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Looters Raid Arafat's Home, Steal Nobel Peace Prize. The Jerusalem Post reports, "They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal .. they stole all the widow's clothes and shoes." Israel Matzav asks, "How much would you pay for a Nobel Peace Prize on E-Bay?"
Sometimes humiliation isn't something other people do to you as much as something you do to yourself. This was foreshadowed by the looting of the multi-million dollar greenhouses bequeathed to the Palestinian people. It continued with the bombing of the Internet cafes, the attacks on hospitals, the burning of music stores. It goes on every time delighted gunmen fire their automatic rifles in the air and are surprised to find the bullets eventually come down and kill somebody. Every time a "militant" blows up a bridge, or a power pylon, an oil pipeline or a beautiful seaside resort, it is not a glorious event. That's just the fantasy of an over-wrought journalist. Plainly speaking, it's just another bullet in the foot.
Nothing follows.
43 Comments:
This story is just so rich in irony that only a silly school girl would have the temerity to tackle it.
No Wretchard it is NOT a bullet in the foot.
It is intended to move society to "zero" ala Pol Pot, and for the same reason: tribal pre-modern purity.
Clearly Islam like Marxism before it cannot co-exist in the modern world so must withdraw from modernity first, then destroy it.
The destruction IS the message. No more modern world. Back to 582.
lol...
happy father's day to all the jews of the world!
this is more than I could have asked for...
palios killing palios..
looting the icon of egyptian creation's HOME....
how wonderful...
how delightful
how delicious...
I, a peaceful man, who loves true justice and dignity, porkrinds for allah aside, can only laugh my fat jewish ass off in hearing and seeing the destruction of this false construct...
Gangsters of anarchy trying to destroy what they themselves could never build---Hamas is a facade for a crime spree at the expense of civilization, as is Hezbollah, Assad, Ahmdodojihad, and other criminals in Iraq too nameless to mention.
But now what scares me?
The Arab Food Program, to teach sustainable agra ideals to the starving masses, the Arab's world pledged 179 Billion a year for the next 10 years to stop hunger. Also was an additional 30 billion a year to resettle paletinians each in 5000 sq foot homes with attached warehouses and businesses all across the world selling geo thermic and solar powered autos & homes...
ah that was a nightmare....
I wouldn't celebrate just yet because these dudes are our neighbors. They share the planet with us. Sooner or later, they're going to look up from the landscape they've picked clean and blink in momentary confusion. Then they're going to look across the border to Israel and a lightbulb will go on in their heads. And when they're done with that ...
And since we're not going to gun people down we'd best find some way to calm them. The Palestinians have the same distribution of intelligence as anyone else. But the folks leading them, from Arafat on down and his enemies too are pieces of work who we have managed to style as "militants", "heroes" and Nobel Peace Makers. In a way, our media is as corrupt as the killers they have mischaracterized.
So we have to stop this nonsense and start separating the sheep from the goats. Act to protect the Palestinians and act to end the criminal careers of these self-styled "militants."
the palios 1st need a major kiss in the ass...
they need to WANT peace..
the arab world is the only place on earth that actual surrender never takes place..
after ww2, the japanese, the germans and the italians all had surrendered and made amends (to varying degrees, japan and the korean comfort woman comes to mind and the turkish genocide too)
the arab world needs to learn the word UNCLE
then we can make peace and calm it down..
Wretchard said
"...Act to protect the Palestinians and act to end the criminal careers of these self-styled "militants."...."
That is not possible. We removed Saddam. Those who removed Saddam are painted as the stupid ones, the poodles who allowed W and America to lie to U.S... into removing a mass murderer.
No one lied, except for those who repeat the lie that America lied.
Free Gaza? Free Darfur?
The majority of the free world has decided that peace is the goal, not not that horrible thing called war, thus we will have war.
Churchill 101.
A Peace Too Costly
“You have been given the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, and you will have war!”
-Winston Churchill to the English Parliament, 1938
------
:(
"...Act to protect the Palestinians and act to end the criminal careers of these self-styled "militants."....
First of all you have to define who are Palestinians
Palestinians in Lebanon who fighting Lebanon army?
Palestinians of hamas who dedicated to kill Jews?
Palestinians of west bank?
Why and would we defend those who want to kill us?
the palios 1st need a major kiss in the ass...
opps
the palios 1st need a major kick in the ass...
what is "occupation"
re: ass kissing
Thanks for the correction. For a minute there I feared you had gone over to the dark side and joined the State Department, where no ass shall go unkissed.
Call me a silly school girl, but it only just now occurs to me how fitting it is for a prize issued in memory of a manufacturere of explosives to have been conferred upon a man who would remain nameless had he and his followers not made such devastating use of explosives.
