On patience: the West vs. Islamicist totalitarianism
Our post-9/11 unity was fleeting, if not totally illusory. We are now bitterly divided on how to fight the war against Islamicist totalitarianism.
We are divided on whether there is such a war. We are divided on who our most important enemies in that war might be. We are even divided on whether we truly have what we might call enemies, or whether a nice friendly dialogue might not be enough to make us all get along better.
But on reading this article by Clfford D. May in National Review entitled “100 Years of War?”—a reference to Barack Obama’s distortion of John McCain’s remark that we might need to keep troops in Iraq for that long a time, similar to what we’re already doing in Germany and South Korea—it occurred to me that there is another division, and that this division might actually be the heart of the matter.
This split may have begun to occur as early as 9/11 itself, shortly after the towers fell. It has to do with the perception of how long we should expect this fight to take. The division is between those who always assumed it would be long and arduous, and those who did not.
I recall that, perhaps within a few days of the event, I already assumed that this war would last in some form or other for the rest of my life, even if I lived to be a centenarian. I assumed it would be fought on many fronts, and involve skirmishes and battles as well as clandestine operations.
In other words, I assumed it would require patience, fortitude, and skill. There would be no quick fix or simple solutions—even something like the death of bin Laden would hardly end it—and there were bound to be mistakes, disappointments, and more deaths along the way. It would require nothing less than some sort of major change in the Middle East, some cultural and political rearrangement.
It’s not that I wanted this to happen. It’s just that I saw it as an inevitable consequence of facing an enemy so numerous and widespread, so dedicated to destruction and so heedless of the consequences in this lifetime, so focused on the hope of heaven and so aware of the long sweep of history. And for me, this perception had nothing to do with political affiliation; I was still a liberal Democrat, and had been my whole life.
These characteristics of Islamicist totalitarianism may only have become evident to me post-9/11, but that’s not when this war had begun. When was the starting point? Was it years before, when Osama bin Laden declared war on the US (and I, and most of America, hardly noticed)? Was it a few years earlier than that, when the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time? Or perhaps it started a few years earlier still, when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown apart, blasting a hole in the town of Lockerbie? Or before that, when a car bomb exploded in front of the US Embassy in Beirut?
Or was it in 1928 when, as Clifford May points out, the Islamist, Hassan al-Banna described the movement’s goals as: “to dominate . . . to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet”? Or was it at the end of World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the spoils partitioned?
Or was it at another defeat for Ottoman dominance, one that came on another September 11 at the Gates of Vienna—this time in the year 1683?
Or maybe it was Lepanto. Or Tours. Or…
We may not be able to place these historic events very well—although most of us can do it a lot better after 9/11 than we would have done before. But be assured that those who are fighting us are on very familiar terms with their meaning and outcome. Islamicist totalitarianism is possessed of a very long memory, and far more patience than we have. And that is a difference of which they are well aware.
In fact, they count on it. And so far we have not disappointed them.
It’s especially odd that we lack the requisite patience, because compared to former wars the sacrifices asked of us have been relatively small. I don’t need to chart the difference in casualties between this conflict and World War II, or between this and the toll of the proxy wars that were fought during the Cold War, including Vietnam. There has been a fundamental change here, both in our ability to fight a long war and in our ability to convey resolve to the enemy.
In a far more difficult and bloody struggle, if a more conventional one, Winston Churchill delivered a message during one of England’s darkest hours, just after Dunkirk. He was addressing Parliament and shoring up the will of his people and their leaders, but he was delivering a message to the enemy, as well [emphasis mine]:
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected…we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation….Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
Churchill had the advantage of a country united against an obvious enemy who was directly and openly attacking much of Europe. But that enemy had been obvious—at least to Churchill—years before, and few had listened to him then, when there would have been time to have prevented some of the carnage to follow.
Afterwards, in his post-Dunkirk speech, Churchill was speaking both for the British nation and to the British nation. He was able to be heard, and to be believed, because things had come to a very sorry pass and could no longer be denied, even by those who had done so for a long time previously. But he was also able to speak with such authority because no one could listen to that voice and not be aware that he meant every word he said.
It’s especially odd that we lack the requisite patience, because compared to former wars the sacrifices asked of us have been relatively small.
Why is it odd when the left communist line is to disarm, lie down and allow us to be overrun because we are the “oppressor nation”
The minute you actually understand the rules of oppression and class, you then will understand why this is so. the oppressor can never be anything else. the oppressor, even if they want to be something else, and even if they are nice and help, they are only insuring there own hegemony as oppressors. I feel like a bad oppressor every time I help a mother with carriage go up the stairs in the subways that are immune to the laws that require access for everyone else.
The communists, are utopians and so they can NEVER be oppressors. This is why the US is to blame for Vietnam, but what happened after means nothing.
To lose wars to such pittance struggles is to make us hate ourselves more. to doubt ourselves. to feel bad and perhaps even act out more to change that course.
Doesn’t matter crisis and progressivism goes together like gulags and leftism.
Without understanding the small dialogue of rules as to oppressor and oppressed relationships, none of this will make cogent sense. the second you realize that there is a simple rule in play, suddenly you can (like flocking) simulate and understand the behavior.
Winston Churchill delivered a message during one of England’s darkest hours, just after Dunkirk. He was addressing Parliament and shoring up the will of his people and their leaders, but he was delivering a message to the enemy, as well
Oh that was true, but to let you know another reason for the first.
Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.
The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist. Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain’s most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself. Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.
Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns’ fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.
The words you quoted, are considered a myth. Propaganda… just as the gulags are unknown and also considered such by those who have heard ‘something’.
Since Churchill is a myth, all that he said, contributed, and did, was contrived as cartoon propaganda for the war effort.
Note that they said a QUARTER of Brits. (Americans are much the same)
I am a little surprised to learn from yet another survey that so many people still read the Biggles books, let alone think the pilot to have been a real person. Things can’t be as bad as some of us thought.
This is off the subject but here http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2008/04/jimmy-carter-an.html is a good article about the human brain and Jimmy Carter. To think I used to like Carter.
A You Tube condensation of the “never surrender” speech. It gives me chills every time I hear it.
“so focused on the hope of heaven and so aware of the long sweep of history. And for me, this perception had nothing to do with political affiliation; I was still a liberal Democrat, and had been my whole life.”
You were in with them but already had the seeds of doubt…
Otherwise, I think you are on to something. Liberals reject history. I’ve heard more than one ask why we even teach it…. which rises to contempt of it IMO… One of my own liberal HS history teachers started the semester trying to explain history away… saying how can we learn from it when it’s a point of view (re: if we study the wrong or take the wrong lessons, how do you learn… and then how do you know what the right lesson is)…
It’s not a blip… from day one, progressivism has had contempt for the past and progressives think they know so much better that they can create a better society by sweeping it away with their new ideas.
In the 60s, this meme was put forward via the ‘imagine’ attitude. Imagine a world without war, want, greed, et cetera… as if, imagining it would make the real world go away or change… and, like the utopians from the 20s on (re: if they knew their history) they reacted just like the bad people they claimed to reject by scapegoating out groups to account for their failures to change the world…
Today we get the same stuff with national healthcare… I want it to be free… so it should be (and it will just work because I want it so)…
“Islamicist totalitarianism is possessed of a very long memory, and far more patience than we have. ”
That is both their strength and their weakness. I think that the chief strategic thought amongst the leadership must always be “How far can we push them so that they do not lose patience?”
So far, their calibration since the 11th has been finely wrought. Should they misjudge, the results can be catastrophic for them. Since they know this, we can be fairly certain they will not misjudge.
The other advantage touched on, and it may well be a fatal advantage, is that the enemy has full control of its myths, while we are in the midst — or even towards the end — of a long period of dismantling our core myths.
To paraphrase, “A people without myths is not redeemed by time.”
You are absolutely right, neo. It always ticks me off when I hear the meme repeated that “this war has lasted longer than WWII.” World War II is not the correct frame of reference. It’s the Cold War, a struggle that lasted decades. In fact, I remember right after 9/11, my dad telling me, “Well, we beat Communism and we can beat this too.”
I think it’s because the threat is more subtle that people can more easily put it out of their mind, deny it, downplay it, or pretend it doesn’t exist. Of course, the media doesn’t help here–not just talking about the print media, either; Hollywood has a real “He Who Must Not Be Named” problem with Islamism. It’s like they can’t even bear to think about it–not understanding that acknowledging the issue is the first step to finally beginning to deal with it. I often wonder what historians fifty or sixty years from now will make of the print and film attitudes of this time. I suspect it won’t be pretty.
Your invocation of history is another well-taken point. There are many many people out there, not just on the left either, who don’t really understand or know much about history–they’ve learned the politically correct “West/U.S. bad, indigenous country good” soundbites–not even the full version but just soundbites–and that’s about it. They have no context to put this struggle into, no way of comparing it with conflicts past, no real understanding of the nature of warfare, of counterinsurgency, of totalitarianism and what it does to the mind, of much of anything in fact. I’m not claiming to be an expert on any of these things–far from it. But at least I know what I don’t know and I’ve been trying to educate myself (since I didn’t get *any* of this stuff in college). I just wish more people would do the same.
The programm to conquer and put to submission all infidels (that is, the whole world) was formulated by Mohammed himself in Koran, which was “Mein Kampf” of this totalitarian dream. It still serves the same goal. So we can date the beginning of this struggle by 7th century.
For Catholics the most important date is 1492, the end of Reconkista by expelling muslims from Spain.
For Slavs, especially Serbs, this is Battle of Kosovo, 1389, and invasion of Turks into Kostantinople in 1454. Russia declared itself The Third Rome, and ultimate goal of its historical existence being liberation of Kostantinople and restoration of Aya Sophia as a Christian cathedral. This understanding still is deeply imprinted in national consciousness. It was crucial for entering Russia into Great War.
Another unresolved historical aspiration of Russia – conquest of Persia, with access to Persian Gulf and Indian ocean. I do not exlude this themes can be actualized in future, may be, not so far future.
In the days after 9/11 I also wondered about this “War on Terror”. How do we fight an enemy that is internationally disperse, unidentifyable on sight and able to disappear back into the various societies that it inhabits? Iraq has been seridipitous. Where would we be fighting them if not there? Here? Britian? Isreal?
