Kosovo and Russia

This article because some of the consequences of this could lead to a skirmish in the near future. This is in the Balkans and that was also the place where World War I as well as Bill Clinton's war against Milosevic happened.


Kosovar Independence and the Russian Reaction
February 20, 2008
By George Friedman
Related Special Topic Pages
Kosovo, Russia and the West
The Russian ResurgenceKosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday. The United States and many, but not all, European countries recognized it. The Serbian government did not impose an economic blockade on — or take any military action against — Kosovo, although it declared the Albanian leadership of Kosovo traitors to Serbia. The Russians vehemently repeated their objection to an independent Kosovo but did not take any overt action. An informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was announced last week; it will take place in Moscow on Feb. 21. With Kosovo’s declaration, a river was crossed. We will now see whether that river was the Rubicon.Kosovo’s independence declaration is an important event for two main reasons. First, it potentially creates a precedent that could lead to redrawn borders in Europe and around the world. Second, it puts the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany in the position of challenging what Russia has defined as a fundamental national interest — and this at a time when the Russians have been seeking to assert their power and authority. Taken together, each of these makes this a geopolitically significant event.Begin with the precedent. Kosovo historically has been part of Serbia; indeed, Serbs consider it the cradle of their country. Over the course of the 20th century, it has become predominantly Albanian and Muslim (though the Albanian version of Islam is about as secular as one can get). The Serbian Orthodox Christian community has become a minority. During the 1990s, Serbia — then the heart of the now-defunct Yugoslavia — carried out a program of repression against the Albanians. Whether the repression rose to the level of genocide has been debated. In any case, the United States and other members of NATO conducted an air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 until the Yugoslavians capitulated, allowing the entry of NATO troops into the province of Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo, for all practical purposes, has been a protectorate of a consortium of NATO countries but has formally remained a province of Serbia. After the Kosovo war, wartime Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic died in The Hague in the course of his trial for war crimes; a new leadership took over; and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia itself ultimately dissolved, giving way to a new Republic of Serbia. The United Nations did not sanction the war in Kosovo. Russian opposition in the U.N. Security Council prevented any U.N. diplomatic cover for the Western military action. Following the war — in a similar process to what happened with regard to Iraq — the Security Council authorized the administration of Kosovo by the occupying powers, but it never clearly authorized independence for Kosovo. The powers administering Kosovo included the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and other European states, organized as the Kosovo Force (KFOR). While the logic of the situation pointed toward an independent Kosovo, the mechanism envisioned for the province’s independence was a negotiated agreement with Serbia. The general view was that the new government and personalities in Belgrade would be far more interested in the benefits of EU membership than they would be in retaining control of Kosovo. Over nearly a decade, the expectation therefore was that the Serbian government would accede to an independent Kosovo in exchange for being put on a course for EU membership. As frequently happens — and amazes people for reasons we have never understood — nationalism trumped economic interests. The majority of Serbs never accepted secession. The United States and the Europeans, therefore, decided to create an independent Kosovo without Serbian acquiescence. The military and ethnic reality thus was converted into a political reality. Those recognizing Kosovo’s independence have gone out of their way specifically to argue that this decision in no way constitutes a precedent. They argue that the Serbian oppression of the late 1990s, which necessitated intervention by outside military forces to protect the Kosovars, made returning Kosovo to Serbian rule impossible. The argument therefore goes that Kosovo’s independence must be viewed as an idiosyncratic event related to the behavior of the Serbs, not as a model for the future. Other European countries, including Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus, have expressly rejected this reasoning. So have Russia and China. Each of these countries has a specific, well-defined area dominated by a specific ethnic minority group. In these countries and others like them, these ethnic groups have demanded, are demanding or potentially will demand autonomy, secession or integration with a neighboring country. Such ethnic groups could claim, and have claimed, oppression by the majority group. And each country facing this scenario fears that if Kosovo can be taken from Serbia, a precedent for secession will be created.The Spanish have Basque separatists. Romania and Slovakia each contain large numbers of Hungarians concentrated in certain areas. The Cypriots — backed by the Greeks — are worried that the Turkish region of Cyprus, which already is under a separate government, might proclaim formal independence. The Chinese are concerned about potential separatist movements in Muslim Xinjiang and, above all, fear potential Taiwanese independence. And the Russians are concerned about independence movements in Chechnya and elsewhere. All of these countries see the Kosovo decision as setting a precedent, and they therefore oppose it.Europe is a case in point. Prior to World War II, Europe’s borders constantly remained in violent flux. One of the principles of a stable Europe has been the inviolability of borders from outside interference, as well as the principle that borders cannot be redefined except with mutual agreement. This principle repeatedly was reinforced by international consensus, most notably at Yalta in 1945 and Helsinki in 1973.Thus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia could agree to separate, and the Soviet Union could dissolve itself into its component republics, but the Germans cannot demand the return of Silesia from Poland; outsiders cannot demand a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; and the Russians cannot be forced to give up Chechnya. The principle that outside powers can’t redefine boundaries, and that secessionist movements can’t create new nations unilaterally, has been a pillar of European stability. The critics of Kosovo’s independence believe that larger powers can’t redraw the boundaries of smaller ones without recourse to the United Nations. They view the claim that Yugoslavia’s crimes in Kosovo justify doing so as unreasonable; Yugoslavia has dissolved, and the Serbian state is run by different people. The Russians view the major European powers and the Americans as arrogating rights that international law does not grant them, and they see the West as setting itself up as judge and jury without right of appeal.This debate is not trivial. But there is a more immediate geopolitical issue that we have discussed before: the Russian response. The Russians have turned Kosovo into a significant issue. Moscow has objected to Kosovo’s independence on all of the diplomatic and legal grounds discussed. But behind that is a significant challenge to Russia’s strategic position. Russia wants to be seen as a great power and the dominant power in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Serbia is a Russian ally. Russia is trying to convince countries in the FSU, such as Ukraine, that looking to the West for help is futile because Russian power can block Western power. It wants to make the Russian return to great power status seem irresistible.The decision to recognize Kosovo’s independence in the face of Russian opposition undermines Russian credibility. That is doubly the case because Russia can make a credible argument that the Western decision flies in the face of international law — and certainly of the conventions that have governed Europe for decades. Moscow also is asking for something that would not be difficult for the Americans and Europeans to give. The resources being devoted to Kosovo are not going to decline dramatically because of independence. Putting off independence until the last possible moment — which is to say forever, considering the utter inability of Kosovo to care for itself — thus certainly would have been something the West could have done with little effort.But it didn’t. The reason for this is unclear. It does not appear that anyone was intent on challenging the Russians. The Kosovo situation was embedded in a process in which the endgame was going to be independence, and all of the military force and the bureaucratic inertia of the European Union was committed to this process. Russian displeasure was noted, but in the end, it was not taken seriously. This was simply because no one believed the Russians could or would do anything about Kosovar independence beyond issuing impotent protestations. Simply put, the nations that decided to recognize Kosovo were aware of Russian objections but viewed Moscow as they did in 1999: a weak power whose wishes are heard but discarded as irrelevant. Serbia was an ally of Russia. Russia intervened diplomatically on its behalf. Russia was ignored.If Russia simply walks away from this, its growing reputation as a great power will be badly hurt in the one arena that matters to Moscow the most: the FSU. A Europe that dismisses Russian power is one that has little compunction about working with the Americans to whittle away at Russian power in Russia’s own backyard. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko — who, in many ways, is more anti-Western than Russian President Vladimir Putin and is highly critical of Putin as well — has said it is too late to “sing songs” about Kosovo. He maintains that the time to stop the partition of Kosovo was in 1999, in effect arguing that Putin’s attempts to stop it were ineffective because it was a lost cause. Translation: Putin and Russia are not the powers they pretend to be. That is not something that Putin in particular can easily tolerate. Russian grand strategy calls for Russia to base its economy on the export of primary commodities. To succeed at this, Russia must align its production and exports with those of other FSU countries. For reasons of both national security and economics, being the regional hegemon in the FSU is crucial to Russia’s strategy and to Putin’s personal credibility. He is giving up the presidency on the assumption that his personal power will remain intact. That assumption is based on his effectiveness and decisiveness. The way he deals with the West — and the way the West deals with him — is a measure of his personal power. Being completely disregarded by the West will cost him. He needs to react.The Russians are therefore hosting an “informal” CIS summit in Moscow on Friday. This is not the first such summit, by any means, and one was supposed to be held before this but was postponed. On Feb. 11, however, after it became clear that Kosovo would declare independence, the decision to hold the summit was announced. If Putin has a response to the West on Kosovo, it should reveal itself at the summit. There are three basic strategies the Russians can pursue. One is to try to create a coalition of CIS countries to aid Serbia. This is complex in that Serbia may have no appetite for this move, and the other CIS countries may not even symbolically want to play. The second option is opening the wider issue of altering borders. This could be aimed at sticking it to the Europeans by backing Serbian secessionist efforts in bifurcated Bosnia-Herzegovina. It also could involve announcing Russia’s plans to annex Russian-friendly separatist regions on its borders — most notably the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and perhaps even eastern Ukraine and the Crimea. (Annexation would be preferred over recognizing independence, since it would reduce the chances of Russia’s own separatist regions agitating for secession.) Russia thus would argue that Kosovo’s independence opens the door for Russia to shift its borders, too. That would make the summit exciting, particularly with regard to the Georgians, who are allied with the United States and at odds with Russia on Abkhazia and other issues.The third option involves creating problems for the West elsewhere. An Iranian delegation will be attending the summit as “observers.” That creates the option for Russia to signal to Washington that the price it will pay for Kosovo will be extracted elsewhere. Apart from increased Russian support for Iran — which would complicate matters in Iraq for Washington — there are issues concerning Azerbaijan, which is sandwiched between Russia and Iran. In the course of discussions with Iranians, the Russians could create problems for Azerbaijan. The Russians also could increase pressure on the Baltic states, which recognized Kosovo and whose NATO membership is a challenge to the Russians. During the Cold War, the Russians were masters of linkage. They responded not where they were weak but where the West was weak. There are many venues for that.What is the hardest to believe — but is, of course, possible — is that Putin simply will allow the Kosovo issue to pass. He clearly knew this was coming. He maintained vocal opposition to it beforehand and reiterated his opposition afterward. The more he talks and the less he does, the weaker he appears to be. He personally can’t afford that, and neither can Russia. He had opportunities to cut his losses before Kosovo’s independence was declared. He didn’t. That means either he has blundered badly or he has something on his mind. Our experience with Putin is that the latter is more likely, and this suddenly called summit may be where we see his plans play out.

