Results are in from Turin...I mean, Torino...which is a city in Italy...or is that Italia? Someone call NBC and find out, will you?

TORINO, Italy (AP) -- The Italian women's hockey team debuted in the Olympics by winning the opening faceoff against mighty Team Canada.

That was as good as it got for the hosts Saturday night.

Caroline Ouellette and Hayley Wickenheiser each scored three goals to lead the Canadians to a 16-0 win over Italy, the largest rout in women's Olympic hockey history.

Among the goal-scorers in the Canadian romp was Sarah Vaillancourt!

Sarah Marie Vaillancourt (born June 8, 1985) is a Canadian women's ice hockey player from Sherbrooke, Quebec. She currently is an up and coming star playing for the Harvard University Crimson. In 2005, she made the Canadian national women's hockey team, where she would go on to play at the 2005 Women's World Ice Hockey Championships in Sweden. In her first game ever, she led Canada with 6 points in an 13-0 win over the Kazakhstani national women's ice hockey team. This tied a record for most points in a game on the Canadian national team. She would finish the tournament with 8 points.

Needless to say, our jerseys have been ordered.

The Bangkok Post reports the latest tirade from the President of the Islamic Republic:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and "other nations" will eventually remove Israel from the region.

Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust "fairy tale".

"We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them," Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

"Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations," the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a "fairy tale" and said Europeans have become hostages of "Zionists" in Israel.

He also accused Europeans for not allowing "neutral scholars" to investigate in Europe and make a scientific report on "the truth about the fairy tale of Holocaust."

"How comes that insulting the prophet of Muslims worldwide is justified within the framework of press freedom, but investigating about the fairy tale Holocaust is not?" Ahmadinejad said.

"The real Holocaust is what is happening in Palestine where the Zionists avail themselves of the fairy tale of Holocaust as blackmail and justification for killing children and women and making innocent people homeless," Ahmadinejad said.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it pains me to say this, but it can no longer be in doubt: we are going to war again, probably soon, and in the not too distant future the weekend we're having right now will be looked back upon as the "good old days."

Since at least 1997, every time there is a serious clash between Islam and the West, anxious good-hearted commentators everywhere ask themselves and their readers, "Is this the Clash of Civilizations that Samuel Huntington was talking about?" This is invariably followed by a long list of reasons why the author doesnt' think so or policy prescriptions that must be followed if we are to have any hope of preventing "the clash."

Of course, what Huntington actually was doing in his famous work was devising a new analytical tool for those interested in foreign affairs; the "clash" of his book's title did not refer to a coming cataclysmic war or an apocalypse but to the quiet normal and routine "clash" of interests and values that is inherent to foreign relations. Seen in that light, the book is much less scary, though I've found that more people think they know what Huntington was writing about than people who actually understand Huntington's hypothesis.

After all, domestic politics, in their own way, are hardly different. One could conceivably craft a book about the legislative process in the U.S. Congress and entitle it "The Clash of American Sub-Cultures" and you'd be just as correct. Politics is all about competing values, and as Isaiah Berlin so helpfully explained to us, many of those competing values can actually all be individually desirable. And, so, the domestic political process provides a forum in which the standard-bearers for different interests stand up and fight their corner, the end result being something close to approximating society's judgment on divvying up the social goods at any given moment. It was this fact--that the legislature in a liberal democratic regime can revisit issues and re-allocate values--that led Berlin to conclude that liberalism was a superior form of government.

What Huntington did was take this rather mundane observation, combined it with an analysis of recent history, and concluded that the near future in international relations could best be conceived as an world-wide competition for one's civilization's values and ideals, but without any mechanism like a domestic parliament able to legitimately ration out such values or resolve matters in dispute. (The U.N. sometimes aspires to this goal, but, in the final analysis, none of the major civilizations Huntington speaks of would ever truly allow its authority to speak for itself to be devolved to an institution dominated by the West).

Of course, as Huntington readily admits, the main value of an ideological map like the Clash of Civilizations is its predictive ability, i.e. does it provide a framework for accurately anticipating likely outcomes of world events? No framework ever does this job to complete satisfaction, even ones that become widely accepted around the globe, like the old Cold War bi-polar paradigm. Of all the schools of foreign policy out there-neo-conservatism, liberal internationalism, realism, Marxism-however, I have yet to find one with greater predictive power than Huntington's. Simply put, when one runs the current issues, crises and flash points around the world through Huntington's predictive construct, one generally finds that Huntington's way of looking at the world is hugely helpful.

Obviously, I can't summarize Huntington's thesis in one paragraph, but I do think some general outlines of what he argues can be set forth in a simple, easy-to-read and easy-to-understand manner.

