Mickey Rat
Members of the Disney family are up in arms (no pun intended) at the use by Palestinian Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV of a Mickey Mouse clone to promote attacks on Israel and America. The clone, called Farfur, speaks in a squeaky voice and wears a tuxedo with tails and a red bow tie. He tells youngsters to drink their milk and pray, but also sings about kids arming themselves with AK-47s and striving for world domination "under Islamic leadership", according to a report by the Telegraph.
I was wondering whether Darfur wouldn't be a better name?
posted by wretchardthecat at 5/08/2007 08:16:00 PM
76 Comments:
Mili Mouse
From LGF
O/T (maybe)
Wikipedia “sucks”
“Charles Johnson has been a rigid supporter of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and helps promote hatred of Muslims for his Jewish masters.”
***
If the notoriously ruthless-on-copyright-violators Disney Corp. doesn't sue the Hamasniks in any venue where they share legal status...like, ohhhhh....FRANCE!!--
Wdn't that indicate that Disney is CONDONING ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM??!!
As sick as the AK-firing and Koran-spouting Mickey was, it was the happy little Jihadi Jugend "Saraa" that made my blood run cold. We can only imagine what they will turn out to be as adults. :- (
Where will it all end? As time passes the advocates of dialog and understanding will find their task ever more thankless. At some tipping point society may go into a "split level" mode, where Islam is still officially regarded as the "religion of peace" but regarded in private as anathema; where the conversation resumes only after the last Muslim has left the room.
Once this kind of attitude gets established things will become very dangerous indeed. It will create a vortex of animosity that will pull in everything after it. I'm not sure that either the West or the Islamic world has statesmen gutsy enough to act decisively and quickly enough to keep things from falling into a Black Hole.
The first step, I think, is to recognize the problem. Right now a large part of the electorate in both Europe and America is wedded to the fiction that the current world crisis is all imagined. Why my parish priest just last Sunday advanced the theory that suicide bombing and sending Australian soldiers to Iraq were morally equivalent. We don't even see the problem and the problem exists on many levels.
It's a train wreck.
The problem now is that Bush's perhaps tactical, perhaps sincere coddling of "ROP" Islam since 2001 is now an obstacle to drying up the swamp. It was probably neccesary in 2001-2003 to open up the bases, overflights, etc., in the West Asia region, but that is now obsolete.
Recall it only took a few years of an IDEOLOGICAL president to inflict fatal doctrinal damage to communism...When we find our ideological voice against jihadism, and connect to the dissidents within Islam, the correlation of forces of the conflict will change dramatically in our favor.
In my neck of the woods, we are in that split level situation already.
Jihad mouse. That's globalization in a nutshell, isn't it?
Without disagreeing with the point that this video is stunningly evil and repulsive, it also strikes me as remarkably inept and boring. Is a tuxedoed mouse really the most potent spokesman they could think of to incite bloodlust?
It'd be nice to think that the real children who this drivel is aimed at ignore it, but that, sadly, is probably not the case.
wretchard,
re: Why my parish priest just last Sunday advanced the theory that suicide bombing and sending Australian soldiers to Iraq were morally equivalent.
Upon reading that, a horrific verse came to mind.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge..."
___Hosea 4:6 (in part)
JPS Tanakh
If consulation can be found, some rabbis make the same equation. Hamas, obviously, just eats that up.
Where will it all end?
Wretchard,I know your question is a rhetorical one for none of us are given to see the future. But we enjoy illuminating our intellectual prowess by formulating the answer. You know the one. It shines with such brilliance that our peers are momentarily agape, only to recover after catching a glipse of their high school National Honor Society plaque and their MBA. Then they pounce, clawing back to the top of the internet blog pyramid. Great fun and great folly. It almost recalls Joseph Cotton's character in Citizen Kane, Jedediah Leland, who when asked what he was going to be replied, "I think I'll be a Yachtsman.
Of course that line is an anchronistic today as is Islam, religion of peace is. As for an ending, In this age of instant communication the Mussulmen have been much more adept at spreading their ideoloogy of death preferable to life than Occidentals have in even occupying themselves with their retirement plans.
Those of us who are fully aware realize that the precipice is immediately before us. Islam will have the bomb within a year or two and therein will trigger the ultimatum, Islam or annihilation. Islam may indeed get its wish for the total destruction of Israel but their own "civilizations" will never recover the retaliation.
There is no innocents of Rosebud and
there is no talking our way out of this one.
Well said, habu, and glad to see you looking your old self.
I don't check in with my religious group much any longer as they are involved in This Type Non-Sense. Kind of ticks me off too as I am at the age I could use some spiritual solace, and not attend a political convention on a sunday.
Habu,
The obvious answer is for the West to strike mercilessly at the Islamic world. However, I am equally certain that that course of action will alter the world in ways that we will eternally regret, leaving all moral considerations aside for the moment.
The problem with a real world crisis is that it is always bigger, always more far-reaching than the statesmen of the day think it is. Nobody in August, 1914 knew just where the road would lead them. That's people fundamentally assume a continuity. Just yesterday I was looking at a site which featured postcards from the year 1900 predicting the world in 2000. And they all wound up looking like scenes out the 19th century. What is so striking about those retro science fiction imaginings is their inability to fully visualize the truly unknown. Our scenarios are really based on the present. The real future is not only difficult to imagine, it may be fundamentally impossible to imagine.
