Come up for air
Here are three items with one unifying thread.
- Hospitals Become Battleground in Gaza. Caption: "Palestinian physician Fayez Al-Barrawi, 29, lays in a hospital bed after he was shot six times in his legs when he was kidnapped by Palestinian militants, at Kamal Edwan in Beit Lahiya northern Gaza Strip."
- Sacred Shiite Shrine in Samarra Attacked Again: "Suspected al-Qaida insurgents on Wednesday destroyed the two minarets of the Askariya Shiite shrine in Samarra, authorities reported, in a repeat of a 2006 bombing that shattered its famous Golden Dome and unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq."
- Pakistani City Transformed by Militants: "Pro-Taliban Militants Gain Ground, Drain Life From Once Prosperous Pakistani City"
These stories all illustrate how the Jihad is destroying every Muslim society in which it is raised. It has created far more havoc on those societies than any conceivable American military strike. Terrorism as a defense creates far more collateral damage than any conceivable "protection" it may offer. A case in point is Iraq. Far from being a brilliant strategy to defeat the America the "networked insurgency" has so far managed to smash Iraq's infrastructure, unleash murder gangs, cause the exile of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis to neighboring countries, cripple its oil production, dissolve every semblance of social order it can corrode and finally, unleash such a wave of revulsion that even thugs and smugglers are making common cause with the Coalition so that they can return to a life of peaceful crime. In Gaza, men on street are improbably longing for the return of the Israeli soldier, whose presence, however stern, now seems the very soul of gaiety in comparison to sadistic brutality of Hamas and Fatah. Even Pakistan's Northwest Frontier, the historical epitome of lawlessness, is watching all its grim records broken. "Now, Tank is becoming a virtual no-go zone, even for ethnic Pashtuns who make up the majority of its 150,000 people. Islamic fundamentalists have issued Taliban-style edicts and set up their own courts in the city and nearby districts. Extremists have warned barbers not to shave customers' beards and bombed shops selling Western music or films."
And the Jihadis have just gotten started. The terrible logic of terror means that it must continuously raise its level of grisliness to keep its victims, already brutalized and inured to routine shocks, spasming in fear. Having blown up the Golden Dome of the Samarra mosque they must now move on to the minarets. After that the basements will be next. There's no end to it. It has been argued that not terrorism, but the West's response to it that is fundamentally dangerous to traditional liberties. But if that is true the mirror argument also holds. Islamic societies everywhere are being corroded, perhaps fatally, by the Jihad against the infidel. Their own choice of symbol -- the suicide bomber -- perhaps best illustrates the ultimate effect of their mode of warfare. The headless, explosive-shattered corpse may represent not simply the fate of the individual attacker but the society which spawned him. The Jihad expels a terrible toxicity as a waste product, which like carbon monoxide in a submarine, poisons the entire atmosphere till unchecked it is nothing but a cylindrical metal tomb.
The fate of Gaza may foreshadow the future of Lebanon, Pakistan and perhaps finally, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. What goes around, comes around.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/13/2007 02:59:00 AM
39 Comments:
Freakin' Zionists!
(That's gotta be it, right? I mean deep down...)
"There is a serious rift between these militants and the JUI," said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a Pakistani reporter and expert on the region. "Some of them had links with the JUI in the past, then they were radicalized and they want the JUI to be more radical, too."
The big lie. The radicals are Islam. Mohammed spent a good deal of words and time keeping the slackards in line who didn't pay the tax or participate in raids.
One of his suggestions for people who didn't show up for mosque time was to burn them in their houses.
Israel successfully launched a new spy satillite the Ofek-7. Putatively able to count the eyelashes on a mosquito.
It's orbit takes it over Iran every 90 minutes. The one thing not mentioned is that the supercomputers on the ground can immediately tell if a mosquito has lost even one eyelash...in other words if truck A is moved from spot A to spot B the computer can tell immediately and track millions of items in doing so...Mr Wizard would be proud.
As Gomer would say, surprise,surprise,surprise...we got you covered.
Arab civilization is collapsing. Whereas once upon a time such a thing meant conquest from without, it now means that the smarter get out while the getting is good - to Europe, Canada, America. Those who are left behind simply have to have war of all against all until only one group is left standing.
