Winning This War Requires Language of Faith
As the world processes the horrific events in Mumbai, secular Jews wonder how their secularism relates to their Semitism. Governments speak softly while reconsidering what sticks may be used in war. Elites, echoing the post-9/11 left, ask, “Did Mumbai deserve it?” The decrepit news media, determined to forget everything that ever happened prior to the Iraq war, wonders why terrorism still exists, since Barack Obama won the election.
These groups are stymied by their own enlightenment. As the West evolves into a post-faith society — disdainful of religion and confident in the primacy of reason alone — it is rendering itself ineffective and mute. Mute against an enemy that, for better or worse, communicates solely in the language of the supernatural and belief.
Increasingly, we see Western societies serving the interests of Muslims (both moderate* and extreme) in government (Britain’s first Sharia court has quietly opened), public buildings, and even public and private schools, in ways that — in those same societies — are unthinkable for other faiths.
These unprecedented social and political accommodations owe much to terrorism’s ability to intimidate. Thus is a perverse idea reinforced; the jihadist can see that bomb belts and AK-47s “work.” We may anticipate, then, more attacks in dubious service to the fastest growing religion in the West.
The West loves its court systems, its bureaucracies, its diversities, but jihadists use these tools to further their ends. They will not be legislated, jailed, sued, or celebrated out of existence. Appeasement and the stodgy language of diplomacy will not stop them, either, because “diplomacy” is not the language being spoken in these attacks. The fundamentalists who endorse and commit terror believe they are heaven-bound heroes. First and foremost, they “believe.” Their rhetoric of jihad rides the language of faith.
Ms. Scalia states the dilemma plainly. We run-of-the-mill faith-based people out here on the prairie have no trouble understanding the issue at all.
Will our leaders insist on being wilfully stupid and blind and deaf until our culture, our heritage and our nation are all destroyed?
Amazing. The Muslims keep making demands and inroads in western cultures while Christians are constantly put on the defensive. Where will the secularists go for help when the sword of Islam is at their throat, either literally or figuratively?
As a non-theist, I accept that Ms. Scalia’s major point is correct. Muslim extremists cannot be dealt with in a “secular” manner. However, it is entirely possible for learned people without faith themselves to use the “language of faith” as she puts it to devise means that are meaningful to the religious extremists. The faithfullness or faithlessness of the person working against the terrorists is immaterial; it is the technique they employ that counts. Granted, the “secular left” has failed to understand the need to deal with religious fanatics in a manner that is meaningful to such extremists, but the blunders of the left, secular or otherwise, offer no reason to confuse the lack of faith with the inability to employ a suitable strategy. There are those (admittedly few) of us who are not theists, and who also are not leftists! At the same time, it would behoove we who are not theists to listen to our faithful friends for good ideas as to how best to devise approaches that might be meaningful to the Islamic extremists. This battle is for us all, and we would do well to join together in it.
TO: Elizabeth Scalia, et al.
RE: Actually….
….it’s even worse. It’s more like fighting someone who has an AK-47 with a fountain pen.
And the atheists, agnostics and pacifists amongst US are totally opposed to even using that pen as a weapon.
RE: The Spiritual Aspect
These same atheists and agnostics are completely unprepared to deal with these violent practitioners of Islam. And they think they’ll behave as most so-called ‘christians’ do in the face of their rants and court actions, quietly go into hiding. But these people won’t. Instead, after trying to convert them to Islam and failing, they’ll simple start cutting off heads.
And the atheists and agnostics, seeing that, WILL convert.
What was it in that Old Book about ‘putting on the whole armor of God’? It’s a ‘spiritual’ thing.
These people haven’t a clue. And they are so set in their ignorance that they are completely unarmed and therefore utterly defenseless. And being such, they will be overwhelmed by their Islamist opponents.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. -- Niccolo Machiavelli]
P.S. Heh….
Can one have a ‘language of faith’ without ‘faith’ itself?
I kind of doubt it.
Additionally, if the secularists try to convince the Islamists that there is no god, the Islamists will simply kill them and have done with them.
“The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” W B Yeats
“We should consider that Islamic terrorism may not be defeatable, except on its own terms, on the battlefield of the supernatural.”
You don’t cure madness by attempting to understand and engage with the mad on their own terms…!
Mad people are just that — mad. They are not capable of reason (’tis is the actual problem), which is why we tend to lock them up whilst they are a danger.
What you’re suggesting is the equivalence of attempting obedience training with a rabid dog…
Besides that, for many people ‘faith’ is nothing but superstitious nonsense, so, how are they to use ‘language of faith’ to say the right things to the deluded? You might as well ask the Pope to preach Satanism — it would be more successful than asking an atheist to preach religion(but not much).
Most atheists however are firm believers in the fact that well-placed bullets are the successful start of a blessed afterlife… for those that believe in this sort of thing tho. That’s about the only ‘language of faith’ that I can see would reach the parts that other methods of communication don’t.
What we need is more reason, not a retreat to superstition.
Excellent article. The most amazing thing I have seen in the last few years is the unholy alliance on college campuses between the secular progressives and the Islamic fundamentalists. Antisemitism and hatred of America seem to be the common link. Reason will not work with these people as the secular progressive governments of western Europe and the Western Hemisphere should already know because the most reasonable thing that the jihadists can do is die while killing nonbelievers. If it were not reasonable to them they wouldn’t do it would they.
———————————————–
You liberals need to pay lots of taxes cause someone needs to pay for all the free stuff Obama promised me!
We’ve seen how well TJ Babson’s “reason” has worked in Britain and Spain. Babson and Myno are the ones dealing in superstition; the idea that the formulations of Marx, Keynes, and Saul Alinsky make them smarter than everyone else, especially those who believe in God, is the greatest superstition of all.
Faith alone will not win this war, but the Faith of Joshua and Gideon will.
Religion is the main, and often the only, distinguishing factor between ‘them and us’ in most conflicts. It handily provides a label to set us apart where no other exists.
We would be far far better off without this deluded superstition.
Without faith, there is fear. We are observing this in the US policies towards the Islamic Jihad.
Our politicians most of them without faith (true)are afraid to squash the problem. IE New york times leaks information on world banking survelance, and Washington sides with the NY times.
Washington(state gov. as well) sides with every group who is against faith, IE festivus. Out of fear, they will not be re elected.
Here in the US people of faith will fight and are not afraid, however they fight alone.
TO: T. J. Babson
RE: Yeah?
Go for it!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Make sure your will has been updated.
P.P.S. Either that or be prepared to become a Muslim, with a dull knife blade at your throat.
Jihad is not interested in acquiring land, or money, or even control, which faith understands to be illusory. What these extremists want is submission. To their book or to their sword.
In fact, jihad is interested in acquiring land, all the land of the Earth for re-establishment of the glorious Caliphate…from Pakistan/Afghanistan, Iraq/Mesopotamia, in fact, all the middle and far east…Indonesia, the Phillipines…Europe, North America, Australia…potential recruits are schooled and brainwashed.
Violent or radical jihad (as well as “soft” jihad promulgated by organizations every day, like CAIR) is all about control.
Islam itself is all about control, where, these days, you might have to get a ruling from the Ayatollah as to the simplest questions of everyday life. In western countries, one of the biggest initial aims of soft jihad is substituting Islamic law for civil law in matters of family life and marriage. This is just a small chink in a very long campaign to, ultimately, replace decadent western culture altogether.
