Civilization and its enemies
I remember reading some of Lee Harris’s essays post-9/11 and being impressed, but after that I lost track of him. So I missed his book Civilization and its Enemies: The Next Stage of History when it first came out in 2004.
2004 seems like a long time ago. And in a sense it is: ten years. But his book has only grown more topical every day.
I’m sorry to say that, because it’s not a book that offers a lot of comfort. But his writing is brilliant, so thoughtful and yet compressed that it’s one of those books where the reader would do well to pause every paragraph or so in order to contemplate and digest what has just been said.
Here’s an excerpt. In the passage that follows, Harris has previously defined his use of the word “ruthlessness” as meaning “dreadfulness, frightfulness, horror, horribleness, terror, terribleness, atrociousness, atrocity”:
…[T]he more the spirit of commerce triumphs, the closer mankind comes to dispensing with war, the nearer we approach the end of history, the greater are the rewards to those who decide to return to the path of war, and the easier it will be for them to conquer. There is nothing that can be done to change this fact; it is built into the structure of the world…
People who have been trained in the practice of civility, and who find it second nature, will be reluctant to challenge the conduct of another on the ground that he is lacking civility The ruthless party therefore knows that he will be able to push very far before a break point is openly acknowledged Because once the break point is acknowledged, all bets are off and you no longer can be sure of the next step.
Before the break point, the civil party thinks that the ruthless party can be accommodated to civilized standards by means of patience and forbearance, much in the same way that we might try to domesticate a feral animal. We are convinced we will bring him around. We attribute his ruthlessness to some defect in is psychology. Perhaps he has an inferiority complex and is acting out with us. (Who knows, he may have had a wicked stepfather somewhere in his childhood.) We may blame ruthlessness on someone’s religion or culture or economic status. We never dream of identifying it for what it is—a strategy that works.
Every society, every culture, every civilization has produced exponents of ruthlessness; none has a monopoly on it. None will ever find a way of eliminating those who are prepared to resort to ruthlessness, as long as it continues to work, and it will continue to work so long as men civilize themselves, and to work all the more effectively whenever a civilization has succeeded so well in its civilizing task that it believes itself within sight of the end of history, because at no time is ruthlessness more effective. It works in some cases because its victims are easy to cow, in some cases because they genuinely can’t fathom ruthlessness, and in some cases because their idealism refuses to countenance such an illiberal truth.
Harris’ point is not just about Islamic terrorism, although that was the impetus for his book and it fits it quite well. He is saying that in a world of civilized, peace-loving, westernized nations who have put aside their own ruthlessness or at least come to disapprove of it and be reluctant to use it, the ruthless group which is willing to stop at nothing will wield an inordinate amount of power, and that the rest of the world will be very slow to meet it with enough ruthlessness to stop it. The paradox is that, if we want to preserve a so-called civilized world, we must be prepared to be bloody-minded at times, and to remember the laws of the copybook headings:
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I originally thought 9/11 was such a breaking point. Sometimes I think the rise of ISIS is another. But there is an excellent possibility that the western world has now become so “civilized,” and so resistant to thinking ill of others, that even ISIS is not enough to get us to defend ourselves and the civilization and civility we profess to prize.
I considered quoting parts this exact section a couple of months back on this site when ISIS first started breaking towards Baghdad- I read Harris’s book about 6 years ago. I think I ended up just making my own statement instead about how ISIS’s ruthlessness and barbarism had a cold logic guiding it. People are making a serious error when they think this is just mindless violence. There is a purpose behind it, and I think Harris is correct- today’s western leaders don’t have a clue about how to meet it.
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” – George Orwell
I think that was kind of the point of Jack Nicholson’s “You Can’t Handle the Truth” speech in A Few Good Men.
I guess it’s possible to view ruthlessness as a strategy that becomes viable during weak, civilized eras. But it seems also possible to view it as a spiritual or psychological disorder which is always present but only becomes dangerous when a society becomes civilized. I’m thinking that strategy implies reasoned choice of approaches.
You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!
Neo-Neocon: “But there is an excellent possibility that the western world has now become so “civilized,” and so resistant to thinking ill of others, that even ISIS is not enough to get us to defend ourselves and the civilization and civility we profess to prize.”
Really? With all due respect, I find that claim incomprehensible. The US military is still in Afghanistan after more than a decade there, we only recently “left” Iraq, and for a year now there has been talk of military intervention in Syria–talk that long preceded the rise of ISIS. Meanwhile, we’re engaging in drone warfare in Pakistan and Yemen, and in one way or another, we’re military involved all over much of the rest of the world. How is that indicative of our genteel unwillingness to kill people in the name of our civilization?
You don’t quite come out and say it, but you seem to be implying that our self-defense requires military intervention against ISIS. Is that what you mean? If so, why? The Harris excerpt doesn’t come close to explaining it.
“Really? With all due respect, I find that claim incomprehensible.”
I’m glad to hear that the US is the western world. It simplifies matters.
Think about it when you’re spewing hatred.
And yet people are not willing to do much of anything effective inside the US itself. Bombing brown people overseas that they never see or hear about directly, is much easier, but won’t exactly solve the problem.
How many people have said here that a war against the Left in the US isn’t winnable or is pointless or is something to be avoided?
Yet they can’t connect the dots. When telling an opponent a strategy is off the table, it’s easy to exploit that hole. Islamic Jihad and the Left are a single mind on this concerning the West.
for a year now there has been talk of military intervention in Syria—talk that long preceded the rise of ISIS.
The so called “military intervention” by Hussein O here is exactly why ISIL was able to shock and awe with superior organization and firepower against the Iraqis. They didn’t get it from Syria’s dictator, they got it from the United States military trainers.
How is that indicative of our genteel unwillingness to kill people in the name of our civilization?
It takes greater effort and will power to kill people using one’s own muscles and melee range implements than it is to shoot them from across a distance with a rifle via ironsights. Same but opposite issue with sniper scopes, where people can see the faces of the targets as they go splat. Very far away objectively, but emotionally a little bit closer than pistol warfare.
Hussein O ordering some of his military minions to push a button and blow up brown people, then declare “I am good at killing people” afterwards to a stunned peon oppressed American public, isn’t exactly applying a lot of effort or will power. It chalks up the death tolls same as anything else, but the fear is not as great since it suggests that people are doing this because they lack the will power to do it personally.
western world has now become so “civilized,” and so resistant to thinking ill of others, that even ISIS is not enough to get us to defend ourselves
There is, I believe, a sadder perspective. The civilized western world is not only resistant to thinking ill of others, it appears to countenance those civilized westerners who would think ill of western civilization. At no time in history, have the Gnostic haters of God and nature ever had it so good – a free reign to destroy the past, to destroy the Christian ethos that had nurtured and preserved it, to destroy western civilization itself, from within. There is more wrong with the world, with western civilization, than can be properly accounted for. There’s no accounting such hate without considering evil.