This Islamist madness has to play itself out, a process that will take years. (It's a sad state of affairs when Gunnar Heinsohn's "youth bulge" theory, which suggests maybe one more generation of this, is optimistic.) There are no magic bullets - even Algeria, which showed extraordinary brutality toward the jihadis in the 1990s, is not finished with them yet.
All we can do is watch, and contain.
Here's a narrative for you.
Israeli occupation caused a violent reaction, which then became uncontrollable even after the occupation ended. Once brutalized by occupation the Palestinians could not change back into normal law- abiding people since their own institutions had been destroyed after 1948 and 1967. The vacuum Israel created allowed the militants to take over.
Therefore it's all Israel's fault. I bet it's out there somewhere. The problem with this narrative is that there are plenty of instances where occupation did not lead to long- term violence. People have a choice.
Too many males without jobs, status, and sense of self: Castration reality. How does a society channel such negative energies?
Let's have a fight, but with who? Go for the Jews. Ok. If this doesn't work then what? Fight among yourselves.
Look out for the new leaders within this group of castrated men.
John Lynch,
Well it's in the mix somewhere, but it's not all of it. And deep down the guys in Gaza, maybe other places, know it. The Israelis sure didn't have much to do with Tank, Pakistan. Dollars to donuts the Israelis didn't blow up the Samarra Mosque either. No, there's more to that brew and that scares the hell out them.
Maybe somebody in Pakistan has got to figuring: a million plus students in the madrassas and where are they all going? Out to win the Nobel Prize in physics? Uh-uh. They're a time bomb ticking and the first place they'll start on is Pakistan. Trouble, like charity, begins at home.
The Saudis have probably heard the clock ticking for years. That's why it made so much sense to point the disaffected youth -- who they did a good job disaffecting to start with -- in the direction of lower Manhattan. Then America went and took out Saddam. Then the action moved closer to home. And the reality is that all those disaffected youths are going to come back from Iraq, the Horn or wherever they're sowing their wild oats, in one piece or several, and re-enter Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian or Pakistani society. Then there'll be hell to pay, because the planet is running out places to export all that hate. The plumbing is backing up. Gonna be interesting when it happens.
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The common thread is that this sort of behavior -- like taxi drivers who refuse to carry alcohol and need foot baths at airports they serve -- is used to mau mau the West, but is expected from them when dealing with one another.
And we sucker for it. Every. Single. Time.
What a racket.
Sheik Cosmo
the Holy City of Houston
Well I finally figured out why the President, the Democrats and the Republicans are working so hard on this amnesty thing.
The immigration/amnesty is but one cog in the wheel. Here's what's unfolding. The North American Union and the protocols of that and the SSP were signed a few years ago. That really set the course for our loss of national sovereignty.
The 12-20 million "new" citizen fit in this way. The Democrats will get 80% of their votes and retain Congress and the WH. The 2010 census will trigger the reapportionment of the nation. The Democrats will push through an expansion of the House from 435 members to 535 or 600, whatever. They will benefit immensely from this and it should keep them in power for 100 years. It should also make a republican president impossible to elect. The Senate will likewise be expanded as the states will be redrawn to reflect various "cultural" demographics. Naturally the Supreme Court will be expanded from 9 to 15 or 23, whatever. They'll be Marxist certified.
The Republicans are going along because for them it's all about just being a member of an "elite" ruling body and them moving onto corporate boards and beltway careers, continuing to use taxpayer dollars . The Republicans have long since proved they do not have the fire in the belly to lead the nation. They just want the membership and the contracts. It also means cheap labor for their corporations where cheap labor is in short supply.
The President is a committed New World Order guy. In his mind a North American Union of Canada,Mexico, and the USA is as natural as misunderestimation.
Hillary loves it because it provides her with the Canadian model of health care to immediately graft onto and "improve"
If you read the information on the North American Union and the SSP it begins to all make sense. The irony is that this particular bill isn't even necessary for the achievement of the NAU. However it will facilitate it's implementation.
Basically we're screwed, the middle class that is. It will definitely be the haves and the have not's and you'll see a redistribution of income happen faster than ever before.
North Am. Union
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
The Great Deception, the European Union
Booker and North have done yeoman work in exploring scores of original sources related to the modern European Union. Most impressively, they have returned to the 1920s, when the contemporary notion of "European Union" began.