You can at once that this must be true because in world history we are dealign with a complex, chaotic system. The changes we make will have bigger consequences than we know.
The only chance of managing a chaotic system is to design our reaction systems to cope with rapid change. Right now our political and intellectual institutions are too sluggish to react in time. They are too slow to even understand what is happening to them. Like a dinosaur with a walnut brain whose sensory input is ovreloaded things can happen much too fast.
I truly don't know where it will end. But I am convinced that we must learn to adapat very quickly to a century whose challenges will only accelerate.
When will it all end?
It will end when a viable alternative to oil is discovered.
When this might happen is anyone's guess, since many in the industry are not exactly anxious to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs any time soon---even if that same goose is also inexorably funding the enemies of civilization. (Sauce for....?)
In the meantime, the longer the global conflict of attrition continues, the more clear it will be to the oil industry that the Jew-Zionists (and their lobbyists and supporters---dupes?) are threatening the oil industry's legitimate (of course) "pursuit of happiness"---but then, we've been there before, if in a slightly different context, with slightly different actors....
Ain't easy being a president from (e.g.,) Texas....
Barry Meislin
Palestinian TV has been showing murder and martyr cartoons for years and years. Probably since the first day there was Palestinian TV. Add the delusional text books, mosque sermons, newspapers, and glorification of murder art to a society that has no civil institutions and you end up with the Palestinians. So far as I know the only nonindustrial society in history whose only cash crop is their children.
What's the best way to handle this situation? Provide free housing, send billions to dysfunctional leaders, and award a Nobel Peace Prize to the Chief Slime. That'll solve the problem.
All the symbolism for the postmodern world you will ever need is neatly contained in the Gaza Strip.
Wretchard, you comment at 5/8/7, 11:57:00 "Habu, the obvious answer is for the West to strike mercilessly at the Islamic world." Are you saying that the West must strike at the entire Islamic world? I might be thinking with walnuts, are there no
redeemable Islamic countries? Indonesia? Thank you, this is just a question from a "Joe Blow".
Wretchard: "I truly don't know where it will end."
Corollary to the Three Cities Axiom: "Once three American cities have been lost, all discussion will be ended."
bobalharb,
re: I am at the age I could use some spiritual solace
Having recently sweated through two weeks awaiting the results of a biopsy, that was a recurring thought.
pay no attention, go on about your business
5/09/2007 at msnbc
From inside South America’s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S.
5/02/2007 08:48:00 PM at BC
i should clarify my perspective darren duvall, i am not stating citizens of the area are suffering from Islamic terrorism but that the area is a nexus for planning and coordination of Islamic extremism if you will...a hub of activity.
Foz do Iguacu
Ciudad Del Este
Puerto Iguacu
Visitors to the area -
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Ramzi binal-Shibh
Khalil bin Laden
In 2003, Vega, the leading Brazilian weekly newspaper published photos of Osama bin Laden that they reported was during his visit to Foz do Iguacu.
See:
There are no Terrorists here - Peter Hudson - Newsweek, 2001
Terrorist and Organized Crime groups in the Tri border Area of South America - Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
Terrorist Threat in the Tri-border Area - Military Review - Sept-oct 2004
Middle Esat Terror Activity in Latin America - Mark Steinitz -2003
Paraguay's Ciudad del Este and the New Centers of Gravity - Military News - March-April 2002
Terrorist Suspicions Persist at Border Town in Brazil - LA Times - Dec 26, 2004
There are many more examples if you are interested
wake up
From Today's msnbc article -
Operating out of the Tri-border, Hezbollah is accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks in nearby Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the early 1990s in operations personally masterminded by Hezbollah’s military commander,...Imad Mugniyah.
Mugniyah is on the most-wanted terrorist lists of both the FBI and the European Union, and he is believed to work frequently out of Ciudad del Este.
2/18/2007 11:44:00 PM here at The Belmont Club
...until such a nadir is reached that some catastrophe creates a consensus. Something far larger and wide-reaching than 9/11"...
and this is a worrisome possibility when considering a possible nexus between al-Queda, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Imad Fayez Mugniyah has been alternately described as the founder or senior intelligence officer of Hezbollah. He planned the U.S. marine base bombing that killed 241 U.S. troops,the hijacking of TWA 847, the attacks on the Khobar Towers, and bombings in Argentina. His involvement is also believed in the 1999 hijacking of an Aie India aircraft, which was taken over by Islamists armed with knives and scissors (antecedent to the 9/11 hijacker tactics?)
...In 1992 Rabin ordered the deportation of 415 Hamas members (Sunni) to Southern Lebanon. HAMAS were granted shelter and protection of the Shiite Hezbollah in accordance with Muslim code of milmastia (hospitality). Witness their relationship today.
This cooperation between Shiite and Sunni terrorists in Lebanon and Israel is evidence that Muslims can set aside their differences and unite in a struggle against a common enemy.
Mugniyah and bin Laden may have met in 1995 at the headquarters of Ali Numeini, in Khartoum. In October 2000, Ali Abdelsoud Mohamed testified that he provided security for bin Laden at the meeting. There is speculation the two also met in 1996 in Tehran at a meeting of senior terror commanders.
