Once again there is open war between the Israelis and Muslim Arabs, and once again there are threats to unleash the Oil Weapon.

With prices already at record highs the crazy people who live atop much of the world’s most easily recoverable oil still aren’t happy. They need more money. For palaces. And maybe a few rockets and nukes.

The same Wall Street kool-aid drinkers who think countries should just throw open their borders for cheap labor also hallucinate that the oil market is free. They say nobody controls the price, that the government shouldn’t interfere by increasing taxes. Following this advice has produced disasterous results. Out of ignorance or greed these geniuses have helped fleece the West and enrich the enemies of civilization.

The oil market is most definitely not free. Every time an oil oligarch acts nutty the market rewards him. The formula is so obvious that by now even Hugo Chavez surely knows it: Make loud threatening noises and the price of oil will jump.

On top of that oil is subsidized by trillions of dollars in US defense spending. The concept of externality might be a bit too subtle for the Wall Street types. It’s simple. Ignoring the consequences can make any action appear sensible.

The US pays to keep Mid East oil safe and ensure stable prices. What would the price of oil be if the US didn’t police the Mid East? Lower? Why? Because the US is a bullying imperialist power exploiting the world’s resources and those who rebel are altruistic patriots who only want peace? Puhlease. Iran would be a threat whether there were troops in Iraq or not. Without US policing the price of oil would be higher. Some strongman or another would long ago have seized a large enough chunk of the supply to extort oil consumers. Saddam tried. Iran is trying.

So why does the US fear an oil embargo? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Suppose country X threatens to alter their oil exports with the stated aim to harm the US. This is an act of aggression. Suppose the US responds by calling the bluff and deliberately crippling country X’s oil infrastructure. This would have several predictable consequences:

• The price of oil would go up worldwide.
• Oil would stop flowing out of country X.
• Money would stop flowing into country X.
• Enemies and rivals of the US, including a coalition of Leftists, pacifists, and Islamists living throughout the civilized world, would condemn the US.

This is not the unmitigated economic catastrophe the fearsome Oil Weapon is supposed to produce. The economic losses shared by the oil consumers would be matched and concentrated on country X. The higher more honest prices would spur the development of alternatives. Other sources of oil, particularly in North America, become profitable above certain thresholds.

Yes this scenario requires the US to make a “preemtive” strike against country X. This action could be legitimately justified by self-defense, in response to the threat from country X’s use of an Oil Weapon, and the WMDs funded by oil money. Is it not more humane to destroy pipelines and pumps then to wage war by deliberate acts of violence and destruction against people?

To those who say that preemptive strikes are beyond the pale I respond: This is how the war is already being waged against the US. Civilization’s enemies are envigorated by the influx of oil money, using their profits to strengthen and broaden the pursuit of their repressive aims. They are intentionally bleeding civilization into backruptcy. It isn’t unfair for the US to fight fire with fire.

The Danegeld doesn’t have to be paid. It shouldn’t be paid. The US produces a large fraction of the oil it consumes. It can quickly find alternatives for the excess.

Can the leaders of Iran and Venezuela stay in power and export their poison without oil income?

So Fidel’s amigo and leftist icon Oliver Stone made a 9/11 film. What I want to know is: Where are the distraught women sobbing “too soon”? Where are the cynics and their accusations of exploitation? In an election year! You know, the kind of handwringing United 93 was greeted with only four short months ago.

Stone talked about his new movie at the Bangkok International Film Festival:

However, when asked whether the world in general and America in particular was ready for a drama about the 9/11 attacks, the director was dismissive.

“I would hate that to be the main question about the movie, though I sense that is what’s going to happen,” he told the BBC News website.

“I’m not in the business of knowing whether America is ready. You just hope it will be.”

Charlie Sheen was quoted as saying

Call me insane, but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?

He’ll be disappointed if Stone is hyping government “myths”. It’s more likely Stone’s story will amount to: building falls on two buddies, who with luck and perseverance survive. That wouldn’t be a big surprise. Out of fear or disinterest Hollywood has so far felt no pressing need to confront the more complicated issues.

Questions like who brought those buildings down and why. It’s pretty clear to many of us. If others need mass media treatment and consensus then by all means let’s move it along.

UPDATE: For many New Yorkers it is too soon. It must be true. AFP says so.