They note that an element of deception has been present since the very earliest years of the project, demonstrating that the idea's early exponents believed that their utopian ideals, whilst admirable, ought to be realized without the knowledge or participation of the member countries' peoples. In fact, Booker and North reveal that a strong tendency of the strain of Unionists which created the present Brussels regime has been to shun democracy by creating a supranational authority with no meaningful accountability to the people, whilst simultaneously subverting individual states' national sovereignty.
A thoroughly absorbing and fascinating read, one essential for anyone interested in contemporary European politics. The defeat in France and the Netherlands of the EU constitution has not rendered this book irrelevant; indeed, it provides a warning about the accumulated power of a body still very much in being and still very zealous to reach the consummation of its endeavors.
So now we follow with a grand One World Order design..
The Saudis have probably heard the clock ticking for years. That's why it made so much sense to point the disaffected youth -- who they did a good job disaffecting to start with -- in the direction of lower Manhattan.
The alternative plan for Saudi Arabia is to ship all their disgruntled young men to the West to be "educated". By this, I think they mean we're supposed to beat their spoiled little brown butts until they learn some manners, and then return them to Mom and Pop Saud to be good little Muslims in the Magic Kingdom. And if a few of them become arrested along the way for rape, slavery, or drunken driving with intent to murder, chances are the system can be bought off, or guilt-tripped into releasing the little darlings because of "cultural differences".
The numbers of students being exported out of Saudi Arabia and placed in the Real World to become "educated" vary from story to story. But it is definitely a continued and growing push of the Saudi government to dilute the masses of unemployed hormonally-raging idiots they have rampaging through their own streets.
So a teenaged boy whose sole claim to fame is some memorization of the Koran has a choice in life: he can go to Iraq and become a blowed-up suicided bomber (although he probably won't be told upfront that that's all he's worth), or he can be sent to America, England, France or China (yes, China!) to become "educated". Which will be a very difficult transition when he discovers just exactly how stupid he is in comparison with normal people, and just exactly how far down on the food chain him and his "rich history of civilization" are deemed to be.
Suicide bomber? Omnicide bomber. Writ ever larger till the earth is encompassed.
Gee, I really hate the exclamation mark after the words "Read More!" at the end of all your articles especially when they're about slaughter and misery. I admire your work though.
Lets see... with the Saudi funding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the mid-1950's, to promulgate Islam against Nasser's Pan-Arabism, they then used those inroads to create HAMAS, to counter the PLO, in the mid-1960's, and help put a friendly regime in the Sudan in the late 1980's.
Meanwhile the Iranian Revolution in 1979 sought alliance with Syria, to help put a Foreign Legion together in Lebanon soon after their Revolution. With the Soviet overthrow of Afghanistan both of these groups sought to go against the Soviets and use that fight as a training ground and advertising campaign to spin-up new military leaders. The MB was most effective in that, not only utilizing in-roads to more secular terrorist groups, but in getting wealthy Saudis to help fund that conflict. Iran, meanwhile, decided on a slow and more permanent growth strategy that would see them and the MB in Algeria, Bosnia and Chechnya, with al Qaeda formed by MB trainees like bin Laden, Zawahiri, and KSM. Iran was able to utilize its contacts via Syria with Carlos Menem in Argentina to move radical recruiters into S. America amongst the expats there in the 1990's, with al Qaeda and Hamas following suit without direct Nation State assistance. While the immediate bombings in Argentina and Panama point to this, the loss of the direct political contact required a retrenchment, mostlly in the Tri-Border Area of S. America and the establishment of ties with Marxist/Narcoterrorists like FARC.
Throughout the 1990's Saddam served as a major sore point that neither Iran/Hezbollah nor MB/al Qaeda/Hamas could deal with, as he was an equal opportunity supplier for training, equipment and gray to black market goods contacts. Iran, for all of its wealth, invested in heavy infrastructure and equipment for Hezbollah while trying to get them to establish more localized ties for funding. The MB/al Qaeda/Hamas group affiliation could only go after the Kurdish regions in Iraq as Saddam's police state had a nasty capability to find terrorists and put them into plastic shredders. These two axes have been forced, by that, to slowly work together since the mid-1990's, although mostly on the training/safe haven/exchange of contacts basis.