First, Huntington defines a civilization as the highest order of a social group to which a person will readily identify himself. For example, an Italian man in a cafe in Rome would probably identify himself, in ascending order, as: a Roman, an Italian, a European, a man of the West, while a similar man in a cafe in Cairo would identify himself as a Cairo-ite, an Egyptian, a Muslim. With that definition in hand, Huntington identifies seven major world civilizations active today, with their "core state," that is, the leading state or states that stand for and defend the given civilization:

1) West: Non-orthodox Europe, U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand (I would add Israel to this list; Huntington does not and, in fact, barely mentions it at all in his book, largely, one suspects, because it is a civilizational unit of its own that would tend to muddy the waters of his high-level overview).

Core States: United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, France

2) Orthodox: Orthodox Europe and most post-Soviet Asian republics.

Core State: Russia

3) Latin America: Everything south of the Rio Grande. Though closely related to the West, Latin America has evolved its own unique culture throughout the years, in large part due to the indigenous mix and political isolation.

Core State: None. Candidates include Brazil and Mexico, though Mexico is described as a "torn state," i.e. a state with a population of one civilization and a leadership desiring a move to another. In Mexico's case that would be from Latin America to the West. Another classic "torn state" is Turkey, which has been trying to move to the West for decades now.

4) Islam: The entire Muslim world, stretching from Indonesia to Morocco.

Core State: None. Candidates include Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. (Iraq was on this list until...well, you know).

5) Sunic: China, most of Southeast Asia, Korea

Core State: People's Republic of China.

6) Hindic: India, Sri Lanka, other portions of Asia.

Core State: India.

7) Japanese: Japan. The only one-state civilization left in the world.

You can quibble with some of these (where does Cambodia fall in this scheme? How about Ukraine?), but I think overall this "big picture" of the world's major civilizations is largely accurate. The only real problem I have is with Latin America being separated from the West, since I think when push comes to shove there is much more solidarity there than one would normally suppose. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that life is different in Buenos Aires or Bogota in a way that is neither quite Western or quite something else.

Huntington's thesis is that each of these civilizations carry with them an innate sense of superiority, not necessarily in a chauvinistic manner, but that each seeks a way to modernize and flourish within its own context. With the end of the Cold War and a relative decline in the power of the West, other cultures are now more or less free to give their aspirations full expression. In Asia and the Islamic world, especially, there has been a wide-spread and thoroughly predictable rejection of Westernism's universalist presumptions in favor of localized culturally-specific modernizations. It is important, Huntington warns, not to confuse Westernization with modernization; the fact that Islamic fanatics wear Yankee caps doesn't mean they are becoming more Western any more than the fact that you drove your Toyota to work this morning while listening to your Sony radio means you are becoming more Japanese.

As each culture "stretches its legs" so to speak, the resulting clash and fault lines become apparent. Add to that a youth crunch in demography and the West is looking at some serious issues with the Islamic and the Sinic worlds in near term. I'm leaving out a lot here, especially the good stuff about whether or not the West's own attitudes towards itself is effectively dooming it as a competitor, but you get the picture. Nation states are not the central creatures to watch; what you watch is the culture, the underlying civilization.

How best to manage these clashes? Huntington offers a simple set of policy prescriptions for the West for the near future. He says in order to preserve the West and minimize conflict, it is in our interest:

1) to achieve greater political, economic and military integration and to coordinate policies so as to preclude states from other civilizations exploiting differences;

2) to incorporate into the EU and NATO the Western states of Eastern Europe;

3) to encourage the "Westernization" of Latin America and, as far as possible, the close alignment of Latin American countries with the West;

4) to restrain the development of the conventional and unconventional military power of Islamic countries and Sinic countries;

5) to slow the drift of Japan away from the West and toward accommodation with China;

6) to accept Russia as the core state of Orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders;

7) to maintain Western technological and military superiority over other civilizations; and

8) most important, to recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multi-civilizational world.

Of these points, the first and the last are the most important. Starting today, and continuing into next week, I will be taking a closer look at these policy prescriptions, what they mean, how they transcend the current and increasingly sterile debate between neo-cons and realists, how they might be implemented and what a United States devoted to a civilizational paradigm in its foreign policy analysis might look like.

Until then, my friends.

It's a Quick Notes Wednesday! Let the short, topically-unconnected paragraphs commence!

-- One of the most frustrating thing about being a Republican is watching our leaders walk into no-win situations, smile about it and then graciously not complain. Good form, but utterly maddening to the rank and file. Mrs. King's funeral was only the latest such event; they have a long, shameful history.