There are also reported meetings in ...Ciudad Del Este, news of the visit first reported by CNN. Of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's visit to South America there remains no doubt. During interrogation after his capture, Mohammed admitted that Bin Laden wanted to create a "nuclear hell storm" in the U.S.
On August 23, 1996, bin Laden issued "Declaration of War on the Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Holy Places" in which he called upon all Islam-the righteous Sunni and unrighteous Shiites-to take part in the great struggle against the United States and Israel.
In 2004 CIA Director George Tenet was reported to have testified to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that Hezbollah has cultivated an extensive network of operatives on American soil and has "an ongoing capability to launch terrorist attacks within the United States."
Mehr, Iran, January 20, 2007
Iranian Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezai warned the U.S. of the serious consequences it could expect if it attacked Iran: "The Iranian people will deal... America 10 slaps in the face, so that it will never be able to again show a presence [in the region]....
In a February 6, 2007 interview, Iranian Defense Minister Mustafa Najar told Al-Jazeera TV: "There is no doubt that any threat against Iran will meet with the most deterring and destructive aggressive force, and its reaction will be such that it will cause the invaders to forever regret their action... We say to America that if it ignites the fire of war, it will doubtless engulf the White House more than it burns others"
They should have used Bert...
elijah
Maybe you know it. Maybe you don't. "wake up" was a propaganda phrase often used by none other than Herr Goebbels. It doesn't leave a positive impression.
Allen,
Re: nervous of biopsy results..
Wishing for the best for you and yours.
computer test
For those of you that don't want to know Lillian Bounds Disney was born near here on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.
Take care, Allen.
wretchard,
The problem with a real world crisis is that it is always bigger, always more far-reaching than the statesmen of the day think it is
Edmund Burke (1727-1797) wrote that it was each generations responsibility to handle the problems thay were presented with.
This is manifestly true. No generation can undo the past as well as posit infallible solutions for the future. So it is left to each generation to do what it can at the time at hand.
Islam has been a warring ideology since it's inception. That ancient ideology is now coupled with a science capable of great cataclysims.
It is no longer a question of do we stop it before mass proliferation of nuclear force but when. This year or next?
Ouestmaman quieries whether there is a good Islam to save. This seems a bit like asking a doctor which is the best part of the tumor to save, only to have it grow back and consume once again the host.
So we deal with Islam today,ferociously and without mercy. The aftermath, as unknowable as any natural cataclysmic aftermath might be we will have to deal with the best we can.
What we cannot, and must not do is allow the millions and millions who have gone before to secure the rights of man, to have done so only to see dhimmitude or death as their reward and our life.
mat & bobalharb,
Thanks.
A nice Jewish oral surgeon at Emory tells me I will live forever ;-).
Although I fear death as much as any man, the real discomfort of waiting two weeks came from self-judgment, in evaluating my existence: had my life made a difference or would those sitting shiva do so as for one stillborn. The thought is sobering.
allen,
I was unaware that you were in peril from an untimely affliction. I take it things have worked out in your favor. I am sincerely your time has not come. Live man live!
Habu
ouestmaman,
Indonesia? Central Asia? Why logically yes. And that's one of the reasons why an all-out war on Islam will be so problematic. It's easy enough to talk about "warring on a killer" ideology, but when you come right down to it the question morphs into "does that include my friend Ali the kebab man down the street?"
Therefore I have long resisted the idea of warring on Islam per se despite the obvious fact that there are elements inside the Islamic world that are leading large parts of it on, the way Bolshevism led Russia or Nazism led the Germans, because at no point in history did Bolshevism command the majority sympathy of the Soviet Union's inhabitants.
Yet I am not oblivious to the fact that some act of mass terrorism such as a nuclear explosion could very well create an "us versus them" dynamic, which as I said, will have incalculable consequences.
allen
Sobering indeed. One wonders if others not so imbued with 5,000 years of Tradition would reflect on such things. Over the last few years I have developed a deep admiration of Judaism and its contribution to Western thought.
The objective is to advance our interests at the lowest possible cost. This is easiest done when there's a real authentic structure of accountability with which to interact. Allowing the Ottoman/Islamic Empire, and the mini Empires contained within, to naturally fragment into their representative ethnic/national groups, will enhance structural accountability. It will also allow the many subjugated peoples in these contrived political entities of WWI, a chance to revive their ancient national/ethnic identity, free of the Arab/Islamic cultural garb they are now forced to wear. With the transformation towards ethnic/national accountability complete, there will be little confusion as to which address we should dispatch diplomats, or dumb bombs, to solve any outstanding issues with "incompetent" and "unaccountable" goverments.
Dancing Shiva at CERN One thing about a good icon is, you don't really need to listen to a sermon.
Now I know what sitting shiva is as well.
If you watch the lastest Talking Heads video show from Iraq the alternative to warring on Islam as a whole emerges. It is joining and helping the "good guys" within that world. Which is exactly what the some guys in Iraq are doing.