Syria, by serving as supply/training/equipment trans-shipment point for Hezbollah, was more than accomodating in its role as middle-man, taking the middle-man's cut (of course) and slowly accumulating WMD capability in the realm of intermediate range ballistic missiles (SCUD A/B/C/D) and NoDong variants via North Korea, while working with the USSR then Russia for nuclear reactors, finding that hard and then finding Menem willing to supply Falcon II and nuclear equipment. By turning a blind eye to smuggling from Saddam's Iraq, the Syrians *also* got a cut of that trade, plus some of the overhead from OFF.
Throughout all of this, this utilization of non-Nation State military means has spread the disorder that goes with such organizations: looting, killing, intimidation, and repression. This has been exported to Muslim communities in the Balkans, North Africa, Asia, SE Asia, Oceania, India, Latin America, and into the 'stans of newly independent Nations from the old USSR. Even China gets some of that in the far western provinces, which are still smuggling routes north to south and very hard to patrol. Communities from such disparate parts of the globe as Indonesia and Trinidad have seen Muslim on Muslim terrorism for two decades.
Throughout a period starting in the 1970's terrorism has been mixing with organized crime and narco-trafficking, and that has only flourished and picked up in intensity with terrorism moving Transnational in scope in the 1990's.
The utilization of disparate, ethnic based and person-to-person contact and banking networks, like the current Peso Exchange networks and the previous hawala networks, have always ensured the steady and low-level movment of funds on a global basis that cannot be easily tracked nor traced by international banking. Early in the 1990's terrorist organizations had already moved down to the $3,000 per transfer limit internationally, with only the less astute not picking up on that or trying to utilize poorly concealed front companies as go-betweens. Today that has moved down to the $1,000 amount and the diverse system of front companies, banks for money laundering, and person-to-person network banking puts both organized crime and transnational terror beyond the reach of normal banking, police and even international criminal investigation.
You know, this just *might* be a problem!
Sigh.....
Sometimes a moment of insight just does not brighten your day.
The problem, as I see it is that the Muslim societies have been taught for the past several hundred years that problems can be solved through the the application (or at least a credible threat) of brute strength. Up until a few decades ago, this power was almost exclusively held by governments who could control large armies and police forces.
In today's world, technology has enabled even small forces to wield disproportionate amounts of force. And governments, who would normally check these capabilities in forces outside their control, have found it temporarily convenient to allow it to go on, thinking they could rein in these groups whenever they wished. And then discovering that putting this pesky little jinn back in the bottle is a lot harder than they thought.
So, we have people with cultural training that application of force rather than diplomacy will get you what you want. Then we have easy access to the tools of mass destruction (and by this I mean rockets, RPGS, machine-guns, roadside bombs). Finally, there is the cultural dehumanization of the other, whether that is jew, christian, hindu, buddhist, shia, sunni, or any other of several hundred little sects.
So what can we expect? I am convinced that with the rapid progress of technical warmaking capabilities it will be virtually impossible for the rest of the world to stop the brutal struggle for control and domination within the Arab/Muslim world. And as this progresses, they will find reason to turn upon themselves, since they know no other method but intimidation and violence for disagreements. Yes, this may be the final collapse of the Arab society.
Or, it may be the pyre from whose ashes something good might rise. But that will be a long time coming, and there's a whole lot of misery the world will suffer in the process.
Just my $.02
DaveK
DaveK said...
"The problem, as I see it is that the Muslim societies have been taught for the past several hundred years that problems can be solved through the the application (or at least a credible threat) of brute strength."
Actually NahnCee's opinion was more correct when she said:
"So a teenaged boy whose sole claim to fame is some memorization of the Koran has a choice in life: he can go to Iraq and become a blowed-up suicided bomber (although he probably won't be told upfront that that's all he's worth), or he can be sent to America, England, France or China (yes, China!) to become "educated"."
The Saudis have fallen into the same trap that the European socialists fell into, i.e. the "ideal" for human existance is to sit around at home all day watching television and collect welfare checks.
Blind luck handed the Saudis an amazing gift in the huge petroleum deposits that they are sitting on. Unfortunately they've squandered this gift by turning their people into a nation of bored welfare bums.
If you're an angry young man in Saudi Arabia, your options are:
1) Stay at home, watch television, collect welfare checks and memorize the Koran.
2) Go to Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. and have fun being a jihadii where life is short but "interesting".