Instead of “fighting” people sitting in their offices in NY, unaware that they are at war, they have to fight our military, armed and ready for a fight…and it’s over there. Is this a great war or what? Compared to much worse alternatives.
colagirl Says:
“In fact, I remember right after 9/11, my dad telling me, “Well, we beat Communism and we can beat this too.””
It’s why the left has been pushing the meme that the cold war was fake… re: the Soviets were the paper tiger dreamed up by the neocons… and their parents… ergo, this conflict is a ‘lie’ too.
bp… you can read Li Ch’uan and Chinese Military Thought. and dont forget clauswitz, tsun tsu, if you can get them, get the osprey series… each book covers every war in recorded history.
then read about each generation of warfare… 2g, 3g (WWII), 4G, and now 5G..
Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): An emergent theory of warfare premised upon manipulation of multiple economic, political, social and military forces in multiple domains to effect positional changes in systems and achieve a consilience of effects to leverage a specific goal or set of circumstances. (Arherring 1/12/07)
if you read the new treatise on it by chinas generals, its real interesting. such warfare is differnt in the ways that your hinting at…
hwoever, islamics is a perfect bed to research and test such tactics.
other things would connect the lead in toys, and other issues to a form of warfare where you can hurt your enemy but deny him recompense or response as it seems to be an economic accident.
if you want to understand wahts going on now, the 4g/5g warfare covers it.
in this idea groups like hammass can wage warfare of attrition from inside the state.
it serves two purposes… the enemies defeat if its not countered… the enemies turning to the darkside of ‘actions’ and ‘morals’ if they do try to counter it.
If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” he said, making it clear he was speaking in a personal capacity. “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian.
4g leads into 5g, and that is what the chinese treatise describes or titles as “unrestricted warfare”
http://www.terrorism.com/documents/TRC-Analysis/unrestricted.pdf
Unrestricted Warfare
Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui
(Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999)
note how old it is.
its a VERY interesting read as the authors really really understood various battles, and have some interesting takes and angles on it.
according to them, and others… unrestricted warfare is exactly that. completely and totally unrestricted… dog eat dog sociopathic warfare on ALL LEVELS and at ALL TIMES…
pay close attention to their comments on how the west is over relyed on technology..
in fact it was the doctrine of overwhelming force on teh battle feild as mocing the whole thing to the most dark and clandestine dirty areas, as no one has a chance any more in open combat.
the key here is that a small force of a few thousand people, with money and freedom to move from state to state, can in effect take over or collapse a state like the US under its own weight of reaction and its own waste of resources.
i quote
At the same time, with the progressive breaking
down of the distinction between military technology and civilian technology, and between the
professional soldier and the non-professional warrior, the battlespace will overlap more and more
with the non-battlespace, serving also to make the line between these two entities less and less
clear. Fields that were formerly isolated from each other are being connected. Mankind is
endowing virtually every space with battlefield significance. All that is needed is the ability to
launch an attack in a certain place, using certain means, in order to achieve a certain goal. Thus,
the battlefield is omnipresent. Just think, if it’s even possible to start a war in a computer room or
a stock exchange that will send an enemy country to its doom, then is there non-battlespace
anywhere?
so economic warfare, computer warfare, clandestine poisionings of enemies under pretenses of mistakes, etc.
its all war, all the time, with no prefferred place and no one understanding that thats what it is.
If that young lad setting out with his orders should ask today: “Where is the battlefield?” The
answer would be: “Everywhere.”
in this game.. move.on are soldiers in the mind fronts… islamics are on teh religious fronts.. feminsits are on the gender front… national socialists are on the race front (black this time not german), nazies are on the green front…
in case no one noticed… sedetion is legal now, and these are the warriors…
all of them start out as terrorists… including the feminists!!! well teh radical communist ones… rote zora…
they take the old soviet cold war thing where fronts are supposed to fund themselves after starting, and they do so with relish.
this means that a team that arrives can set to work creating or tapping the money supply.
open borders… the socialist revolutionary forces joining the US army to get urban warfar training.. or anyone care to read how the propaganda has turned the good people off so much that we are flooding the military with m13, ms13, farc, white supremicists, etc.
at some point.. the type of rhetoric as with wright will get useful idiots to do nutty things.
All of the cards have now been shown. We already know that war will not again be displayed in
its original form.
Whether it be the intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the
145
World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency
band widths understood by the American military. The American military is naturally
inadequately prepared to deal with this type of enemy psychologically, in terms or measures, and
especially as regards military thinking and the methods of operation derived from this. This is
because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that
are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means. This will
naturally not allow them to add and combine the two into new measures and new methods of
operation. In actuality, it only requires broadening one’s outlook a little and being uninhibited in
thought to be able to avail oneself of the lever of the great volumes of new technology and new
factors springing up from the age of integrated technology, thus prying loose the wheel of the
military revolution rusted as a result of lagging behind in terms of thinking. We can here
appreciate the deep significance of the old saying, “a stone from other hills may serve to polish
the jade of this one.”
and this from the generals quoting from long before china amassed all our money and credit
However, by
using the combination method, a completely different scenario and game can occur: if the
attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of
this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial
crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent’s computer system in
advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the
civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone
communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the
enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis. There is finally the
forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the
enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the
domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein “the other army is subdued without fighting.” However, it
can be considered to be “subduing the other army through clever operations.” It is very clear who
was superior and who inferior when comparing these two methods of operation.
This is, however, only a thought. However, it is certainly a feasible thought. Based on this
thought, we need only shake the kaleidoscope of addition to be able to combine into an
inexhaustible variety of methods of operation.
so now the dollar is in free fall.. china can wipe us out by changing currencies… we have no manufacturing to make equipment to protect us… russia can dump huge quantities of gold to eradicate the value suddenly being stored in gold…
food riots hasve started… chavez has been getting shipments of grenade launchers and other interesting things….
and the list goes on.
Just to clarify what seems to be being said here; the Islamic faith is, and has been from its beginnings, the source of our problems. The Long War on Terror is, therefore, a Long War on Islam and will presumably continue until all who profess to believe in that faith are converted or exterminated. This will require sacrifice and patience, but it is both necessary and honorable because our cause is noble and just.
In what way, then, are we different from our supposed enemies? Is this not a case of saying our faith demands that those who do not follow it must be enemy/infidels and therefore we must slay them or they shall slay us?
Here is a timely article from The American Interest about the threat of terrorism. A good quote from it is, ” … the total number of people killed worldwide by genuine al-Qaeda types and assorted wannabes outside of war zones since 9/11 averages about 300 per year. That is certainly 300 a year too many, but that number is smaller than the yearly number of bathtub drownings in the United States. Moreover, unless the terrorists are able somehow massively to increase their capacities, the likelihood that a person living outside a war zone will perish at the hands of an international terrorist over an eighty-year period is about one in 80,000. By comparison, an American’s chance of dying in an auto accident over the same time interval is one in eighty.”
I say, it is time for a jihad against bad drivers … and their evil masters, the makers of suburban assault vehicles.
also read:
Who Will Win the Next War? [Shei neng ying xia yi chang zhanzheng] [published by China Youth Press [Zhongguo Qingnian Chubanshe], March 1999
How Far is War From Us? [Zhangzheng Li Women you duoyuan] published by PLA Publishing House, July 1999 (580 pages)
Who is the Next Target?, [Xia yige mubiao shi shei?] published by China Youth Press (404 pages)
there is quite a bit more stuff..
the main point is that while everyone is arguing on the front lawn over and over in circles, the others are in the back room cooking up something awful.
chris…
this is the numbers fallacy…
you win because you win, not because of some numbers, or how many kills (boy did that one cause trouble in vientam), or anything else.
winning is the only measure of success in war
look at the issue this way.
they were able to cause more damage with those few people than many other actions!!
our laws hav changes, communstst are bidding to be allowed to teach communism in schools in california, we are so parnoid we are giving tons of money to places that yuo cant find on the map.
its not how many…
in the godfather, all they did was kill one horse…
wars are psychological, not physical..
the physical is used to drive psychology…
the thought that bombing alone can win a war is a problem of misunderstanding psychology..
in case you didnt realize it, but bin laden and his crew do things in multiples so that the population knows it is not an accident.
one gas truck goes off… its buried..
one lone gunman yelling allah akbar in a mall in the midwest… he is an unconnected lone wakko
one plane into the side of a building… must be an accident… weeks would go by before we ‘got it’..
but a few?
once is an accident
twice is a coincidence
three times is on purpose.
A great post and lotsa good comments.
I knew bupkus about Islam on 9/11. Like the commenters here I undertook to learn as much as I could, and I’m still learning. The whole picture of Islam is much more than just the tenents of Islam. Tribalism, shame-based culture, a tradition of revenge, and a fundamentalst religious worldview all contribute to the mix.
When libs tell me the threat is isolated in Afghanistan and Waziristan, I always refer them to the Religion of Peace site: http://thereligionofpeace.com/ That site keeps a worldwide running total of the terrorist attacks and associated deaths. It provides a stark picture of the conflict writ large.
This is a worldwide, low intensity, sometimes overt, sometimes covert conflict. Which is why it is so difficult for many people to understand what is actually going on and why. They see on going armed conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq as chaotic and never ending. The most common questions are: Why are we there? What would victory look like? Why would it be bad to just declare victory and leave? Because they do not know history and do not understand the enemy, it makes no sense to them.
As pointed out, the MSM, for the most part, has done little to help the masses understand. The majority just want it over so things can be like they were in the 90s; peaceful and prosperous. And most want desperately to believe that somehow, someway we can get the Islamists to accept the idea of coexistence. (Barack Obama’s plan.)
Short of the MSM suddenly having an epiphany and undertaking to educate the populace or worse, a nuclear blast in one of our cities, we seem fated to go on as a house divided against itself.
I wrote something about Democrats and tribalism today.
Link
The Democrats are quite attached to promoting tribalism rather than nationalism here in the United States. Is it because Leftists think nationalism is a bad and evil thing? Is it cause they associate nationalism with fascism?
But how can that be, when one of the leading complaints about Bush’s efforts in Iraq is that Iraq had no history of being a nation?
Identity politics, creating grief groups, separating out blacks and whites according to blood and skin color, all of those things are what happens when one tribe fights another tribe. A nation is supposed to suppress these various infighting tribal politics for something higher and better. A nation for the good of all, not just for the good of your blood relatives.