You know the drill. Something happens that compels Republicans to attend an Democratic-dominated event in an official capacity. Never missing an opportunity to "speak truth to power" (unless, of course, the "power" in question are fanatical Muslims-wouldn't want to stretch it too far!) in an utterly graceless and rude manner, the liberals then use their opponent's presence as an opportunity to call them evil, wicked murderers of the poor and the weak.

Don't they know how these tactics make them look? Does the term "Wellstone Funeral" have any political meaning?

-- Supporters of the U.S. Government's shameful statement that the Mohammed Cartoons are "unacceptable" like to point out how making nicey-nice with the Islamists protects America's current national interests. From today's AP wire:

Police killed four people Wednesday as Afghans enraged over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad marched on a U.S. military base in a volatile southern province, directing their anger not against Europe but America.

The U.S. base was targeted because the United States "is the leader of Europe and the leading infidel in the world," said Sher Mohammed, a 40-year-old farmer who suffered a gunshot wound while taking part in the demonstration in the city of Qalat.

Can someone please get Mr. Mohammed a copy of the State Department press release? I'm sure as soon as he understands that we share his outrage he'll stop being mad at America.

Please.

-- Something big went unnoticed in the aftermath of a presentation at the National Press Club by NSA chief General Michael V. Hayden, USAF, on January 23. Gen. Hayden was giving the press an overview of the NSA surveillance program targeted at communications directed by suspected Al Qaeda associates into the United States. In the course of his remarks, Gen. Hayden made a comment in passing that immediately caught my full attention:

Let me talk for a few minutes also about what this program is not. It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.

Why is this significant? Because the general in charge of the NSA singled out for comment three communities in the United States-Dearborn, Lackawanna and Fremont (it's not "Freemont" you East Coast transcriber!)- that just happen to have active radical Islamic immigrant communities. It struck me as highly instructive that, as a side comment, the man in charge of the NSA could rattle off those communities as examples of where one would expect an over-reaching government to put a "driftnet" over without exciting any reaction. One gets the feeling that these three communities are known to the national security apparatus for a reason. One would be right.

-- Speaking of which, why, exactly, are we still issuing "R" Visas to workers from Islamic countries?

-- Our local sports columnist, John Canzano, wrote an angry column on Feb 2 denouncing Coach Bowher of the Steelers for running his pre-game preparations like a dictator while the ever-so-smart Coach Holmgren was praised for running his in a very friendly, laid-back fashion. Holmgren even let his players go on talk shows, party, have a good time. Bowher, on the other hand, was mean-tempered, a bully, a Very Bad Guy. Said Canzano: the Steelers will win, but only if "Cowher stops making the biggest mistake of this Super Bowl week by taking this game preparation too seriously."

Which just goes to show you that it's not just the political columnists at the Oregonian who have their heads up their asses.

-- Speaking of Portland, the Tribune reported this week that almost no one on the Portland Streetcar pays a fare.

Really? On the Streetcar? Gosh, what a surprise.

Also a surprise: the Streetcar's executive director admitting that the Streetcar doesn't receive any federal funding because "[w]e don't come close to meeting the federal cost-effective criteria."

Really? You mean it's just a multi-million dollar boondoggle designed to cart around too-old, no-job-having, permanent-student slackers from the Pearl to their "classes" as Portland State University?

-- In other shocking Portland news, this week's issue of Willamette Week features sexually explicit stories about Portland's sex industry, cynical reports of City Hall shenanigans, lots of nasty words about conservatives and suburbanites (suckers, they pay for their transport!), ads for tattoo parlors and club listings for punk bands that don't seem to realize that the punk movement was, charitably, 25 years ago.

In other words, you've already read it, so don't bother. But, hey, it's avant-garde!

-- I hope I never have to face hand to hand combat. If, however, I do, I know in my heart that, as I charge the enemy, I will find the courage to shout my battle-cry:

"LEEROY JENKINS!!!"

-- Yes, I've been playing WoW again. Why do you ask?

CNN continues to quake in its boots regarding the Mohammed Cartoons. They say they don't want to unnecessarily enflame Muslim sensibilities, like, as you'll recall, their "no show" policy regarding the Abu Ghraib abuse pictures.

What is CNN's Israel/Palestinian Authority bureau not telling us out of "sensitivity" to Muslims?

Hey, let's ask Eason Jordan! He'll know for sure!

I encourage everyone to copy this fine image and use it on your own site:




That about says all that needs to be said, doesn't it?

I never thought I'd see the day when our European friends demonstrate a clearer understanding of the stakes in the war against Islamic Fascism than Americans. Yet, that appears to be exactly what is happening with regard to the Mohammed Cartoons controversy.