In this context, it's no wonder so many young Saudi males are going to Iraq to blow themselves up. It's a no-brainer to predict that after Saudi Arabia and Iran run out of oil and their economies collapse, much of the international Islamic violence will go away. Of course, Saudi Arabia and Iran will dissolve into utter chaos due to internal violence but that's another story...
It's a no-brainer to predict that after Saudi Arabia and Iran run out of oil and their economies collapse, much of the international Islamic violence will go away.
How is this a no-brainer? How would a collapse of these economies cause Islamic violence to go away? If anything, it will simply remove the money that currently funds choice 1; sitting at home, watching TV, and receiving a welfare check. . . leaving only choice 2; go to the latest Islamic violence hot-spot, transfer blame for their woes to someone else, and shoot at them/blow them up.
If anything, when that oil dries up, Islamic violence will get worse, not better. . . which you allude to yourself:
Of course, Saudi Arabia and Iran will dissolve into utter chaos due to internal violence but that's another story...
Wretchard --
I believe you have fundamentally missed the point. The violence and destruction of society IS the goal. It must be the goal, and has been carried out fairly well.
Traditional Islamic/Tribal societies cannot function in the modern world. The demands of success in the modern world, where technology and mobilization of resources on large scales determine success means that the very heart of Islamic society gets destroyed.
Qutb saw this very well in Colorado. He understood that the traditional way of marriage (arranged, and polygamous), life (sexual segregation), discourse (solely religious, and mostly memorization of two books), and society (tribe/clan/family) would be washed away by modern society. So therefore modern society had to be destroyed to defend his way of life.
The very EXISTENCE of sewer systems, modern mosques, hospitals, power systems, water systems, roads, trains, aircraft are a huge and direct threat to the tribal society that cannot be "seduced" into wanting these things and thus changing. Setting aside memorization of the Koran for knowledge of say, mechanical engineering. Allowing open discourse on technical matters at least. Requiring the mobilization and thus the education and freedom of women because there is just far too much work to be done to keep these things up. Aircraft require constant maintenance, as do power lines, water treatment facilities, and sewer systems.
BETTER to destroy these things and live in purity as a tribal people. This was both Qutb's and Khomeni's insight.
So no, Wretchard, this destruction is actively desired by Muslims, even moderates, as they see their core identity threatened. It's not going to go away and the thing is, the destruction cannot be limited to just their own societies.
Qutb and Khomeni both understood that the siren call of material success of the West could only be silenced by destroying the West. So if anything the conflict will only escalate further.
We WILL see US and European cities destroyed and shadowy 4GW groups demand an end to the West. And the Western response once all restraints are thrown off will be to simply kill as many Muslims as possible (since there is no other way to end the conflict, given the distributed and decentralized nature of the 4GW Muslim terror groups).
This is exceedingly ugly but I see no way round it. The crisis that Modernization caused: some societies simply cannot accommodate it, is existential.
Yashmak said:
"How is this a no-brainer? How would a collapse of these economies cause Islamic violence to go away?"
The operative phrase was "international Islamic violence".
When the economies of Saudi Arabia and Iran collapse due to oil depletion, their populations will turn upon their own governments and each other like so many rats packed in a box with the food supply removed. It'll be a replay of what the Palestinians are currently doing to themselves except at a much higher level. Expatriate Saudis and Iranians living abroad will probably return home so they can participate in the slug-fest.
One might(?) argue that this is a "good thing" for us except for the minor detail that our own economies will have also been wrecked. This also raises the nonintuitive question that perhaps(?) we should be importing Saudi and Iranian crude oil as fast as possible so as to hasten their collapse before they acquire nuclear weapon's technology.
Well certainly that will occur. But I contend that it will not lessen international Islamic violence, but will fuel it.
They will indeed turn on their own governments, but I think it fanciful to imagine that they won't also find a way to blame (and as a result, attack) the West.
Palestinians have been found amongst detained insurgents in Iraq, for instance. Many of these who see their societies crumble will be even more driven to find an outside target for their rage. As our media frequently blames Israel and USA for the Palestinian's woes, so much moreso will the citizens of those collapsed economies seek to pin the blame on anyone, foreign or domestic, rather than themselves.