We keep hearing from TV pundits that the American people are “war weary.” No, the American people are at the mall, or at the beach, or at the movies, or at the football games – they are not at war. Only a small percentage of our citizens are serving in the military. It is those few who deserve to be war weary. They have been fighting, in a limited fashion, against implacable and barbarian savages for 13 years now and there is precious little to show for it. Are we any safer from Islamist terror? Do we have any more friends in the Muslim world?
There was a strategy when Bush began. To close down the failed state of Afghanistan and rebuild it into a state that wouldn’t harbor terrorists. The aim was the same in Iraq. We had partially succeeded in Iraq, but we left. Afghanistan was always going to be a much tougher proposition, but we are leaving with nothing, nothing to show for our efforts there. Islamic terror isn’t on the run. It is gaining strength everywhere. A quick perusal of the Long War Journal will keep you updated. They are on the march in Nigeria, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and the Islamic State in the Levant. I imagine the President’s daily intelligence briefings show that. Of course, I could be wrong.
They have been at war with us since 1979. Many of their leaders have told us they are at war with us. Bush decided to accept their challenge, but he was consistently undermined by the progs and other watermelons who believe in peace at any price or that the terrorists are a misunderstood group with legitimate grievances that explain their savagery. These appeasers have always wanted to treat Islamo-terrorism as a law enforcement issue. Which is a form of denial of the worst kind.
“War is a terrible thing. But, it is not the worst thing. To see your wife or husband or daughters or sons enslaved and killed is worse. To see every thing you have spent blood, sweat, time, and tears building be destroyed, is worse. To live in constant fear of a devastating attack from an enemy that will not be placated by anything less than your total annihilation, is worse. To suffer and die when the resources you need to live and prosper are being denied to you by an armed group of crazed thugs is worse.” (Author unknown)
A leader worth his salt would be calling on the nation to face this threat head on. We are imminently more powerful in every way than these Islamists jihadis. We do not need to show them any more mercy than they would show us. It is time to pick up the sword and keep swinging it until the Islamic jihadis can no longer threaten us nor would they even want to.
Yes, I have Scots blood and it is boiling hot.
I don’t pin the necessary quality on “ruthlessness”. I pin it on competitiveness.
JJ: “We keep hearing from TV pundits that the American people are “war weary.””
The ‘war weariness’ is not from the physical campaigns themselves but rather caused by the propaganda campaign adopted by the Democrats and Left. Neutralize their propaganda and We The People can be reinvigorated for the contest.
That’s why I continue to advocate for a dedicated campaign to set the record straight on the Iraq mission. The primary sources for OIF are straightforward and dispositive that OIF was, in fact, right on the law and justified on the policy. Setting the record straight on OIF is necessary to correct the false premises underlying the ‘war weariness’ and discredit the Dems/Left propagandists. Reset the popular zeitgeist by fixing the false narrative against OIF – patient zero – and from there, you can build up the rest.
It’s the narrative contest – where the first battle is for the premises – of the activist game, the only social political game there is.
JJ: “Islamic terror isn’t on the run.”
We were beating it back – 6 years ago.
Bush was right. By that I don’t mean right on all the details – if he was, he would have been the 1st POTUS in history to be so – but in terms of setting the course in the contest, Bush was right. Now, Bush being right wasn’t extraordinary. The right choice was obvious. Bush only seems extraordinary because Obama’s unforced deviation from the right course he inherited from Bush has been extraordinary.
My go-to analogy for the War on Terror is cancer treatment. Treating a high-stage, aggressive cancer is full spectrum (radiation, chemo, diet, lifestyle, therapy, etc) and requires total commitment, tenacity, patience, and time. Cancer treatment – as with any comprehensive medicinal course – cannot be halted part way, even if the patient feels healthy and the cancer is in evident remission. Or else the surviving cancer cells will almost surely metastasize in a harsher form that may be untreatable. The full course of treatment must be completed. Even best case, the cancer survivor must be permanently vigilant against a recurrence.
As such, Obama should have stayed the course from Bush in order to complete the treatment, like Eisenhower stayed the course from Truman. Current events are a consequence of Obama’s error of changing course from Bush.
Another of Harris’s books is The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West
Added book to my reading list.
Walter russell mead seems to think we’re beginning to see America’s Jacksonians stir.
I’m not holding my breath.
If Obama and the left do not defend Americans abroad, then do not be surprised if American citizens do it on their own. Commando raids to free hostages? Fund mercenaries to take out islamic radicals? We are supposed to have just one military that is controlled by the executive branch. But that means there is a burden to take the lead and do what is necessary.
Tom: “I think that was kind of the point of Jack Nicholson’s “You Can’t Handle the Truth” speech in A Few Good Men.”
And a point that John Milius’s made in his script for Apocalypse Now. Milius is notoriously Conservative but the director, Coppola, not so much. That, at least, has always been my take on the film.
Eric…Beautifully stated, Sir.
Looks like there’s another book for me to order this week. Thanks, Neo.
Eric: “As such, Obama should have stayed the course from Bush in order to complete the treatment, like Eisenhower stayed the course from Truman.”
‘Twould be even better if Obama had stayed the course and upped the ante. As you say, we need a full spectrum of effort, just as in cancer treatment. Not only using our air power to kill as many as possible out in the desert. We need to get the Iraqis, Jordanians, Saudis, and other Muslim nations to step up against the radicals. If they won’t help then we can send a Marine Expeditionary Force and unleash them. We need to go after their money and financiers. We need to begin a big program of aggressive communication. Our message should be that we do not want war with anyone. That we want to live in peace and tolerance with all nations and all faiths. But point out that, if Islam cannot reform itself, then it will never know peace or success because we cannot live with their constant threat of attacks and death. Stop all immigration by Muslims. Announce to the Muslims that are here that bigotry, sexual mutilation, rape, honor killings, and intolerance of Christianity and Judaism are all haram in our culture. Then enforce it.
If we are hit by a terrorist attack in the USA, we must hit the country/countries from which the terrorists come ten times as hard. Swift and merciless reaction to all attacks. Collateral damage be damned. They attack mostly civilians, so will we.