The west’s weak position in the face of the goals of jihad isn’t so much the decline in religion as it is the decline in steadfastness and determination of “western” peoples. We’re soft and self-indulgent, and jihadists recognize what vulnerable targets we are. Add in the desire to accommodate and political correctness (especially prevalent in Britain it seems) and we’re virtual pushovers.
I would argue that “the supernatural” in Islam is part of the brainwashing to attract recruits. I don’t believe that jihadist leaders and recruiters really believe in their version of heaven, with the black eyed, re-hymenating virgins reclining on jeweled couches besides rivers of wine…but that this picture is a tool of manipulation to attract repressed, unhappy and not very smart potential suicide bombers, and others, to jihad.
In other words, a tool of exploitation.
I don’t really believe that individuals like bin Laden and Zawahiri and so many others (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) really are dumb enough to think “God” is on their side. I seem them as individuals who are, essentially, outlaws, who have schooled themselves in hatred, are on power trips and, literally, have nothing to lose.
Christianity has been plagued by offshoots called cults for hundreds of years that we still battle unsuccessfully (ie Warren Jeffs and others like him discovered daily living in “compounds” around our country). The Muslim faith seems to be having the same problem on a global scale with their fundamentalist factions. Why would anybody think that trying to put out a fire of hate fueled religious fervor with yet more religious fervor coming out of the US would be an answer to this? Not sure what the answer is but using faith as a “weapon” has never been shown to work. Just as we root out crazy cults where they live and breed here, the world as a whole should contribute to rooting out the roots of this madness where they hide and fester before they are allowed to brainwash the entire planet. I’m not even sold on the idea that the Islamic fundamentalists want to convert us as much as murder us. It’s going to take much more than swinging a Bible around to combat that.
For those who aspire to no faith and choose not to pretend to a “language of faith” to have a conversation with Muslims, it’s well to keep in mind that in the case of Islam we are dealing not only with a totalitarian religion, but a totalitarian religion that is also a form of government. And, in this case, the only acceptable form of government for their religion.
It’s no accident that sharia law is being used as a wedge to institutionalize Islam into democracies. Where is the ACLU screaming about separation of church and state where Islam is concerned?
I suspect that it will become more and more apparent as the unfortunate months roll on that the ACLU’s objection (and those of many other individuals and groups) was never to “religion”. Their objection was to Christianity per se. I’ll be looking forward to seeing admissions of their hypocrisy in print as they begin to attack Islam publicly in the same way they have endlessly attacked Christians and Christianity. (Won’t be holding my breath, but I will be hoping we don’t lose OUR form of government over this….just keep in mind: Christians don’t mind Muslims living and breathing in our land. Muslims’ aim is to outlaw Christians and kill them if necessary. Don’t accuse me of exaggerating until you check out current events in nations where Muslims are in the majority.)
#3 Chuck — “These same atheists and agnostics are completely unprepared to deal with these violent practitioners of Islam.”
That statement would embarrass a self-aware 4 year old. Try thinking and THEN typing. It usually works better.
Ms. Scalia —
Being religious isn’t a requirement to threat detection or subsequent prosecution of a solution to it.
I would be happy to wipe the jihadists off the earth. Not because or despite of their beliefs, or yours, but because they’ve demonstrated unequivocally what their intentions are, and that it’s me or them. No problem. They have to go. This has sod all to do with belief. *Why* they want to kill me isn’t the least bit germane. I don’t care why. That they do is enough.
See how simple this really is?
An excellent article. It summarizes the problem very well. So, what are we to do about it…on a personal level? Our ‘pens’ can address their dull swords, because our secular reasoning can prevent or challenge the products of ‘political correctness’, actions of people like the governor of Washington, leftist tenured ‘professors’, and others who wish to knock chips from our society in favor of the irrational, ignorant jihadiis. We can overcome, in language of the ’60s, by writing letters, emails, etc. in each and every case we see. Challenge those who would accommodate each and every ‘chipper’. Risk being called an evangelist or worse. Be ready to rage against the machine. Hold fast to our principles. Take action, rather than just get heartburn reading summaries, and develop pragmatic tactics against the well-developed strategies of the jihad. ‘Nuff said.
Islam thrives on intimidation, fear and control. We see that in their subjugation of the powerless women and children in their own societies. We all know that they view us as weak and rightly so. Moslems living amongst us need to know that their violent behaviour will not be tolerated at any level. I am a 5’4″ female who does not have the physical strength to hurt a fly….but put me up against an anti-semitic, hijab wearing barbarian and I am a volcano waiting to explode. I show no fear and never backed down from a fight. The look on their faces when I reply to their hateful vitriol is astounding…..
#16 Ann — “I suspect that it will become more and more apparent as the unfortunate months roll on that the ACLU’s objection (and those of many other individuals and groups) was never to “religion”. Their objection was to Christianity per se.”
The ACLU’s objection is to overt influence where it doesn’t belong. Since it’s the practitioners of christianity who are the dominant form of attempted repression in the name of religion in the USA, it ought not be surprising that the ACLU’s anti-repression agenda reflects this.
I wouldn’t have though that the obvious is that difficult to figure out. Go figure.
tanstaffl, The West’s decline is due to the increasing rejection of Judeo-Christian mores and
the sterility of secular-materialist philosophy which has replaced it. Transcendent morality stirs mens souls for the heroic. Jesus said “There is no greater love than this that a man lay down his life for a friend” This won the day at the Gates of Vienna. Now Europe is a sick old cow,no match for demonic radical Islam. We will only triumph ourselves when we muster the moral courage to “march into Hell for a Heavenly cause”
If ‘Muslim’s aim is to outlaw Christians and kill them if neccesary’ why hasn’t this process been accomplished in most muslim dominated countries?
Places like Tunisia, Malaysia, Indonesia etc could have easily outlawed Christianity decades ago, why haven’t they done this if it is the aim of every single muslim?
The idea that Muslims are a monolithic block that all think and act as one is well wide of the mark. The ‘ummah’ might be a theory that some muslims subscribe to but in reality it doesn’t mean much, witness the intercommunal bloodshed between Sunni and Shia in the middle east for example. Only the other day I overheard a conversation between some young British Asian Muslims talking in very disparaging and frankly contemptuous terms about their Somali co-religionists, there are racial tensions between these two groups in this city. Cultural and ethnic ties are as strong or stronger for many than religious ones.
The ACLU, founded in Communist principles in the 1920′s, seems, these days, to be as interested in destroying western “culture” as the jihadists.
The contrast between what the ACLU might object to (e.g., “Christian” installations at Christmastime) and what the ACLU might ignore (e.g., insistence on Muslim footbaths installed at US universities) is breathtaking.
The West’s decline is due to the increasing rejection of Judeo-Christian mores and the sterility of secular-materialist philosophy which has replaced it.
I agree that that has been going on, especially in Europe, where amongst the lovers of secularism/socialism, Christianity is practically a dirty word.
But I would probably be more literal and less philosophical in the decline I’ve observed in my lifetime, the decline of the family and the internal code of rules and regulations that the child didn’t violate, else face serious consequences…
The consequences are (too frequently) gone for crazy and wanton behaviors…
And other declines, like in quality and demands of public education…standards in general, particularly in leadership, political leadership, Governor Blago being merely tip of very large iceberg…
and some rises, like the rise in trashniess of popular culture and there seeming to be no holds barred on what we can see in the public marketplace these days…
In some ways, Radical Islam is correct about the degradation of the west. But its proffered replacement for what we have left of a culture is, of course, a very, very ugly can of worms.