Take away that which provides comfort to those who already harbor any American/Israeli/Western sentiment, and leave them with nothing but the Mullahs who eagerly point the finger at the west, and we'll see not just the sort of violence that's occurring in Palestine, but it will be transmitted abroad too.
ah..
what a DAY!
hamas and fatah kissing in the corner...
lebanese troops give hugs to fatah islam
syria kissing it's "friends" in beirut...
at the same time the suns in iraq are blowing "i love you" to the shits....
yep...
summer love is here and noone invited the JOOS...
lol
And the Western response once all restraints are thrown off will be to simply kill as many Muslims as possible (since there is no other way to end the conflict, given the distributed and decentralized nature of the 4GW Muslim terror groups).
I wonder if - before we nuke them into annhilation -- there'll be an attempt at quarentine - no Arabs at all ever allowed to travel outside of the Middle East, period.
I'm remembering reading shortly after 9/11 that China wasn't allowing any Arabs to travel into their country, and what a splendid solution that seemed to a whole lot of problems. Not just an end to immigration from Muslim countries, but all travel period - no one allowed out, not for pleasure, not for business, not for medical reasons. If you want to be Muslim and memorize the Koran, fine -- but you have to stay in the 22 states of the Middle East to do it. (Yes, I know Indonesia has explosive terrorists, too, but they're Australia's problem.)
Of course, that would bring up the sticky issue of 2nd generation terrorist wannabe's born in the West, but since they seem to need to make the trip back home to Pakistan or Algeria or Yemen to put the icing on their terrorist training before they start exploding stuff, maybe if they couldn't get back to their Islamic motherland to be finally radicalized, that would be helpful, too.
How depressing today, this hate. How about some cool heads? This aint typical Belmont Club posting.
Can you not see this is the fate of corrupted Islam? Can you not see the criminality of these extremists who I would call infidel and not Muslim. They are like wild rats in Gaza, etc. Containment is a good idea for them.
peterboston, your slander of Muhammad (peace be upon him) pains me. Could you reveal your sources please? The radicals are NOT Islam. They are servants of Satan just like those crazy anarchists from whom the scum trying to hijack Islam learned.
4GW is evolving into 5GW and the enemy is criminal gangsters, the evil ones, the kufirs, the infidel, servants of Satan, not true Muslims.
peterboston, you seem to be a non-Muslim, Christian(?), perhaps rabid Southern Baptist Taliban, Atheist perhaps? I would be interested to know.
Wake up folks. This is between good and evil, wise and ignorant. It involves good of all faiths, true servants of The Most High against the charlatans, con-artists, self serving scum who hide behind all faiths.
I, as much as you, hope for the collapse of the Wahabbis and greedy "Sheikhs" in Saudi Arabia! I, as much as you, hope for the collapse of the power mad "Mullahs" of Iran!
There is a war within Islam. You can see it in Iraq if you follow Bill Roggio's posts. Iraq can still be won if Americans learn and understand how long it takes to win a counter insurgency and rebuild a military and police force.
It takes time for a culture to transform to a Rule of Law culture from suffering decades, centuries of despotism. It is generational.
Considering Iraq, former Mesopetania, home of Hamurabi is where the Coalition led by the United States of America, Land of the Constitution is investing so much blood and treasure and has invested so much thus far; I want to see it played out.
Good Jews, Christians, Muslims (please note the chronological order) and others who can respect each other and compete in doing good are blessed by The Most High and have the right to impose their will on the above mentioned criminals who hide behind religion. Could that not be why there has been no big hit in USA? Please think about that. Please think about 4GW and 5GW.
Please forgive my rambling, I am a bit upset. I think I'll do some target practice this weekend, need some stress relief.
Salaam eleikum
Yashmak said:
"How is this a no-brainer? How would a collapse of these economies cause Islamic violence to go away?"
Because Jihad like all war costs money. Training, billeting, religious propoganda and arms all cost.
Crazy Marzouq Redneck Muslim,
The problem is easily the ideology of Islam. There really isn't debate of any serious nature about it's history of agression against all since it's inception.
You can put as much lipstick as you want on Islam. It remains the bain of mankind, nothing else.
O/T
ICEX 71 has this amnesty gig nailed. (7:59 A.M.)
I don't think this is an anti-Islam post so much as one which describes the current war within it. Most Muslims, in my experience at least, are just normal human beings. However, there is a current within Islam -- and to be fair there were currents within Western civilization -- Nazism being one which comes to mind and Bolshevism another, which very nearly destroyed it.
