The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern Wednesday night as per usual. The special Tueday Night Marvel Team-Up with League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Conor Friedersdorf, and Dan Riehl was waylaid by technical concerns and they will instead run it solo on Thursday at 2 Eastern using a different mechanism.

Instead, Dave Schuler and John Burgess will join me to discuss the Holocaust Musuem shooting, President Obama’s Middle East trip, the European Parliament elections, and the latest Supreme Court decisions.  Please join us.

We’ll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030.  Owing to a high trolls to legit callers ratio, however, we’ll be using the BTR chat feature to screen for legit calls.

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Shelly’s poem Ozymandias is forced to mind when reading this piece from the Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Florida. It makes perfect economic sense—cheap, useful cars with good gas mileage—but does it ever speak volumes about the inevitability of change…

Indian car company readies Sarasota showroom
Toni Whitt

SARASOTA COUNTY – While working for General Motors in the 1980s and early 1990s, Pawan Goenka discovered Americans’ passion for trucks and SUVs.

As president of the automotive sector for Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., based in Mumbai, India, Goenka is using that knowledge to bring India’s first trucks to the United States this year.

But Mahindra is not off-loading the stereotypical gas guzzler. The Mahindra trucks benefit from advanced emissions technology, making them more environmentally friendly. They also run on diesel and get about 30 miles per gallon.

A new brand — coming out just as GM struggles with solvency and Chrysler declares bankruptcy — and that new technology should create enough excitement to overcome dealers’ problems selling trucks and sports utility vehicles amid a recession and on the heels of last year’s gasoline spike, Goenka said.
…

The conservative media and blogs have been having a field day parsing the bow that President Obama gave before Saudi King Abdullah in London last week. Some see it as a sign that he is submitting in fealty to Saudi Arabia. Others find ‘coded messages’ about how the US will submit to Islam. His act stirs up the canard that Obama is a ’secret Muslim’. Below is the start of an editorial in the conservative The Washington Times that takes Obama to task.

EDITORIAL: Barack takes a bow

In a shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate, President Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah at the Group of 20 summit in London last week.

Mr. Obama later said in Strasbourg, France, “We have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect.” Symbolism is important in world affairs. By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the U.S. president belittled the power and independence of the United States.

The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king’s subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for U.S. presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt shook hands with Saudi King Abdulaziz in February 1945. Granted, Mr. Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound, but former President Dwight D. Eisenhower shook hands when he first met King Saud in January 1957. Mr. Obama’s bow to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques does not help his image with those who believe he is secretly a Muslim, and why he chose to bow only to the Saudi King and not to any other royals remains unexplained.
…

The fact is that Obama made a mistake. It is US diplomatic usage, dating from the days in which American broke away from the crowns of Europe, that Americans do not bow (or curtsy, as the case may be) to royalty, no matter who the American, no matter who the royalty. The thinking behind this is that an American, as a member of the Republic, is equal to any crowned or ennobled figure. It’s a custom; it’s a tradition; it’s a political statement. It is not a law, however.

Not bowing, however, does not mean that showing signs of respect are inappropriate. A ‘head bow’, inclining the head in the direction of the person being honored, is appropriate and is the norm in diplomacy. Obama over did it, perhaps, but he did not put the US in fealty to Saudi Arabia!

I’ll leave to the discerning student to analyze why a bow from the waist to, let’s say, a Japanese businessman is deemed perfectly okay while opprobrium and disdain are being heaped on Obama here. Correct answers should include hysteria, Islamophobia, and just plain loony-tunes thinking. Frank Gaffney, I’m looking at you…

Cross-posted at Crossroads Arabia.

Saudi King Abdullah announced a major shake-up in his government over the weekend. Among the changes was the naming of the first woman to a high government office, Deputy Minister for Girls’ Education. The promotion of a woman in a country that generally treats women as second class citizens is indeed a big step.

