Indian Reservations

During his whirlwind trip to India, Obama once again played the Gandhi card (as Indians have noticed he seems to do almost every time he encounters one of them). He even inscribed the guest book at Mubai's Gandhi museum with the ultimate compliment of the sang froid generation: "pretty cool."

Pretty lame, huh?

The Hindus thought so, too, as they tried to get him to drop the Mahatma and focus on something else. Martin Peretz recounts what happened next:

(A)ll that students questioning him wanted to discuss was "jihad." And he was ready with that bull-shitty quarter truth that "Well, the phrase jihad has a lot of meanings within Islam and is subject to a a lot of different interpretations." (This was the trope that that Harvard senior also deceitfully put forward in his 2002 commencement speech, which I wrote about at the time).

Obama continued: All of us recognize that this great religion in the hands of a few extremists has been distorted to justify violence towards innocent people that is never justified. So, I think, one of the challenges that we face is how do we isolate those who have distorted notions of religious war.

This does not sit well with the billion Indians, especially Hindu Indians, who are sitting ducks for jihadist terror. and it certainly did not sit well with the president's listeners. (Not that the Hindus -or the Israelis- are completely free of their own fanatics.) But, believe me, what defines Islam these days is not the Sufis.

Doubtless, there are tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of Muslims whose faith binds their souls to peace. But we are not discussing the Muslims of southeast Asia. We are discussing the Islamic stretch, east to west, from Pakistan to Algeria and, north to south, from Turkey to Yemen and Somalia. This includes the Arab heart of Islam.

And in that heart there seems to be no sympathy for the victims of practical jihad, concrete jihad. In Iraq, during a several day outcropping of siege and bombings starting on October 31, perhaps 150 Christians and a lesser number of Shi'a were murdered. Yes, murdered in their innocence and at prayer. One can not count the injured and maimed. And there was neither protest nor outrage.

Even among our "allies" in the Yemeni government, among our "fighting comrades" in Afghanistan, among our friends in the Pakistani sort-of state, there appears to be no anger at the debauchery of random liquidation. And not in the Sudan either. These are the countries of the salient jihad: Al-Qaeda plus the indifference of the rest. If the Israelis were to permit it they, too, would be the victims.

So, please, Mr. President, be honest with us on this matter. For once, at least...

I think that's asking way too much, Marty. It's impossible to be "honest" with anyone--yourself least of all--if your mind is closed off to the truth.