Just so we’re clear G Alston, I take it that you do not think the Birth of Jesus was a Tiding of Great Joy, or to those living in darkness a Light. And by the way, correcting someones grammar is a cheap trick used over and over again when attempting to discount someones opinion. Try something new.
Islam means submission. No sale.
Jonesy55 – look up dhimmi. If you’re OK with being a second class citizen in your own country, go for it. I’d rather be dead.
TO: G Alston
RE: Okay…
Prove your point.
[1] Show me a self-aware 4 year-old.
[2] Read my comment to them.
[3] Record their response.
[4] Share the recording on YouTube.
Looking forward to seeing the show.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Might be interesting to see you do the same experiment repeated with a ‘self-aware 4 year-old’ born to an Islamist too.
In other words, maybe you should take your own advice of thinking before typing. And do stop projecting your ignorance on the rest of US.
…the intercommunal bloodshed between Sunni and Shia in the middle east for example.
Reportedly, the different sects have gotten along pretty well in recent times, even under Saddam. But the controversy can be stirred up, exploited, at any time, and has been.
The schism is all about some dumb controversy over who, exactly, was Mohammed’s legitimate successor.
Sunnis (like al Zarqawi, Zawahiri, Osama and “the Saudis” in general) don’t consider Shi’ites “real” Muslims. So Shi’ites are as despicable as we (proud
) infidels.
In al Zarqawi’s eyes, slaughtering Shi’ites in Iraq was part of God’s agenda.
It’s all, really, rock ‘n roll.
~signed, Proud Infidel
(later)
We used to be strong in our convictions regarding the basic goodness of our country and the need to vigorously defend it against all adversaries. We used to know that, even with all of its flaws, our country is the best hope for freedom loving people everywhere. This spirit had very little to do with religion and had proven itself to be a stronger motivator than even religious fanaticism, when the situation called for it. Now we can’t even prosecute a war after we have collectively decided to get ourselves into one. We can’t even trust our free markets to drive our economic activity because we are scared to death of the down cycles free markets experience. We can’t be competitive because we are afraid of the inequalities we guess, wrongly so, that competition produces. We, this generation, have blundered so badly that the idea of citizen government sounds surreal. I need a half full cup of coffee, I guess.
#17 G. Alston says “See how simple this really is?”
This is his conclusion after saying he would wipe out the jihadists without regard to their faith which motivates them to do what they do.
I suppose one need only walk around fully armed and shoot the jihadist first. I suppose G Alston will know the hihadist when G. Alston sees one. Mumbai, apparently gives no lessons. Separating the majority of Muslims throughout the world are peaceable people from the jihadists is no problem for G. Alston.
See how simple this really is?
Ms. Scalia warns that the faithless among us who have made a religion of government and an “enlightened” view of law and order are ill equipped to deal with the camel of radical Islam which has already worked itself under the tent right up to its hump. Those faithless do not understand what accommodating the camel of radical Islam is really costing. Meanwhile, G. Alston is comfortable with eliminating unspecified “jihadists.” Would he bomb Mecca? How about the Gitmo crowd?
Einstein said: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
See how simple this really is?
In Western Culture we tend to treat faith as a private matter. This means we have created two distinct cultures inside our societies. Organizations – our bureaucracies, corporations and educational establishments are secular.
There is no such distinction in the more extreme Moslem societies. Obviously, this fact must be understood when thinking about how we interact with these cultures.
Within our own cultures, we must tread with care. Most of us value freedom of religion. Would you really want a state religion? I think history reveals that state religions usually lead to fanaticism and oppression, or even more likely, spiritual apathy.
Over time an organization – bureaucracy, corporation or educational establishment, begins to think and act more like an organism than a collection of diverse individuals. Therefore, we have certainly created enormous godless organisms within our Western Cultures.
I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it comes with individual commitment.
Ok Elizabeth, lets get this thing started:
Some quotes come to mind:
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” I am not sure who said this. I have always found it to be extremely challenging to make this distinction in thought and deed, as it seems to require me to be simultaneously repulsed and while staying attuned to the value of someone. I am in sin if I think I am better than someone just because I hate their sin. So humility would be a start, religion not required for that, right?!
Jesus quoting scripture in the New Testament:
“Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.”
And from Islam,
“There shall be no compulsion in religion.”
We should drop millions of flyers on Afghanistan with this quote.
I think this is a Hadith but it may come straight from the Quoran.
In the Quoran, generally when it says to kill unbelievers, it is talking about people who were trying to kill them at the time. This was just a given amongst the early Moslems.
TO: Jim Baker, et al.RE
RE: Not Quite Accurate
Actually, ‘this spirit’ had a LOT to do with ‘religion’.
As Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famous Democracy in America, published in 1835, put it…
As a corollary he also wrote…
The connection here is self-evident. And the lack of ‘spiritual’ backbone is beginning to tell. Look around you at the headlines over the last few months.
If you deny this report, you’re one of those Elizabeth is talking about, the defenseless against this onslaught of violent Islamists.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. You’re part of the problem. Despite your denial.
I think the main theme of the author is ignoring the Jihadists won’t make them go away. Ain’t going to happen. They think God is on their side. Considering these animals commit the twin sins of murder and suicide in the dispicable acts, I think not.
And I wish the Muslim Community would be more vocal in treating them like a cancer. They have to be removed. I for one would be more than glad to help.
The quote is: “There is no compulsion in religion.” Some would like it to mean that Islam should not be forced on anyone. This interpretation does not ring true when you consider that anyone who did not convert to Islam was either charged a protection fee, or was killed.
I interpret it to mean an excuse to force the religion of Islam on people by force. Mohammad was a warrior and lived by the sword. It is not true that the killings that Mohammad and his followers committed were in self-defense. It is a myth perpetrated for appeasement.
G. Alston. Post again when the acid wears off
They respect faith. They do not respect people who are not willing to die for what they believe in.
Examples of this are Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig of Fox News, who were forcibly converted to Islam during their capture my terrorists in the Gaza Strip a few years ago.
Threated westerners with death, or even harm, and they convert. Is this the future of Europe?
A lot of people are willing to kill for their cause (G. Alston), but how many are willing to die for it?
That is the essential difference between “us” and “them,” and it’s what I think Elizabeth means here. Not that everyone in the West has to confess the Christian faith, just that they need to believe in their convictions with the same zeal as the believer. And how many people are willing to die for the Bill of Rights? Do the “values” of the West inspire that kind of passion? Or do they only inspire that passion when we believe those rights come from something eternal and transcendent?
A civilization that believes truth derives from power is probably not worth saving.
#30 David — “Separating the majority of Muslims throughout the world are peaceable people from the jihadists is no problem for G. Alston.”
Reading comprehension much?
I didn’t say that, didn’t imply that, and this has nothing at all to do with what I did say.
#25 Lynn — “Just so we’re clear G Alston, I take it that you do not think the Birth of Jesus was a Tiding of Great Joy, or to those living in darkness a Light.”
ROFL! Is this “special” people week? Seems that you’re about as adept as David there at reading what was actually written. Try that, and then get back to me if you have an actual point to make.
Poster “G Alston”, manifests the self inflicted self defeating disease of the radical secularist. He calls our existential dilemma “simple”, he proposes genocidal “solutions” — solutions that if enacted would destroy the very nature of our society forever — and castigates Christians in the USA as “the dominant form of attempted repression in the name of religion in the USA”.