As one person once said:
Reality has far outstripped our ability to satirize it.
I also echo Wretchard's concern, for several reasons.
One, the Palestinians though they have chosen wrongly, horribly, remain human beings and it is bad for all humans if some live even if it's self-inflicted in misery and destruction.
Two, the idea of destroying modern society is ... seductive. Pol Pot was not just a problem for Cambodians but Vietnamese and Thais for his regime's lifetime and generations after.
Hamasistan will ... dangerous. Because destruction and nihilism are seductive indeed when the modern world demands things of your people they are unwilling to give.
Hamasistan is a disaster for everyone. Not least the Israelis who understand that no peace is possible, the more time Hamasistan is given the more it will be able to attack Israel with even better weapons and hide under better fortifications. So it must be taken out, reputedly Olmert even realizes this and has asked for plans to be drawn up to make it so. Hamasistan has hardened men who will be very difficult to fight.
They are behind fortifications, not attacking, so they won't be out in the open as Israel's other enemies. They have unity of command and distributed, decentralized, pushed-down authority so they will resemble or perhaps even better the unit discipline and initiative and speed that Israelis possessed over Arab armies.
Hamasistan cannot be left, must be reduced, and will cost Israel dear in blood and death. If anything the destruction seen now shows the cadres will be so willing to fight to the end, because they want to destroy the modern world. Israel, Fatah-land, it doesn't matter. ANY attributes of modernity must die. Israel will likely have to push the entire population of Hamasistan into Egypt, otherwise the Hamasistan fighters will simply come back.
A nasty, tough war indeed in Hamasistan. But one that would be better than a general war if Israel can be seen to decisively crush Hamasistan. In that case Israel must not care about civilian casualties, but do everything to conserve it's own people.
The game Israel is playing for Hamasistan with Hamas is the shape of the next Middle East War: a limited one to Gaza or a general one with the ability to destroy Israel and it's people completely.
Although I know what should happen, my Spider Sense tells me that in a few days we are going to be reading about a "looming humanitarian crisis on the Gaza strip". And it will be real enough.
And then we are going to hear about how the West needs to step up the plate. About how Hamas is going to become responsible, now they're in power. George Galloway is going to make a trip there. The whole three ring circus. And in the end the Western taxpayer is going to wind up feeding every man jack in Gaza.
Cause we're like Eliot Ness in that remake of the Untouchables. We've got to fight the bad guys and save the baby carriage as it thumps down the steps of the train terminal. We've got to throw handguns around when we run out of bullets to keep on saving the world and snag the innocent mother as she falls while the bad guys gleefully open up around us.
Trouble is, we don't get the nice musical score or the applause for our efforts. Just the pie in the face. Just the spit in snout from somebody who thinks he is morally the top o' the world. And it sucks.
Some days ago the BBC apologized abjectly to all and sundry for mistakenly referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Heck no. It's the capital of Palestine and maybe someday the BBC will get to cover Hamas looting the hell out that place. It doesn't make sense does it? All the more reason to do the right thing. Because we need to make sense in a world where drivel is the norm and not the exception. Just to shove the pie back in their face.
I stand second to no-one in my loathing for the leadership of the "Palestinian" people for the past ~100 years, but, much like in Iraq, we need to always be cognizant of the many decent human beings who are suffering from those wretched savages.
As "Exhibit A," I offer a little 3.6 minute video of a young guy in Gaza on YouTube...It was uploaded just 12 days ago, and it looks so normal and healthy in every way...I dare to say he is NOT a savage, only because his 3 other vids are those of looters the past couple of days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVLFFXvTK-A
Natan Sharansky REALLY HAD THE RIGHT IDEA, it's a shame Sharon discarded him...and MEMRI has a nice selection of Pal journalists dreaming of the IDF reoccupyig Gaza...
And let us not forget:
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
21I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
22And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.
23And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
26And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
27And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes:
28Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.
29And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake.
30And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there.
31And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake.
32And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.
33And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.
The Palestinian position regarding the Zionist Entity is:
"We will destroy you. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we will destroy you. And you? You will never be able to destroy us---even if you wanted to. For if you wanted to, the world wouldn't let you. And even if you managed to do it, you'd be destroying yourselves. Which would be our ultimate victory."
(It's called "win-win," Palestinian style.)
And so, how do you deal with people who are intent on destroying you and don't care whether or not they themselves survive?....
...Ah yes! You negotiate with them....You give them land for peace....You agonize over their suffering....You send them millions in cash, essentially supporting their war effort....You deligitimize the Zionists (ad their supporters) who "created" the problem....You firmly declare that a State for Jews was/is a catastrophe for the entire world, even while protesting that you are not anti-Jewish....And you roundly denounce all nationalisms (except, or course, Palestinian nationalism).