The armed Jihad poses a challenge to Islamic societies. The more they have of it, the more they destroy themselves. I think this is quite plausible.
However, the excesses themselves could prove to be the source of reform. But what must the West do? It can only learn what to do by experience. Experience will produce two kinds of knowledge. The first is an appreciation of Muslims as kindred human beings. The second is the realization that the armed Jihad in its most intractable form, will never surrender. On that basis alliances will be formed.
Crazy -- I think on the contrary the violence and Jihad is part and parcel of Islam and Islamic societies.
The only thing Islamic Societies have done is to push suicide bombing to new levels from the Tamil Tigers, 4GW with increased IO objectives, and nuclear weapons proliferation.
There is not a single world class company in Islamic hands. Not a single Islamic center for medicine. Spain in a year translates more books into Spanish than the entire Arab world has done in it's existence.
Islam is marked by failure: it's people sit on abundance yet are poor. They once were centers of learning yet are ignorant. They once welcomed other scholars and now expel them. They cannot BUILD anything, in any place, and have not since the 1100's. Other than conquering and making slaves of neighboring and weaker societies, Islam has done nothing of note for nearly half a millennium.
Principally because Islam lacks an internal mechanism for reform. If they have the final revealed truth of Allah, in the form of the perfect Man, Mohammed then there is self-evidently no need to do anything but sit in the dirt and memorize the Koran. Since they are the slaves of God and need not concern themselves with anything, as slaves are wont to do. God is Muslim's master, they are the slaves, and like slaves incapable of independent thought or action by definition.
Muslims also practice cousin marriage. A few centuries of that practice among the Hapsburgs left the Emperor Ferdinand severely retarded and deformed. He is reputed to have bawled during a state dinner "I am the Emperor and I want noodles!" I will leave the broader implications of this noted.
As for the "hate" we non-Muslims have been threatened with gruesome death for decades. On several occasions like 9/11 actually getting it. As such we have noted the telling silence of Muslims except to scream Islamaphobia while telling us "Islam will dominate" and threatening death for cartoons. The Jihad murder of Van Gogh, Rushdie's death sentence/fatwa have left most Westerners with the sensible view that all Muslims are our enemy, either overtly or covertly, and should be treated as such. The debate is currently to withdraw from Muslim lands (which will be a failure, only increasing attacks) or wiping out great numbers of Muslims.
marzouq:
fear not - the thing that keeps me coming back to belmont is that it is a self-policing gathering place of thoughtful (and often witty) discourse. what is reflected here is not a hatred of islam as a whole, but the radical fringes within it. what you are seeing as more wide-scale hatred is, i think, the sad resignation that cool heads that use rational thinking and respect for others have a high failure rate in world history.
you have the advantage of having grown up in a world where religious liberty was the central founding principle of your society. your muslim brothers and sisters in the middle east have no such cultural mindset to fall back on. the reflexive concept of religious liberty is a part of nearly every faith practiced in the u.s. - we all have a right to believe as we wish, and expect that those around us be given the same right.
i think we can both, or all, agree that islam needs to demonstrate that it is truly compatible with this western liberal mindset. i whole-heartedly support muslims like you stepping up to confront the militants corrupting your religion. unfortunately, those militants carry some very big sticks with their bad attitudes. ours is a world ruled by the aggressive use of force. so the nice folks with the good attitudes need to carry bigger sticks and not be afraid to confront militancy.
best wishes.
It is interesting to me to note that this spiral of destruction fits quiet closely the viewpoint of the left during the Cold War. Provocations, fear, and the simple love of the machinery of death were supposed to result in a world with increasing numbers of nuclear weapons and ever more sophisticated delivery systems, hair triggers primed and stroked lovingly by the Gen. Buck Turgeson’s of the world, hurtling out of control toward that moment of a massive nuclear spasm war.
Ronald Reagan was supposed to be the avatar of that horrific vision. Instead, from his leadership we got the largest nuclear arms reductions ever - far beyond anything even envisioned by the Jimmy Carters of the world – and a flowering of freedom not seen since the end of WWII.
Today, the lurch toward Armageddon is led by the darlings of the Left – the underprivileged non-WASPs. And the Left’s answer is basically to back off and let them have their way. Oh! Wait! I forget about the World Series of Poker…
Excellent post, excellent comments. I'm going to argue that jihadi societies will self-immolate, and that eventually, except where there are very large immigrant populations, they will no longer give the West further trouble.