And that’s why Democrats use the chickenhawk accusation. They want to accuse you of being too cowardly to defend your tribe, because clans and tribes are the only thing the parochial Leftists and Democrats can accept as being valid. Also because tribal traits consist of valor, courage, killing, the use of violence, and the acceptance of death for the tribe. America is not a tribe though. Perhaps if the Democrats achieve ultimate dictatorial power, that will change.
There is no progress to their “Progressive” policies, except the progress towards ultimate entropy and self-annihilation.
In the end, that’s why the Democrats appear to value courage and fighting on the front, but lambast Petraeus for doing exactly that. Because Petraeus is not part of the Democrat tribe. Petraeus serves America, and the Democrat’s loyalties don’t go to America.
We have enemy tribes outside and inside the nation. An unfortunate situation and a very unstable one.
I think before this struggle is over the terminology will come to include more than what this article shows, look at Farwell’s explanation of the Twin Towers to the current situation with Obama’s pastor to the Warren Jeff’s sect, and you know where I’m going with this; not to forget West Bank settlers.
There was a time in our history when theism was beneficial to humanity, it was our first attempt, our first explanation of science, philosophy, humanitarianism, our first attempt at explaining the natural world its mysteries its seemingly callous and benevolent ways. The neo-liberal Chris Hedges refers to this defense of reason as a “cult of science” and helps explains the circular track where the far-Left and the far-Right shake hands, the common thread that they share is the credulity of faith because faith provides a vast reservoir of people who accept more than they should with what they are given, this reservoir is essential to both the benign politician, as it is to the psychopathic totalitarian, as it is to anyone seeking a large consensus for power.
No doubt about it, world civilization faces its greatest threat from within radical Islam. And on a final note, dabble in moderate theism all you like, it can be a hobby or a reenactment sort of life style, just don’t require it of others, by and large keep it out of the schools, and out of our secular American constitution and government.
I say, it is time for a jihad against bad drivers … and their evil masters, the makers of suburban assault vehicles.
That’s cause you’d rather make war against liberty and freedom of choice than against the slavery and tyranny of Islamofascism overlaid ontop of murderous tribal mentalities.
You’d accept 300 deaths a year because you will give away my liberty to pursue my life as I wish to save yourself.
Slavery has always been preferred by the Democrats over fighting and killing for freedom. The Civil War is just one of many examples of this truism.
The “small number of deaths” that people proclaim concerning terrorist actions have already limited the liberty and freedom of any number of Western organizations and institutions, including the main sewer media.
That’s fine, if you have no problem sacrificing personal liberties to the Islamic Jihad. Others, however, will have a problem sacrificing their liberties just because Chris White here said that statistically there isn’t a threat.
Chris, I assume you enjoy flying today more than ever, right? You wear loafers or sandals so that you can slip them off more easily, yes? Need a passport now to visit Mexico or Canada, sail on a cruise ship.
Life is just so much better!
Asshat.
the total number of people killed worldwide by genuine al-Qaeda types and assorted wannabes outside of war zones since 9/11 averages about 300 per year.
Oh good, it’s a non-issue.
Then I guess we can go to the store and buy a magazine with funny cartoons of Mohammed, we don’t have to install foot-baths in airport restrooms and Comedy Central can poke fun at Islam now.
Right? Right?
Glad you cleared that up.
At it’s heart, it’s a war for bacon, beer and bikinis.
Won’t you fight for the bacon, Chris?
I’ll fight for bacon!
Most of your readers, yes. In my case, I have to thank Victor Davis Hanson, you, and others.
But the typical American voter (is that a demographical slur?) is likely to think that Lepanto is a European basketball player. We need to get the word out somehow. We need the few center-right newspapers to run articles; we need to convince Fox News to run well-advertised specials, and yes, we need to get HuffPo and Kos to mock us on the point, just to get the idea in front of people who have been kept ignorant. A few of them will want to know more. Not many, but a few now, and a few next fall, and a few next spring ….
This is why we need to revisit our notion of The State. Such an enquiry must go to the very roots of our understanding, which is why I praise Bobbitt’s The Shield of Achilles at every opportunity. I consider it a foundation text for the dilemmas we face at our current juncture.
The more immediate question is whether we must or should extend the benefits of civilization to those who will use those benefits to destroy civilization. Answering this sometimes requires seeing the difference between the foundation and the superstructure. Example: the Fifth Amendment is fundamental. The Miranda ruling is a means of implementing it. Ruling that when a suspect and his attorney are clearly gaming the rules surrounding Miranda or any other rule, those rules need not be applied is not destroying the Fifth Amendment, it is protecting it.
The laws of war allow summary execution on the battlefield. When I see that photo of a Viet Cong shot by an ARVN officer, I am horrified not by the execution, but by the barbarity of the irregular fighter who cannot be trusted to honor his own declaration of surrender. I am profoundly grateful that we are forever out of reach of that individual. I will pray for him, but I am glad that he is dead. If you don’t understand this apparent contradiction, I urge you to seek to understand it, not as a pathology, but in the belief that as precious as this person’s life is, it is not worth the harm that he has chosen to inflict.
Ah yes. The old comparison between terrorist acts and highway accidents.
That number, 300 a year sounds way too low, but Im sure somebody at Huffpo has gone over them and you can trust them. Thats probably an average. What was it?–3,000 dead in one morning in New York, how many in London and Madrid? Lockerbie, Vienna Airport massacre?
But if you average them up, no big deal. Right Chris?
Just like a any ole highway accident.
Neo, have you ever visited the Cabinet War Rooms in London (http://iwm.org.uk)? You can almost feel Churchill’s presence. The bookshop has recipe books that helped people deal with rationing. I remember looking through them and trying to imagine what it was like to eat like that day after day, year after year. This is so far removed from our current involvement in the war.
… the total number of people killed worldwide by genuine al-Qaeda types and assorted wannabes outside of war zones since 9/11 averages about 300 per year …
The operative conditional in the above statement is “outside of war zones.” One can be sure that ‘war zone’ would be defined in such a way as to minimize the number of deaths and is itself a false distinction. Much the same apology could have been made for WW2-era Nazis.
To my mind any politically motivated, organized violence by actors not officially claimed as part of any nation’s military, whether directed toward soldiers or civilians, should be considered terrorism. Isn’t it who is violent, not who they are violent against, that should define a terrorist? We are not trying to identify their victims; we are trying to identify THEM and their activities. At the very least violence in a war zone purposefully directed against noncombatants should be part of the stats.
Furthermore, the author, John Mueller, does not list a source for these figures – par for the course for terrorist-apologizers/sympathizers/anti-war dupes. One suspects they are plucked steaming out of his own ass.
Far more trustworthy and indicative are figures from sources such as the National Counterterrorism Center. The very first sentence of their Report on Terrorist Incidents — 2006 reads:
According to open-source information, approximately 14,000 terrorist attacks occurred in various countries during 2006, resulting in over 20,000 deaths.
And to really begin to comprehend the true significance of terrorism injuries should be included, not only deaths as in the NCTC report cited above, since a bomb wounds and maims many more than it kills.
http://wits.nctc.gov/Reports.do
I bet people will really be suprised the West has been at war with Islam for roughly 1400 years now. I’m starting the war from when Abdel al-Rahmen crossed the Med in 711 AD and attacked Spain. He was stopped in 732 by Charles Martel at Tours, France.
Chris White cited:
“unless the terrorists are able somehow massively to increase their capacities, the likelihood that a person living outside a war zone will perish at the hands of an international terrorist over an eighty-year period is about one in 80,000. By comparison, an American’s chance of dying in an auto accident over the same time interval is one in eighty.”
First, the author’s point is not that terrorism is not a problem, but that we are phobic. If the former were his point, it would be as silly as dismissing the significance of murder because fewer are murdered than killed in traffic accidents. We probably are excessively in fear of terrorists. However, we had some 2700 deaths in 2001, which in my math averages out to 900 a year since then, so perhaps we can be forgiven our phobia, if that’s what it is. I think it is more anger and indignation that keeps us so preoccupied with terrorism, like a tongue going to a sore tooth. And a part of that anger is toward the people who want to pour oil on our troubled water by minimizing the atrocity and the perversity of Arab terrorism–or want to recast our upset as a kind of psychopathology.
Should we seek psychopathology, let’s look for it among the creators of the atrocity, and their apologists, not among its victims.
This war began when Muhammad left Mecca, exiled or simply frustrated with his years of non-progress there, for Medina with TEN followers. And when he got to Medina he decided that Allah had to sanctify a change in plan. He needed cash and he needed more followers to make his grand designs come true. So, he had Allah issue the command to Gabriel and from thence to Muhammad’s mind to raid the caravans. Kill the men, capture the women and children and sell them into slavery, and take the booty of the caravans. From that moment on, he attracted the criminal class of Medina and the disinherited younger sons of families there. Allah was now at war with the unbelievers and Allah’s Prophet was victorious everywhere afterwards, from the genocide against the Jews of the Banu Qurayza on out of Arabia to the four directions.
Sanctified by Allah and codified by the righteous caliphs after Muhammad, the command to jihad – to kill or convert the unbelievers – established Islam as the oldest totalitarian ideology. War without end.
We in the West have, down through fourteen centuries, missed numerous opportunities to drive the stake into the heart of this bloodthirsty beast. Every time we pass up a propitious moment to finish it off, we allow it to get stronger and become an even bigger menace to civilization and humanity.
al Bana, Hajj Amin al Husseini, and Sayyid Qutb only retrieved the eternal, uncreated, perfect, and unchanging words of Allah and reminded the Ummah of its duty. They reinvigorated the ardor for the Sword of Allah. The modern world and the values of liberty are not the cause of this revival. Would not matter what historical epoch our values crystallized in. Israel is not the cause of this war against us by Satan (Shaytan, in Arabic). Their duty is to either convert us or kill us. One other option, open only to Jews and Christians they consider to be, for their own purposes not our need, People of the Book, is the option of the Dhimma. To be second class citizens in our own lands, paying the crushing jizya with humiliation, and having no legal standing whatsoever. And no right to defend ourselves against capricious violence that can be visited upon us.
I would chose death rather than be a dhimmi.
This war is not over unless and until we become ruthless enough and moral enough to slay the Beast. But we won’t get there unless and until we read their Qur’an and read ahadith Bukhari and Muslim, reading the life of the Prophet and his deeds. Do not trust those among us who have sold out and try to pour honey in our ears, telling us that Islam means “peace.” It means “submission” and that is a calamity for the world.