The radical left, and the radical secularists are dominated by this kind of dangerous bipolar non-thought — they are obsessed with their paper thin insights, insights that cannot have more depth or wisdom because these radicals have rejected the fabric of Western history and heritage and identify it as a worthless rag, as worthless as the Muslims “G Alston” wishes to annihilate.
I myself am an agnostic, but I cherish the heritage of the West, including the rich tapestry of Christianity, Greek philosophy, Jewish orthodoxy — all of which contributed to the rise of the humanist enlightenment which sprang from those traditions, as well as allowing for the unprecedented founding of our nation, the USA. These radical secularists, marzists, leftists, have all forgotten how we got here — and in that they have lost the very qualities that would allow us to preserve what we have accomplished as a society.
It is remarkable to read the genocidal posts of people like “G Alston” — he (or she) would undoubtedly describe himself (or herself) as a “progressive”, “enlightened”, “tolerant”, and “intelligent”. Blinded by the dogma of their own zealotry, mythology, and superstition, the radical Leftists and secularists do as much to invite the catastrophe of Jihad fascism as anything else. They represent the immune deficiency of the West to withstand the onslaught of Jihad — and in that, pose an existential problem on their own to our long-term survival.
#38 j.christian — “A lot of people are willing to kill for their cause (G. Alston), but how many are willing to die for it?”
Nobody outside of fanatics are *ever* willing to die for a “cause.” What rational people are willing to die for is protection of their home and family, and it’s not something one looks forward to doing.
#37 Amphipolis — “Threated westerners with death, or even harm, and they convert.”
In “Dune” (Frank Herbert) the difference between huimans and animals is discussed — it’s explained that an animal caught in a trap will chew it’s leg off to personally survive. A human will feign death for the chance to take out his captor so as to remove a threat to his kind.
If you are captured and you are told to convert or die, only a complete idiot would choose to die. It’s no different than animal behaviour. Better to live so as to be able to take out the captors later.
#40 — “castigates Christians in the USA as “the dominant form of attempted repression in the name of religion in the USA”.
It’s reading comprehension day for sure.
The ACLU doesn’t target christians. It’s the other way around. The christians go out of their way to repress this and that, and the ACLU correspondingly takes them down. It’s not the muslims inisting that the 10 commandments be placed in the courthouse. It’s christians. It’s not jews who insist on having a nativity creche on the courthouse lawn. It’s christians.
So you see a pattern here?
Probably not.
#40 — “It is remarkable to read the genocidal posts of people like “G Alston” ”
Defending oneself and genocide are different things. How you managed to misconstrue that from what was written is a mystery.
“Muslim extremists cannot be dealt with in a “secular” manner. ”
The Chinese are not known for their respect for people of faith and basically never have had much truck for religious people and they have certainly found a way of dealing with this kind of thing. They round them up and re-educate these subversives to death. They don’t pussy-foot around with learning some “language of faith”. They deal with the secular political threat the extremists pose to a secular state.
It would take them about six months to clean up the Israeli-Palestinian mess, unencumbered as they are by any respect for anyone’s religious claims to the land.
“That is the essential difference between “us” and “them,” and it’s what I think Elizabeth means here. Not that everyone in the West has to confess the Christian faith, just that they need to believe in their convictions with the same zeal as the believer.”
But also as here:
“Let’s keep God out of this and talk as men,” has been the tactic of governments and nations for decades, and it has not worked. Ultimately it cannot work for the plain and simple reason that Islamists are not secular-thinking people living in what is thought of as a “natural” world. In fact, much of Islamic thinking – much of Islamic perspective – is utterly given over to the supernatural, to those things “seen and unseen.” And while governments “think as human beings,” Benedict, the Bishop of Rome, the man who sits on the Throne of Peter (whom Jesus advised to “think as God does,”) is perhaps uniquely qualified to deliver to these supernaturally-focused people something they cannot fail to understand, a supernatural challenge. And he does so while fully understanding that within the supernatural realm there are forces for the light, and for the darkness.
The radical left, and the radical secularists are dominated by this kind of dangerous bipolar non-thought — they are obsessed with their paper thin insights, insights that cannot have more depth or wisdom because these radicals have rejected the fabric of Western history and heritage and identify it as a worthless rag, as worthless as the Muslims “G Alston” wishes to annihilate.
Well said, Morton.
Douglas Bogle nailed it I think: what is fear?
Fear is having faith in bad things happening… fear IS just faith turned 180 degrees around in the opposite direction of Christian faith, the belief in what is good… and good trimphs over evil folks, so Christians do not fear evil… non-Christians who lack this “faith” have fear to fill the void. I pity them. But, I also recognize that we are all children of the same God, and that Jesus did not teach hate, in fact he taught that only through love can hate be defeated… but it requires not just faith, we’re talking about “Christian faith”… BIG difference.
Also, if ACLU’s desired separation of church and state succeeds, we are left with secularism as the state religion… see how that falacy works? You CAN’T separate church and state, you can have freedom of religion… BIG difference.
Aynn Rand best laid out the difference between good vs evil… one promotes life and the other supports death.
TO: All
RE: G Alston
Pretty obvious, between their comments at #39 and 41 (above), that they don’t have a decent answer to my comment at #27 about their stupidity.
This person, unfortunately, seems not to be worthy of the bandwidth necessary keep them abusing themselves in this public forum.
Case in point, the Dune reference….
…it’s a lousy analogy.
A higher level human knows the difference between honor and dishonor. Then again there is the religious, i.e., spiritual aspect. The point being that those of US intelligent and aware enough of the world to realize that there is more to it than meets the secularist eye know more about Life than those who deny.
You are the epitome of the person Elizabeth and I have been talking about a spineless secularist who knows little, if anything, other than saving their own life.
In a manner of speaking you provide the proof of that in your own Dune analogy. You, in your own words would become a Muslim, with a knife to your throat.
How so?
Well, because you’re willing to chew off your own ‘honor’ in order to save your sorry life. Not realizing the truth of the words He spoke almost 2000 years ago…
It’s a paradox…..
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[For the power of paradox opens your eyes and blinds those who say they can see. -- Michael Card; God's Own Fool]
Yes, the language of faith:
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
“Do not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.”
“If a man strikes you, give him the other cheek. If he takes your cloak, give him your tunic as well.”
The “language of faith” in the service of war is the same perversion of Christ’s teachings that gave us the Crusades, the Inquisition, the harrassment of Jews over the centuries, the slaughter of pagans, and internecine Christian warfare.
For the three centuries following the life of Christ Christians were almost universally forbidden from being soldiers or engaging in war. How many of the Apostles took up swords to avoid martyrdom? How many Roman Christians formed guerilla groups to ensure that their faith didn’t die out.
None.
And yet, somehow, the faith endured. The enemy of Christ’s teachings is not secularism, but the creeping Phariseeism that is nothing but the sancification of base human desires dressed up as holy religion.
It rarely happens in history—certainly not the history of Islam—that people given the choice to either convert or die, and who chose conversion, took out their captors. The rather sad fact is, those who do convert under pressure usually stay converted, if only for social acceptance and economic perks, if nothing else. They don’t turn on their captors. And the only choices aren’t death or conversion. There’s also resistance.