I would never try to turn a Muslim country into a sharia democracy again. ISIS is a small nation now, but it is a rogue nation built upon conquered land. Destroy it so completely that the idea of forming a Caliphate will never appeal to a Muslim again. ISIS delenda est!
Of course none of that will happen while Obama is C-in-C.
We’ll see what happens when things get existential.
If you can’t see it coming, your head is buried in the sand. Lee Harris’s book is a must read. I need to pull it back out (or did I loan that out and never get it back…)
Watch this space.
Barry has a real problem with ISIS — it’s very much HIS creature.
It’s doing what he wants (largely) to be done:
It levered al-Maliki out of power. He’d been a bane.
It’s been entirely dedicated towards the destruction of al-Nusrah aka AQ in Syria. That’s been Barry’s object from the get-go.
It’s backing away from Barry’s spankings in Iraq.
&&&
For my money, I’m convinced that Barry has back channels to ISIS that can’t be admitted to in public.
These are the back channels that inform PM Cameron that ISIS was queuing up to execute American journalist #2 — to be soon followed by British victim #1.
I suspect that the back channel consists of a satellite phone or two — which was (embarrassingly) issued to the Jordanian cohort many months ago.
For those unaware: ISIS has a HUGE Jordanian cohort at this time. What a co-incidence! Not!
As a practical matter, the northeastern desert of Jordan is de facto part of ISIS turf. For political reasons, this is not fessed up to. Everything is still being done to bury the Jordanian connection.
Al-Nusrah is so concerned about ISIS that it’s attacked totally worthless positions on the Golan. Al-Nusrah fully understands that it can’t retreat through Jordan. It can’t retreat through ISIS. Ditto for Israel. (Duh!)
It’s now established that swinging east around Damascus puts al Nusrah in a vise between Assad and ISIS. So all that is left is to make a direct surge towards Lebanon — using the hapless UN corridor. As ever, the UN is the path of no resistance.
During this phase, al Nusrah is flying false colors — namely it’s pretending to be the FSA (Free Syrian Army) — even going so far as to fly their flag. Folks, there has been absolutely NO FSA action for a year in that part of the world. It stopped existing. All that’s left is FSA as a front for al Nusrah.
So far, the IDF is ‘buying it.’ That is, the IDF has bigger fish to fry. (atomic Iran)
Of course the Western press is buying into the FSA meme. Rich, no?
For all of the above reasons, Barry Soetoro can’t bear to thwart ISIS.
They are STILL filling their role as a back-fire jihadi army.
BTW, ISIS is no longer a non-state actor. It’s a nation. Duh!
It’s the Iraqi-Syrian border that’s history. It won’t be coming back no matter what.
It would not shock me if Damascus was to fall into Jordan. The Jordanian-Syrian border made absolutely no economic sense.
For those not aware: that particular border got started as the Haifa to Dera’a narrow gauge railway line. This section was built, west-east, BEFORE the main north-south Hejaz railway was constructed.
This was the railroad that Lawrence was blowing up. It’s the only railroad in the entire area. Somewhere out on the WWW, you can find period photos of the short ‘bridges’ that Lawrence blew up. These were bridges over soft sand — never water. They were never repaired even decades after the war.
While the Palestinian (Jewish lands) section was not used for border purposes (Jewish (Zionist) farm land plots were already to hand) the narrow gauge railway made for a sweet demarcation for Sykes and Picot. Britain was so concerned with Araby that they gave up Syria and Lebanon to France. At the last second that dog bite from Jordan was given to KSA. That’s why those nations have that weird border. This put a (the) major (camel) tribe on the right side of the border. This self-same tribe is a HUGE factor in what’s happening with ISIS.
But you wouldn’t know it reading the Western press.
Assad had always kept it down and out. ISIS is bringing it back. This (camel) tribe is the KSA link to ISIS. No matter what the Riyadh crew thinks, the camel crew is calling THESE shots. BTW, this is the same tribe that crossed the Nefud desert with Lawrence. So you can see why the British adjusted Jordan’s border to keep everyone really happy — all those years ago.
Back to the border: so, at the end, the final adjustment in the field, it was decided that the border would be shifted to the south of the railway line. This put Dera’a just inside Syria. It was the eastern terminus for one reason: water. From Dera’a the border swung east and off to the northeast — making every attempt to avoid existing villages. You’ll note some doglegs between Iraq and Syria, for just such a purpose. They don’t show up on large scale maps.
With ISIS, a new nation, calling the shots, the old borders are history.
Plainly Barry has no intention of backing the Shia in an assault up country against ISIS.
He’s caught between the various factions and is hence, paralyzed. That is all.
Back the truck up.
Most of the Western peoples have been indoctrinated into the left’s practice of civility. It is the useful idiot liberal who “thinks that the ruthless party can be accommodated to civilized standards by means of patience and forbearance”. It is the useful idiot liberal who attributes the criminally inclined “ruthlessness to some defect in is psychology. it is the useful idiot liberal who ‘thinks that an inferiority complex is acting out with us’. Religion or culture or economic status isn’t the motivation for someone’s ruthlessness, they are the justification for their embrace of evil.
Most on the right intuitively sense that the criminally inclined embrace their criminality and that the liberal excuses it because they lack the moral courage to define it. They use Jesus’ “judge not, lest you be judged” as an escape from the responsibility to define the moral and immoral.
“The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness. Goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” R.A. Heinlein
Civilization = pacifism is a false formula and a suicidal one as well.
They have been at war with us since 1979.
Western lack of depth.
It’s been since at least 800 AD.
Ymarasakar: “It’s been since at least 800 AD.”
“Some scholars argue the power of the Caliphate began waning by 1683, and without the acquisition of significant new wealth the Ottoman Empire went into a fast decline.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_fall_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
From the end of the Ottoman Empire they were poverty stricken rageoholics that weren’t that dangerous. It was only after they began building up their oil revenues post WWII that they started dreaming of another Caliphate. 1979 was the kickoff for the new campaign.
They use Jesus’ “judge not, lest you be judged” as an escape from the responsibility to define the moral and immoral.
It feels a lot more like something the Left incorporated into their own religious dogma, that once belonged to someone else. Reminds me of the Catholic mass coming from a pagan religion. The Catholics could gain more converts this way by saying that they had the same rituals as the old believers, but with a different dogma.
Being a religion, or rather more accurately a group of death cults with often times mutually incompatible dogmas, the Left does provide guidelines for sin, redemption, atonement, and guilt. In the form of Global Warming, their New Apocalypse or Rapture. Those who are moral will be saved. Those who are not, are contributing to the destruction of the Earth and shall be damned.
That’s only one example of Leftist morality.