But as the interviewer, Eli Lake from the NY Sun would be the first to say, that strategy amounts to a commitment of years. It's a solution at the most basic of levels, almost like sequencing the human genome is to the cure of disease. Now the entire project of "bringing democracy to the middle east" has gotten such bad press that it is almost discredited in popular culture. But perhaps the basic way is the only way. And once there is consensus that there are no shortcuts a kind of patience returns. Nobody blinks an eye when we say it will take decades to find a cure for a certain kind of cancer. We just accept it as the unhappy fact.
At the risk of inviting ridicule, I'd like to say that the longer I think about it, the less I believe going into Iraq was a strategic mistake. There's a possibility that future historians will actually regard it as an act of unparalleled accidental brilliance; because if it ever turns out to be a good move it will have happened mostly by accident. But nevertheless I think that engaging Islamic terrorism and terrorism of all sorts up close and personal has generated so much information and deepened our understanding to such a degree that I can't imagine going back to a situation where all we have to go on are some intelligence reports and think-tank articles. That may have been paradise, but it was a fool's paradise; an information-poor paradise. We may doing a whole lot better than we realize. But continued success or even learning is not a given. "Some damned fool thing" can always unleash atavistic hatreds, as the Golden Mosque attack did in Samarra, but this time on a global scale. That al-Qaeda in Iraq felt generating hatred was to its advantage I've always found particularly interesting. And typically what the enemy wants, I don't want, as a reflexive matter.
Good comment, Wretch.
wretchard,
Were the hourglass just turned and it's full measure allowed to cascade through the tiny aperture with decades, not years to measure then I would say that perhaps the ideology of Islam could be altered enough to accept modernity. I do not think that is ever going to happen.
Within a very few years Islam will have nuclear bombs atop rockets aimed at Israel. Israel is not going to allow that. We are not going to allow that. That is the realpolitik and it is upon us now.
Aristotle pointed out that no matter how many times one threw a stone into the sky it would always come back. His claim that you could not alter earthly dynamics by attempting to habituate that which cannot be habituated was true then, and the ideology of Islam's warring tribal culture is that of the stone's Earthly return. It has not altered it's path since inception. It's tools of war are now only more menacing to all of mankind, be it from a few or from the supporting culture that allows it to flourish.
Again and again, whether it is Richard Miniter's brilliant interview with EOD techs in Iraq or the Talking Heads video I referred to in my comment above, or in anything at all, it is striking how much money the enemy is pouring into this fight. They kidnap the families of Iraqi lieutenants, then offer them bribes just to make them produce a propaganda video against the US. They are working at a granularity which is absolutely amazing. But of course, that's how terrorism works. What is amazing is that the Coalition, at least in parts, is also working at that level of detail. Whichever side of the ideological divide one is on, no thinking person can believe that the terrorist war is spontaneously happening. It isn't. We are not witnessing entropy at work, a system reverting to its natural state, we are watching disciplined military order being ranged against us. That requires lots of energy in the form of money and human effort to create that organization. Those exquisite enemy structures, if one remembers basic high school physics, cannot come into existence at random. To understand, to truly understand that we are facing a conscious thinking enemy, rather than amorphous group of "freedom fighters" spontaneously created by existence of the American way of life is the single most important piece of enlighmentment on can achieve.
Now the Western way of war has been to fight at a far higher level of abstraction than terrorism, which is structured at such a level of cellular complexity that it looks almost greebled. But we are adapting. And the way forward is not simply to fight the literal "Four Block War" -- which we will never have enough men to do -- but to learn to become viral ourselves so that we can teach our disciples to fight the "Four Block War" for themselves.
The tyrannical elements in the Islamic world are in the end, man-made; and consequently can be man-defeated at least in principel. Right now this tyranny is fighting for its life against the tide of history, the advance of knowledge and the rest of humanity. That tyranny is a very powerful force; and elements of it have lived longer than a thousand years. It is a meme very near to immortal, but it is not quite. But consider Habu, how is Israel to exist unless that tyranny is met and met on its ground? Forget Israel. Consider how America and the rest of the world is to live unless we find a way forward. If this cup could pass away, then let it pass away. Most people have more entertaining things to do than deal with this mess. But I don't think this challenge is optional. Unfortunately.
What I dont get, is why is Disney angry about this? The emotion of anger implies shock, outrage, surprise, dissapointment, even resentment perhaps. Have they not understood what is happening? ...so clueless as to think groups capable of machine-gunning families in their cars and blowing children to bits, rocketing cities indiscriminately daily, and training their children to fanatical and suicidal violence are finally to be reviled for getting a mascot?
I think I see the problem here. Had it been Bugs Bunny or Barney, Disney would be okay with the cultivation of human butchers.
wretchard wrote:
"I'd like to say that the longer I think about it, the less I believe going into Iraq was a strategic mistake. There's a possibility that future historians will actually regard it as an act of unparalleled accidental brilliance; because if it ever turns out to be a good move it will have happened mostly by accident. But nevertheless I think that engaging Islamic terrorism and terrorism of all sorts up close and personal has generated so much information and deepened our understanding to such a degree that"
That meme you just articulated is basically what you've always said since the first day that I started reading your blog - basically the Iraq adventure is good and we are learning all about terrorism. It seems the only thing that changed is that you no longer think we are at the 'tipping point', that we are not 'turning the corner' and headed for victory, but somehow, even when losing, you believe it is a good thing to be hip deep in blood and sand in Iraq. Is it safe to say, in your view, that 'it is better to engage in war then not, even if you lose?