"Sooner or later, they're going to look up...."
The rotted corpse of the rotted klepto-terrorist crumbles before the new boss, a new group of klepto-terrorists more purely terrorist and not yet Western media telegenic...may never be.
Has the Widder Arafat dresses and shoes in the apartments on the Avenue Foch?
In order to harden Gaza a la South Lebanon, a lot of materials will be needed. Query: How's all that gonna get there? Will the French, the Germans and the Russians sell and deliver it?
"Hamasistan has hardened men who will be very difficult to fight."
They are thugs used to abusing a disarmed and docile populace. The moment they meet real resistance, they run and hide.
Slaughter now or slaughter later.
Slaughter later = slaughter more.
Jews are instructed NOT to take glee at their enemies destruction...
Just look at the Exodus story and..
However that being said, we are commanded to destroy and celebrate the the destruction of haman and his ilk...
and MORE closely the followers of the death cult baal...
so i raise my glass up as salute as hamas and fatah, BOTH murderous death cults that's primary mission is to kill jews go at it...
these are human animals...
and war is hell...
are there good people left in gaza?
maybe, but now it's a choice of my survival or theirs, and they have PROVED they will spare no attempt to destroy me, whereas we have done all we can NOT to destroy them...
so, that being said...
may the fatah, hamas, islamic jihad, force 17, moslem brotherhood, alska marytrs and all other subhuman retards kill one another
Seems this is a common problem (criminals and worse masquerading as governments around the world, elected and not) with some large number of citizens in dire straits that the civilized feel compelled to help (irrespective of all our other sins of omission). So, is there a better generic approach that has not been tried yet?
I also remember the recent note where the Kenyan economist begged us (in 2005) to stop the aid which by its very nature (e.g. shipping in food or clothes and other goods) is killing his people by disrupting markets and sapping individual initiative and responsibility.
Perhaps we can figure out some way of just giving money directly to individuals, including a means of protection (and building civil society). The poor and destitute will vote with their pocketbook, especially if it can't be stolen or coercively spent (by the local criminal, warlord or dictator, or overly communitarian democracy).
I don't know how to accomplish this, save for a flight-of-fancy (follows). Consider this brainstorming.
Give everyone in these troubled areas a personalized cell phone that can do micro transactions when it sees a live finger/print. Charge it up with money. Provide a global debit/credit facility that honors these transactions and uses credit-card company mechanisms to identify prohibited, coerced and criminal behavior. Where the local telephone company is corrupt and cannot meet a performance and quality standard, distribute satellite phones (if only used for data & purchasing, price can approach $50).
Issue (International?) Letters of Marque w/ large rewards for bounty hunters to capture and deliver, and kill if resisted, the worst offenders to designated courts and then prisons. Country leadership included. If a target wants to avoid an escalating-over-time bounty, they can turn themselves in for trial before the letter is issued, even to a court in the troubled country (where justice delivered locally will be reviewed globally). Where escalation includes the end-game of a 100 lbs of concrete dropped on the miscreant’s nose from the equivalent of a space-born precision bombing platform after a series of trials and findings by a succession of courts.
In truly wild-west areas, with absolutely no civil society, deliver lethal weapons and ammunition with the phones. Perhaps engineered to be suicide weapons. Killing both victim and assailants. Assumes there are more victims than criminals. And that violent crime is worse in its destructive affects than murder (murder removes a life, violent crime makes one a slave to fear and subject to coercion, where slavery is assumed worse than death in terms of its affect on civil society).
Perhaps allow any large group of phones to vote another local phone "off the island" turning the abuser into a non-entity.
Provide much better stability and liquidity than any local currency or commodity (e.g. gold), perhaps guarantee this currency appreciates (deflates) at better than bank interest.
Seed this fund/charity with all the foreign aid, military aid, world-bank, imf, etc. funding into this vehicle, as well as the salary dollars for all the permanent bureaucracy that delivers same (governments, UN, and in the destitute countries). Currently charities worldwide consume hundreds of billions of dollars a year in overhead-salaries-theft-etc (it’s a big business, even not including welfare – which would make it the single largest business). Run a micro-loan system over the same mechanism. Automate everything delivered in this system. No humans in the loop save for creating the algorithms and adjudicating disputes (including disputing automated findings of fraud and/or coercion).
Use a published and transparent spreadsheet macro to determine the handout per individual per catastrophe with some form of earned-income credit (i.e. money people earn into their account/money-phone is matched to a certain level).