Two reasons: the first is "self-immolation". If your motivation is to die killing people you hate you're going to first kill the people you hate the most, and that's going to be your neighbor, or the guy who was standing next to you last week but who no longer has the right values. If purity is what's most important, the first guy you kill is the apostate. Once societies begin to fracture there will be no end to apostates.
Second, self-conception: It takes a great deal of self-confidence to go out to seek your fortune as a martyr in a foreign land. The conquistadors sought fortune at least as dangerous and they were not weak men. They were self-confident men, and not simply by personal gift but by knowledge that they represented one of the great nations on earth. It was their fate, right, and duty to conquer, and they were bold. It is true they were desperate... but it was for opportunity that they were desperate. But hey, if "opportunity" means getting yourself killed while brutalizing and terrorizing, who needs to go to New York? Once a society fractures all the golden opportunities are at home. I doubt Hamas ever dreams of New York, their plate is full, thank you, and they're nicely busy. I fear the same may be true for Pakistan, with who knows what eventual consequences but with a lot of blood.
To export hatred of the West to the West requires a stable Middle East. Only then is the West the land of opportunity, and only then is there the self-confidence that adventure will expand the values of an already and presently great Islamic state. Al-Qaeda needs to win in Iraq before their collective fantasies can settle on New York. As a movement they may never again be as focused as before 9/11.
Wretchard --
Your cultural relativism is showing.
Islam's ideology of conquest is no where close to anything else in todays world. This is particularly true when you look at the number of followers....do you seriously want to compare the .000000000000001% of humanity that underwrites Nazi philosophy to the Islamic population of today?
Please don't approach this subject from a moral or cultural relativism basis. It's a losing position.
Most of the Islams you meet are "regular people" right up to the point of cutting your head off if you don't submit.
I make no apologies for being the skunk at the picnic, but Islam isn't benign.
Crazy Majnoon,
Before I throw my shoe at you, you better read and study this and this. There will be an exam.
Mouse: Good post. "...Once a society fractures all the golden opportunities are at home. I doubt Hamas ever dreams of New York, their plate is full, thank you, and they're nicely busy...." Reminds me of a great R.E.Howard Conan story titled "Red Nails".
And as I understand it, the Islamofascists have a hit list that goes something like this: 1) Shia (or Sunni) as apostate; 2) Jews; 3) The Great Satan; 4) everybody else. By the time they work through the top of their list there won't be much or many standing. We're in for a lot of grimness.
jafco
"Because Jihad like all war costs money. Training, billeting, religious propoganda and arms all cost."
I wish I could believe that simply removing the oil money would get rid of the violence, I sincerely hope it will one day turn out that simple, but I suspect that's wishful thinking.
Marzouq
I readily admit to my ignorance. I only know what I read, what I see, and what I hear.
If the Koran is organized chronologically and read in conjunction with the approved biographies of Mohammed the narrative is of a man who sought power and wealth, and skilfully used the rhetoric of the supernatural to recruit soldiers to fight for him. Where is the spirituality of Islam when its own wisdom documents speak first of the Prophet's share of booty gained from robbery and conquest?
Where is the brotherhood of man in Islam? The wisdom documents speak only of the Muslim's share and leave no doubt that share can and should be taken by force from the "other." There is no Golden Rule in Islam. Mohammed spoke only of his own ascendency and the reward only of those who took up jihad and paid the tax. Allah punished those who did not.
Perhaps my knowledge is incomplete, but it appears to me that Islam is outside the Tao - those most ancient and universal religious principles which bind all men to each other and to a world of harmony. With Islam peace only follows conquest.
My mind is open but so are my eyes.
Thank you all so much for your comments.
Metuselah, I shall study and prepare for the test.
PeterBoston, We be cool wid dat, man.
I love this place. You have made my day and brilliantly met my challenge.
Salaam eleikum
Medrooliza,
Point taken. I can easily pass your test.
Salaam Bubba,
Majnoon
P.S. It is so interesting to see the 21st Century Renaissance unfolding. I hope and believe by seeing with my own eyes there is a Muslim Renaissance occuring here in USA. I pray I am seeing clearly and am not being fooled.
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