Barry Meislin said...
When will it all end?
It will end when a viable alternative to oil is discovered.
It's a silly thought, given the many, many uses of oil and it being cheaper than alternative energy sources. And still by far the best source of petrochemical stocks for thousands of other products made with it in the form of plastics, synthetic rubber, paint base, clothing, fertilizer, lubricants.
The oil of the ME will always be worth a lot, so too the 40% of natural gas reserves located there.
Any "dreams" of driving the Muslim nations to bankruptcy with oil and gas no one wants or puts a value on as a global commodity that can be shipped anywhere - is just engaging in delusional fantasy because they are ignorant of economics.
Just as dumb is the idea that by "banning" Saudi Oil here and using Nigerian oil instead,it has any impact at all on the Saudis. All the Saudis do is replace the NIgerian oil diverted to the US from a country like China, and sell their oil to the Chinese for the same dollar cost.
You could try to convince the rest of the world to embargo all Sadi Oil, gas, and petrochemicals - and wish for better luck than other dumb US embargos had when we were 50% of the global economy instead of the 23% and shrinking share we are now. Good luck!
We eliminated gold as backing currencies long ago, yet gold still has value. More than it used to, in fact. As fiscal reserve if not actual currency basis... As jewelry, as critical to electrical components, as a hedge on inflation, in high tech glassware for tinting, as art, and a dozen other uses...
Oil is called black gold for good reason. And just as gold will always be sought after and purchased, same with oil. Gold from anywhere. Oil from anywhere.
Wretchard,
Great comments. Thank you.
But what is greebled (?) as in
structured at such a level of cellular complexity that it looks almost greebled...
;-)
Jamie Irons
Oh, and Allen, I'm very glad you got past that biopsy scare. I'm at that age as well.
Well peterboston, if my information is propaganda your reference to Goebbels is apt, although i tend not to let others influence word choice. i view this medium as a conduit for information exchange, not a forum to leave a positive impression or coddle others.
1) "When the war started," writes Thomas Friedman,"Hizbullah's fighters were sitting right on the border with Israel, operating freely. This was a real threat to Israel. As a result of the war, Hizbullah was pushed off the border by Israel and, in its place, the UN inserted a new peacekeeping force of some 10,000 troops, including a big European contingent, led by France and Italy (NATO members).
What is the current situation off Lebanon's coast?
2)Pakistani Official Asserts Iran's Nuclear Program is 'Military'
This part was particularly interesting - Iran remains "an important customer for the international nuclear black market."
...It seems that many individuals in several threads related to Iran assume that they do not possess WMDs. This could very well be an incorrect assumption.
- Sat Mar 24, 09:40:00 PM EDT at EB
Mətušélaḥ said...
Elijah,
Iran doesn't have a working atomic weapon. Not unless they got one from the Pakis. Which is doubtful.
Sat Mar 24, 10:01:00 PM EDT at EB
I believe the way out is to confront Islam everywhere. Yes, I said Islam. By everything from conversation with Muslims in areas they are able and willing to engage, and by force of arms whenever combative Islamic groups stick their heads up long enough to blow them off.
If reports be accurate, the UK decision to eliminate the Holocaust and other potentially "offensive" facts from history books is an appalling choice. Isn't the right choice to confront British Muslims about the consequences of a belief system that readily denies reality? Canadian authorities talk about bifurcating their judicial system to allow Sharia courts in certain areas of civil law - a decision that would torpedo Canada's own legal traditions on women's rights.
I think the reason so many find the GWOT frustrating to futile is because maybe half our fellow citizens are either agnostic to the outcome or openly work for the enemy when it suits their own political goals. Maybe we could find some comparisons in Civll War days but at no time since has the leadership of the Democrat party worked so diligently to cause harm to US interests.
I am not an alarmist but I am familiar enough with history to recognize that things do not always work out for the best, and certainly never by themselves. We are not all going to become apostles of Western Civ but good men have to do a little more. Even if it's just passing on a relevant book to another reader.
Barry Meislin said...
When will it all end?
It will end when a viable alternative to oil is discovered.
Not to pile on but oil played no part in the greater eras of Islamic killing and conquest over non-believers.
It may end, someday, but it will take more tha any of us can see at the present to do so.
It can be contained in our time but it is going to require a great deal more killing.
re: There's a possibility that future historians will actually regard it as an act of unparalleled accidental brilliance; because if it ever turns out to be a good move it will have happened mostly by accident.
Something like how the West was won.
"Greebling" is a term in computer animation which means adding recursive detail to the surface of polygon so that it looks incredibly compex, like the surface of the Death Star. It is a visual simulation of an organic effect.
In this case, modern terrorism -- and the Arab/Islamic religious engine in general -- is capable of generating self-directed, almost cellular groups which can create structures of amazing complexity. This engine, which we sometimes call "radical Islam" is actually, I think, a compound of Arab culture, Third World chaos, crime, oil money and certain Islamic doctrines themselves, which by interaction create a kind of emergent phenomenon we call terrorism. It does not correspond to what we know as "nations" or "organizations", though it may include national structures and works through regular organizations. To understand it is almost to try and understand a pathogen. It has instructions, metabolic paths, it has a locus, it can metastize, etc.
