groups initiate violence and others defend themselves, sometimes through pre-emptive strikes, simply does not enter their world-view. Yet they are the people who want to impose their views on the rest of us and insist that the duly elected government follow their instructions.

From The Washington Times, this blurb:

As we said about the Reuters incident, media bias is a consensus, not a conspiracy. Consensus is what this apparent rash of unprofessional photography appears to be, which should remind U.S. policy-makers that active public diplomacy is indispensable as long as there are journalists who find war stories too good to check. [. . .]

 All this raises a policy issue, not just for Israelis but for the U.S. government, which should be well familiar with these issues by now. The terrorist enemy plays up civilian casualties and fights a considerable number of its battles in the Western media. Meanwhile, in that environment, the media frequently fails its own standards. To the extent that the U.S. public-diplomacy and international-communications apparatus stands by as the enemy manipulates the media, we are more vulnerable for it. Once the facts emerge in such cases, the full weight of the government’s communications efforts should be made to ensure that the correct information is distributed broadly — both nationally and internationally — and is not limited largely to conservative publications and blogs, as it is now.

From Rich Lowry at NRO, this: 

The British plot serves as a reminder that Islamic fanatics are intent on committing violent acts against the West, but really, how many reminders do we need? Since 9/11 there have been the Bali bombings (October 2002), the Madrid bombings (March 2004), and the British subway bombings (July 2005), among others. Terrorists are very good about reminding us of their threat at regular intervals — it’s just that there is a segment of Western opinion that willfully wants to forget.

And from The Jerusalem Post, via NRO, Saul Singer writes: 

Here is my grand unified theory of the history of the universe:

- democracies show weakness;
- dictators are emboldened and attack;
- democracies respond slowly, insufficiently, or appease;
- dictators are further emboldened and attack harder;
- war;
- democracies win;
- start over again…

[. . .]

It is assumed that Bush is powerless to fight this war because he is unpopular. The opposite is the case: He is unpopular because he is seen to be fighting unsuccessfully.It is also assumed that American people are in no mood for conflict, and if they were, Bush lacks the credibility to lead them. I know this sounds nuts, but I disagree, on both counts.

What do you think about the last part? Are we in the mood for conflict? I can’t tell, to be honest. I think that the military and the hawkish right (both subcultures I am well-versed in) are itching for a fight, so that they can take this on, for better or worse. However, I also know that they’re not the whole country. Then again, our media definitely doesn’t represent a majority, either, no matter how strident the voices of anti-war protesters can sound.

This will bear further watching, I guess.