Right now, believe it or not our worst enemies are the collaborators and traitors among us who run interference for this enemy of all humanity and delude themselves into thinking that they can use Islamic jihad to destroy the West and then seize power from the Muslims.
Chris White I agree with your sensible view.
FredHjr.
It’s very difficult to convince the “civilized” that their “civilization” is their weakness.
I disagree strongly with the sanitized historical revisionism of the quote highlighted by “Truth” above. Clearly, someone who has not read the Islamic scriptures or law. It sounds like something from the mouth of one of those who pour honey in our ears, like Karen Armstrong or Prof. John Esposito or his colleague, Prof. John Voll.
I will take my stand with what my own eyes and mind have absorbed, and the scholars whose work I have read.
I also have first hand experience of living with a devout, strict Iranian Shia when I was an undergrad. I know these people, and the wellspring of their raison d’etre.
Conservatively estimated, over the course of fourteen centuries of jihad has resulted in the murder of over 270 million human beings. And it was done the low-tech way, so the scope of its savagery even exceeds the butcher’s bill served up by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. They did it the modern, high-tech way. It is said that Tamerlane built mountains with the skulls of the beheaded the shaheeds accomplished in the Hindu Kush and India. Let us not forget that in the late sixties the faithful of Allah murdered well over a million Hindus and apostate Muslims in Bangladesh and Pakistan. I could go on and on. They were all strictly in observance of the very letter of Allah’s commands, as the Qur’an is upheld, by every orthodox Islamic scholar through the centuries on down to the present coterie at al Azhar, as a divine dictation.
Western appeasers are cowards and moral reprobates. There is a ton of blood on their hands. And from the 7th century on, when the minions of Allah broke out of the Arabian Peninsula, there was no lack of collaborators and traitors in the target societies and states conquered by Islam. The blood of the innocent is on their hands too, and they shall answer for it before the throne of God.
One of the first stages of jihad conquest, and this is true throughout their history, involves weakening the target states and societies from within, using every manner of deception (taqiyya and kitman) to rope in the useful idiots who will be their agents of enervation. They will forge alliances with political and religious factions that are out of power. And they will use terror as a means to weakening the target society.
Right now, they are in the phase of reconstituting their power. Mostly dispersed, but they do have states as well who share the burden of fighting in the way of Allah.
After weakening the target, then they brought their armies to bear in order to deliver the coup de main.
If you do not study the detailed history of jihad conquest AND the history of what befell the dhimmi peoples, you will not understand the present. They have a template that is both defining of who they are and maps their way to victory.
The ignorance of it all, combined with the reckless and senseless, post-modernist self-destruction we are experiencing, will put us in a precarious position.
I wonder if “truth” is the same commenter who goes by the name “Truthmonger” over at “Newsbusters?” That “truthMonger” claims to be a “Fundie Christian” but is always telling people to “partner with Islam” on conservative political issues. People have been round and round with him on that site.
I do not wish to be mean to muslims. But “partner with them”?
How about controlling their immigration rates to the WEST? That would be a good start.
That ain’t gonna happen with any of the top three Canidates. They are all open borders. Come on in all Reconquistadores and Jihadists!
We are so screwed.
Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo may have bought us some time. But the moderates gave us McAmnesty before super Tuesday even got there for many of us to vote. Those of us who are seeing the Mexican flags pop up all around our towns in Texas already see what is coming next.
These NeoCons did not wake up till 9-11. They are a bit slow on the draw- Now they give us McAmnesty. ( Actually I should also throw some blame at Mike “Give me a Mexican Consulate in Arkansas” Huckabee who bled off a lot of the ignorant Conservatives votes.)
On top of that all three canidates are buying into Human caused global warming Socialist power grab. Just think how high fuel and food prices may go once they start taxing Carbon Dioxide. Better pay off all your debts,learn to how to grow a garden, plant fruit trees and vines, and buy a lot of ammo- and get out of the big cities- thats where the food and fuel riots will start.
There’s a wacko on AJ Strata’s blog using a name with Truth in it.. but I doubt it’s this guy here.
The guy here at least seems sincere in his POV… most of the leftists i know with “truth” in thier name are just deranged america haters.
In spite of all my rambling about McAmnesty, I still like Neo here- even if she did support him. Neo is a good writer and reminds me of one my fifth grade teachers who was a liberal at the time. I wonder what she is now?( If alive.)
Fredjr: You are religous, I am not, in any sectarian sense, though we probably share the same general principles of morality. I agree with your arguments in that same generality. I view the excesses of Judeo-Christianity in the same way as I view the excesses of Islam: Christains burning witches and Muslim terrorists are of the same ilk in my eyes: preachments of love and mercy, acts of unapeakable brutality and terror.
Neither excess excuses the other.
It is absurd to argue Islamic excesses are due to a few extremist when Muslim Arab governments support and promote the excesses in word and funding. If Islam is a religion of peace, then surely all Muslims ought to denounce the Arab governments underwriting terrorism, jihadism, and supporting Sharia inhumane honor killings done in the name of Allah.
Regardless of religious sect, you protect and defend your life or perish. And regardless of what others may say, it is their actions you must defend against.
Ok, and the diffrence must be that “Truth” doesnt hate Americans?
J.B.: McAmnesty, like Bush, lives in the environment of the corporate world that envision a Mexican-Canadian-American economic bloc that will compete with the Euro and Asiatic blocs. That means, among many things, that we need a peasant class to compete with China. The illegal alien is the next best thing to a slave. I never imagined I’d hear the arguments I’ve heard for unrestricted immigration, and, but for the fact so many of the arguments were made by liberals, I think they would have been denounced as advocating a slave class as necessary to U.S. prosperity. As much as anything else in the coming century, the struggle will be American sovereignty against corporate economics. Want to make any bets?
You need not kill all muslims or even many of them. You positively need to kill their dream, their hope to win. This can be done by many ways, the most important means are not military, but psychological warfare. Exactly in this aspect West fail miserably. What is really needed?
Terrorize terrorists! Kill them everywhere, may be, in small numbers, but in so fashion that nobody feels himself in security, as Israeli do. Make all proponents, all propagandists, financiers, lawyers, journalists on enemy side a fair game. Organize world-wide conspirational death squads, units of professional killers; compile a list of targets, publish it, and advertise widely every success. Declare imprisoned terrorists hostages and publicly execute announced number of them for every terrorist act.
It’s very difficult to convince the “civilized” that their “civilization” is their weakness.
Sanded In Baghdad
I pauses these questions hereto you:
1- Why early Americans fighting the British and they won their independence from their Christian Brother and sister who they cam from?
2- How many people who are civilized from US went for decades in Saudi and gulf countries working earning and enjoying their time their till now?
3- how many US military and civilians are on the ground for decade in Iran Saudi and gulf state who are Muslims countries using every manner of deception (taqiyya and kitman) no one killed and hearts their for been a Christian of Jew?
4- How many touring Muslims countries for decades who are Christian and Jew did they humiliated and killed because they are Christians or Jew or “civilized”?
as Israeli do.
Sergey, ……one thing telling about you, as a common and obvious.
Early 1898 most the Zionists who support Theodore Herzl and on , look very obvious and odd most those Zionists from East Europe are Muslim/Arab hater no surprises.
Look to H. Kissinger, Madelyn Albright and all the list of names will tell you more parallel and similar personalities, hatful attitude against Muslims/Arab specially bringing Islamic time when Othman Sultan flourishing in Europe by trying to see half of the empty class with cherry picking of bad moments that every empire had and have in their long time along the history of civilization from Babylonians till now with US.
Surprisingly Theodore Herzl how mush he did believe in his theory he failed to convinced his son and his daughter with his believes!
Russian security forces have a huge experience in suppressing terrorists. After assasination of Alexander II a special task force, “Okhranka” was organized. In ten years dozens of terrorist groups were annihilated. This was done by using agents-informers and agents-provocateur, so recruiting new members to terrorist groups became deadly: there were more police agents in the job than real recruiters. So in late 1890 terrorist activity in Russia was practically crushed.
Clearly, someone who has not read the Islamic scriptures or law. It sounds like something from the mouth of one of those who pour honey in our ears,
I bet you in this is from your country, she spoke well and very clear and detailed points about Islam.
If I to judge here, you are mirroring yourself very clearly what you said about that lady who pausing the question to GW> Bush.
Never mind she is American, its very easy to find who she is, go look what she knew about Islam might a good start for you to learn some thing good not like something from the mouth of one of those who pour honey in our ears as you doing here
Well, Truth gave his answer. Wack job anti-western. Now that we got that straight…don’t feed the troll.
No, colonialism is not something pertinent to whites. Every civilization at more advanced stage than others do the same. Romans colonize Greeks, Greeks colonize barbarians, Chinese colonize many west-Indian countries. But in our epoch the most advanced civilization is Western, that is why it colonize or otherwise submit everybody else, and should do it, so that progress can survive and expand.
“Truth” reminds me of some practicioners of taqiyya and kitman found to drop in over at jihadwatch.org from time to time. They are pests whom everyone sees through, and so would do better to practice their “arts” on the uninformed or the credulous.
Russian security forces have a huge experience in suppressing terrorists. After assasination of Alexander II a special task force, “Okhranka” was organized. In ten years dozens of terrorist groups were annihilated. This was done by using agents-informers and agents-provocateur,
Very true. Its methods are very pragmatic, but require the harm of their own people in validating the early false front. So that it can attract and build, and in so doing, net a large swath of ‘problems’ in one move.
It requires a certain moral flexibility that the west does not have, and so has to find other means. Which is what I think the civilization is too civilized comment is about. To a degree, yes, but since civilization, or nation, and such are not real things, populations are also not real. So there can be a collection of individuals that can be as bad as any other set, even a bad intended state can come up with. Advantage in method flexibility does not necessarily translate to a change in end results. Given that man is not only a political creature, but to a large degree a moral creature, the advantage of such flexibility is mitigated by the knowledge of its contortion.
And your point on colonialism is spot on. Though if one were to look at this historical progression of domination, one would find that recent research points to such being a key in intelligence progression in species (as they try to outfox each other in a feedback system).
However, the beneficence of states that progress just a little farther can be seen by the concept of wars of authentic liberation, or that end in autonomy for the defeated. Autonomy that can result in that the defeated can oppose the one that did not take the imperial path.
Imperialists tend to also go after their neighbors, not far away places. Also, using Puerto Rico as an example, most imperialists don’t have states free to go, but which choose freely to stay ambiguous (rather than become a state).