Rather than a world court, any nation capable of dealing (concrete) death from space announces their intention to do so and creates law, a court, and a transparent process to maintain this “letters of Marque” system, including the final option. Nations can choose to declare they will police their own area and/or consider another nation’s use of this system an “act of war” at which time the established rules-of-war maintain. Allow private companies to compete for creation and operation of this worldwide charity(money) network (expect the credit card companies to own this business initially). Encourage national governments to move their welfare systems to same (create the ultimate safety net – a form of re-insurance across countries). What else ?
Other ideas?
Ari Tai, you are a genius.
Get in touch w/Fred Ikle, NOW.
CALM DOWN, EVERYBODY! Look at the latest news:
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swore in an emergency Cabinet on Sunday and outlawed the militia forces of the Islamic Hamas movement, deepening the violent rupture in Palestinian society.
IN ADDITION: I have read where the US Govt has agreed to end the embargo of aid AFTER ABBAS
RIDS HIS GOVERNMENT of HAMAS. Sounds easy. In fact, I think he just did it.
So that is it. It's all over. Hamas has been outlawed, or at least the part of it that carries them guns. Nothing to see here, folks, Move Along. Don't y'all have some grass to cut or hogs to slop or some other chores to do?
I am sure that PossumTater does.
Now, if we could just get Congress to pass a law shortening Hurriance Season to 2 months everything would be real fine.
Act to protect the Palestinians
I don't WANT to protect the Palestinians. And you can't make me!
Fun thing to watch are the on-line Arab newspapers who are still printing their pro-Pal stories. In today's GulfNews there's a long hysterical rant about how Oprah Winfrey is just visiting Israel, and REALLY should give the Occupied Territories equal time to "get both sides of the story". Tee hee, tee hee - I love it a lot when the Arabs manage to make themselves look even stupider than usual.
Whiskey,
You obviously don't get it. Islam is not the problem, criminals masquerading as Muslims are the problem (ie.: Hamas, alQueda, etc.). Hezbollah is Iran's Spetsnaz.
What is "occupation",
Happy fathers day to all the good, competent and conscientious fathers in the world. To hell with fathers who indoctrinate their children to hate and bomb.
My Jewish friend, I admire your passion and believe I can shake your hand eventually. I too was passionate but I have calmed.
ari tai,
Well dang! What a concept! A workable one at that! A hell of a lot cheaper than a B2 run as well!
Wretchard,
Veeeeery lucid and succinct as usual. Cheers to you sir!
Salaam eleikum Y'all and happy Fathers Day to you denizens of Belmont Club!
There is an interesting interview with the former dean of the Islamic Law Center of Qatar University Y'all may want to check out. It is published by MEMRI.
It can give you some insight into Islam scholastic thinking and Islam itself.
The Jews are not the only ones who have been slandered through the years. Muhammad (PBUH) has also been slandered and his philosophy corrupted through the ages. Has not that happened to Christianity and Judaism as well?
A trend becoming apparent to me as a scholar of 4GW and 5GW and a Muslim is demonstrated in the aforementioned MEMRI article. A Muslim scholar has spoken up. It shows confidence that his cause, democratic Islam, is winning. True Islam is becoming a strong horse and Despotic Theocratic Islam is a weak horse.
A few years ago I read an article on Frontpagemag.com by an Italian Imam named Sheik Palazzi. He had the guts to state Jews have a right to live and a right to a state.
I understand there is no such thing as a "palestinian". They are Arabs and pawns of the Wahhabis, Khomeinists and Ansar Islam. These are servants of Satan (self serving), fools or insane people. They are enemies of the believers of True Islam and richeous believers of The Most High of many faiths.
The wise are beginning to prevail. It took some time but I truly see it and it makes me happy. Trial and error is painful and time consuming but it is bearing fruit now. Hopefully this shall continue and escalate. There is even evidence of unity among the sane on both sides of the aisles in the US Congress. The leftist leadership of the House and Senate are looking more foolish daily as they pander to their constituency.
Salaam eleikum and Yeeeeeeehah!
rwe,
re: Now, if we could just get Congress to pass a law shortening Hurriance Season to 2 months everything would be real fine.
;-DDD
You will appreciate this.
Condoleezza, Abdullah, Israelis Living in Virtual Realities
___Condoleezza's benchmarks for the Palestinians were never attainable.
___Her directives to the Israeli government, however, were not merely products of fantasy but outright dangerous.
___To be continued. As long as politicians, diplomats and journalists continue to create and feed each other virtual realities, the inevitable will arrive unexpected.
***
marouk
I am careful to make the distinction between Muslims and Islam. People are people after all, but the assertion that Islam is a benign ideology like Christinaity or Judaism, or any other real religion for that matter, is just not true.