More interesting–and important–were changes he made in the galaxy of the religious establishment. The most far-reaching change was to re-establish the Grand Ulema Council, the body intended to offer consensus opinion and advice on the religious aspects of law and regulation. Not only does the opening of this office deprecate the power of individual clerics, but its membership was expanded to include representatives of all Sunni schools of law, taking away the monopoly power of the Hanbali School, the foundation of Saudi Arabia’s conservative, ‘Wahhabi’ establishment. The expansion does not, unfortunately, include any of the schools of Shi’ism. That, however, might come in the future.

The ultra-conservative head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice—aka, the religious police–was replaced by a more moderate individual who has already noted that his approach to the mission of the organization will be “innocent until proven guilty” and more forgiveness than punishment. Just how that plays out is yet to be known, of course, but it’s a marked change from past practice.

As conservative was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Council who most recently achieved notoriety through his statement that satellite TV broadcasters deserved to be tried and executed for the irreligious content of their programming. He was bounced from his position and replaced by Saleh bin Humaid, formerly head of the Saudi Shoura Council where he played an active role in promoting laws to protect women. Bin Humaid is himself a conservative cleric. Given his demonstrated moderation (as always, the term is used within a Saudi context), his religious authority should make it easier for him to force change.

The Supreme Judicial Council itself is about to undergo major changes. It is planned that it will be replaced by a Supreme Court that will serve to rule on the soon-to-be-codified new Saudi legal system.

It should be noted that the former head of the Supreme Judicial Council has been moved to head the Shoura Council. That’s not an unimportant position, but it holds considerably less power.

Longer-lasting changes–which will take longer to implement–were made in the Ministry of Education. A new Minister was named, this one a member of the ruling family with a long background in anti-extremist security operations. He has the clout to finally root out the extremist who have burrowed deep within the Saudi educational system, as well as having the resources to identify them. He has a new Deputy Minister, one who has led the King’s program for “National Dialogue”, intended to get Saudis publicly talking about things that had heretofore been relegated to private discussions. Top among these topics have been tolerance; dealing with differences in opinions, background, and sex; and facing up to the unexamined cultural issues that color politics and law.

Of course, the naming of a woman as a Deputy Minister of Education was something that has been highlighted in media reports. It is a big step and the first breach in a gender wall. Her remit is somewhat limited to Girls’ Education, but it is well past time that women had a say in how they were educating their daughters.

There’s no denying that Saudi Arabia has a lot of ground to cover just to catch up with international standards of human rights in the 21st C. These steps, however, do mark a clean break with the past and point to a different future. While the deficits should not be minimized, I think it important to recognize positive change as well.

You can find more information about the changes at Crossroads Arabia.

I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed that during his invocation, Rev. Rick Warren used the phrase, “You, the merciful one; You, the compassionate one’. That phrase, the heart of the bismillah, was not accidental, I believe.

The bismillah is the prayer that is used to start nearly anything done by a pious Muslim, even appearing at the top of the page for official documents or personal letters and school work, even as a blessing before meals or the sacrifice of an animal. In full, it reads, ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate’: B’Ism Allah, Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim.

And no, I don’t think Warren is a ‘crypto-Muslim’…

“Prostitution Free Zone” During Inauguration

Some headlines just scream for attention…

UPDATE (James Joyner): The story itself is rather amusing:

District police have placed signs along 5th and I Streets. They read, “Warning, Prostitution Free Zone.” Those who disobey could be fined 300 dollars, and even jailed. But will the city’s plan work?

DC City Councilman Jim Graham said officers cannot enforce loitering laws, which is the reason for these signs. “Because this is focused, its limited in time, its aimed at a very specific issue, if you don’t move along, well put you in the car,” he said.

[...]

A woman who calls herself Tamira and advertises her services on Craigslist, said otherwise. She said prostitutes who work the streets may ignore the signs. However, she said, some prostitutes may move elsewhere. “If I saw a sign that said, ‘Prostitution Free Zone’ I would feel a little uncomfortable that there would be a house next store where police are at,” she said. Tamira also believes some visitors will come to the inauguration for legitimate business, but prostitute on the side to make extra money.

Pretty sweet: No prostitutes or homeless people for a day! I guess that Obama guy is a miracle worker after all!