www.stratfor.com

Hezbollah Death

I wanted to send you the article below from here http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2008/02/14/nytimes-lead-picture-day-terrorist-leaders-grieving-family-members as a follow up to the book I suggested on the Global War On Terror. Since this terrorist died on the heals of the 2006 Hezbollah/Israel war, it is interesting to note the coverage and what, if anything happens afterwards. Let me know what you think.

NYT's Picture of the Day: Terrorist Leader's Grieving Family Members

By Seton Motley February 14, 2008 - 12:19 ET
The February 13th New York Times online contained fifteen "Pictures of the Day". Their #1, lead photograph was what you see to the right, with the following description (emphasis added):
Security officials in Lebanon said Imad Mugniyah, 45, a senior Hezbollah military commander, was killed by a car bomb on Tuesday night in Damascus, Syria. Mr. Mugniyah had been accused in a series of bombings, hijackings and kidnappings during the 1980s and 1990s, including the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members. Mr. Mugniyah's father, Fayez, left, and grandfather held each other during a wake in Beirut.M(any thanks to Quid Nimis.) We are sure that nearly every serial mass murderer throughout time has had friends and family. Once upon a time, they would often have been broadly shunned and shamed for not doing more to bring an end to the ongoing violence and mayhem their loved ones were perpetrating. As a result, those who knew these vile men and women would sometimes do the right thing. The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, was finally brought to justice when his brother recognized his rambling, ranting "Manifesto" and turned him in.At the very least, these people would not have been held up publicly in an attempt to elicit sympathy for their loss when the murderers they knew were finally, thankfully meted sanction.It makes those that know them far less likely to assist in ending their reigns of terror if they are consoled -- rather than criticized -- by the media.(And allows for and excuses further atrocities -- like today's Hezbollah announcement that they have declared "open war" on Israel, who may or may not have had a hand in Mugniyah's end. If we are to feel sorry for them, after all, we should also cede to them any form of retaliation they see fit. When evil is excused, all bets are off.) Imad Mugniyah was what the Times here described as a Hezbollah "military leader", which means he was a terrorist mass assassin, and was so for two decades. Everything painted in broad strokes in the Times' description of him is in detail quite true -- he was an exceedingly bad guy, a truly evil creature. Does the New York Times really expect us to feel empathy for the family of such a man, for the loss of their little boy? Apparently it does -- more is the pity.I would be curious to know how many photos of the mourning families of American soldiers the NYT has made their lead Picture of the Day.Soldiers who were dispatched to dispatch the likes of Imad Mugniyah.Instead, we get from the Times an ongoing, rolling body count reported to affect a retreat in Iraq, and 32 straight days of front page Abu Ghraib stories intended to demean and diminish these men and women. What an outstanding publication the New York Times has become.