I readily admit I do not know Islamic jurisprudence or what scholars have determined since the 9th century but I do not believe that really matters. If you want to find out the essence of an ideology you go to its wisdom documents - the foundational writings and descriptions.
If you place the Koran in chronological order and match it up with the authoritative biographies of Mohammed you get something very unlike Christianity. I suppose that scholars could say the wisdom documents have changed in meaning over time but that does not appear to be the case. In fact, al Qaeda and Hamas act much closer to the example set forth in the wisdom documents than any other organizations.
I am short for time at the moment but I will follow up on this and look forward to your comments.
3case, de Atkine has on the web a monograph on "Why Arabs Lose Wars" in which he asserts that there are two reasons: Arab Armies are optimized for anti-Coup activities rather than war-fighting (and you can only optimize for one in an organization); and that authority is centralized which makes rapid reaction and initiative difficult if not impossible, thus accounting for Israel's victories.
In this view Israel had merely an "average" Western Army, but the Arabs very bad ones in conventional military operations.
WHAT impresses me organizationally about Hamas and Hezbollah both is, they are not worried about coups. They don't have costly, parallel, and paralyzing command structures, but merely one. They break through tribal divides, and have one identity. They have authority pushed down to the squad level (many Israeli soldiers who fought Hezbollah last summer will attest to this new authority for the Hezbollah non-coms).
Fighting from defensive prepared positions, in urban areas that neutralize armor and air advantages, with a force at least as good IF NOT BETTER than Israel's in terms of ground combat, Hamas can inflict some serious, serious casualties. But Israel has no choice but to crush them horribly to deter further attacks by even more dangerous and certainly more numerous enemies.
Hamas has morale advantages: they fight for Allah. Israel fights for self-preservation. Hamas has the advantage of not needing do advance. Hamas has the advantage of probably better trained, tighter unit cohesion, and more squad-level authority.
These are not unbeatable advantages but they are nevertheless there.
Crazy -- I am not unsympathetic for the desire for a "Modernist" Islam but I think it's nothing more than a pipe dream at this point and for the foreseeable future. Even in Malaysia people cannot leave Islam, and Sharia rules. Islam in fact is so unchanging and resilient BECAUSE it is tied up in primitive, destructive, tribal practices: stoning women to death, honor killings, killing gays, killing the infidel, killing apostates, cutting of hands and feet of thieves, etc.
Honor Killings are at epidemic levels in Muslims in Britain. Nearly 40% of UK Muslims want Sharia (rises to about 75% among young Muslims). Support for the FATWA demanding Rushdie's murder is nearly universal among Muslims. So is both denial of Muslim responsibility for 9/11 and support for bin Laden.
I understand this, and why. Muslims hate and fear the demands of the modern world because they have to leave their primitive and failed identities which are an inseparable mixture of superstitious religion and superstitious tribal identities. Islam collapses under individual freedom which is the hallmark of modernism and they can't have that. Can't have women rejecting arranged cousin-marriages. Can't have people deciding of their own free will to leave Islam. Can't have infidels practicing their own religion. Can't have people living their own lives without the slavery of Allah upon every waking moment.
I wish this was not so. I wish Muslims would be like Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese and make *some* accommodations with modernity. But this is not to be.
RE: Churchill 101.
A Peace Too Costly
“You have been given the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, and you will have war!”
**************************
The bad guy's corollary to CHURCHILL 101:
"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
(TROTSKY 101)
"We will destroy you. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But we will destroy you. And you? You will never be able to destroy us---even if you wanted to. For if you wanted to, the world wouldn't let you. And even if you managed to do it, you'd be destroying yourselves. Which would be our ultimate victory." (It's called "win-win," Palestinian style.)
The answer to that is counter-terrorist mercs hired by No One, responsible to No One, immune to Geneva and the ICC. The world will damn No One at the UN, and the West will pass resolution after resolution with harsh words for No One. All the while, the troublemakers in Palestine, Syria and Iran are ruthlessly exterminated by whatever means No One deems necessary.
Really, why not? They use our own infrastructure and culture against us, we should return the favour. Anonymous mercs with WMD capability. Asymetrical warfare. Kidnapping. Assasination. Targeting of innocent civillians in retaliation. POTUS can wring his hands and vow to hunt No Man to the ends of the earth.
Islam wants to play hardball, ignore the law of war and behave like savages? Fine. Give them a Mirror.