While Americans conservatives argue about whether or not standing up for free speech in this instance is "helpful" or not, a growing number of European commentators have cut rather effectively through the noise and have focused on first principles.

Typical of the genre is the op-ed in today's Washington Post by Die Zeit's Washington correspondent, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff:

But the criteria change when material that is seen as offensive becomes newsworthy. That's why we saw bodies falling out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's why we saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. On such issues we print what we usually wouldn't. The very nature of the discourse is to find parameters of what is culturally acceptable. How many times have we seen Janet Jackson's breast in the course of a discussion of the limits of family entertainment? How many times have we printed material that Jews might consider offensive in an attempt to define the extent of anti-Semitism? It seems odd that most U.S. papers patronize their readers by withholding cartoons that the whole world talks about. To publish does not mean to endorse. Context matters.

It's worth remembering that the controversy started out as a well-meaning attempt to write a children's book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. The book was designed to promote religious tolerance. But the author encountered the consequences of religious hatred when he looked for an illustrator. He could not find one. Denmark's artists seemed to fear for their lives. In turning down the job they mentioned the fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist for harshly criticizing fundamentalism.

When this episode percolated to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the paper's cultural editor commissioned the caricatures. He wanted to see whether cartoonists would self-censor their work for fear of violence from Muslim radicals. Still, the European media ignored this story in a small Scandinavian country. It took months, a boycott of Danish products in the Arab world and the intervention of such champions of religious freedom as the governments of Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya (all of which withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen) for some European papers to reconsider their stance on the cartoons. By last week it was not an obscure topic anymore but front-page news. And it wasn't about religious sensibilities as much as about free speech. That's when the cartoons started to show up in papers all over Europe.

Much of the U.S. reporting about the fracas made it appear as if Europeans just don't get it -- again. They struggle with immigration. They struggle with religion. They struggle with respect for minorities. And in the end they find their cities burning, as evidenced in Paris. Bill Clinton even detected an "anti-Islamic prejudice" and equated it with a previous "anti-Semitic prejudice."

The former president has turned the argument upside down. In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe's supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules. Does Bill Clinton want to counsel tolerance toward intolerance?

On Friday the State Department found it appropriate to intervene. It blasted the publication of the cartoons as unacceptable incitement to religious hatred. It is a peculiar moment when the government of the United States, which likes to see itself as the home of free speech, suggests to European journalists what not to print.

As is usually the case, I suspect that the differences in perspective between Americans and Europeans on this score is the result of different relative positions. Europeans, thanks to disastrous decisions made by an earlier generation, now live cheek-by-jowl with a very large and very assertive Muslim minority. One suspects that this debate is less than academic for European writers and thinkers and that the name "Van Gogh" is never far from their minds.

Some American conservatives and commentators have focused in on the need to denounce the cartoons themselves since the ensuing controversy is not helpful to America's over-all goals in the War on Terror. After all, these conservatives argue, this controversy has just made our soldier's and diplomat's lives much, much more difficult in Iraq and Afghanistan and has needlessly complicated our alliances with countries like Turkey and Pakistan.

While I have a great deal of sympathy for the impulses that have produced this reaction, it must be said that, helpful or not, the controversy now exists in objective reality and choices must be made. While undeniably true that the U.S. would be making its job in the Middle East and elsewhere more difficult on the ground should it stand for principle, it is equally undeniably true that the only other alternative is to send the very dangerous message to our enemies that our liberties are negotiable.

In any case, defense of speech should never be equated by defense of the message. Even if one believe the Danish cartoons are horrifically offensive (they are not), one must stand up for the offensive speaker's absolute right to engage in legitimate political speech without hindrance, and certainly without subjecting oneself to a Muslim veto.

It is in this sense that all the Blogosphere talk about "helpfulness" misses the point: the controversy throws up a bevy of options, none of which are ideal from a strictly strategic point of view. This does not eliminate the need for us to respond in some meaningful way.

On of the leading proponents for the "this is not about free speech" school of thought, Hugh Hewitt, asks us to answer the question: Are we at war with Islam? Do we wish such a war?

Taking the second question first: obviously not. In fact, I fear such a war. I would do anything to avoid it short of surrender to Islam's demands.

As to the first question, I don't think so, not exactly, but it is regrettably something close to that.

I think it is beyond doubt that there exists a pan-Islamic school of fascist thought that has declared war on the West and that support for this line is quite high among the Muslim masses. Since they have declared war, and since their rationale for this war is Islam, we are, in a sense, at war with Islam. To paraphrase Trotksy's famous saying on the dialectic, "you may not be interested in an Islamic war, but Islamic war is interested in you."