It isn’t Jews, or Christians, insisting that footbaths be installed in college washrooms, to be used for preparation for Islamic prayer; it isn’t Christians, or Jews, or Hindus, insisting on having classes on Islam taught in California schools; it isn’t Christians, Jews, Wiccans or Buddhists rioting all over the world because of some cartoons drawn by Scandanavian cartoonists, and thereby quashing freedom of speech. It isn’t Christian taxi-cab drivers who are refusing to pick up blind people accompanied by dogs, or carrying alcohol.
The ACLU is way too selective in whom it chooses to defend, and who it chooses to go after. As others here have pointed out, it usually goes after the west, and Christianity.
Jbl:
Thank you for providing that link. I’m sure, however, that the G. Alstons of the world will continue to believe in faith/reason duality, seeing as they refuse to understand the Regensburg address, encyclicals like Fides et Ratio, etc. It’s all there for them to read and understand, if only they will open their eyes and their hearts.
P.S. I SERIOUSLY doubt that G Alston would even ATTEMPT to take out any Islamist under ANY circumstances…..
“As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities”.
– François-Marie Arouet (aka “Voltaire”)
The problem with secularism, as I see it, is that secularists itself seem to be unwilling to define what it is, what it really stands for, aside from “Freedom of speech” or “reason” (vague terms), or to risk anything in its defense. Pretending to go along with one’s captors, in order to rise up against them afterwards, never seems to work out. The majority of people in such circumstances never rise up, if history is any guide, they just go with the flow.
If you believe in something, you should be willing to defend it. Not everyone is going to be brave enough to face death in a cause, but people should at least be able to say what they believe in, and defend it, verbally, if not physically. That’s not animal behavior, that’s human behavior. As has been seen time and time again, a society that can’t defend itself, and its beliefs, will fall, and have beliefs imposed on it by others.
What are strictly secular values, and is there anything about them that will cause secularists to actually fight for them, and the west, instead of hemming, hawing, pushing platitudes or aiming at soft targets, such as Christians?
TO: Trex
RE: Don’t Forget….
….these….
What’s the point here?
Well. In the first place He evidently is not opposed to people owning weapons. Furthermore, based on that, one gets the impression that people should be prepared to use those weapons.
Then there’s the business about turning the other cheek when ‘attacked’. And comparing that with owning and using weapons.
I’m happy to turn the other cheek and/or lay down my life for a friend. And I have christian friends who are weapons owners/users who are willing to do the same.
But, obviously one has to keep in mind that these Islamists won’t stop with just attacking/killing me. They’ll go on to attack/kill my friends. So I’m willing to lay down MY life using weapons to STOP them from killing my friends. And my weapons owning/using friends are willing to do the same for me.
Just to us ‘tough love’ to get these Islamists from stopping their heinous outrages against God’s creation. So, bottom line….
…they’re welcome to try to kill me. But my friends will do their level best to prevent them. And if words like, “Stop!” and “Drop your weapons!” don’t work they’ll raise their response to the attack to whatever level of force is necessary to stop them.
Do you understand?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. -- Marine Corps Rules for Gunfighting]
Chuck,
I have also read Tocqueville’s impressions of America, which were much better received in Europe than they were in America. I obviously don’t believe everything the Frenchman said about us. He made some very interesting observations, but Tocqueville or not, I stand by my poorly presented opinion.
Trex: Here!Here! But you forgot one: “…pearls before swine.” Few Christians have the courage of their faith. Here they are calling for more torture and killing, in the name of Christ. Jesus. What a bunch of hypocrites.
I know and like several evangelical Christians in this forum it seems like all they can do is throw scripture around and that is not the point of this piece. This is why people like Rosie O’ Donnell say fundamentalist Christians are the equivalent of fanatical Muslims.
This piece merely points out a weakness in western diplomacy. There is no call for a crusade, here.
“The West’s abandonment of religion has left it unprepared to defeat a foe that’s driven by spiritual concerns.”
Actually the vast majority of Westerners are religious. In America 94% of people are religious with the majority being Christians.
Unfortunately many Christians have adopted a weak left leaning, over tolerant “turn the other cheek” attitude towards the malevolent as well as the benevolent.
Not all cultures and people are equal and deserving of unconditional kindness and acceptance.
Welcome with a hand of nectar, the honeybees and butterflies of the world, but in the other hand carry insecteside for the wasps and fire ants that invade.
I see lots of rational (or faithless) people commenting here with the rather threadbear argument that you can’t fight bullets with prayers, or that you can’t fight reason with faith. The whole point of this article is that we aren’t fighting reason, and fighting the bullets is necessary but incomplete. The islamic terrorists get their army not from a call to reason, but a call to faith. That call to faith can only be met by a stronger call to faith, bullets won’t work, faithlessness will not work. Many people believe (I believe) that Christianity can be a stronger faith to meet the nihilistic rantings of the islamic fundamentilists. ‘God loves you’ versus ‘Surender or die’ is a pretty powerful argument if tried. We need to have the belief in our faith to try it. I think that ‘There is no god, so don’t worry’ is just what isn’t working in England today. The idea that it would work, I think, is rather silly. The key is the converts, not the converted. They are converting because ‘There is not god, so don’t worry’ isn’t working for them.
TO: Jbl
RE: No….No Crusade Here
Whereas there is no call for a holy crusade here, you’ve obviously, for some reason, missed the point about ‘faith’.
Why is that? It’s in the title of the piece and scattered throughout it.
Are you a secularist?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Nobody with more than two synapses to rub together would consider Rosie O’Donnell as a source for citation.
After all, she believes her bodyguard should have a gun, but nobody else should.
“The West, like a leery coach unsure what to do with a controversial player, has put God on the sidelines during a most crucial playoff.”
Damn, that is good, Liz.
uncle noel: I did a search to look for the words “torture” and “murder” and only found them in you comment.
G. Alston: “The christians go out of their way to repress this and that, and the ACLU correspondingly takes them down.”
The only pattern here is the one used to make you blanket statement.
#53 TalkinKammel: let me help you out here…
Secularism would be those who by “reason” cannot prove life after death and therefore do not abide by religious beliefs. Ok? So, that means they do abide by a code of life that assumes we are all just here from cradle to death, and that’s it. It’s not too much of a stretch then to understand why they cower in fear when their life is threatened, and will do anything to save their own skin… there is nothing of higher value to these poor souls… Case in point: see post #41 G Alston, he assumes through this prism of secularism that you would have to be an “idiot” not to do anything to save your own life… you have to pity these people to be so poor in spirit that they will not accept that there is more to life than cradle to death.
TO: Jim Baker
RE: You’re Certainly….
….welcome to them….
….as long as you don’t live under Shari’ia law for such things as thinks.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The influence of the religion [Islam] paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world — Winston Churchill, 1899]
add on, here’s something I read once that fits: there were two surgeons preparing to operate on a patient, one was Christian the other was atheist. The atheist said to the Christian, “In all my years as a surgeon, of the thousands of operations I have performed, I have never once seen a soul inside any patient.” To which the Christian said, “Have you ever seen an idea?”
Why do some consider being secular a bad thing? I’d rather be overtly religious than some fundy bozo who wants to gain brownie points from god by saving someone.
Oops meant “not overlty religious.”
TO: Pat J
RE: Please Explain…
….the form of English you’re using where you do not recognize the contradiction you just made.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious...there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, c. 1835]
P.S. Ach tso….a ‘typo’.
Thanks….
The Holy Anchoress writes:
Silencing the language of faith in public discourse and policy weakens the West’s ability to engage and defeat an enemy entirely motivated by relentless theology. By failing to speak in the same language, it has no weapons for victory, short of destroying whole cities.