Wretchard, in your 6/16/2007 06:21:00 PM comment you responded to those who were expressing delight in the present effects of the Hamas vs Fatah conflict with the following:
"So we have to stop this nonsense and start separating the sheep from the goats. Act to protect the Palestinians and act to end the criminal careers of these self-styled 'militants.' "
Whether the ‘nonsense’ which you believe must be stopped is the ‘corrupt’ media—which approves of any violent dissipation directed against law and authority— or those tribes who are presently expressing their own intemperate celebration, your call to act has a disturbingly messianic ring to it. ‘We’ should separate the sheep from the goats ? Besides being the putative claim of God, isn’t this a distinctly eschatological activity ? Doesn’t it resonate with the past attempts of State churches ? I do not mean to nitpick over a mere rhetorical flourish. There is something here which strikes me as more threatening than mere appearance of hubris. It strikes me as an unexamined yearning, and an ominous portent.
Perhaps it is oversimplification to view WW II as a deluge— a proto-typical apocalypse. It would be too incredible to view any particular charismatic leader of democratic capitalism as the savior manifested from the time of that great ‘judgment.’ But even this most recent political/economic sublimation of faiths after the historical expression of an 'apocalypse' has had effects that some might characterize, however crudely, as a separation of sheep and goats. Democratic capitalism, even with a Christian veneer, has not been uncomfortable in messianic garb. Nonetheless, whether redemption is measured by gain in this world, or gain in the world to come, it is a delusion common to apotheosis and oppression that by our actions in assigning people to the proper ‘fold’ we can raise humankind from the abyss. It only results in Babel.
The present trends are toward a synergistic martyrdom—one whose intelligibility is promised by disparate mythologies. The present incarnation of Western culture may well acquit its reflexive theodicy, in a mortal piercing by an Islamic culture. Correspondingly, Islamic culture might, at the same time, be so thoroughly eviscerated by the Western Beast that whatever it is which arises from the radiant burning can only be understood as the validation of all martyrdom and creative locus of the submissive. East or West, to appropriate something as appreciable as victory, a new savior will have to be embraced. In short, we may be at the cusp of a new apocalypse and, consequently, a ‘new’ religion.
Unlike its previous iterations, this time any impending Ragnarök which will necessarily shape the form of an emergent religion will not be submerged to merely national politic or economic dogma. It will be the requisite of the survivors’ that there be a reconciliation of previously conflicting authorities expressed as a common rejection of the former, divisive religious Fundamentalisms. As Nazi’s were to those who survived them, so the former religious Fundamentalists will be to those who inherit the ‘new’ world. A ‘new’ religion is not merely the epiphenomenon of individuals trying to understand an absurd loss, but also a social act to act to redeem that loss. Its rituals quench the former tribal conflicts— which produced absurd losses, unproductive deaths— through the puissance of a new authority.
No matter what horrors it promises to spare us from, nor how comfortably the masses identify with it, I do not yearn for the triumph of any new faith which is sanctioned by the power of the State to separate the sheep from the goats.
"We should separate the sheep from the goats". In one memorable scene from Zulu, the sergeant major is asked. "Why are we here?" The answer was "because there is nobody else." In the closing days of the battle of Manila, my grandfather, at 54 years of age (he died at 98) shot a Japanese soldier and spent the subsequent hours trying to ease his pain. What train of events put that Japanese boy on a collision course with gramps? Neither wanted to be on the path they found themselves. Why did gramps shoot that Japanese soldier? Because it was him, and nobody else, that was on that path.
And so this generation finds itself having to make moral choices. Not because it fancies itself God. Quite the contrary. Most people in America probably wish they had never heard of al-Qaeda. But given the situation, people have to discriminate and separate out the guilty from the innocent as best they can. In Iraq the infantryman decides whether to shoot or not. The targeter decides whether to designate or not. The interrogator decides whether to believe or not. That day on September 11 the Air Force had to decide whether to scramble an interceptor to shoot down a commercial jet or not. Why them? Because there's nobody else. It's not an explanation, I know, as much as an observation of absurdity. But what can I tell you?
Marouk - just out of curiosity, where are you posting from?
Over the last three or four years, I have had the pleasure of reading several talented reasonable Arab persons writing on behalf of Muslims and Islam. Invariably they are writing from England, France or America.
Four out of 4 billion (or however many Muslim population CAIR is claiming currently) is not a happy percentage, and the fact that no one seems to be saying these things on Al-Jazeera is also dismaying.
I don't suppose you're rich enough to go start your own university in Saudi Arabia, are you?
I love the word "bequeathed"!
Wretchard,
I share Teague's concerns though I am not sure why he chose this particular post to raise those concerns. Nonetheless, the substance of Teague's comment is an issue that I would like to see you address in greater detail, because your answer to Teague seems to miss the heart of the issue.