Dark Abby

This article http://www.cultureandmedia.com/specialreports/2008/DEAR_ABBY_FINAL_FEB_11.pdf which analysis the contents of the Dear Abby column over the years. It is interesting because she does come across as a lady who a reader might respect. Let me know what you think.

Down a Dark Abby
The Culture and Media Institute's analysis of Dear Abby's 2007 columns reveals that the world's leading advice columnist cannot be trusted to promote traditional sexual morality - but she can be trusted to promote moral relativism.SPECIAL REPORT
Down a Dark Abby
The Culture and Media Institute's analysis of Dear Abby's 2007 columns reveals that the world's leading advice columnist cannot be trusted to promote traditional sexual morality - but she can be trusted to promote moral relativism.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
J eanne Phillips, the current writer of the "Dear Abby" column, is the leading authority figure among advice columnists. Her column runs in 1,400 newspapers worldwide and reaches 110 million readers daily -- nearly three times the daily news viewers of ABC, CBS and NBC combined.
Phillips enjoys a tremendous platform to promote her beliefs on everything from wedding etiquette to handling the crazy uncle in the attic.
The "Dear Abby" column has a reputation for dispensing solid, homespun wisdom, so most people assume Abby is a trustworthy source of traditional advice on all topics. However, a Culture and Media Institute analysis of Dear Abby columns from 2007 reveals that 30 percent of her columns address the topic of sex, and in 53 percent of those columns, Abby takes a distinctly non-traditional approach toward moral questions. Many of Abby's columns on sex could have been written by Dr. Ruth. As many as 20 million of Abby's readers are under the age of 18. Millions of young men and women are forming their views on sex and relationships under the influence of a libertine advice columnist who is advancing anything but traditional values.
Major findings:
?? 30 percent of Dear Abby's 2007 columns deal with sex. That's 108 out of the 365 columns.
?? 53 percent of Dear Abby's 2007 sex columns reject traditional morality - the view that sex should be limited to marriages of one man and one woman.
?? Abby does not encourage unmarried adults to abstain from sex. Fifty-four columns address sex between unmarried adults, and only one column suggests that sex should be preceded by marriage. Abby's advice to a woman who wanted to take a "friends with benefits" relationship (a sexual relationship between uncommitted friends) to a more meaningful level was to "stop asking for a commitment, and fill the time you're not with him with friends - and other dates should you meet someone you 'click' with." Abby did not tell the reader to cut off the "benefits." One column even accepted sex between cousins.
?? Abby almost never finds adultery to be wrong. Thirty-six columns address infidelity. In only ten of these columns does Abby suggest breaking off an affair, or not getting into an affair in the first place. Only once does Abby flatly state that an affair is "wrong." At times Abby appears to condone adultery, even homosexual adultery. "Confused in Illinois" wrote Abby that she had no interest in intimate relations with her husband, but she is now involved in a "passionate sexual relationship" with a female friend. Abby told her to "look at the bright side. At least you now finally understand what has been missing [in her marriage]."
?? Abby fails to tell sexually active teens to stop having sex. Twelve columns address teen sex, and Abby's greatest concerns are avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Only three columns on teen sex suggest abstinence, and that was only for teens who were not yet sexually active. Her advice to a girl whose 12-year-old friend had engaged in sex was: "She needs to be seen by a doctor because she has become sexually active." Abby told another reader, "Sex before marriage may be 'wrong,' but if my mail is any indication, it's happening.." Abby is an advice columnist. She's the one person who should never condone harmful, immoral behavior simply because it's commonplace. ?? Homosexuality is perfectly acceptable to Abby. Ten of Abby's 108 sex columns address homosexuality, and Abby never says homosexual behavior is morally wrong. Instead, she treats it as normal and ignores the well-documented, associated health risks. In one column, "Distressed Aunt" wrote to Abby asking whether she should "out" her nephew to his parents after finding an online profile that listed his sexual orientation as "bi." Abby told her, "If your nephew
were engaging in self-destructive behavior, I would say tell his parents. However, identifying one's sexual orientation doesn't fall into that category." On October 10, 2007 the Associated Press reported that Abby endorsed same-sex "marriage."
?? Abby adopts a permissive attitude toward a variety of odd sexual behaviors. Twenty of Abby's sex columns address topics such as stripping, nudism and cross-dressing. Abby told a woman struggling to understand her significant other's desire to dress in women's clothing that it's a "quirk," and, "If I really cared about him, I think I'd ask to spend some time with his 'other self.' Then I'd make up my mind about whether I could accept the situation."
Conclusion As evidenced by her massive audience, Dear Abby is regarded widely as a reliable authority on life's dilemmas. Yet her columns on sex reflect an unwillingness to support traditional, common-sense moral values that steer people away from destructive behavior and protect them from harmful situations. Dear Abby's advice on sexual matters cannot be trusted. Above was the executive summary. For the full article look here http://www.cultureandmedia.com/specialreports/2008/DEAR_ABBY_FINAL_FEB_11.pdf

Book - World War IV

I wanted to send a review of this book. It does give an explaination of why some of the people on the world scene are acting the way that they are. Even if one doesn't agree with the actions being done, it does make sense to know why the things are being done. Anyway, let me know any comments, especially if you do read it!! If you'd like to get it from your library to read it, look it up here http://worldcat.org/oclc/80917153&referer=brief_results for the closest to your zip code.