With all the government agencies buying every bullet they can get their hands on, and pushing the envelope here and there – testing the waters – seems to me they will have no problem visiting violence on us when we have had all we can take.
It won’t be the first time THAT has happened anywhere, either.
There is a bill in the house right now to make it illegal for the citizenry to own protective body armor.
Our government isn’t too worried about talk, although they are intercepting every word. But they are definitely getting ready should things progress beyond talk.
I used to worry I was off my rocker a bit with the agenda of the left (concerning our own country), as I saw it grow. Now I feel I was just ahead of the curve.
GB…The Heinlein quote is pluperfect. Where from specifically? Thanks.
Sir John Glubb covered this issue long ago in his paper “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival”. It’s a short piece, readable in one sitting, and can be had for free if you do a little Google Fu.
Also see the poem “Waiting For The Barbarians” by Constantine Cavafy. A few short, but unforgettable stanzas. Glubb and Cavafy, in different ways, dealt with what happens to decadent civilizations who no longer have the heart to defend themselves from those who are still prepared to use sword and flame.
If you read the poem by Cavafy, you might be forgiven for thinking that he must have written quite recently, maybe in the 1990s, because it speaks so strongly to events we have lived through. But you would be quite wrong. But even today, long after Cavafy is dead, we are all of us quite familiar with people who think that ‘The Barbarians, after all, were some sort of solution”
NeoConScum,
Thanks, I thought so too. Two quotes from two different novels.
“The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.”
‘The Puppet Masters’ by Robert A. Heinlein
“Goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”
‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ by Robert A. Heinlein
Here’s some more appropriate thought by Heinlein on “Civilization and its enemies”;
“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’”
“‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader–the barbarians enter Rome.”
But there is an excellent possibility that the western world has now become so “civilized,” and so resistant to thinking ill of others, that even ISIS is not enough to get us to defend ourselves and the civilization and civility we profess to prize.
its worse than that…
they dont believe there is something to defend against because anything that destroys things, is moving them forward and is progress. this is because history always improves after destruction (says their marxism),and so, the more destruction and so forth, the faster you move to utopia..(and not a dark age)
sadly… the brillant man who wrote the book, has ignored the past and actual history, and all the other parts we pretend dont exist… why do we pretend it? i dont know, guess we are afraid of what russia will do to us when they get control and we are found to be cognizant of a complete history rather than a bastardized half history and half commentary fantasy we live by
“…the civilization and civility we profess to prize.”
But we neither profess it nor prize it. We are ripe for the killing – we have invited our own self-destruction.
We will reap the whirlwind, piece by peace.
artflgdr,
I cannot agree with labeling Marx as brilliant, when he advanced so seriously and fundamentally flawed a ‘theory’ as Communism. Anyone who ignores “past and actual history” and human nature and, natural economic principles, who is ignorant of the absolute necessity for life’s essential inequality and its “unequal sharing of blessings” is NOT brilliant… they are merely facile. They are ‘pretenders to brilliance’ for they seek the regard of others, rather than truth.
As for why he did it, he needed a substitute for his rejection of the possibility of a benevolent deity. That is because once belief in a benevolent deity is rejected, there are only two basic paths; self-indulgence or leaving the world a better place, thus proving your worth.
And what greater proof of worthiness can there be, than starting the world down the path toward utopia? Achieving a form of immortality was Marx’s motivation and a supreme egotism its source for without God we are all alone and left only with ourselves, the very definition of ego.
Orson,
Its easy to over generalize. The 60+ million Americans who did not vote for Obama in 2012, arguably do prize “civilization and civility”.
And of those who self-define as “solid liberals” and who thus presumably did vote for é˜bâ˜ma, also say that the phrase “honor and duty are my core values” and that, it “applies well to them”, which indicate that they are those who have been duped by the left. The low-info liberals who in their own heart of hearts do prize civilization and civility and will fight to keep it.
America will certainly reap the whirlwind but so will Islam.
Meanwhile, Putin and the Chicoms sit on the sidelines, passing the popcorn.
ymar !!!! You too ????
How offensive!!! the catholic mass DOES NOT come from a Pagan Religion !!!!
It is Christ’s Last Supper & the sacrifice of Calvary
this form of liturgical worship exists in all the catholic,
Orthodox , Coptic, Syrian Churches The World Over !
The Mass is continually celebrated every hour of every day the entire world over, constantly, each tick of the clock heralding a new hour brings this event before the throne of God as described in Revelation !!!
I am quite sorry to discover that you & GB are so sadly steeped in mis information.
MollyNH,
I suspect you’ve misinterpreted my position. I do not think that the Catholic Mass came from paganism. Nor am I opposed to Catholicism. It’s one variant of Christianity and IMO, as valid as any other.
So does anyone here have an actual argument for why the US should go to war with ISIS in Syria? Or how we’re supposed to reconcile the United States’s history of warfare with the Lee Harris excerpt that was originally quoted? Or should I just assume that arguments are in short supply here and leave it at that?
Irfan Khawaja: “So does anyone here have an actual argument for why the US should go to war with ISIS in Syria?”
ISIS is a threat to Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Should we stand by while they grow in strength, slaughter ever more people, and decapitate non-combatant American journalists at their leisure? You may say it’s none of our business. I say you’re wrong. We are in alliance with Israel. We have amicable relations with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. When I see my friends attacked, I don’t stand around and mumble that it’s none of my business.
So, Irfan, what’s your big idea?
The US ‘shouldn’t’ go to war with ISIS, the U.S. IS at war with ISIS because they have declared war upon us. Better to fight them over there than over here, though it is almost certainly too late for that. So we will fight them over there and over here or Obama will find himself impeached because he will have achieved the only thing that will lead to democrats turning on him and that is the party’s survival itself. Obama is NOT going to be able to blame Bush for ISIS attacks upon America. This will be on him and, if more attacks come, his open border support from democrats will be an inescapable albatross for democrats.
Personally, I’ve already rejected the premise of the Lee Harris excerpt, as it is the liberal left that posits that civilization by its nature is pacifist. It was American civilization that bombed Dresden and Hiroshima because prior generations of Americans understood that the price good people pay to defeat evil is the deaths of brave men and women and, the deaths of innocents and, the ruined lives of many of the survivors.
Here’s a reason, based purely in self-interest for making war upon ISIS. ISIS is strongly threatening to take Baghdad and Syria’s Aleppo, once Aleppo falls, defense of Damascus becomes untenable. Once ISIS has Iraq and Syria, Lebanon and Jordan become low hanging fruit for ISIS.