So the only way to defeat extremist Muslim terrorists is to not only eradicate them, but to open proclaim (through propaganda or whatever) that ‘our’ Christian god is better than ‘their’ Islamic god?
Really? That’s important in this struggle? More important that keeping them out is to drive the point home that one of our religions is better than theirs?
Wouldn’t that put us on track to become a theocracy? Wouldn’t that be bad? You know, like Taliban bad? Like Soviet bad? Like not the USA we grew up in bad?
Wingnuts should stop and think before they open their mouths or put fingers to their keyboards.
TO: Dhalgren
RE: Well…
…since you brought it up….
….it wouldn’t hurt any more than what’s going on now. Or would you prefer we just nuke em instead of convincing them of their error?
Where did you go to school and when? I’d like to know because it would help me appreciate your total ignorance of civics, as they obviously taught you nothing.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S….
Speaking for yourself, eh…..
Dhalgren, I think you’re missing the point here.
And posters on any blog should stop and think before they use over-used insults such as “Wingnuts”.
The fact is, liberals, shut up. You are going to get us all killed by consorting with Jihadists because of you PC approach to religion is to play into the USA hate hands of hard left biased media islam love.
I have my own take on what is happening in the West, vis-a-vis Islam. And I think in one sense devout Christians and Jews do have an advantage over atheists and agnostics in understanding the nature of the threat and its scope: they understand what evil is and believe it exists. It is an actual force and entity. The other thing is that one has to hurdle over a plethora of obstacles put in the way by governments, academics, and policy wonks in order to understand the nature of the threat and how powerful it is. Those obstacles run the gamut from denial strategies to political correctness to alternate templates for understanding the conflict (typically Marxist economic reductionism). To clear out the cobwebs and mental constraints one has to take the step of actually reading the enemy’s scriptures (Qur’an)and some English translations of the most authoritative ahadith (hadith Bukhari and hadith Muslim), which are the traditions of Muhammed’s actions, words, and understanding of those. It is not easy to read these sources, because the language is arcane and the declarations are full of boring bombast and archaic expression. Much of it really is offensive, but you simply have to get through it in order to understand the nature of Islam. There are some very good books and commentaries out there, presenting an accurate picture of what Islam is. And it is not what politicians and policy wonks tell you it is; their language and ways of speaking about it have motives that are simply dishonest or ignorant.
The threat is huge. We have been lulled to sleep by three centuries (since 1683, when the Turks were turned back at the gates of Vienna)while jihad has been somnolent. But now jihad is recrudescent, and we are not prepared for its robust violence. We are faced with the world’s oldest totalitarianism (surviving)that has a history of fourteen centuries of jihad violence and conquest.
The religious Christian or Jew understands how powerful spiritual motivations are. Secular Jews and Christians are more likely to settle for the Marxist reductionist templates that purport to explain the surge of violence and militancy in the Islamic world. So far, it would seem that the secularists are winning this contest to explain the phenomenon, by virtue of the monopoly they have on society’s transmission belts. Hence, it intersects with the Red and Green alliance of convenience against the West.
They respect faith…Examples of this are Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig of Fox News, who were forcibly converted to Islam during their capture my terrorists in the Gaza Strip a few years ago.
Attempts at forced conversion (If Centanni and his photog “converted”, it didn’t mean much) are measures of intimidation and power mongering. Nothing “respectful” is involved.
If I’d been in their position in Gaza, I would make a symbolic (and meaningless) conversion as well. Hamas has a very nasty track record and needed an “excuse” to win and spring those 2 particular guys.
The ACLU doesn’t target christians. It’s the other way around. The christians go out of their way to repress this and that, and the ACLU correspondingly takes them down. It’s not the muslims inisting that the 10 commandments be placed in the courthouse. It’s christians. It’s not jews who insist on having a nativity creche on the courthouse lawn. It’s christians.
For decades and even centuries, we’ve had religious displays on view in courthouses and other public bldgs. at Christmastime.
In recent times, however, the secularists of the ACLU have been targeting anything “Christian” happening on public property. The agitations of such groups are why our Christmas celebration is so often referred to, these days, as a Winter Festival, and so on.
Federal bldgs. have been inscribed (in stone) with religious based inscriptions since the dawn of this country. And then there is our money, In God We Trust. There’s even an depiction of the various lawgivers, Mohammed among them, inscribed in stone on our Supreme Court bldg. You’d think the secularists of the ACLU and their buddies, the Radical Islamists (who declare any depiction of Mohammed to be profane, would be marching on Washington DC) demanding that the bldg. be demolished.
Although many of our founding fatherpersons were, personally, religious skeptics, their own speeches and writings are peppered with references to the Christian God and religious principles and precepts. “endowed by their Creator (not by the ACLU, certainly) with certain inalienable rights”
This is the historical consciousness of the beginning and founding of this country, a judeo christian philosophy whether you and the ACLU want to believe it or not.
While we fight amongst ourselves about who and what make up the most Christian Christian, the Muslim terrorists slink in unnoticed and take up residence. Can we not all agree that they are trying to eradicate us if for no other reason than we are AMERICANS/British/Whatever they deem wrong? I don’t think they are going to check to see who has been circumcised or baptised or tattooed behind the ear with 666. They just want us all dead. Isn’t that enough to take action?
Just to let you know – the link you gave about ‘private’ Catholic schools in Britain possibly providing multi-faith prayer rooms is about state-funded schools that are run by the Roman Catholic church. So your claim that such things wouldn’t be considered for other faiths rather falls flat – another faith is already running the school, and determining the main forms of prayer used there, although it’s publicly funded, and will normally have a significant number of non-Catholic pupils (30% is the average, the article says). The Catholic church has issued the guidance to achieve more tolerance and understanding between faiths – a good thing to do, I’d say.
Similarly, the Jewish equivalent of the ‘Sharia court’ in Britain already exists there, as the article you linked to points out:
So why you claim that wouldn’t be considered for other faiths, I don’t know. Maybe you got bored reading the article, and gave up after a few paragraphs?
They just want us all dead. Isn’t that enough to take action?
It’s enough for me.
As for the other view (some of it shared by the President Elect that “poverty” is one of the root causes for the barbarity of a 911 and so many other acts), I have read enough of the Koran and heard enough of Islamists’ made up fantasies to have no remaining illusions as to the true agenda of “soft” and “hard” jihad.
One week after September 11, 2001, some of the many words of Barack Obama…
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity or suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, it may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair…we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
Whereas I have concluded that the essence of that tragedy (and so many others before and after) derives from madness and conditioning to hate filled arrogance…egomania…on the part of the organizers and perpetrators.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (killer of Daniel Pearl, among other atrocities) filled to the brim with hatred and contempt for America, begging his jailers at Guantanamo for martyrdom as we speak, is the movement’s perfect poster child.
Religious words are tools in the hands of a competent, faithful adult. We can take the teachings of Islam, and show that the evildoers who call themselves “jihadists” are not true jihadists, but hirabists, that is, evildoers.
We can, for instance, point to this letter to the Catholic Pope http://www.islamicamagazine.com/online-analysis/open-letter-to-his-holiness-pope-benedict-xvi.html
and point out that people who eat at a restaurant, and after dinner, open fire on the room with automatic weapons, killing as many people as they can at random, have no right to call themselves “jihadists.” That’s not jihad, that is murder. And proper Muslims do not murder. They are bound by the same overarching law as all Catholics and other Christians, namely to love God with their whole heart, their whole mind and their whole soul, and to love their neighbors as themselves.