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's decision to appoint former state attorney general Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate has sparked controversial reaction throughout the political world. (Getty Images/AP Photos)

While it may be galling for Rod Blagojevich to get to appoint someone to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat while he’s under federal indictment for trying to sell said seat, Jane Hamsher argues that he’s perfectly entitled to do so.

Then fifty members of the Democratic Caucus signed a letter saying they would oppose any Blagojevich appointment from being seated — without due consideration as to whether the Senate had the right to do so. Although there is considerable disagreement on that front, it is not at all certain that they can.

Now Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White says that he will not sign the appointment of Roland Burris, and it isn’t clear he has the legal authority to do that, either

[...]

Is any of this legal or ethical? That isn’t a question Reid seems to be asking.

Laurence Tribe disagrees.

In its landmark 1969 ruling in Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court held that Article I, Section 5, which makes “[e]ach House…the Judge of the Elections…and Qualifications of its own Members,” represents “a textually demonstrable commitment” to Congress of the power to judge, without interference by any court, whether a duly elected individual meets the age, citizenship and other objective qualifications for office set forth in Article I, Section 2, but not any power to deny membership through the discretionary addition of ideological or other “qualifications” to those carefully laid out in the Constitution itself.

[...]

That Roland Burris, the man appointed by the Illinois governor in late December, was never “elected” is beside the point inasmuch as the 17th Amendment specifies that, whenever there is a vacancy in any state’s Senate representation, the state’s legislature “may empower [its] executive . . . to make temporary appointments until the people fill the [vacancy] by election as the legislature may direct.”

Steven Taylor agrees that “the focus on process, not candidate, gives the Senate a constitutional argument to stand on” while Jack Balkin notes that “temporal and political factors” are at play, too:

a complicated process of bargaining and playing for time. And even if the Senate lacks the authority to refuse to seat Burris, the debate over whether it does (and the need for Burris to bring litigation to establish his right) also gives the Senate and the Illinois legislature room for maneuver.

The Senate may ultimately seat Burris, but for the moment, it probably wants to delay decision by referring the matter to a committee to consider whether or not there was anything problematic in the circumstances of the appointment (Many commentators doubt that there is anything problematic with the appointment, but it’s worth recalling that only a few weeks back the Governor was caught on tape boasting he would sell the seat and certainly wouldn’t let it go without getting something valuable for it. Even if there is no present evidence of misconduct in this appointment, the Senate might insist that it deserves a little time to look a little closer into the circumstances).

It seems self-evident to me that Blagojevich has every right to appoint whomever he wants to the Senate (providing that they meet eligibility thresholds) for just about any reason and that the Senate has every right to refuse to seat that person for most any reason, which creates a stalemate.  As a matter of reasonablenesss, however, absent evidence that the Roland Burris appointment itself was tainted, he should be seated.   Like it or not, Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois.  And the state deserves representation in the Senate.

Sad news:

Robin Toner, who was the first woman to be the national political correspondent of The New York Times and who had a significant hand in the coverage of five presidential elections, innumerable Congressional and gubernatorial campaigns and the great legislative debates of the day, died early Friday at her home in Washington. She was 54.

The cause was complications of colon cancer, her family said.

via memeorandum

Particularly in light of the fooforaw following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement about the inevitability of Sharia law in the UK, this piece from The Volokh Conspiracy on the application of Saudi Sharia law in Texas and Minnesota is interesting, to say the least!

The issue is not actually whether Saudi law applies in Texas (or other states as the article notes), but whether people can, in the course of making contracts, require that Sharia law be applied as the rule for arbitration. It’s a bit complicated, but the courts’ decisions are worth reading. And certainly read the entirety of the Volokh post. The comments, particularly about how Jewish laws can be enforced through arbitration in US courts are also worth while.

Sharia Law Enforced in Texas!

Read all about this (and Osama is even involved). But wait, it’s also in Minnesota. And in New Jersey (Nat’l Group for Communications & Computers Ltd. v. Lucent Technologies Int’l, Inc., 331 F. Supp. 2d 290 (D.N.J. 2004)).