This is the enemy. It exists, as I argue in my earlier comment. But it does not have a simple name. Even things which we may not suspect may unconsciously be part of its life-cycle. Because it has no national existence we can't run away from it easily. Withdrawing from Iraq won't help. Look, they're attacking into Kurdistan, where Andrew Sullivan wanted to withdraw. They've attacked in Fort Dix. Those Fort Dix attackers were idiots, but with a little more funding, a little more training, there's no reason why Jihadi cells can block America's highways with IEDs or deploy VBIEDs. It's all a matter of logistics and focus. And anyone who thinks the logistics have been wholly interrupted by Homeland Security is probably several degrees too optimistic.
During the Battle of the Atlantic, the British Admiralty made a curious discovery. The convoy by becoming the locus of an attack was actually the premier engine for offensively attacking the U-Boats. I don't think the war in Iraq proves the enemy has endless resources. He is expending energy which can be empirically measured in terms of man-hours to generate a suicide bomber, to armor a VBIED truck, to bribe people, kidnap Iraqis, etc. That energy is therefore unavailable for use in attacking Fort Dix. Once that energy is no longer used in Iraq, it will be used elsewhere. But Iraq also show how fungible those forces are. It can be moved around really quickly. Away from Anbar to Diyala. From one Baghdad neighborhood to the other. Even to Kurdistan. So the trick is to get into this cellular organism and find ways to destroy it.
What we have not learned to do is interrupt its genetic code. A lot of that is encrypted in radical Islamic/Arab ideology. And if by destroying radical Islam we mean that, then certainly we must discredit or destroy those doctrines. How exactly? Well let me think about it.
One of the first things you do if there is a virus around is cleanse your living quarters.
You don't give a green card or a visa to a virus.
Yet I am not oblivious to the fact that some act of mass terrorism such as a nuclear explosion could very well create an "us versus them" dynamic, which as I said, will have incalculable consequences.
Wretchard: In light of your admission, is not it proper to endeavor to learn how high has the influence of nihilism seeped?
It seems to me that the biggest difference between the end of the Ninetieth Century and the beginning of the Twenty-first is this beyond-Luddism has had so much time to build its case: humans as a virus on the planet simply being the latest self-loathing humbug. It could be dismissed as the ravings of lunatics were it not for the respected institutional funding and accolades showered upon its leading adherents.
Clearly none of the imperialists and other power wielders of the 20th Century, Bomb in hand, were hell-bent upon using it, healthily due to MAD.
This century, we have the mad boastfully seeking out MAD while those who could stop them fiddle.
I will not hold it against you should answers begin to sound Nietzschean, Wretchard, but what is effing wrong with these people?
REPORT: HALF OF FORT DIX TERROR SUSPECTS MAY HAVE BEEN SMUGGLED INTO U.S...
Hewitt talks to Isikoff for 15 minutes.
The entire time was spent steering him back to reality from his see no evil WOT conclusions based on his desire to see no evil.
Headline above misleading in his opinion since Ringleader may have been a native! (Jordanian)
On and on, but of course immigration is NOT an issue here!
Isikoff: Unraveling a Terrorist Cell
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Newsweek Retracts Koran-Desecration Story -2005
Whitaker said that writers Michael Isikoff (search) and John Barry (search) had shown their story to two Defense Department officials but that neither commented on the alleged Koran incident. Whitman implied on Monday that no Defense officials were contacted prior to publication.
Whitaker, however, did not say that the allegations in the story were wrong, but that the Newsweek reporters' source could not pinpoint where the source obtained his or her information. He also implied that the story had no causal effect on the recent riots in Afghanistan, in which 16 people have died and dozens have been injured.
When will we never learn.
...apologies to commies Pete Paul and Mary.
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"A federal law enforcement source confirmed to FOX News that the three — Dritan "Anthony" or "Tony" Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir "Elvis" Duka, 23 — also accumulated 19 traffic citations, but because they operated in "sanctuary cites," where law enforcement does not routinely report illegal immigrants to homeland security, none of the tickets raised red flags.
The brothers entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas,"
"When will we never learn"
GWB and all the rest of the open borders globalists will feel NO guilt, of course, when a city is taken out via this route.
Joe Smith, who lives on the same block, is being held on 2 million dollars bail for having the name "Joe Smith,"
which alleged mastermind taxi driver Mohammed Shnewer found offensive, when Joe called taxi driver Mohammed Shnewer for a ride for his 80 year old mother, Dorothy Smith.
Dorothy Smith is now missing.
peterboston,
re: tradition
Several evenings ago, I went to a barbeque at a friend’s home. He is retired military and many of his quests were either retired or active duty military. As you can well imagine, the war was on everyone’s mind. During the course of conversation, a retired Chief asked,
“Since you (Jews) and the Muslims worship one god, why the animosity?”
In responding, I drew attention to a salient detail, generally overlooked: two people worshipping one god is not the same thing as two people worshipping the same god.
A day ago, or so, I saw a young, burka clad woman interviewed by the BBC. She proclaimed her pride in the burka, a sign of her devotion to Islam. Furthermore, she informed the reporter that the opinions of non-Muslims concerned her little, because this life is a test – an ordeal to be endured until death released her from sin into paradise.