UPDATE: An essay by Christopher Hitchens written shortly after 9/11, about an encounter with Oliver Stone:

I challenged Stone to reconsider his view of the immolation of the World Trade Center as a “revolt.” He ignored me. Later he added that this rebellion would soon be joined by the anti-globalization forces of the Seattle protesters. When he was asked by a member of the audience to comment on the applause for the September 11 massacres in Arab streets and camps, he responded that the French Revolution, too, had been greeted by popular enthusiasm.

Hmmm, I wonder if Stone’s opinion has changed?

The “scandal” over the depths to which a leftist artist went to advance her agenda is certainly juicy, but should not eclipse this honest insight: the nature of leftist angst is visceral and infantile.

When photographer Jill Greenberg decided to take a lollipop away from a small child, she had a broader purpose in mind.

“The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset,” the Los Angeles-based photographer said. “It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation.”

That’s strange. The left’s short-sighted self-centered behavior reminds me of hysterical children.

As Michelle Malkin would say, boo friggin hoo.

Five years after 9/11 and precious few recognize the simple fact that a worldwide war is in progress. Some snigger at the idea.

The jihadis attack civilization around the world on a daily basis. The bulk of it goes unreported by the mass media. Islam, the common thread running through it all, is rarely mentioned. There is only one dot to connect but for some reason they won’t do it.

Ever since Hizballah and HAMAS goaded Israel into war there has been a noticable change. Sure the same people who laugh about world wars are already back to blaming it all on Bush and the neocons. What’s different is that the mass media has finally found more pundits willing to speak frankly about Islamofacism and the jihadis.

Amid the knee-jerk calls for ceasefire and negotiation something has finally begun to dawn on a few more of the world’s civilized people. Oh, now I see. You can’t please the Islamists. They seem to live for only one purpose, to war on civilization. We cannot negotiate with such socipaths. The only reasonable option to protect ourselves is to disarm, disable, or destroy them before they can launch their craven and demented attacks.

Welcome to the world war.

And it is a world war, notwithstanding the inability of some US Supreme Court justices to recognize that jihadi organizations are engaged in an international conflict:

In deciding as it did, the Court also ignored its own venerable precedent — of over a half-century’s standing — that the Geneva Conventions, even when they do create binding obligations on governments, do not create judicially enforceable rights for individuals. Disputes over their application are, rather, to be worked out diplomatically, among the political representatives of sovereigns. Moreover, the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant to Hamdan’s case. He is a terrorist combatant who fails to meet the conventions’ definition of a prisoner of war; consequently, he is not entitled to the conventions’ POW protections. In order to get around this inconvenient fact, the Court had to invoke (and distort) “Common Article 3” of the conventions, which applies only to civil wars taking place within the territory of a single country, as opposed to international conflicts. The Court argued, absurdly, that because al Qaeda is not a nation, it cannot be in an international conflict: so the global War on Terror is not “international,” despite having been fought in the United States, Somalia, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As for Article 3’s requirement that the conflicts to which it applies be confined to a single country, the Court’s majority found an easy way to get around it: by ignoring it.

The jihadis are not so blind:

In one of the most admirably straightforward of Islamist declarations, Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, put it this way:

“We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.”

This from a fascinating article by Mark Steyn who goes on to describe the deep irony that faces Europe, Egypt, Jordan, and the Saudis, who have for decades deliberately prolonged the misery of their Palestinian proxies and now find these proxies firmly under the sway of Persian Shia.

Ooops.

Syria and Iran not only support Hizballah and HAMAS, they support insurgents in Iraq trying to overthrow its civilized government. How much longer will this phony proxy kabuki go on before the rest of civilization recognizes that we are all already at war? And how long until the mass media reports it?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt connects the dot, though he doesn’t name it. “Can we agree that all terrorists have some degree of mental illness?” OK. Can we agree that “terrorist” is starting to sound like an absurd euphemism?

Another transmission from das Heimchen (The Cricket).

Here’s an interview that appeared in yesterday’s DIE WELT. The person interviewed struggled for 3 years to get her book, “Londonistan”, published. Unlike Oriana Falacci, she did not have to seek exile in New York – yet. I’ve translated it partially for the mental exercise but thought it might interest you. It is part of my continuing search for signs of budding awareness in Europe.