Granted, this generation finds itself having to make moral choices. But I don't think that those choices are as simple as fighting or surrendering. There are other choices, some of them even worse then surrendering.
Since this blog and its commenters make frequent references to World War II and the moral choices that the generation of that time faced, I think it is worth exploring why the Nazis were accepted by the conservatives of Germany.
After all, the generals and the businessmen of Germany were not natural supporters of the Nazis. In fact, there were a couple of times when the conservative forces in Germany stepped up to the plate and slapped the Nazis down.
What then changed to cause the conservative forces in Germany to partner with the Nazis?
The answer has to do with the threat that the communists posed. During the same period as the rise of the Nazis, the communists were also a growing force on the street. They had their own armed wing in Germany that was in some measures more formidable than the Nazi's brown shirts. If memory serves me right, there was more than a few armed street clashes between the two groups that the Nazis lost.
Of course the communists in Germany did not restrict themselves to shooting Nazis. In fact, fighting Nazis was not even high on their list of priorities. Like all communist parties of the period, they wanted to remake society and do away with the nation state. Thus their primary targets were the businessmen, the religious, and the aristocratic military officers. For the communists, Nazis were a problem primarily because they competed for the same pool of supporters.
Those with eyes to see at the time understood that the communists represented a very real threat. As the communists had already proved in Russia, and would go on to prove in Spain and countless other countries, their victory meant the massacre of the rich, the religious, and given enough time, the middle class. Faced with the growing power of an ideology that called for their death and the falling apart of the international economic system, many conservatives felt that they had no choice but to take what allies they could get. At least the Fascists did not want to do away with the nation state. And they did not want to kill everyone in the upper classes.
This choice was made all around the western world. Italy had Mussolini, of course, and the French government almost fell to a fascist mob long before Germany was in a position to invade. Churchill had to argue strenuously against his fellow British conservatives who thought that Hitler provided good protection against a communist takeover of Europe. Many prominent conservatives in America admired Hitler or Mussolini.
To use Teague's language, the fear of communism was causing people to embrace messianic saviors. Why can't the fear of Islamic terrorism cause the same thing to happen in this day and age? And if it can, should we not fear that outcome as much or more than the actual deaths caused by Islamic terrorism?
I think William Butler Yeats captured the sprit of both the 20's and 30's and these present times with his famous poem The Second Coming….
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The line 'The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity' very nicely captures the problem that we face today as much as it captures the spirit of the 20's and 30's. We know what was born out of the 20's and 30's. So I have to wonder what is moving towards Bethlehem to be born today?
Yeats was an admirer of Mussolini. Mussolini's call to stamp out pity must have appealed to him. He embraced the beast of his time.
I fear that many who are on the forefront of worrying about Islamic terrorism and the rise of Islamic power will make the same choice today as Yeats did back then. As I see it, the rise of fascism to power was caused by the decision of the conservative classes to put the preservation of their lives, property, and power over the preservation of what they professed to be their values. And it seems to me that many anti-Islamic types are already making the same choice. It seems to be taken as a given that of course we will do anything under the sun to preserve our lives from this threat.
But those who make the preservation of their own lives the highest moral imperative wind up making man into God. And that is an ugly beast indeed.
As I see it, the rise of fascism to power was caused by the decision of the conservative classes to put the preservation of their lives, property, and power over the preservation of what they professed to be their values.
Perhaps they rightfully lost faith in the institutions they founded. Toothless UN resolutions, Geneva protections extended to the very people it was designed to prevent, appeasement weasels bequething civil liberties to captured terrorists.. You fear the rise of facism, I fear it will be reactionary. Our rules of law are broken. Fix them, compromise between idealisma and reality, or everthing will be tossed out with the bathwater when a US city is incinerated.
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Have to agree with Fen, here. Further, I have to wonder how one can believe we're not enabling terrorism with our ineffective responses to it, and how we're not feeding extremist dysfunctionality with our humanitarian aid, funds and arms that we know get diverted to those who use them against us and to indoctrinate, bribe and intimidate the very populations we think we're helping?
How are we not condemning peoples in the Middle East, SW Asia and Africa to lives of bloody barbarism when the West won’t engage in strong, ethnocentric moral interventionism and sanctions or punish perpetrators severely?
Or when we won’t administer tough-love by letting people live the inhumane social consequences of their hatred, parochialism and violence (and as contained as we can make them, to include strikes on developing nuke programs), together with swift punishment from outsiders when they transgress against other nations? How will they ever, one fine day, realize their way is a losing proposition when we keep apologizing to them and offering alms of aid?
