Week of July 27, 2009

We hit it off right from the beginning. When he's not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.

Lani Guinier

I applaud President Obama's invitation to Professor Skip Gates and Sgt. Jim Crowley to continue the" conversation" they ostensibly began on a porch in Cambridge, Mass., with Gates's arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct.

Truth be told, however, the Gates-Crowley encounter did not begin on that porch. Nor will it will end at a White House talkfest, even in an atmosphere leavened by beer. And much more was at play than a conflict about deference or duty.

In fact, the alleged"loud" and"tumultuous" tone of Gates's voice, and the clanging of the cuffs on his wrists, were the sounds of two different versions of our racial history colliding with our collective amnesia about that history.

We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past -- including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example.

Bruce Bawer

We in the West are living in the midst of a jihad, and most of us don't even realize it — because it's a brand of jihad that's barely a generation old.

Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War. It's called the House of War because it, too, according to the Koran, is destined to be governed by sharia, and it will take war — holy war, jihad — to bring it into the House of Submission.