You then you have a Caliphate that essentially surrounds Israel and, one that threatens Kuwait’s and Saudi Arabia’s oil fields.
Should ISIS gain control of those oil fields, the world price of oil skyrockets and the Western economies collapse.
Given ISIS’ expressed hatred for America it is folly to suggest that ISIS would not seek to harm our economies. Damage the West’s economies badly enough and millions will die.
Marx’ solutions may be wrong, but his analysis of the dangers of central banking was and remains spot-on (Google Steve Keen’s article on “The Roving Cavaliers of Credit”).
How offensive!!! the catholic mass DOES NOT come from a Pagan Religion !!!!
Christianity was popular precisely because it adopted so many pagan rituals, but that wasn’t because they were pagan, it was because it was easier to convert people that way.
It’s not like Jesus Christ demanded that people attend mass to be saved. That wasn’t a dogma until the Roman Catholic Church, which was Roman more or less. When an entire Empire converts to Christianity, it doesn’t just lose all its older religions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries#Ritual_re-enactments
If you think this link between Mithraism and the Roman Catholic Church is misinformation, what do your theologians have to say about the connection? It doesn’t exist? The Roman Catholic Church didn’t adopt and transform pagan rituals into Roman ones?
Highly recommend both the Lee Harris books. Pay particular attention to the section on Abstract vs. Concrete Reason (about 2/3rds the way back) in Civilization and it’s Enemies.
My research into historical religions is independent of most people’s various politically biased views about religions.
Thus if you are responding based upon previous experience with people talking about the Roman Catholic mass, it won’t apply to me.
The easiest way to explain the difference is that most people study religion either to bolster their faith in it or to destroy a competing religion’s believers. In that conflict, history and “facts” are mere weapons of propaganda.
In that sense, I’m out of the conflict and neutral.
So does anyone here have an actual argument for why the US should go to war with ISIS in Syria?
Why would we argue for more war powers given to American traitors like Democrats at DC?
Makes no sense here.
“Marx’ solutions may be wrong, but his analysis of the dangers of central banking was and remains spot-on” Soviet of Washington
Marx plagiarized Jefferson.
“The issuing power of money should be taken from banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs. I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money, are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson
Nor did Marx address the mortal danger of a fiat money system, which has far more to do with our current appalling state of fiscal bankruptcy than a central banking system.
“My research into historical religions is independent of most people’s various politically biased views about religions.”
You flatter yourself, your approach is not nearly as unique as you imagine.
Irfan Khawaja: “So does anyone here have an actual argument for why the US should go to war with ISIS in Syria?”
I suggest this summation:
http://zenpundit.com/?p=39502
I’ll add to Safranski’s concise analysis – though the point may have been addressed in one of his linked references – that inasmuch ISIS represents a larger terrorist trend and evolution, it must be eliminated globally, which updates an objective that we set as priority on 9/11.
The Western world may be “civilized”, but it is not authentic. The best characterization of our liberal societies is that they are sanitized. Out of sight and out of mind in the privacy of an antiseptic clinic. Ironically, the wort offenders of human and civil rights are the single issue human and civil rights advocates and activists who create moral hazards through rationalized/subsidized consensus.
March 25 2011 Third World War to begin during
Winter Gamesin 2014Funny, how the russian soothsayers got so much right with of course, wrong stuff too.
What is most curious, however, is that “participants” of the aforementioned 2011 meeting offered up a date for the beginning of World War III
March, when Russia annexed Crimea.
Islamist terror bombings have been accomplished by FSB as false flag operations…
“… a trap is being laid by the Communist policymakers which will be exploited when the USSR carries out a deceptive liberalization of its regime….” 1978 Golitsyn (148 falsifiable predictions in his 1984 book and got roughly 94 percent of them right, including the fall of the berlin wall, and other stuff that we missed decades later)
Suvorov describing “Gray Terror”
he continues
Grey Terror is a kind of terror that is carried out “in the name of already existing extremist groups not connected in any way with the Soviet Union, or in the name of fictitious organizations.”
this was written 13 years before 9/11 of which KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko hinted was a KGB operation. It was to be an act of war in which the actual people behind it cant be identified, and so, could not properly be retaliated against.
Ion Pacepa and Stanislav Lunev, two more defectors, also spoke about this…
and Jan Sejna, GRU defector wrote in 1982
how much of this is now true and history? still think that what is happening now belongs to now? or that its been discussed until its been forgotten for just over 30 years…
Trevor Loudon stated (paraphrasing): the U.S. political system will be infiltrated and the U.S. economy will be sabotaged…
once these goals are accomplished the United States will be “ready for the oven.” In essence, the country will be disarmed and isolated. It will only be a matter of time before the country wakes up and attempts to change course. This is when Russia’s nuclear weapons prove useful. That is when you should expect a war to start. – Nyquist
Strategy works when there is no counter-strategy. The Great Game follows a pattern set by the side that holds the initiative. In the West our leaders have denied there is an enemy or an opposing strategy.
its actually quite interesting in that there are lots and lots and lots of papers and things on all this… some with names, others as signposts of what will happen first, then second, but no time frame as each steps time to completion is not known beforehand…
People here who grew up in this error, and pavlovian or skinerian trained not to read or even pay attention to the defectors and their warnings, for fear of being “tin hat”, which is akin to now being “racist”, have a hell of a lot of reading to catch up to…
at no time, do i hear anyone musing to these things in context of being told they were going to happen before they are happening!!!
and that their regard for it fits perfectly the predictions points that they will be looked at, at the cargo cult surface… the oddities of things will be points to discuss, but missing reams and reams of articles, warnings, statements, and history, most of what they will do is try to make sense of it without any substance!
“Man’s bow is unstrung” – Nietzsche
we now know that arafat was russias man, as were many others… we KNOW this, even if the public doesnt. we forgot the articles of the soviets creating false muslim groups with the pakistani, so as to catch the real mujahadin… who being replaced, carry the blame for any actions that are done by what appears to be the same people.
but why THINK? so much easier to IMAGINE!
who or rather which country really controlled the areas in which ISIS was created? and whose kind of tactics are they using? I can forgive if we forgot what we were not taught as to the behavior of the soviets in WWII and how they did things… if we didnt, we would see familiar actions, and things, that today surprise us only cause of our ignorance…
AQ came from soviet afghanistan, and blamed on the US
AIDS came from nowhere, but it was blamed on the US to hide the weaponized anthrax which was also used in attack (But we forgot that as the buildings are so much more spectacular)
ISIS? where?
