AP – The prospect of conflict with Iran has eclipsed Afghanistan as the key national security issue with head-spinning speed. After years of bad blood and an international impasse over Iran’s disputed nuclear program, why does the threat of war seem so suddenly upon us?
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Dwindling time, rising tension make Iran top fear
(AP)
At Blazing Cat Fur, ” Michael Coren & Douglas Murray: The Threat to Islam’s Critics .” Murray’s video at the Cambridge Student Union on the threat from Iran went viral last week, and Blazing has that one as well.
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Michael Coren Interviews Douglas Murray
At New York Times , ” Even as Governments Act, Time Runs Short for Euro .” BERLIN — The window of opportunity to save the euro is rapidly closing, as the sovereign debt crisis erodes the solvency of Europe’s banks and drives up borrowing rates for even once rock-solid countries like France. A growing consensus about the urgency of Europe’s situation has brought some drastic and tangible steps toward dealing with it: first by Greece, then by Italy, where lawmakers on Saturday signed off on austerity measures and cleared the way for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to step down. Both countries are moving toward more technocratic governments that are committed to delivering the difficult reforms demanded by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But there are a host of problems that could quickly overwhelm that progress. Looming over all the discussions of reform and financing mechanisms is the slowdown in the Continent’s already anemic growth rate, to 0.5 percent in 2012, and even the threat of a double-dip recession, the European Commission said in a forecast for the euro zone last week. That calls into doubt the adequacy of the euro zone’s latest attempt to placate the markets, the lagging effort to bolster the $605 billion European Financial Stability Facility to $1.4 trillion or to find other funding. The task will become that much harder in a recessionary environment, especially as France’s credibility with investors begins to decline. More at that top link. Plus, at Telegraph UK , ” Germany must decide if it wants the eurozone to survive or perish “: European debt and equity markets ended a tumultuous week with a rally on Friday. So shares in the US and across the rest of the world rose too. But the threat of a “euroquake” – a systemic collapse which would make Lehman Brothers look tame – is by no means over. Far from it. Europe’s leaders don’t know how to solve this crisis because they don’t know what they want. Should attempts be made to hold the eurozone together, with Greece staying in? Or should the threat to expel Athens be followed through, at the risk of causing further defections, with monetary union being reduced to a Franco-German rump? This is an enormous question, which only Germany can answer. Until an answer is forthcoming, chaos will continue to ensue.
Congress once again found itself embroiled in a display of brinksmanship and the threat of a government shutdown, with Republicans and Democrats at odds over how to pay for disaster relief.
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Shutdown Possible Over Disaster Aid
AP – Local communities around the country are best suited to take on the challenge of combatting the kind of violent extremism that inspires people to kill, the Obama administration concludes in a new national plan to fight the threat of al-Qaida and other violent radicals at home.
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New White House strategy to hit violent extremism
(AP)
Shortly after Anders Behring Breivik carried out his one-man killing spree of his fellow countrymen Friday, the media began to speculate about the killer’s possible motivations. The terrorist’s disturbing “manifesto” ( much of it borrowed from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski) prescribed a race-based revolution across Europe against what he considered the elite, “multiculturalists” and “enablers of Islamization.” To the New York Times , this seething hatred all apparently sounded familiar: [Breivik's] manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture. More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts. Al Jazeera went so far as to blame “hate-monger” Glenn Beck, a “peddler of faith” apparently “cut from the same rotten cloth” as Breivik and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. The Times also noted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was right to warn against “domestic radicals,” in the United States: In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants. To say that Rep. Peter King’s, R-N.Y., hearings on radical Islam or comments posted in the blogosphere played any role in mass murder is not only illogical, but it’s incredibly irresponsible. After all, you can read Mein Kampf without feeling compelled to kill Jews. Exposure to controversial opinions does not force someone to act any more than owning a gun compels one to kill. I would never defend the actions of someone like Breivik — he’s a despicable human being and placing blame on anyone other than him is wrong. Equally wrong, however, is trying to link political disputes to such senseless acts. Update: Newsbusters also notes how the Times was quick to label Breivik as a “Christian extremist,” even though there’s little to no evidence that his religious beliefs played any role in his killing. Meanwhile, they balked at identifying “Allahu Akbar!” shouting terrorists as Muslims in the past.
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NYTimes on Norway massacre: We told you conservatives were dangerous!
AP – Gridlock stubbornly held the high ground Friday in the steaming capital despite the threat of a government default in 11 days’ time. Talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner seemed stuck in limbo, and the Democratic-controlled Senate scuttled legislation drawn to conservatives’ specifications.
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Debt dispute boils: Capitol’s hot, inside and out
(AP)