February 7, 2008
Power Line Book of the Year: World War IV
We proudly announce our selection of World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism by Norman Podhoretz as the Power Line book of the year (2007). Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, a contribution of $25,000 will be made in honor of the author to Soldiers' Angels, thus giving the award a larger financial component than any of the major book awards. By comparison, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle awards provide for a $10,000 payment to the winning authors. With this award it is our intention to raise awareness of one of the several outstanding books published by conservative authors last year that have been or will be given short shrift by the Pulitzer and NBCC judges. We judge Podhoretz's book perhaps the most important published last year. It is an elegantly written assessment of the long war in which we are engaged, and a passionate defense of the Bush Doctrine. As Podhoretz notes in the book, we have occasionally expressed our own second thoughts about the Bush Doctrine and do not necessarily agree with every tenet of his argument. We are nevertheless quite sure that it is a book, not just for this season, but for the foreseeable future during which the United States will confront the Islamist enemy that is at war with us. As Podhoretz stated in his account of the book for us last year:
There have been dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of books about the many issues aroused by 9/11 and George W. Bush’s response to it. But World War IV differs from them all in two major respects. For one thing, it is -- at least so far as I know -- the first serious attempt to set 9/11 itself, the campaigns that have followed it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war of ideas it has provoked at home, into the context of the role the United States has played in the world since 1941. Seen in this light, the struggle against the forces of Islamofascism into which 9/11 plunged us reveals itself as the direct successor to the wars against the totalitarian challenges to our civilization posed by Nazism in World War II and Communism in World War III (as the cold war becomes in this scheme of things). Secondly, against critics both on the Left and the Right, World War IV offers what is probably the most full-throated statement yet published of the case for the Bush Doctrine, whose effort to make the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy represents the only viable strategy for fighting and winning World War IV.
Next Monday we will host a gala dinner in honor of Podhoretz. Among the guests scheduled to appear and comment on the issues raised by Podhoretz's book are Henry Kissinger and Mark Steyn. We hope the occasion will provide a signal opportunity to reflect on the issues Podhoretz has engaged at a time when the Bush administration itself appears to be beating a hasty retreat from the Bush Doctrine in favor of Iraq Study Group "realism" or Clintonian vacuity on fronts other than Iraq. We plan to return with a report or two on the event next week. JOHN adds: Monday night's dinner, which will be in New York, should be a fabulous event. We will present the Book of the Year award to Norman Podhoretz, and a check for $25,000 to Soldiers' Angels. Some of the most important thinkers on the issue of Islamic extremism, including Podhoretz, Kissinger and Steyn, will speak. C-Span may or may not cover the event, but either way, there should be excellent video footage available.Among other things, it promises to be a "new media" milestone. The biggest cash prize in American letters isn't the Pulitzer or the National Book Award--prizes which are unlikely ever to go to a conservative writer. It's the Power Line Book of the Year Award. And it will honor a book that dwarfs in scope and ambition just about all of the works published on current events in 2007.