For reference I believe the original (auf Deutch) is here.

MULTI-CULTURAL DEBATE

For three years British journalist Melanie Phillips has been searching for a publisher for her book dealing with the multi-cultural threat in the UK. Finally, three weeks ago, “Londonistan” came out in print and is already a bestseller in England. WELT online spoke with the author.

In the opinion of Melanie Phillips Great Britain has not yet grasped the threat of Jihad. The British establishment is still looking for excuses for Islamic extremists and underestimates the danger of  Islam. The author has written a conservative plea that warns of  multiculturalism, the undermining of traditional values and anti-Semitism.

This was no subject for the publishers; they rejected the manuscript. Readers evidently think differently. After Ms. Phillips finally did find a small publisher, the book is now number one amongst the political titles on amzon.com.uk and the publisher figures on selling 30,000 copies by September. WELT online spoke with the former writer for the left-liberal “Guardian”, who now writes for the conservative “Daily Mail”.

WELT online: Ms. Phillips, why is the West unable to win the conflict with Terror?

Phillips: What the British establishment doesn’t seem to get is that the conflict has religious roots. It prefers to look for excuses for the terrorists, which leads to where, eventually, the establishment itself takes the blame. I. e.,  Muslims are the victims of  prejudice, xenophobia, poverty and foreign policy. Our society is paralyzed by the doctrine of multiculturalism. If you criticize a minority, you obviously must be prejudiced. Moreover, many Englishmen do not understand religious fanaticism.

WELT online: This is probably true for most Europeans.

Phillips: But especially in England. It has been a strength of Brits over the centuries, and an important protection against tyranny, that they never had much sympathies for the world of ideas. They tended to believe only what they could see. The flipside of this anti-intellectualism is that  Britons can not relate to the idea of religious fanaticism. Suicide for them is a completely incomprehensible act and the reason for it can only be that the perpetrator must have suffered incredibly heinous things to be driven to suicide. Thus the terrorist becomes the victim. Britons are in a state of denial. They will not acknowledge the origin and the extend of the threat.

WELT online: Don’t you overestimate Islamism? There have always been phases of violence. The Red Army Fraction and the Red Brigade promoted radicalization of society in the seventies and found support with professors and young people. Yet they did not achieve the overturn of western society.

Phillips: I see this completely different. The West underestimates Islamism. It is completely absurd not to take seriously what the Islamic brotherhood says and writes. What they preach is what the Terrorists execute.

WELT online: But you don’t mean that Muslims as the danger, per se, do you?

Phillips: By no means. In my book I make it clear that many Muslims do not support violence. And, basically, they are the main victims of this struggle between the West and Islam.

WELT online: And why do you reject multiculturalism?

Phillips: The numbers for the radicalization of Muslims are frightening. Approximately 70% of Muslims in the UK support acts of violence. Only 17% of Muslims believe that the Arabs had anything to do with 9/11. This means that the majority believes in one or the other conspiracy theory that say America and the Jews were behind the destruction of the WTC. About a third of Muslims consider Jews a legitimate targets for aggression. Anyone not seeing  danger here is naïve.

WELT online: Why do we not succeed in making western values like freedom of opinion, equality of women and tolerance attractive to Muslims.?

Phillips: I believe that the last few years have brought a creeping radicalization that most have been slow to become aware of. This radicalization has two roots: Firstly, after the Afghan-Soviet war a number of  Muslims came to Britain that were too radical for the homeland. They established the UK as the main center for Al-Qaida in Europe. Secondly, in the seventies Islamic organizations were taken over by radical groups that were largely financed by Saudi-Arabia. All this radicalized an indeterminate number of young Muslims. They were indoctrinated into the jihadist ideology which holds western values corrupt and un-Islamic. They were prepared for the holy war.

WELT online: What can the West do against this?

Phillips: We have to tell the Muslims: You are welcome here in the UK and you may freely practice your religion. But our tolerance ends when you preach hate. When you do this we will close your institutions and arrest the hate preachers. At the same time we must go back to the awareness of our national Identity. For years we have attacked our fundamental national values, which created a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. And this vacuum was filled by radical Islam.

Snopes has some bad news for those who say Islamofacism is not a threat.

The penalty for calling for violence against infidels in public? A few hundred quid.

UPDATE: A Word From Dr. Robert Brodsky.