We know this, because a very prominent group of real Muslim scholars said that they share the same background that we do, including the greatest Commandments. Oh, and by the way, those commandments go all the way back to the Jews. We all share the same background, so people who contend that they have a religious duty to kill Jews are not faithful to Islam: they are hirabists.
Anybody who subscribes to the tenets of this document is a Hirabist: http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP109206
#17 G. Alston says:
“I would be happy to wipe the jihadists off the earth. Not because or despite of their beliefs, or yours, but because they’ve demonstrated unequivocally what their intentions are, and that it’s me or them. No problem. They have to go. This has sod all to do with belief. *Why* they want to kill me isn’t the least bit germane. I don’t care why. That they do is enough.”
I presumed that G. Alston was comfortable in G. Alston’s mind that identifying “jihadists” who were of evil intent would not be problematic to G. Alston. Without this presumption, G. Alston is blowing canal water out of his nether regions.
Therefore, I stated (#30) concerning G. Alston…..”I suppose one need only walk around fully armed and shoot the jihadist first. I suppose G Alston will know the jihadist when G. Alston sees one. Mumbai, apparently gives no lessons. Separating the majority of Muslims throughout the world (who) are peaceable people from the jihadists is no problem for G. Alston.
In #39 G Alston resnorts:
#30 David — “‘Separating the majority of Muslims throughout the world (who) are peaceable people from the jihadists is no problem for G. Alston.’…..Reading comprehension much?….I didn’t say that, didn’t imply that, and this has nothing at all to do with what I did say.”
Ok. G Alston. You failed to address what leads to your declaration in #17: “See how simple this really is?”
If I had you before the bar with a jury weighing your bravado of logic, I suspect they would find you guilty of recto-cranial inversion.
Please, dear genius, speak in simple, limited syllable terms which will edumacate us all, small and puny, of “how simple it all is.”
It is your duty as a superior intellect and impatient clear visionary to enlighten even the least of below you. Think of how much you could do for mankind with patience and singular brilliance.
“See how simple it is” does not describe epiphany; it is a statement of denigrating elitism.
The Obama statement about engaging Muslims will not work. Islam’s war against the West and all Others is not caused by poverty or ignorance, the cause is religion and ideology which are coupled together to tightly that it is difficult to know the difference.
The problem is that the West and Islam operate in two different moral universes.
We in the West operate with a bipolar morality of good and evil that we admit can be personal and that our conscience must arbitrate, whereas the Muslim operates with a bipolar morality of Muslims are good and the other is evil, without conscience. The morality of the West does not map to the morality of the Muslim. The Muslim very clearly sees the internal conflicted nature of the West and plays upon that conflict to keep us at odds with ourselves.
Islam uses our multiculturalism and its language to strike at our internal conflicted nature which is our Achilles Heel. So even when we attack we are on the defensive. We are perpetually off balance. Muslims have a single minded nature that does not reflect on itself.
This article is a crock. The biggest mistake is to think there is a “war” in the first place. The reality is, there are some fringe groups in most every evangelical religion that are willing to kill to prove their point. The solution to this problem does not require a different language, and it does not require ‘faith’ in the religious sense of the term.
In fact, what would be most helpful would be to use reason and enlightenment to help resolve the underlying issues that drive the fanatics. Insisting on a war, and couching the war in religious terms, is simply a recipe for continued and amplified disaster.
If we lead by example, and persecute our ‘enemies’ with the ‘language of faith’ as our tool, we only embolden these fanatics to do the same. Better to make friends.
How about cultural exchange, education, and public works, to improve the lot in life of the muslim world, and take away the poverty and desperation that makes recruiting jihadis so easy? Is that just too secular? Not enough ‘language of faith’? Not the ‘war’ you would prefer to wage?
Fighting fire with fire is a sure way to burn down the house, folks. Better to remove the oxygen &/or fuel, and let the fire suffocate.
Mohammed said “Through terror I was made victorious!”
Not surprising that many of his brainwashed groupies are continuing his barbaric strategy for power, even today.
#83 Arius: I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss poverty and ignorance as at least part of the cause. The one captured Pakistani murderer in the most recent events in Mombai India was promised that his family would be paid well for his role in the attack. I don’t think there’s any question that people, of any race or culture, subjected to living conditions of poverty and hopelessness are vulnerable to exploitation by power hungry egomaniacs like Osama bin Laden (or Adolph Hitler who rose to power in similar circumstances). We need to cut the head off the snake, but if you leave a breeding ground for more snakes, you don’t fix the problem. Just as our military has learned in Iraq, that to win the war we need to also win the hearts and minds of the people, and to enlist them in the fight against evil… they are human beings, like us, with families. There have been a few references made to Alex de Tocqueville and “Democracy in America”, and his observation and discovery of what made America work was this: self interest rightly understood. For the wealthiest and most powerful Nation in the world to attempt to help people in the poorest Nations of the world isn’t simply a matter of charity, it is a necessity unless they are ignorant of the consequences that will happen if they don’t.
I wrote what I had in post #74 for the very reason that I have seen the taqiyya found in post #81. Whoever that person is clearly has not read the Islamic scriptures or any of the ahadith Bukhari or Muslim. She has not read the history of Muhammad (Sira). This latest form of taqiyya, spread by agents of disinformation fronted by Saudis, claims that the jihadis are not waging legitimate jihad. Its purpose is to distract us from the stealth jihad that Saudi money is funding in the mosques of the West. The clerics that “Valerie” cite take advantage of those who have not studied these things. Most kafirs do not know that the Medinan “revelations” of Muhammad’s sock puppet deity abrogate (abrogation is an Islamic doctrine which states that later revelations cancel out earlier ones)the earlier Meccan ones (which are associated with the surahs that are more “tolerant” and not imperialistic and military). Everything that Muhammad and his jihadis did to the Jews of Yathrib (Medina)sets the standard for what jihad means. It is a definite military meaning and it means waging war against the unbelievers until they either convert or submit to the Dhimma.
This is why you must go to the sources yourselves. Otherwise people like this will pour honey down your throat while they sharpen the knives used to slit it.
There is no peaceful Islam. There are only bad Muslims who do not know all of the requirements of their cult and who do the minimum necessary. The good Muslims practice it fully and they aim for our subjugation. The shadow split in Islam right now is between the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to conquer the West by stealth means, and the terrorist organizations, which want to achieve this the old fashioned way.
Those who don’t study the Islamic scriptures and core principles WILL – I GUARANTEE IT – fall victim to the kind of taqiyya that seeks to establish a false dichotomy between “true” Muslims and the jihadis (allegedly false Muslims).
Thus, the West falls victim to its own intellectual sloth.
Why is a religious faith perspective valuable in this struggle against Islam? Precisely because it has been my experience that atheists, agnostics, and secularists are bored with primary religious texts. Truthfully, speaking as a Catholic trained in theology and philosophy, sometimes they really are yawn-inducing. But there is just too much at stake in this life to simply fob that task off. Failing to be armed with a depth of fact and understanding, the secularist can actually be fooled by Valerie’s arguments (and others like her). You see they know how to exploit our weaknesses and they know what those weaknesses are. I certainly know that exceptions do exist, so what I have said is meant in a general way: the people who are best prepared for this struggle are people who know what true Christianity and Judaism are vs. the malformations of those. Knowing the true bedrock principles of our tradition, they know bad fruit when they see it, and Islam’s fruit is rotten to the core. One of the bedrock cornerstones of our tradition is The Golden Rule. No such parallel exists in Islam. It is a completely dualistic cult, with one set of rules which obtain in how one treats Muslims, vs. another set of rules for how it deals with unbelievers. Only those who have put in the hard mental work can know this.