Norman Podhoretz on the anniversary of 9/11 and World War IV
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 8:12 PM
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HH: This hour, I’m going to talk about what’s happened to this country in the past half dozen years with a distinguished guest. Norman Podhoretz is now the editor at large for Commentary Magazine, of which he was the editor for 35 years. He has a brand new book out today, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamo-Fascism. And I’m pleased to welcome you back, Mr. Podhoretz, good to have you on the program again. NP: Very pleased to be with you, Hugh. HH: You dedicated your book to your grandchildren Shayna and Shiri. And I wonder, you’re older now, you can be very candid. When they’re young adults, what kind of world do you expect they will be living in, what kind of an America? NP: Well, I daresay I won’t live to see it, but what I say in my dedication, they’re my youngest grandchildren. Shayna is three, and Shiri is fast approaching one. I also have grandchildren, incidentally, as old as 26. But in dedicating the book to these babies, I say that I pray that they will be there to celebrate our victory in World War IV, which is of course what I call the current struggle that we’re in. And that’s mainly what I envisage, that we will, despite all the indications to the contrary at the moment, that we will pull ourselves together as a nation and do what is necessary to defeat this latest totalitarian challenge to our civilization. HH: When I put your book down last night having finished it, I thought to myself I know that you end on an optimistic note that we will figure out a way to do this, but there are times when it’s pretty hard to see how, especially in the poisoned politics of the day. NP: Yeah. HH: Yesterday, the MoveOn.org ad accusing General David Petraeus, an American hero, of betraying this country, today, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, just foolish comment after foolish comment in the testimony. How often do you let your optimism get away from you, and then have to retool it? NP: Well, you know, traditionally, and I’ve been around for a long time, and I used to be known as a Cassandra or a Jeremiah. And being an optimist is an unusual role for me to be playing, especially in my later years. I’m now 77 years old. And so it’s easy for optimism to slip away from me. You know, pessimism, or kind of apocalyptic apprehensions are the default positions of my character. Nevertheless, I have a very strong…for this country, and I believe that the appearances of…oh dear, there seems to be a call. I’ll let it go. The appearances of complacency and denial and the poison of our politics all are extremely discouraging to me whenever they seem salient. And then I remind myself, Hugh, that both before the Second World War, and before the Third World War, what most people call the Cold War, and I think should be seen as the Third World War, many observers, including our enemies, thought that we would not fight, that we were too soft, too self-absorbed, too self-indulgent to stand up against disciplined fanatics like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese. And Hitler himself, by the way, believed this, that we wouldn’t fight. And there were good reasons to think so. You know, when the draft was passed about ten months before the attack on us at Pearl Harbor, it only passed by one vote, and the vote had to be cast in the House of Representatives, and the vote had to be cast by the Speaker of the House to break a tie. So there was good reason to think that we wouldn’t fight. Nevertheless, we did fight, and we fought so well that those of us, I was a little too young to be in that one, but those who did fight have come to be known as the greatest generation. Then before World War III, the same apprehensions were very widespread, as I’m sure you remember. When Whittaker Chambers… HH: Yeah, you detail it in your book, yup. NP: Yeah, he said he was joining the losing side. And James Burham, and distinguished strategists, what they used to call hard anti-communists, wrote a book called The Suicide of the West, in which he said that we were in our liberal folly, were actually committing suicide, and that we probably wouldn’t be able to have the stomach for what John F. Kennedy later called the long twilight struggle against communism. And now for the third time, we have similar doubts and apprehensions floating around, and with the same evidently or apparently superficially good cause. But based on, how shall I put it, our track record as a people, I think that when the wake-up call comes, and when push comes to shove, the American people, the sleeping giant wakes up and exerts its power, and does the necessary. And that’s what I believe is going to happen before this, within the next two, three decades, which is how long I think the war is going to last. HH: Now let me ask you why we should believe that when, I remember 1978, I got out of Harvard, went out and worked for Richard Nixon in San Clemente to write The Real War with him. And at that point, the gates were open, and people from the left, led in no small part by the Commentary Magazine, were joining the right side. They had woken up and left. That’s not happening now. There is no, there should be a neo-neoconservative movement, but there isn’t. NP: Yeah. HH: That’s what’s dispiriting. In fact, as you detail in this very disturbing chapter, George Will, William F. Buckley, a lot of stalwarts of freedom, are hanging up their coats and getting out of the ring. NP: Yeah, well, I certainly don’t deny that it is discouraging, but on the other hand, I think they’re wrong. I think they’ve lost heart. Although Buckley, by the way, interestingly enough in the last week or two, seems to be reversing field again. He has a column today saying that we ought to stick it out in Iraq, which really surprised me. And George Will is getting, if anything, worse from my point of view, as time goes on. And there’s also a neoconservative defector in Francis Fukuyama. Yes, all this stuff is very discouraging. But it means that those of us who have stuck, are staying the course, and who still understand the urgency of this fight, and still understand why this war started, how it started, what it means and why it is absolutely necessary to win it, those of us who are engaged in the war at home, and the war of ideas at home, just have to fight all the harder. HH: You know, I do want to compliment and recommend to the readers that they get this, because you do survey the good guys. There’s Victor Davis Hanson, there’s Mark Steyn, there’s James Q. Wilson. You’re very diligent in the course of World War IV of pointing out the best arguments and where they come from. And they do come from across the conservative spectrum, and some from the center-left. I want to end our first segment, though, by talking about the one person who hasn’t wavered at all, George W. Bush. NP: Yes. HH: I agree with you, I’ve written it before, I’ve said it many times, he is our Truman, and we’re going to get to that opinion faster than we got to that opinion about Truman. Why, for the audience’s sake, I’ve read the book, Norman Podhortez, do you consider him to be potentially a great president, and a very great man? NP: Well, the comparison with Truman is very apposite, because Truman came along at a time when the Soviet Union, the threat from the Soviet Union, from Soviet expansionist totalitarianism, was being pooh-poohed or denied by many people. Many said that the United States under Truman was a greater danger than the Soviet Union under Stalin. And Truman, nevertheless, recognized the dimensions of that threat. He rose to it in a very unexpected way. People have considered him a mediocre politician who became president, really, more or less accidentally, because of the death of Roosevelt. And he rose to it brilliantly, and he formulated a strategy, which came to be known as the Truman doctrine, to contend with it. And it was that strategy that ultimately led us to victory under Ronald Reagan nearly some forty years later. - - - - HH: When we went to break, Norman Podhoretz, we were talking about how Truman had been misunderestimated, and how he rallied. How does that lead to a Bush comparison? NP: Well, Bush was in a very analogous situation, and also someone who was widely regarded as a mediocre politician with no particular interest in foreign affairs. Well, and he was pretty much in the traditions, what we call the realist tradition of his father and his father’s advisors. Then came 9/11. And Bush recognized the significance of 9/11 as an attack on us by what we now call, or I now called the Islamo-fascist forces, that represented an act of war, not a random act of criminals working on their own, which had