I frankly do not find the significance in Jim Geraghty's dispatches from Turkey that Hugh assigns to them. Speaking as someone who has lived abroad in an anti-American atmosphere, I am very aware that it is possible for a population to be deeply anti-American and yet, at the same time, the vast majority of people are apolitical, nice to Americans in restaurants and want American visas. I suspect if one could go back in time to 1938 Munich one would also find lots of smiling, friendly Germans willing to take in an American traveller with great hospitality. The conflict is bigger than individuals, and lone Americans aren't seen in the same light as America-with-a-capital-A. None of which changes the facts that our respecitive civilizations stand for very different things and that these things are now in armed conflict.

If we are not fighting to preserve our liberty from a Muslim veto, what, exactly are we fighting for?

*** Please See Update Below ***

A British court yesterday found Islamic fascist Abu Hamza al-Masri guilty of soliciting murder stemming from the "cleric's" exhortations of his followers to kill unbelievers, especially Jews. Hamza was immediately sentenced to seven years in prison. He could have, and should have, received a life sentence.

While, as I have written before, I have some qualms about some of the charges brought in this case under Britain's ridiculous "hate speech" laws, the key fact here was that Hamza was convicted of an offense which does not touch upon those concerns. Solicitating murder has never been held to be within the boundaries of free speech protection.

Just a few years ago, Britain could not even summon the will to deport Hamza, despite his boasts about a sham marriage and defrauding the government out of thousands of pounds in welfare money. Efforts to extradite him to third countries repeatedly failed.

Now, however, the mood is different. Even in Britain--where the poison of generations of sloppy socialist and multi-culti thinking is deeply embedded in everyday life--people are starting to wake up. Where yesterday Hamza was politically untouchable, today he is a convict.

Like we saw with the great turnaround in New York City under Mayor Giuliani, the only thing that changed was the political will of the people, illustrating yet again that until we get our civilizational house in order no victory in the war against Islamic Fascism will be possible.

What this means for conservatives is that we must never stop explaining, convincing, writing, talking, speaking, reading and, above all, reaching out to liberals who disagree with us.

It is at home that this war will be won or lost. Our enemies, like Hamza, will disappear like a forgotten nightmare the moment we summon the popular will to victory.

UPDATE: In 2003, British police raided Hamza's mosque in Finsbury Park. This raid, accomplished with armed and armored policemen, set off a chorus of abuse of the government by left-wing Britons who complained loudly that "holy" places were being abused by a power-mad government.

Now that Hamza's trial is over, HMG can now reveal what the police found in this so-called "holy" mosque. From the BBC:

Among the haul--some of which was found close to Abu Hamza's office--were chemical warfare protection suits, pistols, CS spray and a stun gun.

A gas mask, handcuffs, hunting knives and a walkie-talkie were also found.

Aside from military-style equipment, police also found more then 100 stolen or forged passports and identity documents, credit cards, laminating equipment and chequebooks hidden under rugs. More than £3,000 in cash was also recovered.

So long as we continue to treat the enemy's "holy" sites differently from how we treated similar structures in past wars--like German cathedrals used to store ammunition--the enemy will continue to exploit this weakness.

Writing in the Times yesterday, one of the best political writers in modern times, Matthew Parris, demonstrated that, unlike many on the right--including a personal hero of mine, Hugh Hewitt--he understands clearly the stakes in the Mohammed Cartoon controversy. Parris writes:

But offence implicitly offered, and offence actually taken, are two different matters. On the whole Christians, for example, take offence less readily than Muslims. The case for treating them, in consequence, differently is obvious, but we should be wary of it. It means groups are allowed to be as thin-skinned as they wish: to dictate for themselves how delicately we must tread with them--to create, as it were, their own definition of respect and require us to observe it. (Emphasis added).

This is, of course, the key. Once one agrees that one should not do anything that will objectively cause Muslims offense, one has in effect given the keys to one's liberty to a group that not only is notoriously thin-skinned but one that has shown an ability to feign outrage for political purposes.

There is no "Muslim veto" on our right to free speech and liberty, not even in the name of respect, decency or tolerance, as important as those values are.

You can find the whole essay here.

Although there are a lot of loud voices in this debate, I have been heartened by three things it has illustrated sharply: 1) that an ever-growing number of people across the West are very much aware of the danger poised by Islamic Fascism; 2) that we in the conservative Blogosphere can debate and disagree on very firmly held points of view without name-calling; and 3) that our deep contempt for the MSM is wholly justified.