Rising Star of ISIS Has Chechen Background and Fierce Reputation
The face of evil: Young, red-bearded Chechen who has become the most recognisable commander of Isis terror group / A young, red bearded Chechen who has rapidly become one of the most prominent commanders of Isis may have risen to become the extremist group’s overall military chief, it has been claimed.
Omar al-Shishani, one of hundreds of Chechens who have been among the toughest jihadi fighters in Syria, has emerged as the face of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
but wait… didnt we ignore all that went on with that area? Beslan ring a bell given its anniversary?
Omar Shishani, Chechen jihadist leader
do we remember this part? or is it conveniently forgotten so as the false flag appears real?
Libyan commander known as Abu Dajana, and the soviets were in control of that location too.
How can you fight for Ukrainian sovereignty when the Ukrainian government itself is a question-mark?
“For the liberal … the only explanation for success is that success, by its existence, is proof to the modern liberal of some kind of chicanery and likely bigotry. Failure, by its existence … is proof to them that someone has been victimized.” – Evan Sayet
have we forgotten that our decline is one from democratic republic into a set of marxist groups who are helping to sabotage the functions of our state… for what? who will take over once the termites eat enough of the body politic?
[edited for length by n-n]
Just to be sure what we provided to these “enemies”
The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year [2012] , but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants
20,000 surface to air missiles
heading into the arms of Al Qaeda in Mali were RPG’s, machine guns, night vision goggles and grenades
MANPADS for Mali
September 2 they have 11 jet airliners
Obama lifted the ban on Libyans taking flight lessons and study in nuclear science
more at
http://floppingaces.net/2014/09/03/the-obama-weapons-scorecard/
Which brings forth a point about Amazon. Over the years I have purchased a lot of hardbound books at a local used book store at $1-$2 per book. I picked up War & Peace this weekend- read it 40 years ago. But the purchases are dependent on what is in stock. If I want a used book ASAP, Amazon often has it for pennies plus $4 shipping. Which often beats waiting for years for a book to show up at $1 at the local store.
JJ: “ISIS is a threat to Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.”
I think they can handle it. We’ve certainly invested in them to ensure that they can. Anyway, at a certain point, “friends” let “friends” shift for themselves.
“Should we stand by while they grow in strength, slaughter ever more people, and decapitate non-combatant American journalists at their leisure?”
Absolutely. ISIS will never grow to sufficient strength to threaten our mainland in state-to-state fashion, the vast majority of the people they’re slaughtering are not ours, and it makes no sense whatsoever to go to war over a pair of war journalists who happened to get killed in a war zone. As for any terrorists they send our way, nothing we do in the way of warfare in Syria will stop them from coming here. We should build up our defenses, wait, and stop them when we get here. Next?
Geoffrey Britain’s argument turns on the assumption that if ISIS surrounds a country that has oilfields (itself pretty fanciful), ISIS automatically will have control of the oilfields themselves (all of them, all at once, without any resistance), and once it has control of those oilfields, instead of selling the oil in them, ISIS will somehow manage to run a multinational “caliphate” in the Arabian peninsula by sitting on the oil at its disposal–despite lacking any other discernible source of revenue. Even if that happened (there’s no reason to think it will), we Americans wouldn’t die. Whereas if we go to war, some of us will have to die (and die pointlessly). It’d be a kindness to call Britain’s argument preposterous, but here’s my suggestion: try selling it to anyone who actually has to fight in battle, or has fought in battle, and see how far you get. My prediction: in the best case scenario, you’ll get laughed at.
Eric cites Mark Safranski’s article. The article in question makes no pretense of defending the case for military action. lt merely outlines the pros and cons of various courses of action, among them inaction. I find Safranski’s own case for inaction remarkably persuasive, and his speculative case against it pretty feeble.
I see a lot of resentment of Barack Obama here. You might consider that one reason he won two terms as president is that his political opponents had devolved into “arguments” and rhetoric of the sort that fills this combox. Keep it up, and you’ll have helped usher in the permanent Democratic majority. Odd as it may seem, they couldn’t have done without you.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/the-emerging-democratic-majority-turns-10/265005/
You flatter yourself, your approach is not nearly as unique as you imagine.
Shrugs. Coming from someone that can’t even argue the point except to use your personal anecdotes as your sword and shield, it isn’t worth much.
When you can fix your family, then maybe I’ll think about listening to you talk about what’s wrong with other people on the internet.
Some brave, believable, consistent, truthful Democrat office holders are tossing a few oh so courageous gas grenades of frustration and even criticism at Obama now in this election run up. Getting all Grrrrrrrrrrrrr at ISIL’s actions of breathtaking barbarity in Iraq. Al Franken, for black-humor instance? A number of others are faux frothing for action from Obama.
Pause. How many of the same loathsome, gutless bunch supported his desertion, abandonment and retreat from President Bush’s victory and stability there which Mr. Scrawny inherited in 2009. I’d guess, oh, 100% of them.
F-Um.
What Harris is describing is the incentive to cheat in any cartel, or in the “prisoner’s dilemma.”
Civilization isn’t the end of violence, it is a gentleman’s agreement. One that has an incentive for cheating.
To truly civilize man, violence would have to be ineffective, if not counter-productive.
and pavlovian or skinerian trained not to read or even pay attention to the defectors and their warnings, for fear of being “tin hat”, which is akin to now being “racist”, have a hell of a lot of reading to catch up to…
at no time, do i hear anyone musing to these things in context of being told they were going to happen before they are happening!!!
You ever thought that people already knew what was going to happen, but unlike you, weren’t broadcasting it. How did you like “liberals” finding you at home when you started a blog, Art. Isn’t that what you said happened when you started a blog and that’s why you aren’t doing a blog?
To you, they look like they aren’t paying attention. To them, you’re making yourself into a target for the world conspirators. Which one is right though?
GB…8:32am…Thank you very, very much. Heinlein. Wow.
and 12:35pm…Amen. Not much, but All he ever thinks about. ((-:
Range..5:20pm…*-Um indeed, Friend.
Irfan,
Well, there you go. Do nothing! Why didn’t I think of that? The old Ron Paul strategy. I think you should offer your services to the Pentagon.
If Israel and half the world’s oil reserves weren’t in that part of the world and if radical Muslims would take a vow of tolerance of other faiths, then I might agree with your plan. But that’s not what we’ve got, is it?
As long as there are places where Islamists can gather to plan and train for their attacks, we will never be able to drop our guard. As long as there are Muslims who think they have to take up jihad against the West, we can never drop our guard. There is an old saying about the best defense being a good offense. When your offense is so powerful that no one, not even a crazed jihadi, wants to attack you, you have achieved the prospects of peace. To have peace be ready for war. If war comes, wage it totally.