been the way such terrorist attacks, including the first one on the World Trade Center in 1993, had been treated by us. Well, so Bush recognized the threat just as Truman had with regards to the Soviet Union. And he too formulated a strategy just as Truman had. In his case, we call it the Bush doctrine. And I can summarize it briefly as making the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy, and with preemption as its military instrument, and democratization as its political instrument. And this strategy for dealing with the new threat, which I believe is the only viable strategy, is comparable in its brilliance and in its suitability to the nature, the particular nature of this threat, it’s comparable to the strategy of containment that Truman originally outlined. HH: You know, one of the brilliant aspects of the book is you take the Mr. X. essay in Foreign Affairs by George Kennan at the beginning of World War III, the Cold War, and you ask people to substitute into it where communism or the Soviet Union appears, Islamo-fascism. And it works. It really does work. NP: Yeah, it was a great statement. And I think just as Truman has come to be recognized as a great president, in spite of the fact that he was even more unpopular at this stage of his presidency than Bush is, his ratings were in the low 20’s, Bush is only in the low 30’s, and you know, he was, he had gotten us into a war in Korea, which had claimed well over 30,000 American lives, not 3,500 or six or seven hundred. I think ten times as many as have been lost in Iraq. So he was so unpopular that he didn’t dare run for reelection. And if anybody had suggested that Truman would someday be regarded as a great president, he would have been laughed out of the room. Many people were saying he was just about the worst president we had ever had. And this is of course what a lot of people have been saying about George Bush. I am firmly convinced that Bush will be seen in retrospect as a great president for pretty much the same reasons that Truman has come to be acknowledged as one. HH: He’s clearly, in the Isaiah Berlin world of hedgehogs and foxes a hedgehog, and he knows his one big thing, and he’s been hanging onto it. But he’s had a lot of critics. I note especially that you confess on Page 192 that your criticisms of Reagan during the time, you go back and you read them, and you think, perhaps, that a lot of the critics of Bush are making the same mistake that you may have engaged in. Explain that a little bit to people. NP: Well, you know, I wrote a series of attacks on Reagan from what you might call the right. I kept pointing out that he was not acting in accord with his rhetoric, and with his professed principles. I reread a couple of those articles while I was working on this book, and I was astonished to discover that they were right in every single detail, but they were wrong, they added up to a misjudgment, because everything I accused Reagan of doing and failing to do was correct, but these turned out to be tactics, prudential tactics within a larger strategic objective. And the strategic objective, mainly, to defeat Soviet communism, and throw it on the ash heap of history that Marx had predicted would be the final resting place of capitalism. So that strategic objective was achieved. And what I say about the critics of Bush who are making the, launching the same kinds of attacks on him as I did on Reagan, that they are being too puristic, and they have to cut him some slack, because he’s a politician. I mean, compared to most politicians, he’s very principled, which was also true of Reagan. But both men are very good, well, Reagan was a great politician, and Bush has been a very, very skillful politician. And that means that the commendation has to be made to the multifarious pressures that come at these guys every minute. And it makes you wonder how they even wake up in the morning, let alone how they function. HH: You know, Norman Podhoretz, it occurred to me reading World War IV last night, no American president has ever been a war president as long as George Bush, and he still has another year and a half to go. NP: That’s a very, very good point. It’s an excellent point, Hugh, because I’ve also said to some of his critics on the right who are friends of mine, I hope they won’t become ex-friends, but I once wrote a book called Ex-Friends about people I’d been friendly with when I was on the left. Anyway, I tell them that you know, Reagan came at the tail end of a war, of the War, which was started in 1947. And he came into office in 1981, which was what? 35 years or so into the War? HH: Right, right. NP: Well, Bush again is much more like Harry Truman. He’s the guy who was the president at the creation. And he’s been at it now for six years, which is longer than Truman was at it. And I keep saying that you know, we’re in the early scenes or early acts of a five act play. And it’s unfair even to compare what Bush is up against with what Reagan faced when he became the president, and was able to carry this struggle forward to victory. Bush never expected to be able to win the war. He has said many times this is the work of generations. He has started us on the right path. He opened two fronts, one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. I consider both of these contrary to what most people say as great successes, not failures. I mean, two terrible regimes were toppled, one of them representing the religious head of the two-headed monster called Islamo-fascism. - - - - HH: Norman Podhoretz, six years ago, you’re a New Yorker’s New Yorker. You’ve been enlisted a long time in these battles. Where were you on 9/11, and what did you realize, if anything that day, other than the awful scar on the city and the deaths… NP: Well, I happened to be on jury duty, which…and the courthouse was about a half mile or less from what came to be known as Ground Zero. And at about Ten o’clock, I think it was, I can’t remember exactly, the orders came to evacuate the building. And nobody knew quite what was happening. There was some talk about an accidental crash into the World Trade Center, but in any event, we were all evacuated, as was everybody else in the vicinity. And when I came out, there was this surreally beautiful day, cloudless blue sky, a perfect day, early Autumn day. And I turned around when I got out of the building, and I just saw the second tower collapse. And I felt though, as I’ve said, I was in the middle, I’d been deposited into the middle of one of those Hollywood disaster movies. It was impossible to believe that this was happening. And no transportation was available, and I trekked on my way home with thousands of people who were in the streets, nobody knew exactly what to expect, but you heard people expressing tremendous indignation at the possibility that this was a terrorist attack. And there was a tremendous excitement. Also, people began hording stuff. But I walked over five miles to get home. My wife was stuck at an airport on her way to Washington. So it took at least until the next day before it sank in that we had been attacked, and that this was a clear act of war. And George Bush certainly recognized that. No American president, going all the way back to Nixon in 1970, had chosen to interpret a terrorist attack on American interests or Americans which resulted in the deaths of either American soldiers or American diplomatic personnel, none of our previous presidents had chosen to recognize such attacks as acts of war. HH: There’s a very compelling chapter on this. But I’m wondering on how we had invited more attacks. But on that long walk home that thousands, or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and their neighbors had to make that day, did it ever for a moment occur to you that six, or a relatively blink of an eye later, we would have truthers out there saying it was an inside job, we would have allegations on the floor of the Senate that Bush knew, that we would have dissolved all this into this poisonous political atmosphere? NP: Yeah. Well, I can tell you that on the street that day, it would have been inconceivable, simply inconceivable. But I also have to tell you that within a week or two, unlike a lot of my younger friends who had not lived through the wars of the 60’s, I thought that the kind of thing you’re talking about was there slumbering, so to speak, in the background, and that if things went at all wrong, they would be resurrected. HH: The jackal bins would be back (laughing). NP: The jackal bins, yeah. HH: You know, we only have a minute and a half to the break. Explain to people what the jackal bins are. That’s very, very funny. NP: Do we have time? HH: Yeah, we have a minute and a half to the break, and then we’ll come back. NP: Well, there was a columnist named Jimmy Breslin, worked for