This autonomy is morally better than prior responses, but is not multicultural in its stupidities, in that these autonomous states are free to develop. France is no where near as friendly as it was when the Germans were remembered.
As far as “truth”, he is fishing and stirring things up based on what he believes in, or what he has sided with, which gives him these opportunities. He is a mix of valid and very invalid points and histories so he amounts to an effective point of dissimulation depending on who is reading and what they do or don’t know.
The easy stuff is truth which is easy to confirm, the harder stuff is lies which is harder and more involved to judge. Invariably the construction then works because the common act is to then use the verification of the easy to determine validity of the harder parts.
A feminist on a forum once made the assertion that before X date women couldn’t get a diploma and basically implied many things that were half truths. The data implies that feminists changes the situation, that women had no place to get Harvard quality education, and a few others. The truth was that Radcliff was created by Harvard way before the date the person stated, and so a cursory examination would show that she was right. No diplomas from Harvard before X date, a more detailed look would find that a woman would have gotten a degree from Radcliff, and an even more detailed look would find that before the boomers the female ratio in college was 40%.
Its one of the most common forms, and easiest forms, of dissimulation you can use. It’s the equivalent of Mary Poppin’s a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine goes down. However once you learn it and know more facts it seems inane to you if you don’t know why it’s done, and how it works. Once you know more, it’s no longer intended for you. You are no longer stupid enough to be in the movement, so to speak. So it has its own assortative quality to it. It also nets the very intelligent but naé¯ve and somewhat ignorant. A form of wet clay. All this becomes clear if you just pay attention, its not like its special knowledge or anything. Many people know this stuff naturally.
Note how Richard Dawkins doesn’t include the historical arguments that refute his points or contradict them? That he may like Bayes for his logic and such, but would he deny that Bayes, of Bayes theorem fame was a Reverend? So the disingenuous point in his books is that he proceeds to answer these points or use them to refute things, but through omission the points are swallowed whole for the less knowing, or the less inquisitive.
The point of Ben Steins new movie is not intelligent design; he is trying to show you what happens when an idea or some other point is not allowed to be discussed. He does not deny that Darwinism is probably right, and he even points out that it doesn’t even conflict with the notion of deity, since that could be the deity’s methods and plan. However dropping that piece of stuff into the pool, and stepping back, what one should be able to see is termites trying to control the outcome of the argument by force, rather than by merit, and clear concise means.
We forget that we do teach the not as good science of Ptolemy, as we teach the better formed ideas of Copernicus. How come there is no movement to stamp out Ptolemy? How come there is no fear that we might lose heliocentric view?
Technically one can make any arbitrary body in ‘space’ a center point. The difference is in what form the paths then appear to the ‘viewer’. So from Ptolemys view, sun orbits nice, moon orbits nice, and everything else looks like a spirograph. All heliocentrism did was say “hey, if you pick the largest gravitational body as the center point, everything appears to be clean orbits”. But that’s not true, no one points out that to the sun, the orbits of moons, and moons of moons, are the same spirograph problem of ptolemys viewpoint.
When seen in this light the argument of intelligent design is actually an argument between two teaching methods. One in which you learn what I tell you and don’t look elsewhere (which allows for easy control through dissimulation using right knowledge to leverage what will not be verified), and an education in which even ill thought out concepts are allowed to be discussed and addressed.
The things that don’t work tend to just end up taking their place in history, and end up being a teaching point like Ptolemy leading to heliocentric views. However, the method that is being painted as and seems more rational leads to lysenkoism. It’s the only real way that politics can dominate a hard science.
Technically the philosophers want their throne back from the empiricist sciences.
1- Why early Americans fighting the British and they won their independence from their Christian Brother and sister who they cam from?
Most of the original settlers from Britian left Britian because of religious issues. The colonists who left Britian did so because they faced religious persecuation from British society… think of them as the minority shiites who fled from the oppression by the majority Sunni establishment.(dont take this analogy too far)
The folks who left were often as intolerant of the other Christian sects as the other sects were of them.. so they left and decided to risk everythign to settle in America.
Not all the America-bound sects were hostile though.. most just wanted to be free to live their lives without interference from society or government. religion was very political in Britian in those days.. bloody conflict between Catholics and the Protestants of the Church of England.
This is why when 100s of years later and the Consitution was drafted it was decided the Federal Govt would have nothing to do with establishing a national church or affiliation. Since religion was removed from political power, the differing religious groups were able to co-exist since neither dominated the either. Religion being suppressed from controlling the government and the government being suppressed from abusing religion is the NUMBER ONE reason why America is still a very religious nation to this day. We avoided all the conflict that happened in Europe due to their mixing of religion and politics. And by so doing , religion was not discredited with the public because government wasn’t able to abuse it.
The Colonists decided to rebel against Britian because the freedoms they once had were stedily being eroded by continued British interference in colonial life. Additionally Colonists weren’t represented in Britian’s Parliament. Divorced from represenation in the central government and yet being oppressed by the British military was an intolerable situation and against the human diginity of the Americans.
2- How many people who are civilized from US went for decades in Saudi and gulf countries working earning and enjoying their time their till now?
A lot.. why?
3- how many US military and civilians are on the ground for decade in Iran
None.
Saudi
None
and gulf state
A few thousand.
who are Muslims countries using every manner of deception (taqiyya and kitman) no one killed and hearts their for been a Christian of Jew?
I bet if they built a church they would be killed.
4- How many touring Muslims countries for decades who are Christian and Jew did they humiliated and killed because they are Christians or Jew or “civilized”?
I dont understand
I bet if they built a church they would be killed. by their fellow religionist.
nyomythus: On the other hand, when Muslims build mosques in countries of Euro-Christian heritage, they don’t usually get killed by their “fellow religionists.”
Not all “religionists” are created equal.
It always struck me as quite sad that Americans’ main reaction to 9/11 was to attack each other. You can call it democracy; I call it foolishness.
This is not exactly on topic, but Obama has officially lost me with his latest remark about bitter working class voters who “cling to guns or religion.”
He is now officially an elitist pig. So is Hillary, despite her quick condemnation of Obama’s remarks as…you know…elitist.
Sorry, folks. It’s McCain for me this year. He may not be much of a Republican, but he’s better than those other two assholes.
Also, for future elections I intend to reject any apologies or explanations offered by politicians for any stupid, crass, elitist, racist remarks they happen to make. They’re now playing a game with this cycle of outrage and apology. From now on, no do-overs. You say it, you own it.
I hope Michelle gives some more speeches… keep the momentum alive!
As far as “truth”, he is fishing and stirring things
What others doing here if I am as yousiad?
Some can not see far from thier noises.
But as said the Truth hard to heard, isn’t “fishing and stirring” friends ?
Truth [which ever writer you are this time]: When I spoke of civilzation being a weakness, I spoke of westerners who think war is too uncivilized to employ against an enemy who needs tolerance and understanding but extends none. That you thought I was referencing the excesses of Muslim fundamentalists as Muslim civilization is unfortunate but understandable. Muslim civilization is, fortunately, vastly larger and more cultured than the Islamic/politico lunatics strapping bombs to children, committing honor killings, and generally trying to force a Dark Ages religious mentality on the rest of the world.
What I have said of Arab/Muslim civilization is what you should have said. Instead, you played the race card: “Having grown up the Southern U.S. and having a very racist father, it was a very bizarre experience hearing almost the same comments being made against Iraqis that I heard as a child being made against blacks.”
If it is racist to be against Muslim terrorists butchering and maiming infidels, count me in. You’d better serve your cause by joining those who condemn the atrocities than attacking those who do and stop trying to excuse, ignore, or distract attention from those who commit the atrocities.
DuMaurier-Smith , dear friend forgive me if I miss your point.
I quite agree what you highlighted and the things that make me sick people mixing Islam and Arab with terrorist which in any way we can call them Muslim simply they are criminals deserve to be not with us as human value the humanity and civilizations.
Thanks again for your note.
The terrorist outrage of 9/11 was shocking, but we have lived for decades with the knowledge that death could arrive from across the sea. The attacks were cause for grief and anger, and for reassessing our institutions and strategies; they were not good reason for panic or for abandoning our principles when we needed them most.
DuMaurier-Smith, just to add, I am not the one who started the “the race card ” here.
With all due respect of your view if you look most the comments made have did so before I put the words of Tim Fox. My attention from Tim Fox words is just to say even the civilized nation have here weakness as Tim highlighted, far from that I have no attention at all in using Tim Fox worlds.
You’re quoting that hag Madeleine half-wit?
Lord help us.
I think it’s disappointing and tragic that there is such paucity of the knowledge of Islamic scriptures, law, the life of the Prophet, and the history of jihad conquests on this board. Instead, the discussion has been diverted by someone who has not the knowledge of the subject, but tries to say a lot of things that are in the realm of unreality. And you people take him/her/it seriously, with the milquetoast comments which try to both placate and try to not appear to be beyond the realm of the politically correct opinions that will get us all killed.
Trying to put a smiley face on an ideology that is a brutal killer is insane. All the jihadis correctly cite, and do NOT take “out of context,” the injunctions which sanctify and justify the murder of infidels and Muslim apostates. Also, allowing these dhimmi reprobates to use sly variations of the “tu quoque” argument in order to weaken the ethical argument for our resistance to Islam is appalling and pathetic. It truly is. No past crimes done by Christians are justified in scripture or the magisterial teachings of the Church. Today we can correctly and justly identify the people and their actions as morally wrong. We have the resources within the tradition to correct and condemn the past crimes. No such resources are there within the Qur’an and Sunnah to effect such self-examination and correction. The commands to kill us, or convert us, or effect our subjugation are indeed universal and without qualification.
There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for anyone to eschew doing the hard, boring work of reading the Islamic scriptures and ahadith. English translations are in plentitude. Only sloth or a stubborn unwillingness to stray from the Leftist orthodoxy derived from Edward Said’s “Orientalism” prevent people from doing the due diligence in this matter. That educated people persist in this damnable pride and bias against their own civilization is scandalous and immoral.
Anyone lacking info on Islam should read “Islam 101” that I have on my site. The document was produced by Gregory M. Davis, PhD
http://home.comcast.net/~vincep312/islam101.1.html
I noticed that out friend, Truth, posted a quote by Madeleine Albright earlier in the comments and thought I would post a couple more by her for Truth’s benefit. There are other quotes by other prominent anti-war types at the same URL. It’s a lot of fun to read them. Help yourself, Truth.
Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.
No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators.
Madeleine Albright, President Clinton’s Secretary of State
Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University February 18, 1998
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
Should a Muslim, taking the side of moderation and peace, debate a Muslim espousing Jihad the moderate loses the debate almost immediately because the Jihadist simply quotes the Quran. After all, if one is a practitioner of Islam one cannot debate against the Quran – the document being quite simply and immutably law to any devotee.
This is one of the explanations why there are so few ‘moderate’ Muslims speaking out against Jihad, why there is dancing in the streets when Westerners die, why there are children’s television programs in the Middle East, equivalent to Western children’s programs such as Sesame Street, that inculcate racial hatred in the very, very young.
“The division is between those who always assumed it would be long and arduous, and those who did not.”
Exactly right. The left has always seen this war (if they even call it that) in the most narrow terms; fighting al Qaeda only in Afghanistan. So once we had overthrown the Taliban and chased al Qaeda out of the country, the left said “gee can we go back to global warming now?”
Unfortunately for them, OIF spoilt their plans. Which is why they’re in such a snit.
As VDH once said, the left doesn’t want to win the GWOT, they just want to get it off the front page of the newspaper so they can get on with putting us all under the rule of the EPA.
Truth: I’m not your “dear friend;” I don’t know you.
FredHjr: As I noted, I’m not a religious person, and believe that all ancient religions are full of nonsense. That does not alter the fact that the major religions of the world (as doctrines, not necessarily as institutions) are also full of wisdom and have been the principal force in humanizing humans even as they have been tribalizing them to kill infidels, heathens, what-have-you.
Yes, Mid-Eastern Islam is stuck in the mud of the Dark Ages–as they have a right to be if they so choose. So far as I’m concerned, the Jews can regress to more fundamentalist preachments such as Old Testament admonition that “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” so long as they don’t act upon it. The Arab Muslims can preach jihad til the cows come home. It is their right to express their conscience and beliefs. When they start the jihad, we kill them. Right then. We don’t go to war with them because of their religion, but because their actions are actionable, and their religion is not. It’s the basic freedom long cherished in this country: your freedom to swing your arm stops before it hits my nose.
So basically, it doesn’t matter what the religious preachments are, except as an indication of what the Mid-East Muslims are apt to do regarding terrorism and inform our preparations. And, it is clear, both from acts of terrorism and general Muslim silence, that lunatics are in the saddle. You don’t need to understand much of Islamic religion to understand that.
The Muslim fundamentalists are desperate. The modern world is rushing at them in the form of the Great Satan of the West. It is important for them to represent their struggle for survival as a religious war to their devout followers. It is equally important for us not to buy into that religious war rhetoric. On the contrary, we need to react to terrorism decisively with force and dismiss its religious aspects as archaic, fundamentalist nonsense and support and encourage Muslims who eschew such violence.
I’m of the view the Islamic fundamentalists aren’t under pressure one-bit.. on the whole.. Sure in some local circumstances some group might be (like the Iranian regime) but on the whole everything is going their way..why should they feel under pressure?
They know Europe is de-populating and being repopulated by Muslims.
They know America’s days as unchallengable number 1 are over
They know Russia is becomming an empty shell.
These people are on a 1,400 year mission… they are patient. They have probably learned a good lesson from Al Qaida… you dont need to attack the superpower and bring the US military against you… just follow the Europe model.. and win by the womb.
And in America they’ll win by the Petrodollar.
VinceP,
That’s a fine site you directed us to. It is solid and informative. You should recommend that the people over at jihadwatch.org also take a look at it.
DuMaurier-Smith,
Much as you would wish to fit the manifestations of Islamic terror and jihad into some other secular template of understanding, a slight regard for religious motivations will not at all dispose one to the proper understanding of what motivates these people. Truly, it will not. The reason why these people are willing to die for Allah and the Prophet, and why metaphysical materialists are not willing to die to defend their civilization should be obvious. This is a vexing problem. Just because I am a Catholic does not in any way invalidate the emphasis of insight I bring to this discussion. If anything else, because things religious do not nauseate me I was willing to go to the “religious” documents of Islam to see for myself what they were and how they have been so animating for fourteen centuries.
Years ago, when I was a Marxist, I still clung to my Catholic faith, despite the way that some of my fellow-travelers would look down their noses at me for it. And what I learned about the character and beliefs of these materialists eventually sold me on the idea that very few of them would be willing to lay down their lives for their fellow human beings. For them, there is no Divine Love to embrace them after they have left this dimension.
When push comes to shove, these European materialists and atheists will not refuse to bend to the demand to recite the Shehada. They will do it to save their necks, and in so many ways they are already surrendering to these 7th century savages.
But you know something, in the end it’s the true Christians who will defend you, the materialist, and your right to be what you are. You know, things have changed a lot since the 16th century, in case you haven’t noticed. Of course there are fringe fanatics who lack all wisdom and understanding. But these people are not going to chop your head off. And we will, in our Catholic universities, continue to let science and philosophy do its work without the Vatican interfering, unless something very seriously unethical is taking place.
The very fact that I can clearly and easily perceive the deadly and vicious nature of Islam and its Satanic deity for what they are, I owe to BOTH my Catholic education and my humanistic education.
Islam is not going to collapse because their people are going to be smitten with Euro-hedonism. In fact, they are rejecting the Euro-hedonistic, atheistic culture as I type these words. In point of fact, I would even fight to defend anyone’s right to be precisely a Euro-hedonist. Not because I approve of it. But because virtue is something you cannot force on people and you cannot impose it on them, else it will no longer be virtue. Islam imposes its Sharia Law everywhere it destroys and rapes. The ardor of this particular “religion” (if you can call it that, and I do strongly disagree that it is a religion) is precisely what gives it its power. These people will die for it, because of the promises that are made to the shaheeds from Allah.
No, the West needs a revitalized Judaism and Christianity in order to fend off these savages. We are your allies, not your enemies. But in point of fact Islam is succeeding in dividing us against each other by encouraging our intellectual elites to espouse theories of history and culture that divert our minds from the true enemy. For the God I put my trust in is the Author of liberty, freedom, and rationality. And that is part of Benedict XVI’s message at Regensburg two years ago. Europe and the Americas must reconnect with the treasures of our Graeco-Roman-Jewish-Christian civilization and find within themselves the confidence to believe that we are worth saving and that we must exert efforts to defend ourselves.
The alternative is unthinkable and, unlike your blithe underestimation of this enemy, entirely possible.
Thanks Fred.
Jihad Watch is where I got it from. They encouraged people to redistribute it , which is what I have done.
And regarding your comment abou the Euro-hedonists… I agree with all you said and want to add, they’re annihilating themselves. By not having childern Europe is now at something like 1.3 fertitlity rate. According to Mark Steyn, Demographers have stated that no culture has ever survived with a downhill cultural suicide at that level.
VinceP,
Your senario for Islamic take-over is possible. However, that sort of re-population is possible anywhere, and there isn’t much you can do about it so long as nationalism is considered a bad word and open borders are virtually a government mandate.
But that seems to me an issue apart from the problem the fundamentalists face in the modern world. So far as I can tell, the Muslim immigrants–say in Scandanavia–are about as fundamentalist as the hippie, yippies and yahoos of the sixties. They may scream and protest to get attention and political power, but they don’t want an Iranian existence. That’s why they left the Mid-East. Similarly, the Mexican illegals don’t want to live in Mexico. They want to be allowed to be Mexicans in the U.S. Islam may take over the world, eventually, but it will be so secularized the fundamentalist imams will be tearing out their beards. But I don’t think that takeover will happen. My money is on the corporatists, who will end up buying nations.
FredHjr:
First, I’m not a materialist and far more stoic than hedonist. I don’t consider any group in the abstract as a friend or ally. I’m not trying to fit the Muslim fundamentalists into a secular template of understanding. I thought I made that quite clear: I don’t care what their religion is, and I don’t need to understand it; if their acts threaten us, destroy them. I’d take exactly the same posture toward Israel or the Holy Roman Church should they engage in terrorist acts against us. If my life is threatened by someone in the street, his/her religion, nationality, or Zodiac sign is not going to be a concern. I don’t know how to make that any plainer. Nor do I have to be a Jew or Christian to know how to defend myself against Muslims or anyone else. The religion issue is a red herring, and of scant relevance to the war on terror issues.
DuMauier: I have no idea what leads you conclude that the Scandenavian Muslims are some hippy underachievers:
1 Veiled girl gang in Stockholm attacks old ladies
A group of five teenage girls have been accused of a wave of vicious attacks against old women in Stockholm…
The girls, aged 17 and 18, have been remanded in custody for attacking the women in Tensta and Rinkeby, suburbs of the capital.
Their victims, mostly in their seventies and eighties, were usually mugged outside their homes…
In one of the muggings, the girls stole a 71-year-old’s handbag and pushed her down a flight of steps. In another case, a 78-year old woman was pushed to the ground and kicked where she lay.
The girls worked in groups and wore veils during the attacks, making it harder for the police to identify them.
2 While Sweden Slept, by Bruce Bawer
Recently, the city of Stockholm carried out a survey of ninth-grade boys in the predominantly Muslim suburb of Rinkeby. The survey showed that in the last year, 17% of the boys had forced someone to have sex, 31% had hurt someone so badly that the victim required medical care, and 24% had committed burglary or broken into a car. Sensational statistics – but in all of Sweden, they appear to have been published only in a daily newssheet that is distributed free on the subways.
3 Stockholm Suburb: “It’s too Dangerous for Children here, Many are Wearing Bulletproof Vests”
Nalin Pekgul, a well-known Social Democratic advocate of suburbs with a high concentration of immigrants, is leaving her own suburb Tensta because she thinks it has become too insecure. Tensta has become too dangerous for the children, she says. Nalin Pekgul, who is a Muslim herself, has also noted that fundamentalist variants of Islam are growing stronger in Tensta. Her children come home and wonder why their mother doesn’t wear a hijab or why their family don’t go to the mosque. They also have heard that Muslims are better than Christians. “I don’t like it when my son comes home and says that ‘Mom, we Muslims don’t lie, but Christians do, because they don’t have God.’ He hasn’t got that from us . We had not reckoned on this religious fundamentalism,” she says.
