A Gallup World Religion Survey shows that 53% of Americans have a “not too favorable” or worse view of Muslims. That’s not surprising, since we’re at war with a group which tightly identifies itself with Islam.

But the survey also showed that a person who hates Jews is overwhelmingly likely to also hate Muslims. There is no “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing going on here. Anti-Semites are full-service bigots, it seems. I would guess that these people also dislike other groups as well (Hispanics, blacks, Asians, gays, Mac users, whatever).

I think it’s pretty clear, too, that people who dislike Muslims don’t necessarily also hate Jews. It just goes the other way.

None of this, when I think about it, is surprising. But I wouldn’t have thought about it apart from this survey.So if you know someone who disparages Jews…this may be a hardcore, all-inclusive bigot.

Then there’s the issue of Muslims who hate Jews…and Jews who hate Muslims…the never-ending story.

Thomas Ricks is a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who was formerly the military correspondent for the Washington Post. He’s well-regarded by the military, and has incredible access, as shown by his two thorough books on the Iraq War, “Fiasco” and “The Gamble.”

Ricks loves digging through obscure military documents and the writings of everyday soldiers. He publishes some of his findings on his blog on the ForeignPolicy.com site.

A few days ago, he published an article by retired Marine colonel Gary Anderson which gives advice to US soldiers doing humanitarian work in Haiti. It’s really interesting, common-sense stuff, and Anderson shows a lot of respect for the non-government relief organizations. Here are some excerpts:

Don’t be afraid to use non-traditional sources such as reporters, NGOs, and missionaries in the ongoing assessment. That angry reporter or Non Governmental Organization (NGO) worker, who wants to know why nothing has been done for village X, has just given you a piece of your assessment puzzle.

As soon as possible, get permission to fly non Department of Defense personnel in military aircraft. This…always gets overlooked until some overly officious Air Force Master Sergeant won’t let a desperately needed civilian doctor on an airplane.

Sea-base the operation as much as possible. Every American who spends the night on shore is one less Haitian that will get food or water that day. Ruthlessly weed out uniformed “tourists” who don’t have a real function.

Wherever possible, use local security forces to secure distribution sites. The last thing you need to have on CNN is American troops clubbing desperate villagers like baby seals at a relief distribution site.

Whatever you do, don’t do air drops–you are likely to kill more people than you help by crushing them with pallets or by starting riots.

Keep Your Relations with NGOs and IOs Professional. Most of these people are more likely to join the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps, but they are professionals in their own fields and will be as results-oriented as you are in their own way. Some have never dealt with the military before and may have an attitude when you first meet them. The best way to confront that is head on. Tell them, “We are both here to get a job done. Let’s leave our personal feelings at the door. You may even find that I’m not a war criminal.”

Don’t get involved with the disposal of human remains. Think how you’d feel watching your grandmother shoved into a ditch by a Russian bulldozer. CARE and some of the other major NGOs are funded and know how to stand up ad hoc mortuary companies to bury people in ways acceptable to the local culture. This will also get some needed money pumped into the economy. They are also smart enough to keep an eye on the local entrepreneurs. At some point in the operation, they will start to run short of bodies. Gruesome as it sounds, some of these people in past disasters have dug up bodies to get paid for burying them multiple times. You would never have thought of that; leave that sort of thing to the pros.

Avoid going high tech. Mobile surgical field hospitals and reverse water treatment purification units are wonderful things, but you stand the risk of raising local expectations so high that they won’t want to part with them, and they wouldn’t be able to maintain them, even if you could leave them.

Sadly, those who will die from immediate injuries sustained in the earthquake will likely have done so by the time you get there. What will really be needed are internists with qualified interpreters who can treat the invariable gastrointestinal diseases that will follow from drinking bad water.

You can download the full article as a PDF here.

Slate ran a very interesting article titled, “Why Did We Focus on Securing Haiti Rather Than Helping Haitians?” We’ve all heard various news reports about how aid was reaching the airport, under US control, but not Haitians. This article talks about that.

We sent in naval ships and 10,000 troops, and the military did what it does best: command and control.
“Troops? Port-au-Prince had been leveled by an earthquake, not a barbarian invasion, but, OK, troops. Maybe they could put down their rifles and, you know, carry stuff, make themselves useful….

“Like a slow-witted, fearful giant, it built a wall around itself, commandeering the Port-au-Prince airport and constructing a mini-Green Zone. As thousands of tons of desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies piled up behind the airport fences–and thousands of corpses piled up outside them…the military’s first priority was to build a ‘structure for distribution’ and ‘to provide security.’
Forget hunger, dehydration, gangrene, septicemia–the real concern was ‘the security situation,’ the possibility of chaos, violence, looting.”

The article talks about how military flights were given priority over planes bearing much-needed relief supplies. That didn’t change until the United Nations intervened.

“Meanwhile, much of the aid that was arriving remained at the airport. Haitians watched American helicopters fly over the capital, commanding and controlling, but no aid at all was being distributed in most of the city….

“Why the paranoid focus on security above saving lives? Clearly, President Obama failed to learn one of the basic lessons taught by Hurricane Katrina: You can’t solve a humanitarian problem by throwing guns at it. Before the president had finished insisting that ‘my national security team understands that I will not put up with any excuses,’ Haiti’s fate was sealed. National security teams prioritize national security, an amorphous and expensive notion that has little to do with keeping Haitian citizens alive.

“This leaves the more disturbing question of why the Obama administration chose to respond as if they were there to confront an insurgency, rather than to clear rubble and distribute antibiotics and MREs.”

I suspect all of this has been solved at this point, and the focus is on saving lives, where it should have been from the beginning, rather than on carrying out a military mission. Maybe this emphasis on security only lasted a couple days. But still.

China executed two persons who helped produce tainted milk that killed six babies and sickened 300,000 others. Nineteen others, all executives or middlemen, received long prison sentences. Obviously, China is tough on companies that endanger public health.

McDonald’s executives should probably avoid going to China.

A lot of Hollywood types are upset that Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for a crime he committed 30 years ago in the United States, and now faces extradition to the US. Sure, he drugged and raped a minor child, then fled from prosecution. But hasn’t he suffered enough?

An article in Salon absolutely skewers the thought that Polanski deserves pity and mercy. The article lays out exactly what he did, and why we shouldn’t let it go just because he’s enormously talented and knows powerful people.

The article ends, “Roman Polanski raped a child. And rushing past that point to
focus on the reasons why we should forgive him, pity him, respect him,
admire him, support him, whatever, is absolutely twisted.”