the New York Herald Tribune. And he was interviewing one of Lyndon Johnson’s aides, a man named John Roche, who described, he said you know, you can’t take seriously those upper West side Jacobins. I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And evidently, Breslin either misheard or was not familiar with the term Jackobin, so he transcribed it in his notes as jackal bins. And the story came out the next day. It was Lyndon Johnson’s aide saying, dismissing the jackal bins in the Upper West Side. And everybody said what the hell is a jackal bin? (laughing) - - - - HH: Norman Podhoretz, before the last break, we were talking about the intellectual class in America that is so deeply anti-American from the Vietnam years, and how it did not take them long to find in America the cause for 9/11, and to begin what has been a very poisonous attack on America over the last six years. How can they be that successful? NP: Well, what I try to explain in my book is that a lot of these people were working out of the anti-war movement playbook of the Vietnam era. And many of them, incidentally, were there, these were the older selves of the young people. I’m talking about people, writers like Normal Mailer, Susan Sontang, and even more extreme, Noam Chomsky, who had all been involved in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years. And they still harbored the ideas and the attitudes of that period. But they were now stronger than they had been at a comparable stage of the Vietnam war, because what happened in the later years of the Vietnam war is that the major institutions, established institutions of our culture, one by one, were capitulating to the radicals, and especially the universities, but also the media of entertainment and communications. I mean, people today would be astonished to go back and read, say, the New York Times of the early 60’s, which was very hawkish about Vietnam. I mean, almost 180 degrees different from what it is today. And that was true of most of the universities, where you had a kind of, it was mainly dominated I would say, by centrist liberals, many of whom tended to be hawks, and who certainly supported the Vietnam war. I’m talking about people like Arthur Schlesinger, Kenneth Galbraith, and in fact, the whole Democratic Party of that era. But as the years wore on, these institutions basically were captured by the left, and became sort of protected enclaves of their attitudes and ideas. And they have been, somebody once called the professoriate that emerged, guerrillas with tenure. And the guerrillas with tenure were in place on 9/11, and their acolytes and disciples in other sectors of the culture were also there. And they were only waiting an occasion that would make their position more plausible. But even before things started to look bad, say, in Iraq, even within a week or two after 9/11, you had a bunch of professors and writers saying we had brought this down upon us, it was our fault, because of our evil policies in the Middle East, and we certainly had no right to go to war in response. I remember Norman Mailer, for example, who was still an enfant to read, even approaching the age of 80, said the crimes we had committed were basically foisting McDonalds and bad architecture on the third world. HH: And quoted extensively in the book. NP: Yeah, and that’s why we deserved 9/11. And so they reared their heads to begin with. But on the other hand, there were also a number of leftists who felt differently, and who began moving in the other direction, the direction you said no one was going in now, Hugh, as they did in the 70’s. But that didn’t last long, either. HH: It didn’t last long. You know, in the… NP: Yeah, so what you had here, I mean, you had a movement in place, so to speak, and institutions that could back it, that were in control of those who would resurrect the movement. And although the Vietnam war had nothing in common with the battle, I don’t call it a war, the campaign or the battle of Iraq, it did have, the one thing it had in common was the opposition, the opponent. HH: Right. NP: And the reason they…and as I say, they were playing from the old playbook, and it worked. HH: You quote Bernard Lewis repeatedly in the book, and importantly so. He is our nation’s greatest expert on the Middle East and the Arab world. I’ve heard him lecture, at which he closes saying either we will free them or they will kill us… NP: That’s right. HH: …and insight that is precise and accurate. But as I went through your chapters on the mainstream media, the isolationists on the right and the left, the liberal internationalists, the realists, poor old Zbig Brzezinsky is flayed in this book, the radical Democrats, the defeatists on the right, the neocon no more, Francis Fukuyama, do any of them understand that essential insight about the enemy, Norman Podhoretz, because it seems to me they are all clueless about the enemy. NP: Well, I actually think they are, most of them. I mean, you know, you have to make distinctions among these various groups. I mean, the critics of Bush are from the right complain that he isn’t being aggressive enough, and that in fact, that he is not taking the full measure of the enemy. So it’s not as though everybody in the critical camps refuses to recognize the reality that faces us. But it is true that those on the left, and those on what have come to be called the paleoconservative right do tend to deny, not only tend to deny, they sometimes stridently deny that there’s a threat here that warrants a military response. I mean, John Kerry only recently said it was a nuisance, comparable to illegal gambling and prostitution, that we could learn to live with without letting it disrupt our lives, and that could be handled by the cops and the courts. George Will, to my other amazement, has said that Kerry was right. So what you see here is an absolute refusal to acknowledge that you’ve got a powerful force arrayed against us, with a potential grasp of nuclear weapons that it would be only too happy to use, and a refusal to acknowledge that something has to be done about this, that goes beyond the old policies that resulted in 9/11. - - - - HH: With your insight that the election of 2004 was a ratification of the Bush doctrine, it was clearly that, and that immediately, a delegitimization of that ratification began on the left, and continues to this day… NP: That’s correct. HH: My question goes to something Bill Kristol and I once talked about, which is whether or not the fundamental understanding of what happened in 9/11 is absorbed at a level below the intelligencia, and will manifest itself in presidential election after presidential election. What do you think, Norman Podhoretz? NP: Well, what I think is that that is correct, and I think that the Democrats are committing political suicide, at least for the 2008 presidential election. I mean, you know, the Democrats suffered from the disability of the McGovern years, when they were rightly considered soft on national defense, not to be trusted to protect us against foreign threats. They worked very heard to overcome that reputation, especially under Clinton. And now what they’ve done is to resurrect it. And they’ve gone even further than they did under McGovern. I mean, embracing defeat, calling for American defeat, rooting for American defeat. Of course, they deny that they’re doing this, but people know what they sense and hear coming out of these Democratic politicians. If I had been advising them, I would have said you guys are crazy. You’re throwing the ’08 election. And that is what I absolutely believe, contrary to what most pollsters will tell you, and especially if Rudy Giuliani, whom I support, should get the Republican nomination, I think he can beat Hillary, who is the shoe-in. HH: So with one minute left, you do believe, despite these idiocies among many elites, that the American people understand that we are in World War IV, and that it must be fought, and it must be won? NP: Americans do not like to lose, and certainly, to the extent many people forget that we’re at war, because I guess nothing much is happening at home. But most people know, I mean, bridge collapses in Minneapolis, and everybody says oh, my God, it’s happened again, or a steam pipe blows up in Manhattan, and the same thing. So the subliminal awareness is there. And the fact is that the issue, in my opinion, will be again in ’08, it’s the war, stupid. HH: And I also believe the return of so many amazing men and women from the American military and the loss of so many of them will fundamentally always act as a reminder of what we’re fighting over there. Norman Podhoretz, congratulations on an important book, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamo-Fascism. We’ll look forward to talking to you again, sir. End of interview.