I’m a Vietnam veteran. I know that half measures eventually lead to defeat. As long as I live, I will never vote for a candidate who will not take the duties of C-in-C seriously. Obviously you disagree. So be it.
When civilized men discover they can no longer tolerate the horrors of War, they will be conquered by those who can.
— Dunnow
Somehow we’ve seemed to confuse civil behavior with over the top sensitivity. There’s nothing civilized about appeasing thuggery and allowing it to flourish and prey on innocent people. Whether its in Syria or Ferguson Missouri.
J.J.
Khawaja is a very strange critter, blog wise.
Based upon a first pass Google-up:
1) Out of the closet gay model of Pakistani descent…
2) Brainy enough to make it/ fake it in academe…
3) And alienated enough to construct what seems to be a totally synthetic name… or some homage to the past or to culture. Any connection is too obscure for Westerners.
4) Probably engaged in blog jihad. This is now commonplace among those Muslims with advanced literacy. Blog jihad is used to inject cultural demoralization among kafir elites, so it can be no surprise that this player advocates the classic Libertarian script.
[ It needs re-saying: the Libertarian Party was SOLELY founded with the aim of getting Kennedy and Johnson out of the Vietnam War.
All of the other Libertarian shtick was slapped on after the fact.
This reality is entirely lost on young Libertarians.
They also are wholly unaware that the KGB deliberately promoted the Libertarian Party — from the get-go. Their reasoning must be transparent: that party advocated dis-establishing the DoD!
Today, most take the Libertarians to be highly polished versions of mere isolationism. Such is NOT the history of that party.
When this history became heavy baggage, the Libertarians merely faded their history.
The next time you bump into a ‘Libertarian’ ask them how, when, why, and where the party was founded. Such a query always results in a brain-lock if not a brain-fart. ]
%%%%
Were Khawaja to actually see Islamism ascendent — he’d be running for his life. It would no longer be worth a plug nickel.
He’s also a perfect example of why America – and Britain – needs to entirely shut off immigration from Pakistan.
Punjabis, in particular, are racial supremists. They are a fusion of Islam with the caste arrogance that has brought India low. Simply everything about them is anti-American.
Some idea of how that plays out is on your TV right now: Islamabad is a corrupt, failed abyss. Everything that is so wrong in Syria and Afghanistan goes for Pakistan.
And, who can forget: Pakistan is the emitter of all of the best Islamic fanatic terrorists. This includes perverting medical doctors into suicide jihadis. You can’t trust any of them.
The ISIS executioner is a (Punjabi?) Pakistani out of London.
What else do I have to say?
Additionally, the Saudis regard Pakistanis as Muslim mercenaries suitable for hire.
The juice behind many a Pakistani career is AOPEC petroleum.
Located between Pakistan and KSA, no wonder the Iranians are paranoid.
The moment Iran announces she’s in the atomic peerage, Riyadh will ditto that announcement.
Due to the ‘cool’ heads involved, the Gulf will be aflame in very short order.
Thank you Barry Soetoro!
Let them all burn then. They deserve nothing less.
Doesn’t mean drop bombs. And doesn’t mean look at tv watching journos get influence off third world wars. Just add a catalyst to it.
Since Islamic Jihad is getting so much attention, why not put up a false flag op like Hussein did in Libya/Benghazi/Qatar, and blame it on the Islamos. The sky is the limit once you take that strategic initiative.
and 12:35pm…Amen. Not much, but All he ever thinks about.
Are you talking about me again, NC Soft, while trying to hide behind your social mask of a shield? Checking time stamps is a waste of my time, so I like to go direct to the source. But you prefer beating around the bush for imagined prey, don’t you.
NC Soft and GB, both of you lack much control over your emotions so I’ll keep it short and simple.
It’s going to take more than both of your combined talents to match me. If you feel annoyed or weak right now, and want to buddy up, go ahead. It’ll serve as entertainment for me until something else comes up.
When you can only rely on each other for your back slapping, it’s such a weak demonstration. What’s next, you’re going to form a coalition to match one person on this blog?
Matt_SE: “Civilization isn’t the end of violence, it is a gentleman’s agreement. One that has an incentive for cheating.
To truly civilize man, violence would have to be ineffective, if not counter-productive.”
I agree with the 1st part and disagree with the 2nd part.
As I said upthread, I don’t pin the necessary quality on “ruthlessness”. I pin it competitiveness.
Competitiveness works for the same end of winning for dominance. Harris may mean the same concept with “ruthlessness” as I do with competiveness. However, unlike ruthlessness, competitiveness connotes finer calculation.
Competitiveness is compatible with your 1st part. Civilization is not an “end of history” with the whole nature of mankind evolved. Rather, it is an agreement among clear-eyed gentlemen who understand Mankind’s nature remains Hobbesian. Civilization is an agreement that can be broken, must be enforced, and most of all, must compete geopolitically with challengers who would define ‘peace’ and ‘civilization’ using terms that are incompatible with our preferred paradigm for peace and civilization. Geopolitics are zero sum because geography is zero sum.
Your 2nd part begins “To truly civilize man …”. I disagree. I would agree with you if your statement said, ‘To truly pacify man, violence would have to be ineffective, if not counter-productive.’ The civilized man is not a pacifist by nature, only by choice. By nature, the civilized man is champion, warrior, defender, and builder of civilization. Civilized man upholds civilization where he is dominant, but understands that first and foremost, his civilization must be competitive in order to be dominant.
The concepts of ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ have been corrupted in our language because they’ve been coopted by the Left. Like a truly civilized man, a genuinely progressive liberal West is not pacifist. It is competitive – enough to champion progressive liberal Western civilization in direct confrontation with European autocracy, Fascism, and Communism consecutively, like an old-timey boxer taking on all comers in the ring. A genuinely progressive liberal West is eager to confront and defeat the Islamists.
What Lee Harris describes as ‘civility’, which you do as well in the 2nd part, is really pacifism. As well, as blert noted, Irfan Khawaja speaks in the language of isolationism. Pacifist advocacy disguised as civility and isolationist advocacy disguised as libertarian go hand in hand as stratagems whose purpose is to undermine our necessary competitiveness.
My reference point for the enemy’s strategy is the American Friends Service Committee (pacifists) and America First Committee (isolationists) that, together, opposed American intervention in WW2.
The civilized man is not pacifist. He is a competitor – an activist – because he understands his preferred civilization is merely one paradigm among competing paradigms that are championed by ruthless activists in the zero-sum geopolitical arena.