It is my understanding of Jewish tradition that this life is an ongoing sacrament, and G-d’s gifts are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. It was the G-d of the Hebrews who exclaimed in delight that His creation was not merely good, but “very” good. Moreover, this G-d is infinitely and ever creating: look to the heavens, all around the universe is birthing. It is our purpose to emulate our Creator in this life, the only one in which we can be certain of exercising that profoundly divine attribute of creative freedom.
“The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a herenow. This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the threads of temporality into the fabric of eternity.”
___Rabbi Abraham Heschel
So, the young Muslim woman rejects the present in order to earn the future, while this Jew embraces the present as the future. That which informs us is not at all the same.
bobalharb,
Do NOT try saying "sitting shiva" five times fast!
Doug said...
Joe Smith, who lives on the same block, is being held on 2 million dollars bail for having the name "Joe Smith,"
which alleged mastermind taxi driver Mohammed Shnewer found offensive, when Joe called taxi driver Mohammed Shnewer for a ride for his 80 year old mother, Dorothy Smith.
Dorothy Smith is now missing.
Doug, sorry, but if that was sacrasm, it was nonsensical, sarcastic drivel....A fake story that is somehow supposed to - what???
“is capable of generating self-directed, almost cellular groups which can create structures of amazing complexity”
It is the granularity, or the “entrepreneurial” spirit that is fostered by radical Islam. In contrast, Americans have been asked to stay out of the fray, pay taxes, buy more stuff from Walmart, pay tax on top of tax upon high gas prices. The forces of big government have united to take the fight away from the average citizen. Must we wait for the government to fail us before we can be engaged in the fight for our very own existence?
"The forces of big government have united to take the fight away from the average citizen. Must we wait for the government to fail us before we can be engaged in the fight for our very own existence?"
sound familiar
...it's the typical Western mindset, coddled into believing that all of their protection, all their needs can be met by the state. This has made the west particularly vulnerable to actors who operate within the targets population and attack the weak underbelly of society.
The police, the FBI, the Army will never be able to respond to terrorist planning and events in time to do something other than sift through the wreckage. It’s a battle that will have to be won by civilian citizens (the wisdom of the 2nd amendment). Until that mindset becomes prevalent, we’re all going to have to take our lumps as they come.
Or...be lied to in order to provide a false sense of security.
Patience am, patience
iielijah
It’s a battle that will have to be won by civilian citizens (the wisdom of the 2nd amendment). Until that mindset becomes prevalent, we’re all going to have to take our lumps as they come.
True words dude. God bless the police but they're way outnumbered and filling out the require paperwork isn't drilling the perp in the act of assault and battery.
That's where that thar 2nd A-mend-ment comes in mighty handy.
Now me, I'm a peaceable fella. But I got me an arsenal and iff'n thangs git outta hand too darn bad then I'm do'in me some Mosque visiting...you know to protect'em and all..say do you think a thousand rounds of ammo is enough for my AKM-47,'nother 1k fur da M-16, 6.8mm, and juss another ik four the m-14? Plus I dun alraedy whipped up a batch of napalm, 'bout fifty bottles worth.
Work'in on the razor wire installation this weekend.
We the people want to protect our borders. What politician dare state that “the problem is unmanageable”? Where is the electorate declaring, in the words of Donald Trump, “You’re fired”? As I stated before, we as an American electorate are so evenly divided against ourselves that the Pols see no advantage in currying favor of the one constituency with the odds of losing as many fence sitters to the other constituency. They need but trundle on, upsetting the least they can and gain advantage from one statistical outlier to the other. They are beholden to special interests because they believe the problems of nominal interest intractable.
We (almost) all agree that the folks doing the job in Iraq are 'progressing.' If that is the case, who is their most effective enemy? Hint: They work in the Capitol.
BTW, why are we, or anybody, shocked about the use of an icon? The whole purpose of the Jihad is to destroy the icons and culture using the icons of the culture. Send in a bomber with a jdam to blow up the television studio that films it. That should be sufficient legal response.
lawsockWretchard said: If this cup could pass away, then let it pass away. Most people have more entertaining things to do than deal with this mess. But I don't think this challenge is optional. Unfortunately.
Among many great comments you put your finger on the most important point: for all its virulence, for all its savage staying power, the jihad threat is just such a big zero. It is a death/nihilism cult with nothing at its center. Life is made for the living and a suicide cult can only take the living into a bottomless well of eternal nothingness.
Last week I went to one of my kid's jr high track meet . You've got boys and girls participating in healthy competition and the sheer young joy of pushing yourself towards excellence. This is just one aspect of our world that the jihadis want to obliterate. This spring, all over America there are kids in scouts, chess club, basketball, baseball, science club, band. Part of the West's problem facing the mad jihadis is that our world is so full of stuff - things to do, to learn, to see and study. Our handicap is to halt the outward thrust of our curiosity and passion for the world; to stop, to have to contemplate the basest kind of a hideous nihilism.
mike h.
hot damn jdam ...
Muslim Mouse
Who's the leader with the club
that teaches you and me
M U S L I M MOUSE
muslim mouse, muslim mouse,
forever let him hold dan p's head on high
Come along and kill a throng of Jews or monkey dogs.
M U S L I M MOUSE
muslim mouse, muslim mouse,
forever let us blow ourselves apart.