Archbishop of Canterbury

The article below from this link http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3337961.ece if you hadn't seen it yet. It is amazing the headway that Muslims are making in Europe.

Archbishop faces calls to quit over Sharia row
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing a crisis of confidence in his leadership yesterday after calling for parts of Islamic law, or Sharia, to be introduced into Britain. Amid growing calls for his resignation, including from members of the General Synod of the Church of England, Dr Rowan Williams hastily backtracked, claiming he had never called for a parallel jurisdiction of Sharia for Muslims. But his moral authority, already undermined by the dispute over homosexuality, looked further in jeopardy as prelates from overseas provinces of the Anglican Communion joined in the criticism. Weblogs and other sites have been overwhelmed by comments from the public, Anglicans and nonAnglicans, the vast majority being highly critical of Dr Williams and his apparent appeasement of Islamism. The Prince of Wales, Britain’s foremost champion of good relations with Islam, has distanced himself from the Archbishop’s views. Privately, he is concerned that the speech is in danger of being taken out of context and distilled into scaremongering headlines. Although the Queen is head of the Church, her spokeswoman declined to comment.
Related Links
Williams is dangerous. He must be resisted
Analysis: was obscure phrasing to blame?
Wisdom and diplomacy solved bitter dispute
Alison Ruoff, a Synod member for London and a member of the Bishop of London’s diocesan council, said: “He has done the Anglican Communion and the Church of England no favours. He should go.” Dr Peter Akinola, the Primate of Nigeria, where Christians are regularly persecuted by Muslims, called the remarks “most disturbing and most unfortunate”. The timing of the Archbishop’s call for a “supplementary jurisdiction” of Sharia for aspects of marital and financial law and for mediation and conflict resolution could not have been worse. It has come as the Synod prepares to meet at Westminster on Monday; on the agenda will be the crisis over homosexuality and the pending schism between liberals and conservatives. Insiders are wondering if Dr Williams’s moral authority has now been damaged beyond repair.

News

This article that talks about the bias of news and the article itself is from a very great source, my church! The link is here http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn40/whattothink_gospel.htm and there are some great links that you can click on on the left side. Two of the links I recommend are Should You Believe all the news you hear? and some of the books that are quoted from make a great, timely reading list if you want some books to read! Another is How Can you Counter a Degenerating Culture? which gives specifics on how culture is changing! Read the article there and you will see. Anyway, all of the links on the left side of that page are worth reading and I hope you do so and I'm sure that you'll find that to be very interesting!


The Media's Alternative GospelThe major media news organizations and outlets, says journalist William Proctor, have their own lists of rights and wrongs that they support or condemn through their editorials and reporting. Most follow the lead of the media heavyweight The New York Times, which, he says, has its own list of "sins" that the paper regularly criticizes and attacks. Detailed in his 2000 book The Gospel According to The New York Times, these include, but are not limited to:

Religious certainty-especially that rooted in Christianity.
Political conservatism in any form.
Capital punishment for any reason.
Placing any restrictions on freedom of the press, speech or expression.
Limiting abortion rights. Conversely, the newspaper's "gospel" is essentially the opposite of these-that is, it continually pushes the viewpoint that:
There are no absolutes, particularly when it comes to religious beliefs. We must be tolerant of all other beliefs and behavior (except those based on biblical standards or conservative beliefs).
Liberalism is enlightened; conservatism and conservatives are selfish, bigoted and uncaring.
Society as a whole is at fault for criminal behavior; therefore the death penalty is inherently unjust.
Freedom of the press, expression and speech is virtually absolute and trumps virtually all other rights and restrictions
Sexual freedom, including freedom from unwanted consequences such as pregnancy, is an absolute right for everyone.

Lest you think Mr. Proctor's assertions are overstated, carefully examine the news coverage, editorial positions and even the political cartoons in your local newspaper. Odds are you'll find them advocating, subtly or not so subtly, the same editorial and social positions. You'll see reporting that favors positions such as homosexual rights, diminution of parental discipline and authority, lack of personal responsibility and greater government growth and social spending-all designed to shift your thinking from the standards found in the Bible and toward the alternative gospel such sources want you to believe. Collectively, today's mass media have become one of the most committed instruments of antibiblical bias that can be found in our world. Their influence in that direction is enormous. GN

Music

This link http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-drugs.html?ex=1202792400&en=4710c6f98410796a&ei=5070&emc=eta1 is about alcohol and drugs in music. An interesting point is that country music makes more references to these than rock (Surprised me!) Anyway, let me know if you have any comments.


Study Finds U.S. Music Awash In Booze And Drugs

By REUTERS
Published: February 4, 2008
Filed at 4:14 p.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They have lyrics such as "Tequila makes her clothes fall off" and "Breakin down the good weed, rollin' the blunt/Ghetto pimp tight girls say I'm the man."U.S. popular music is awash with lyrics about drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Medical researchers have reviewed the words of the 279 top songs of 2005 to estimate just how common they are.Their report on Monday showed a third of the songs had explicit references to substance abuse. And two-thirds of these references placed drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor, according to the team led by Dr. Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.They calculated that with Americans aged 15 to 18 listening to 2.4 hours of music daily, they hear 84 musical references to substance use a day and more than 30,000 a year.Certain genres contained more references than others -- for example, rap and country music far more so than pop.The study did not quantify references to sex, violence or expletives.Primack noted that music and popular culture in general long have been infused with substance use references."It's not going to be feasible or even desirable to censor these messages," Primack said in a telephone interview. "Probably a more empowering approach is to teach kids to analyze and evaluate the messages for themselves."The study, published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, did not draw conclusions about the music's effect on young listeners. But the researchers said there is evidence that exposure to certain media messages can increase substance use among adolescents.Primack's team used charts in Billboard magazine, a trade publication covering the music business, to identify the most popular songs of 2005 based on sales and airplay.They selected the 279 most popular songs from genres like country, pop, R&B, rap and rock, then sifted through their lyrics, counting references to drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Of those songs, 33 percent contained explicit references and 42 percent had some kind of substance abuse reference. RAP FIRST, COUNTRY SECONDSeventy-seven percent of rap songs tracked in the study contained such references, along with 36 percent of country songs, 20 percent of songs classified as "R&B/hip-hop," 14 percent of rock songs and 9 percent of pop songs. Alcohol and marijuana were the most common references found, with tobacco more rarely mentioned.In "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off," country singer Joe Nichols sings: "She can handle any champagne brunch/A bridal shower with Bacardi punch/Jello shooters full of Smirnoff/But tequila makes her clothes fall off."In "Stay Fly," rappers Three 6 Mafia say: "Breakin down the good weed, rollin' the blunt/Ghetto pimp tight girls say I'm the man ... Let's get high ... smoke us one.""While we have not had the opportunity to thoroughly assess the study, it's important to note that music is generally a reflection of society," said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the U.S. recording business.Lamy said recording companies place parental advisory logos on albums stating an album contains explicit content."Parents play an essential role as well -- the music that children listen to is an importance choice, and parents are the first and most important teacher," Lamy said by e-mail.(Editing by Maggie Fox)