Oddly enough, the American courts treat this as a perfectly normal matter. In the first two cases I cited, the parties entered into a contract that provided for Sharia arbitration; the courts considered challenges to the arbitral process, and upheld the awards. The third case involved a contractual provision expressly stating that disputes about the contract would be resolved under Saudi Arabian law; the court then dutifully investigated what the Saudi rules (which are built on Sharia) would call for, and rendered judgment “based upon this Court’s review of various academic texts, the testimony of the experts, the submissions of the parties, and the Court’s understanding of the fundamental principles of Islamic law as they would be interpreted by a court in Saudi Arabia.”
…

Cross posted at Crossroads Arabia

Various media are reporting on some serious reforms in Saudi Arabia, starting with giving women permission to drive. The story, so far sourced only to a correspondent of the UK’s The Telegraph, but being widely picked up, says that the government has bowed to the inevitable and is in the process of writing regulations and setting up the infrastructure needed, e.g., women-only license and registration offices.

Better sourced is a story on Reuters about the Saudi government’s also permitting women to register in hotels, without a guardian. This has been an issue with Saudi businesswomen who find it difficult to do business in cities in which they have no personal infrastructure–family or residential property.

Both issues are sure to raise hell with the religious conservatives who seem to believe that a woman alone is merely an opportunity for profligate sex. I’m confident that the Saudi religious police will be kept busy scouring the hotel registries and cruising the streets—just like all the hormonally ramped up adolescents—on the look-out for available women.

And since non-driving women are already being accused of causing most traffic accidents, there’s sure to be a flood of stories about how bad women drive.

But baby steps are welcome in a country that’s trying to pull itself out of the hole it’s created for itself.

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern.

Dave Schuler and John Burgess will be joining me to talk about the recent Saudi rape case, the rioting in France, the Annapolis Conference and whatever other topics come up.

We’ll also be taking your calls at (646) 716-7030.

I’ve written a review of The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda, a riveting retelling of the events of November, 1979, when a group of around 500 Islamic extremists (including at least two American Black Muslims) seized the Grand Mosque at Mecca. The author concludes that this action, taken along with other events of that momentous month, led to the Islamic extremism we’re experiencing today. He notes how the Saudi Ulema, in return for their continued support of the state, extorted a high price: the rolling back of many of the modest reforms and modernizations the government had achieved.

I think the book misses the target on some analysis, particularly in drawing conclusions from contested ‘facts’, and he simply gets some of the history wrong. But the book is very much on target when it comes to the siege in Mecca and the way it was resolved. It also goes into the role of French commandos, the utter failure of Jimmy Carter’s White House, and the way rumor could spread internationally, even in pre-Internet days. Definitely worth reading.

You can read my full review here.

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Review: ‘The Kingdom’

Watching the trailers for ‘The Kingdom’ over the past several months, I was curious about how the film would portray Saudi Arabia and Saudis. I had personal experience with terrorist bombings of residential compounds in Riyadh and wanted to see how accurate the film might be.

The film could have taken the low and easy road, pandering to stereotypes, and shown the Saudis as slavering jihadists looking forward to killing the infidel. It could have taken (and did to a very minor extent did) the path of ‘Syriana’ [see my review here and Amir Taheri's here], claiming on the basis of old and mistaken stereotypes that the oil companies write the rules.

Instead, I was pleased to see that the film showed that while there are bad Saudis, there are also good and decent Saudis who care about their country, their religion, and justice.

The film carries a very strong sense of authenticity. The researchers did their homework when it came to finding the right imagery to convey the sense of time and place. Much of it was shot in Abu Dhabi, with some B-roll materials from Riyadh spliced in. The rest was filmed in ‘non-denominational’ deserts in the American Southwest and in DC. The film was mostly realistic, too, when it came to the bombings, but not quite the same as the compounds bombed in 2003. The film spares us the body parts. That was fine by me, as I found myself slipping back to the reality of May 2003.

The film was accurate in its portrayal of a sharp-elbowed FBI investigation team running headlong into the reluctant Saudi police, a reaction not unknown to American local police departments and itself the subject matter of other films.

The film gets off to an iffy start, I think. The collage over which the opening credits run provides a brief and mostly accurate history of Saudi Arabia and its relations with the US. I think it focuses inaccurately on oil. While oil is certainly an important aspect of the US-Saudi relation, it is neither the sole one nor necessarily the most important one. Here, though the film feeds the meme that it’s ‘all about oil’, viewers needn’t worry about it. After the credits, the word never comes up again.