My reference point for the enemy’s strategy is the American Friends Service Committee (pacifists) and America First Committee (isolationists) that, together, opposed American intervention in WW2.
And did they reverse their position when Hitler invaded Stalin’s regime?
If not, then they were real pacifists. If so, then they were fake pacifists.
Ymarsakar,
They didn’t reverse their positions. Like Irfan Khawaja, they were unconcerned about our competitors’ actions. They were only concerned that we stay out of the contest and out of their way.
Add: As far as I know, AFSC wasn’t linked to ComIntern.
blert,
Thanks for the rundown on Pakistan and Khawaja. It’s a good idea to analyze the background of commenters. Being a straight line, operations type, I don’t always do that. Especially at a time like this. We don’t know what’s coming, but with airliners and MANPADS missing in Libya, IS (I’m no longer calling them ISIS) rampaging around the Levant, Vlad flexing his muscles in Ukraine, and the southern border unsecure, my fight or flight instincts are on high alert. Being Scotch, my instinct is to fight first, ask questions later. 🙂
Rotherham comes to mind as an icon of this idea. People became so “civilized” that their institutions allowed systematic rape of their young women rather than object to an assertive subculture.
Timothy…
What’s STRANGE about Pakistan is that it’s an abyss of poverty that produces NOTHING but hatred.
No-one trusts them.
They don’t even trust each other.
Afghans hate them. Why do you think the FATA is restive forever?
The Chinese don’t trust them. They are solidly linked to the Uighur ‘difficulties.’ BTW, to get an idea of how intensively the Muslims manipulate Wiki, you can’t find the very term: “Uighur” in Wiki.
You are led on a merry chase with synthetic Muslim versions of Chinese cultural history — as to how Islam has been a part of Han culture for a millennia. (!) By such tales, you’d never know that Muslims are perpetual outcasts and that current policy is to irradicate Islam.
ALL of Britain’s Muslim atrocities have centered on Pakistanis. They’re 100% Muslim, of course.
You’d never know that Pakistan had a hefty Hindu minority at its founding. This faction has been crushed. When ever possible, Hindus flee. Fleeing to Britain has proved impossible.
The average IQ of Pakistanis reflects traditional Muslim mores: it’s low. All of the consanguineous marriages have left even that population surprisingly inbred!
(Again, it’s compounded by caste concentration.)
About the ONLY factor in Pakistani ‘culture’ that is at all meritorious is the national army. The result is that ALL of the real talent is sucked in — and wasted — by this aggressive state organ.
The Pakistani Army is, de facto, on a war footing 100% of the time. It has been doing so for its entire existence. At all times, Pakistan maintains a nervous army group facing off against India. It has no strategic depth. It does have unlimited hostility — and an impossible mission: to invade and destroy the Hindus!
While this stance may seem like the famous Cold War… Pakistan doesn’t follow any of the Cold War rules of behavior. It uses proxy armies to irritate India — an endless series of atrocities being racked up over the years. Most don’t reach the American press. (Dog bites man.)
Such provocations (direct, bloody, assaults on Congress) occurred in the Cold War, ICBMs would’ve flown.
For Punjabis, these attacks are merely a way to make ones bones within the army ranks.
Truly brilliant Punjabis go into the ISI, where they get to engage in warfare all of the time — clandestinely. From time to time, their ‘pets’ assassinate their ‘masters.’ Such revenges are not widely reported in the West. The connection to ISI and Islamabad are not made.
And the Devil does not exist, either.
&&&
Plainly, the West should contain Pakistan; stop funding it; stop feeding it; stop trade with it.
There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that ordinary commerce is going to transmute Punjabi militancy into anything like sane relations.
And, lest we forget, 9-11 was really concocted inside Pakistan, not Afghanistan! The ONLY reason we’re in Afghanistan is because OBL preferred to hang with the goats — than Punjabis. Yeah, he didn’t trust them either!
Mullah Omar is a ‘house’ asset — inside Pakistan.
OBL was a ‘house’ asset — inside Pakistan’s primary military city. Such an urbanity is NOT like any city you know of. It’s a cross between a military base and a small town.
The average Pakistani civilian is NOT allowed to enter.
That’s why Abbottabad is still worth living in — and why it strongly resembles an ENGLISH small town. It was never built for the local hoi polloi.
It’s caste culture, writ in stone.
NCS: To borrow one of your fitting and oft used phrases about Lefties: Cannot possibly make this stuff up. Applies hysterically to needy little stalkers.
“Your check, General? What happened to your check? Well, gosh, I don’t know — I’ll have to talk to accounting on that. Oh, by the way, what about that doctor who helped us with Osama? Is he still in jail? And the Pakistani Taliban? Any fighting them up there in the FATA? How’s that border control between you and Afghanistan coming along? And those honor killings, making any progress with stopping them?. Well, not to worry, I’m sure you’ll take care of those problems. And I’ll look into what happened to your check. Must be in the mail.”
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Khawaja
You’ve violated the FIRST essential rule of blogging: not using a crisp pseudonym that stands unique.
Mine was, back in the day. Google came up with a total blank when I kicked in blert.
Subsequently, for reasons no-one can know, others jumped on the bandwagon.
&&&&
So any cross-confusion falls entirely on you.
But, based upon your tempest and general protest, you object to associations that ANY Google ‘pull’ will generate.
A quick examination of the commentariat here abouts shows that everyone else is hip to the ground rules for blog posting.
In English the term “brainy” actually does not mean low IQ.
From which I take it that English is not your first language. Whatevers.
As a Libertarian, you had to know that you’d be in tough sledding — when the blog mistress is neo NEOCON. Hint, hint.
The commentariat hereabouts does not favor isolationism.
I never wade into Pakistani — or any other alien blogs — to advocate foreign policy positions for such nations.
However, as an American, I’ve come to realize that the entire rest of the planet feels that it’s their privilege to direct American foreign policy — by trolling American politically oriented blogs.
Every such blog is infested with such concerned, ‘globally oriented’ souls.
Their collective opinion pressures would be better directed back home — as most other nations are cultural disasters that devolve into economic fiascos.
Every nation on Earth approaches Washington DC with hat in hand — seeking favors. The reverse situation is practically unheard of.
Cheers.
People who want me attention will have to have a higher status than a newbie commenter here with no recommendations whatsoever, to get it.
As such, I attribute to them Delta status in the hierarchy and thus they should ask their boss to send a communications to me, because I don’t talk to a faction’s gophers.
Range…Yep.