But now it's time to say good-bye to all our worldly sin Allah hey,Allah hey, soon it's another day !!!
nnciodbxDas,
Let 'em nuke us,gas us or bio us and your nihilism theory will turn into realistic action very quickly.
They may possess a nihilistic phiosophy to you but it predates that philosophy by over a thousand years.
They want Islam to prosper in every soul, they just refuse to give you a choice (argue dhimmitude here).
They want to dominate and IF that takes annilhilation of a relgion to them , so be it.
Nihilistic, I don't think so.
Das,
I thought the NEA Komsymps up there had already eliminated competition as part of their drive to put the Marxist agenda in place in our schools.
What's the holdup?
"iff'n thangs git outta hand"
"Let 'em nuke us,gas us or bio us"
Where do you come up with such thoughts?
Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge 07-Exercise tests responses to hurricane, nuke and terrorists
The governors have authority over their own National Guard troops during state disasters, but the U.S. military takes command if the Guard is federalized by the president, such as in major crises such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The governors cannot command regular, active-duty forces.
To wake you up, C4!
There's a war to fight, can't have you nappin out on us.
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What is it about nonsense that's wrong?
Seems to be PC Govt Policy most of the time these days.
How can a compassionate conservative administration be wrong?
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btw,
The Refugee camp in Ft Dix was supposed to be named "The Village" to honor Ms Clinton's ideals, and those of Pres Bubba, for bringing TWENTY THOUSAND of them, in, w/o background checks, until "later!"
Thanks all!
If anyone wants to help out the unfairly incarcerated Ft Dix Six,
Here's some appropriate gifts you might consider: - Midamarhalal.com
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At least until the detention facility gets it's Halal Kitchen and Snack Bars up to speed.
From Filthy Semi Halal Rat Trap to Tony Sopranos Pizza!
""He was high strung, always arrogant and narcissistic about himself. He was stocky and muscular and * always wore a wife-beater T-shirt.* He was always flexing his muscles."
NY Post
The Dukas, who are ethnic Albanians, moved to the United States more than a decade ago and once owned a pizzeria in Turnersville, about 35 miles from Fort Dix. They sold it in 2005 to Tony Giordano, who now operates it as Tony Sopranos Pizza.
Giordano called the pizzeria a "filthy rat trap" before he remodeled it. "
Doug, yeah, the ridiculous Seattle school board continues its idiocy sending staff and kids to a White Studies seminar in Colorado (read about it at rosenblog.com); so far they haven't figured out how to gut the competitive spirit of track & field - give 'em time though.
Habu, well the jihadis claim to have ideas but when they come after you and me it is with knife, gun, bomb, ax in short with murder; with nothing but death; they may have just super ideas behind them but for you and me it is death - I call that nihilism - it stands.
dbmprDas,
I really failed miserably in communicating to you whay I was trying to say. Hope you didn't take offense.
I agree they come at you or me with a gun etc and it's good night Irene. I wouldn't think twice about it.
If you took off that Silly Cap, more folks would probly pay you closer attention.
"The White Al Queda"
I'm convinced that the challenge of Islam will either be an absoultely earth shattering. paradigm shifting, world- historical event OR will turn out to be much ado about nothing.
I don't think it will be like anything we've seen before.
The threat has been well documented and analyzed. I'm not going to state it any better than it has been. But, as a little thought experiment, let's consider my other possibility.
The muslim world is economically backward, militarily incompetant, and stunningly ignorant. There's a growing movement in the West to cut consumption of the Middle East's primary export- oil. What kind of long- term economic prospects do muslim countries have? Since military power is ultimately derived from economic power, they can't win in the long term conventionally.
What about the bomb? If they use it they die. Maybe not after the first one, but the West will eventually retaliate. The West will survive. Islam may not...
Will the West kill itself through multiculturalism and letting in Islamic immigrants? Perhaps, but then it will be its own doing. It would be fairly easy to stop immigration and stop tolerating alien cultures. If the West does not, it's not a muslim victory but a failure within the West itself. If the West is that bad, then it would fall apart from something else eventually.
I don't know what will happen, but like the Israeli Mossad, perhaps we should consider the opposite case?
Wretchard and Habu,
Thank you for the clarification and insight, this is much appreciated.
and Allen,
L'Chaim!
Great Strength to You!
Ouestmaman
Aristotle pointed out that no matter how many times one threw a stone into the sky it would always come back.
Aristotle did not know about escape velocity.
There is an escape velocity for Islam, too, after which the all-devouring radicalism will be left behind.
A sober thought:
As shown in al Anbar, one must have steady pressure over a minimum amount of time to reach the escape velocity for a particular community. Once this happens, the mutual antagonisms between the radicals and the normals (undefined terms, but broadly accurate) begin to autocatalyze.
The sobering thought is this: without the constant pressure of low level war this autocatalysis won't happen. Without the minimum amount of time it won't happen. And finally, the escape-effects are parameterized to the community.
This is going to be a long, long war.
The Cold War statecraft that the US State Department has been practicing, has us ending up with Pakistan, KSA, Egypt, Gaza, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, etc., as duplicitous allies instead of openly declared enemies. Time we put an end to the Cold War and statecraft that came along with it.
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