4 Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War
The wave of robberies the [increasingly Muslim-dominated]city of Malmé¶ has witnessed during this past year is part of a “war against the Swedes.” This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra é…kesson for her thesis in sociology…
“When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes.” This argument was repeated several times. “Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explain, laughingly, that “there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you’re robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you’ve succeeded, it simply feels good.” “It’s so easy to rob Swedes, so easy.” “We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.”
5 Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden
The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six – 6 – times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas.
An Islamic Mufti in Copenhagen sparked a political outcry after publicly declaring that women who refuse to wear headscarves are “asking for rape.” Apparently, he’s not the only one thinking this way. “It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably f***ed before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame. It is important that she retains her virginity until she marries. It is far too easy to get a Swedish whore…… girl, I mean;” says Hamid, and laughs over his own choice of words. “Many immigrant boys have Swedish girlfriends when they are teenagers. But when they get married, they get a proper woman from their own culture who has never been with a boy. That’s what I am going to do. I don’t have too much respect for Swedish girls. I guess you can say they get f***ed to pieces.”
6 The New York Times and Sweden: The Dark Side of Paradise
Ethnologist Maria Bé¤ckman, in her study “Whiteness and gender,” has followed a group of Swedish girls in the suburb of Rinkeby outside Stockholm, where native Swedes have been turned into a tiny minority of the inhabitants due to rapid immigration… Bé¤ckman relates that several of the girls she interviewed stated that they had dyed their hair to avoid unwanted attention and sexual harassment. They experienced that being blonde involves old men staring at you, cars honking their horns and boys calling you “whore.”…
The official explanation given by Swedish authorities to the increase [in rape charges] is that much of it is a “technical” increase due to the fact that more victims of rape now report this crime to the police. There is not a hint of evidence for this explanation. On the contrary, intimidation of people reporting any kind of crime to the police has rapidly worsened in Sweden during the same time period. Threats against witnesses in Swedish court cases quadrupled between 2000 and 2003 alone… Street violence of all kinds is soaring on a national level. Private security companies are in great demand in major Swedish cities, as a serious lack of police to combat rising crime has made many citizens tired of being robbed.. Gangs of 14- and 15-year-olds raping and robbing is now common in many Stockholm suburbs… At the same time, the underfunded and undermanned Swedish police officers feel “unmotivated” to fight crime, according to a study made by police researcher Stefan Holgersson, who interviewed 2000 Swedish police officers.
One person who seems to have a decent grasp of what’s happening with Muslim immigration in Sweden and Europe is Christopher Caldwell, who has written several articles about the topic, including one in the New York Times in February 2006 called “ Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State.” Visiting the Stockholm immigrant suburb of Rinkeby, Caldwell asked whether something like the French riots of the fall of 2005, with burning cars and rampaging gangs, could happen in Sweden. “Absolutely,” said one lanky boy near the window. “People burn cars here all the time. Not because they’re angry – because they think it’s fun.”
One person who seems to have a decent grasp of what’s happening with Muslim immigration in Sweden and Europe is Christopher Caldwell, who has written several articles about the topic, including one in the New York Times in February 2006 called “Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State.” Visting the Stockholm immigrant suburb of Rinkeby, Caldwell asked whether something like the French riots of the fall of 2005, with burning cars and rampaging gangs, could happen in Sweden. “Absolutely,” said one lanky boy near the window. “People burn cars here all the time. Not because they’re angry – because they think it’s fun.”
7 Sweden: The Country that Sacrifices its Children, and Celebrates
Sweden is a country that has virtually no public debate about mass immigration, which continues at full speed. The Swedish political and media elites congratulate themselves for their Multicultural goodness. If sacrificing your own children is the definition of good, then exactly what constitutes evil?
[…]
A high school teacher in Malmé¶ discovered that about a dozen Arab students were laughing and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” while watching a DVD of infidel hostages being beheaded in Iraq. The headmaster didn’t think the incident was such a big deal. At least 139 schools in Sweden suffered arson attacks during 2002 alone, a number which by 2007 has grown to at least 230. Such as an incident in Malmé¶, where three schools were put on fire during one night. “Teenage boys” are suspected to behind the arson. Bjé¶rn Vinberg from the fire department in Kroksbé¤ck in the Malmé¶ area says it’s humiliating and degrading to put out fires again and again in the same immigrant areas, with school kids laughing at them and lighting a new one just afterwards. His colleagues have been to the same place no less than twenty times, all totally unnecessary.
From The Local, January 12, 2007: Rival gangs of 10-year-olds in the eastern town of Sé¶derhamn have threatened to wipe each other out. One of the gangs is made up of indigenous Swedes and the other of immigrants, and police in the town are taking the problem very seriously. The conflict has escalated on the Internet, and police fear that there may be fatalities if the fighting is not stopped.
8 “Let Them Eat Kebab” — The New Marie Antoinettes
Jens Orback, Democracy Minister in the previous Social Democratic Swedish government, said during a radio debate that: “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.”
In 2006, a man was attacked and nearly killed for the crime of wearing clothes with his own national flag while Sweden was participating in the World Cup. Sweden, of course, has the same Christian cross in its flag as does England, and apparently, some “Multicultural youths” found this to be an intolerable provocation. The 24-year-old man was run down by a car in the city of Malmé¶. According to the police, he was wearing some clothes with Swedish national symbols on them, and this “provoked some emotions.”
=====
And I think the statement about them not waiting to live in an Iranian-regime misses the point entirely. No one has ever accused the jihad movements of steller foresight… they’re not concerned about implemented direct rule now.
They’re goal is to foster warfare against the native population… the concern about the eventual government is something they will address when the time comes.
This pattern isn’t new. This is how they took over Persia… exactly how they’re taking European capitals today:
“More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lost to the old faith.”
Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism, pp. 7-8;
Vince P: I’ve read the Scandnavian accounts, and bad as they are, they don’t convince me that these Muslim criminals are much attached to fundamentalist Islam. I simply don’t believe fundamentalist Islam will have any more success avoiding secularization than any other of the world’s religions.
I do understand the “takeover” problem. You don’t need to go back to Persia (I’ve heard that history and the Muslim threat straight from the mouth of a living, breathing Zoroastrian); look at what happened to a democratic Christian Lebanon.
The war on terror is one thing and the flood of Muslim emigrees is another, each requiring different responses. Europe has gone postmodern insane, and is reaping the rewards. If the Scandanavians resolve themselves to being a minority group, what can we say/do about it? Does it help (either us or them) if these thugs are or are not dedicated jihadists? If the governments of the Scandanavian countries aren’t willing to (a) enforce their laws against the criminal acts and (b) overhaul their immigration laws, what does the religion matter? They could as well be neo-Nazis or satanic cultists.
We at one time had group immigration quotas, but, like the Scandanavians, became too civilized to discriminate, and too cosmopolitan for nationalist interests. I repeat my earlier observation that it is difficult to convince the civilized that civilization is their weakness.
I simply don’t believe fundamentalist Islam will have any more success avoiding secularization than any other of the world’s religions.
Secularization only occurs when politics are stable, food is on the table, wars don’t threaten to wipe out your family, and productive work can be done. Since fundamentalist Islam exists to maintain chaotic and uncertain situations, Islam will never secularize so long as the fundamental laws of Shariah are followed.
This is different from Christianity in which if the fundamental laws are followed, eventually you will have disagreements and schisms and divisions of secular and clerical power.
If the Scandanavians resolve themselves to being a minority group, what can we say/do about it? Does it help (either us or them) if these thugs are or are not dedicated jihadists?
That’s not the real problem since the Scandanavians, last time I checked, don’t have nukes. France and Britain, do however. And if a majority of people in Britain and France vote to use their nukes on us or give their nuclear technology to our enemies… then where will we be?
This is impossible to win a religious war denying that it is, indeed, a religious war. It is impossible to defend Christian civilization denying that it is, indeed, a Christian civilization, and that its norms, values and rules are rooted in Bible. This self-deception is ruinous.
Sergey: What do you suggest? That the United States declare war upon the Muslim religion? How do you fight such a war? Kill all Muslims? What would you recommend if Rome were sponsoring terrorism? War on Catholicism? So far as I’m concerned, we’re not defending Christian civilization, but all the people of a nation.
Ymarsakar: Shall we invade and take over Europe now, just take away their nukes, or what? And regarding your first point, I suggest secularization results from access to material goods, technology and freedom.
Sergey: What do you suggest? That the United States declare war upon the Muslim religion? How do you fight such a war? Kill all Muslims?
So what is this straw man you constructed? is this your preemptive surrender?
You have been effectively subdued. Nice dhimmi.
Try not to spread it to others. Dhimmitude is death.
What would you recommend if Rome were sponsoring terrorism? War on Catholicism?
Straw man, indeed. Another weird argument about consistency. As if, for example, fighting in Iraq obligates us to fight somewhere else. No, it doesn’t.
For what it’s worth, if I advocated a war on Islam because I thought it was responsible for terrorism, I would not hesitate to advocate a war on Catholicism if I thought it was also responsible for terrorism. It’s not about being fair or consistent – it’s about defending yourself.
And I’m not sure it’s about who started it or who has the most grievances against whom. We have to survive. Being morally pure doesn’t help you if you, or your civilization, are dead.
I’m wondering.. have the Democrats passed the foreign surveillance act yet or is doing intelligence still illegal?
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080046002
Al-Qaida nuclear attack in planning stages
Saturday, April 5, 2008 (New York)
Al-Qaida’s nuclear attack against the US is in planning stages, top American intelligence officials have said.
Deposing before a Congressional Committee on Homeland Security early this week, these US intelligence officials told US lawmakers that the threat of nuclear attack by the Taliban was growing and there is need to enhance its security measures.
Charles Allen, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Chief Intelligence Officer at the Department of Homeland Security; and Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the director of Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for the Department of Energy testified before this key Congressional committee on nuclear terrorism on April 2.
”There’s been a long-term effort by Al-Qaida, to develop an improvised nuclear device,” Allen said. ”I have no doubt that Al-Qaida would like to obtain nuclear capability. I think the evidence in their statements that they’ve made over many years publicly indicate this,” he argued in his testimony.
Giving details of the Al-Qaida preparation, based on years on intelligence inputs, Mowatt-Larssen said: ”An Al-Qaida nuclear attack would be in the planning stages at the same time as several other plots, and only Al-Qaida’s most senior leadership will know which plot will be approved.”
[snip]
Vince P and Bugs: The only thing of straw here is your avoidance of my question, which is a practical one. How do you wage war on religion? You’d wage war on Catholicism? Say, American Catholics? Catholics all over the world? Before you accuse me of surrendering–of which there is no suggestion in anything I’ve said–give me a practical program/solution instead of personal insults and empty words.