Trans-culturalism, NGOism and liberal church communitarianism are doing their best to hamstring us from taking tougher measures, because at heart the Left doesn’t believe third world totalitarianism and terrorism that oppose the US or West are necessarily wrong. And too many of us are starting to agree with them that the ultimate enlightened value the US and the West should be exercising is one of de-facto abetting flourishing evil to stroke our nice-guy egos and assuage our progressive Christian consciences of the moment. We are to lamely react crisis after crisis to situations of the fundies’ and terrorists’ making, though they expend us and strengthen their resolve, and allow in the end for more populations to be savaged and innocents killed, to include, no doubt, thousands or millions of Americans sometime in the next few years.
Our enemies love the strongman and strong horse, but not the Big Satan/ so-called Superpower because they see us as a papertiger. We see ourselves as morally stronger than they and prettily call our paralysis, limited response and charity in the face of terrorism “compassion.” But, despite our best efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, aren’t we really playing the role of a weak and tragic co-dependent elsewhere in the Muslim world, one who's tempting the Apocalypse to happen sooner rather than later?
The answer to that is "yes," but the answer to the dilemma is to have a more unified US and West that aren't afraid of enforcing *real* humanitarian and civilized standards. Even a city, two or three taken out by bomb or bio may not even do the trick. We've learned to love our enemies too much to the detriment of them and us.
NahnCee,
I wish I was rich enough. I actually have a chance and shall blog about it when time permits.
I blog from Dixie USA, hence my Redneck Moniker. I see a lot in common between the less educated Mulsims and bigoted "rednecks" but look how far things have come her in Dixie! NASCAR (Redneck Woodstock) at least it smells that way in the infield sometimes, heh heh. Black folks are showing up for the races and there is respect exhibited between the races.
I would not feel safe blogging from the Saudi Kingdom. At best I'd get the shit flogged out of me or at worst get mah head sliced off! Dang Wahhabis! They have the market cornered on the Kabbah!
I am working on building a Kabbah here in USA. All I need is a meteorite!
Peter,
It is my prayer that equilibrium comes between Dar Islam and Dar al Harb (House of Submission and House of War).
I pray and hope for "blowback" from American Muslim scholars toward Dar Islam. I pray madrassas are established to counter the madrassas of the Wahhabi. I pray astute scholars of Dar Islam gain confidence to speak out more and more.
All,
I am very grateful for your feedback and feel honored to interact with you denizens of The Belmont Club.
May peace and prosperity be our future in a manner pleasing to The Most High. May the common denominator of a belief in a Creator, Heavenly Father, All Father, (He has many names among many faiths) make that goal a reality.
I have faith in that possibility and it is worth fighting for in the way it is now being faught. There is no sin in fighting for your life, the lives of loved ones or the innocent.
The problem is the misunderstanding that the Quran was written as the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam were fighting for survival.
Salaam eleikum
Cheiftan --
Good points. And let's not forget the reason for the Freikorps in the first place. WWI vets who had no place, not enough status / money to attract a wife, no prospect of any change, and a general degeneracy in the society. Think Cabaret. Gender bending prostitutes had little appeal to men who suffered and saw so many die in the mud on the Front. Hitler had a ready street army from just such a dynamic. Der Spiegel reports that 25% of women 18-34 have left East Germany, while Western German employers turn down the male "Ossies" who they feel are unqualifed or too demanding for work in the West. [And besides the women from East Germany are seeking higher-status men, anyway.] The result: the men join neo-nazi groups.
We focus a LOT on the inability of Muslim men to form families which generally inhibit terrorism. And form the street-army of Jihad. But the same counter-force of street armies work in the West.
I am shocked we have not seen the East German Neo Nazis voyaging to Sweden to take on the Rape Jihad there and pose as first protectors and then rulers. Europe's weakness in response to Jihad has surely left many with the knowledge that Europe lacks the will and ability to use force in decisive manners.
The State has the duty to preserve the Nation. The people. To enforce the rule of law and prevent Jihad or neo-Nazi armies from functioning. However the effeminate and deeply pacifist (they are one and the same) Europe has abandoned that duty and so it has begun.
Certainly we've seen the demands from Muslims: no cartoons (or they'll kill us). No Rushdie (they will kill him and us). No guide dogs or booze in taxis. Muslim only restrooms. Mandatory prayer rooms. I'm sure they will think of something more.
The problem is the misunderstanding that the Quran was written as the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam were fighting for survival.
I suppose that's one way to put it, but the 75 plunder raids described in the Haidith look more like a very earthly interest in the Prophet's accumulation of power, money, and sex objects to me. I have no clue on how one (anyone) gets from there to a seat at the table of Great Religions.
Peter,
Please list and/or define the world's Great Religions. Is Odinism on your list? ;)
Salaam
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