In order to avoid spoilers, the rest of the review is below the fold. I haven’t compromised major plot development, but some of the early set-up is discussed. You can also find a lengthier review at Crossroad Arabia, focusing more on the film v. reality clash.

‘The Kingdom’ works from a dated template. The ‘rules’ about how the US government and its agencies respond to an overseas bombing had chanced by 2003. What the film shows is based on rules that applied in 1996 and 1998. In reality, as soon as they could fly in—the next day—a team of about 35 FBI investigators were in Riyadh. These were a specialized group, designed to investigate bombings. They were professional. They did not (at least publicly) carry weapons. The women on the team—and there were several—knew better than to wear form-fitting T-shirts as their outerwear. They were also prepared to work cooperatively with their Saudi counterparts, whether from the police, Saudi Arabian National Guard (one of the 2003 compounds housed American and others on contract to the National Guard), and the Ministry of Interior. The Saudis, post-9/11, were also prepared to cooperate.

Probably the least accurate part of the film was its portrayal of the US State Department and its officers. Nothing new here: they’re tediously shown as ‘cookie-pushers’ who have yet to evolve backbones. That’s the standard stereotype, particularly from the political right, but it’s far from the reality. I won’t speak for all State officers; some actually are wimps. That’s not the case for most of them, though, as many do live brave lives.

By 2003, and therefore the unstated time of the film, new protocols had been established between the FBI and State. State would work to ensure FBI access to sites, evidence, and suspects. Investigative teams would be of a manageable size and the agents would not bear arms unless specifically authorized to do so because of particular circumstances. The teams work under the leadership of the FBI’s Legal Attaché and under the authority of the Ambassador. The LEGATTs, as they are called, know the territory and just what they can and cannot do. The film wanders into a bit of fantasy as its FBI team breaks command structures and simply shows up in Riyadh without Department of Justice authorization. A move like this would have led to instant firing. Nor could their plane have entered Saudi airspace without clearance from the Saudi government, through the US Embassy.

All in all, though, this is a good film. It’s not the very best action film you’ve ever seen and some of the intended laughs fall flat. There’s lots of shooting and explosions, running around and fast car chases. But there’re also occasions in which the viewer is asked to think about the fact that it’s not only the victims who are human, but those who try to do their jobs in the midst of confusion, emotional turmoil, and the threat of further deadly attacks. Here, the film shines.

This part of the story is carried by excellent acting by the principal actors: Jamie Foxx, heading the FBI’s team, and Ashraf Barhom, leading the Saudi police effort. Both show the awkwardness in dealing with complete strangers, fighting against the stereotypes they carry in their own minds. Jason Bateman and Ali Suliman have perhaps the most subtle performances as, respectively, an FBI agent who learns that ‘kick ass’ is not always the best procedure, and a Saudi police sergeant who puts duty to his country above all else. I think Chris Cooper isn’t asked to do much and I guess Jennifer Garner is there because the producers thought they needed some sort of female presence. She adds nothing.

If you’re looking for a film that bashes Saudis or the Administration, this isn’t the film for you. If instead you want a film that accurately portrays the complexity of US-Saudi relations at both official and personal levels, a film that shows how Saudi society itself is trying to come to terms with terrorism, then you don’t want to miss it.

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern.

I’ll be joined tonight by Chris Lawrence, Dave Schuler, and John Burgess. We’ll be talking about the foiled terrorist plots in Germany and Denmark, tonight’s GOP “YouTube” debate, the incessant “bomb Iran” talk, John Edwards’ plan to force people to get check-ups, and other matters.

We’ll also take your calls at (646) 716-7030.

Update: We had an excellent show tonight, with some good discussion about all the topics above. We’d have solved all the ills of U.S. foreign policy as well as the problems of national health care but, alas, ran out of time. My thanks to Chris, Dave, and John for joining me.

If you missed it live (or, for some odd reason, want to hear it again) you can click the link above. Alternatively, the embedded media player below will play the show for you.