Islam is a political-military ideology wrapped up in the trappings of a religion.
The first thing I would do is propose a Constitutional Amendment with an expiration date that authorizes the Government to have near unlimited power to fight against Political and Military Islam within our borders with strong criminal liablity for Cabinet-level officials or higher for any abuse of this power in their departments.
Next, we stop all flows of money and technology to nations whose laws are based on Islam.
Ban all Muslim immigration to the US.
Expel all Muslim non-citizens
Monitor every islamic structure (Mosque , community center)
Then tell the Muslim world that if we get attacked in a significant way by any terrorist group or a State due to religiously motivated reasons , we will nuke every Muslim country’s major ciites.
You do realize we’re in a war right? Either we die or they do. Or they could see the errors of their ways as their lands are cut off from the modern world and call off Jihad.
Of course none of this will ever happen.
We are committing suicide.
Our society’s social contract is essentially based on the Golden Rule. Islam has no such concept as the Golden Rule.. Islam is Submission. Submission is unacceptable in the United States.
Since Islam exists outside the boundaries of our culture we need to realize that are killing us with our own knife. They know our cultural weak points and are taking advantage of them.
We need to turn the tables.
Since Islam exists outside the boundaries of our culture we need to realize that are killing us with our own knife.
I wounder for those who call for hatred and racist where are they? what you call this carp from dirty mouth never stop his crap putting here where the civilized people who like to read and listen to this crap.
If there are sickest people on this planet you are one of them you’re cancerous guy and your sick to the bone.
If you saying you are civilized your not you’re worse than any animal on this planet.
Read this about your Al-Qaeda:
William E. Odom: Iraq Testimony from a Different General
April 10, 2008
Truth: Being a Muslim means your brain agrees with certain ideas. It’s not a race. So knock it off with the racist nonsense.
And then read this and let me know how I’m wrong. You tell me that our society’s weaknesses arent being exploited by Muslims.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf
But really don’t bother. Because I’m right.
The PDF link is to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Project for the Islamization of North America.
English translation starts on page 16.
here is soem of it:
Subject: A project for an explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal
for the Group in North America mentioned in the long-term plan
One: The Memorandum is derived from:
1 – The general strategic goal of the Group in America which was approved by the Shura Council
and the Organizational Conference for the year [I9871 is “Enablement of Islam in North
America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim
Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to
expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents
Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is”.
2- The priority that is approved by the Shura Council for the work of the Group in its current and
former session which is “Settlement”.
3- The positive development with the brothers in the Islamic Circle in an attempt to reach a unity
of merger.
4- The constant need for thinking and future planning, an attempt to read it and working to
“shape” the present to comply and suit the needs and challenges of the future.
5- The paper of his eminence, the General Masul, may God keep him, which he recently sent to
the members of the Council.
Two: An Introduction to the Ex~lanatorvM emorandum:
– In order to begin with the explanation, we must “summon” the following question and place it
in front of our eyes as its relationship is important and necessary with the strategic goal and the
explanation project we are embarking on. The question we are facing is: “How do you like to see
the Islam Movement in North America in ten years?”, or “taking along” the following sentence
when planning and working, “Islamic Work in North America in the year (2000): A Strategic
Vision”.
Also, we must summon and take along “elements” of the general strategic goal of the Group in
North America and I will intentionally repeat them in numbers. They are:
[l- Establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
2- Adopting Muslims’ causes domestically and globally.
3- Expanding the observant Muslim base.
4- Unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts.
Bate #ISE-SW 1B10/0000416
5- Presenting Islam as a civilization alternative
6- Supporting the establishment of the global Islamic State wherever it is].
– It must be stressed that it has become clear and emphatically known that all is in agreement that
we must “settle” or “enable” Islam and its Movement in this part of the world. – Therefore, a joint understanding of the meaning of settlement or enablement must be adopted,
through which and on whose basis we explain the general strategic goal with its six elements for
the Group in North America.
Three: The Concept of Settlement:
This term was mentioned in the Group’s “dictionary” and documents with various meanings in
spite of the fact that everyone meant one thing with it. We believe that the understanding of the
essence is the same and we will attempt here to give the word and its “meanings” a practical
explanation with a practical Movement tone, and not a philosophical linguistic explanation,
while stressing that this explanation of ours is not complete until our explanation of “the process”
of settlement itself is understood which is mentioned in the following paragraph. We briefly say
the following:
Settlement: “That Islam and its Movement become a part of the homeland it lives in”.
Establishment: “That Islam turns into firmly-rooted organizations on whose bases civilization,
structure and testimony are built”.
Stability: “That Islam is stable in the land on which its people move”.
Enablement: “That Islam is enabled within the souls, minds and the lives of the people of the
country in which it moves”.
Rooting: “That Islam is resident and not a passing thing, or rooted “entrenched” in the soil
of the spot where it moves and not a strange plant to it”.
Outlaw political Islam in USA is a good and practical idea; on constitutional grounds, religious organizations are not allowed to participate directly in politics, and political organizations could not be sectant. Even public discussion on this subject would be a big improvement, it can break the spell of politcorrectness which is mental AIDS.
the Muslim Brotherhood’s
For your short memory and stupidity the Muslim Brotherhood’s was product of CIA, go back read where its founded and and who supported from the start.
Don’t just rush and put every rubbish here and trying call this the ISLAM and these are Muslims.
Keep lies for your sick mind raciest hatemonger.
For your short memory and stupidity the Muslim Brotherhood’s was product of CIA, go back read where its founded and who supported from the start.
It doesn’t much matter what vile organization, nation or individual is spoken about but that sooner or later some person or persons will show up on the scene and vehemently declare that they were created by America.
We observe this phenomenon whether the subject is Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, Iran after the Shah, the Ayatollah Khomeini, various fascist individuals or movements, various terrorist organizations, Communists, etc.
All these America-blamers believe all listed above were peacefully existing in a peaceful world – are pictured as picking daisies, counting stars or otherwise engaged in peaceful pursuits – until of course the Great Satan(America) rushes into their lives and throws a spell on them and then they commit great crimes of murder and subjugation.
For a short course in the Muslim Brotherhood click the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
VinceP: Of course I realize we are in a war. I’ve been amply expressive of a blood thirst regarding Muslim terrorists. May I point out what you’ve proposed is hardly a religious war, and not much different from the status quo war on terror.
Lots of luck on defining Islam as a political military organization instead of a religion. Political militant Muslims (i.e., terrorists) we can already prosecute. Illegals may be exported. Stopping Muslim immigration on the basis of the religion is a pipe dream, as you admit.
So, all in all, I guess you agree with me there is no practical way to wage war on a religion. But I’m not so glum as you about being defeated by Islamic fundamentalists. We can certainly make the price too dear for any country, even a theocratic one, to sponsor or abet terrorists(of any stripe). If we are defeated, it will be from within, from the lack will and insane ideology of multi-culturalists who would welcome a foreign takeover.
Lots of luck on defining Islam as a political military organization instead of a religion
I said ideology not organization.
The holy texts of islam concern themselves mostly with matters political and martial. There is very little spirituality. That’s why I characterize Islam the way I do.
Stopping Muslim immigration on the basis of the religion is a pipe dream, as you admit.
The Muslims should pray the day never comes that such a thing occurs.. because the perceptating event would have to be horrible indeed.
So, all in all, I guess you agree with me there is no practical way to wage war on a religion.
My suggestions are utterly practical. Unfortunately unless we strip the political rights of Democrats away, the country will have no will to do anything to seriously defend itself until after its’ too late.
Vince P: Practicality includes political realities. I’m as worried about the looney Democratic leadership as you are, but I see little hope of stripping them of rights. Maybe, if we ever get the right leadership in place, we can make the public understand how crazy they are and vote them out. This election cycle? I doubt it.
Iran will have nuclear weapons within a year if they dont already have them.
We dont have another election cycle.
VinceP and I are in accord: that Islam is a political ideology of imperialistic conquest and Arab supremacism.
Once one reads the founding texts of Islam, the Qur’an and the two most authoritative ahadith, Bukhari and Muslim, and reads about the life and deeds of Muhammad, one cannot but help face this issue squarely on.
Islam is NOT a religion. It is utterly barren of spirituality and humanistic morality. It is mainly a blueprint for war and domination, theft and rapine.
It gets away with being classified as a religion because the majority of our society is conditioned not to do the things you need to do in order to arrive at an accurate assessment of the threat. People generally like to cut corners and not do their homework. For many, in school they were allowed, even in college, to bluff their way through many classes. I know people who rarely did their assignments. On top of that basic sloth, you have the inability to break out of the liberal mantras to think critically about anything. People substitute “feelings” for hard thinking. Lastly, we allow our political, educational, and media elites to get away with their scandalous lack of spade work on Islam. We don’t challenge them enough, and call their bluff when they are bullshitting.
“The Muslim Brothers (Arabic: الإخوان المسلمون al-ikhwÄn al-muslimÅ«n, full title “The Society of the Muslim Brothers”, often simply الإخوان al-ikhwÄn, “the Brotherhood” or “MB”) is an international Sunni Islamist movement and the world’s largest, most influential political Islamist group,[1] particularly in Egypt. Founded by the Sufi schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928, several linked groups have since formed across many nations of the Muslim world.”
This has nothing to do with CIA and everything with Sayyid Qutb.
Sergey: good catch.
It’s amazing isn’t it how self-deluded the Left is.
D-Smith, I said if I believed Islam or Catholicism were responsible for terrorism. Can’t you read?
You are correct that there is no practical, humane way to wage military war against an ideology. I would also not advocate the harsh measures proposed elsewhere in this thread – banning Muslims from the country, etc. It’s a culture war, a propaganda war and yes, even a diplomatic war.
But when American blood is shed in the name of Islam (or Catholicism or any religion) then blood must be the price. Someone must pay. There must be real consequences for attacks on our country – not just mealy-mouth liberal platitudes about “root causes” and “tolerance.” We have to draw the line.
You’re right – we cannot counterattack against “Islam.” But we can counterattack against its radical practitioners and their enablers and supporters. If that means expelling radical preachers from our country, outlawing Muslim “charities” and political organizations, shutting off aid to Muslim theocracies – good. If it means selective airstrikes against countries known to support Islamic terrorists – also good.