We are talking about vastly different moral universes here. This is why the Islamists and the Marxists get along so well. They share a common enemy. AND they share an ethical system based upon pure expediency. Also, they are consummate liars. And they both have Western Civilization right in their crosshairs. It’s a race to the finish to see which of them will prevail against us.
No, David, of course there’s no war. 9/11 never happened. Mumbai never happened. There is no conflict in India between Hindus and Moslems. Nothing’s going on in the Philippines with Moslem insurgents. There is no problem in Darfur, no Saudi oil shieks funding radical mosques, oh, no, no, no, no, no! It’s just not happening, and, even if it is, it’s not Islam’s fault!
Cultural exchange? The British 7/7 bombers were all described as seeming like normal, well acculturated young English blokes, fond of soccer, fish and chips. The 19 9/11 hijackers were all from prosperous, middle-class backgrounds, had gone to school and lived in the US for a while. They were very much aware of the modern world, and could have made a living in it, if they wanted to. They didn’t. Again, it’s that faith thing, you don’t understand.
The jihadis use the internet, to recruit. They use cell phones as bombs, and to take pictures of infidels being beheaded, which they gleefully pass around to each other as special treats. Iran is working on getting a nuclear reactor. They’re very much aware of the modern world, and quite willing to use its tools for their own ends—-which aren’t ours. It’s that faith thing again.
Give the Islamic world more money? How much money has been already poured into the black hole that is the Palestinian authority? Yassir Arafat was listed by Forbes as one of the richest men in the world. It doesn’t seem to have helped bring peace to the region. Egypt has gotten billions in foreign aid from the US. Why should it be our job to educated and fund Islamic societies, and not, say, Saudi Arabia, with all its oil wealth? And how are we supposed to educate the Islamic world? Since when is the US in charge of the educational system of any Islamic country? As far as that goes, aren’t a sizable Saudi students coming here to go to our colleges every year? What more are we supposed to do to educate these guys, so they’ll love us and won’t kill us? How are we supposed to take away their “poverty and desperation?” Give them still more money? Bomb Israel, so they won’t have to do it themselves? Start pressuring India to give into the Islamic radicals? Could it be that, maybe, the poverty and desperation of many Islamic countries is part and parcel of the Shari’a system they live under, and not our fault? Or is everything in the world supposed to be evil Amerikkka’s fault?
It’s the faith thing again, which you obviously don’t get. It’s not poverty, it’s not despair—at least not despair caused by us—They don’t need any public works from us, and they don’t want our culture, our education, or anything else from us, except our submission. It’s the faith thing.
When faced with the choice to convert to Islam or die, anyone who would choose to convert to Islam is a coward who has no place going to Heaven. Were I captured by them (not that I have any intention of ever letting Islamists take me alive), my only wish would be that they televise my execution live, so that I could die praising Jesus and cursing Mohammed and let the world see it.
This article makes one basic mistake, one that it shares with the Muslim world. It assumes that the secular West will not be able to reach a logical, “winning” answer to the threat of Muslim extremism. That “winning” answer could very well be the wholesale “cleansing” of the problem that Islam represents to the West.
If you think that it couldn’t happen need I remind you of Bosnia/Serbia. Remember that happened in a fairly stable and prosperous time in Europe. Imagine how fast something like that could happen now in our times of extreme finacial and social stress.
The Muslim world might be in for a very rude awakening.
TO: TalkinKamel
RE: David S.
David is probably one of the Saudis of the Stealth Jihad fred is talking about.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Know your enemy and know yourself and you shall never be defeated. -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War]
TO: Myth Buster
RE: Taken by the Jihadists
They took an Italian some years ago. He did that sort of thing as they cut off his head. The video never made it out to the web or television.
Just focus on the former and forget the latter. As I suspect Mohammed has enough on his plate to answer for to God.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Romans]
Fred,
Consider what has happened in Iraq. The win in Iraq is with Muslim people, simply because it is a Muslim-majority country. It’s also a Muslim-majority country that, after a good, long look at the actions of Al-Qaeda, has identified them as a bunch of hirabists. Even the Washington Post has reported comments like “those people aren’t Muslim,” which really is an Americanized phrase. Before he died, al-Zarqawi had made himself the most hated man in Iraq, and in Jordan, as well, due to his savagery, and the savagery of his followers. Our people have learned how to make common cause with ordinary Muslims, and what they have learned is something that we should apply in many other settings. One very important aspect of COIN in Iraq has been to show people in a warrior culture our own warriors, and demonstrate that we have a lot in common.
We have a warrior culture, and we have a religious culture. We should use our contacts through the religious culture in much the same way as we have used the warrior culture in Iraq.
The terrorists do claim that they are true Muslims. The terrorists do advertise that it is a religious obligation of all Muslims to see to it that every Jew on the face of the earth be killed. I linked to the copy of the Hamas Covenant to make that very point. People who adhere to that covenant are irhabists, and not engaged in the legitimate struggle that is Jihad. We need to press that point, and we need to shut down the advertising campaign of the Muslim Brotherhood, which uses sex to sell murder the way we use it to sell cars. One way to do that is to force people to recognize the content of the Hamas Covenant for what it is.
I’d like to see Barack Obama say something like: “I never read that Hamas Covenant before. I can’t believe any civilized person would agree to it. This isn’t the Islam they taught me in school, and it has no place in our future world.” If he’s serious about being a transformational figure, and if he parks his butt long enough to read that document, he could do some good.
Mrs Scalia writes “It goes without saying — and yet, because of the visibility of the extremists among them, always must be said — that the majority of Muslims throughout the world are peaceable people…”
Maybe so, but it’s also irrelevant. What’s important is whether they’re passively allowing the radicals to seize the day or actively stopping them. Unfortunately, it’s the former that is occurring.
Until these peaceful Muslims step up and reform their own religion in much the same way that John Calvin and Martin Luther reformed Christianity, the jihad will not abate.
Southdakotaboy, we have heard that argument before and it is superficially logical. But it’s wrong. We can go all Curtis Lemay on them and still rot from within. Take a good hard look sometime at how many elements of Nazi doctrine (euthanasia, sterilization/abortion of the “unfit”, etc.) continue to worm their way into secular left political philosophy.
The problem is this: it’s impossible to make a compelling claim for the superiority of Western morality if genocide is named as an allowable option to win our wars. How, exactly, are we better than the jihadis if we are willing to kill entire populations indiscriminately? Because we have better technology and more prosperity? That’s the “strong horse” argument all over again: might makes right. Prosperity, sexual license, and the illusion of personal autonomy (even as the state increasingly makes all important decisions) are not enough to sustain a culture — just enough to keep one comfortable in its dotage.
Look, Truman did what he thought was the merciful option for both sides. But his choice in 1945 was wrong, and the Lemay doctrine that followed after the war inserted a fundamental disconnect into Western thought. It is responsible in part for the civilizational self-hatred that plagues the West. If the West is to recover from this self-hatred, it is going to have to rediscover a transcendent basis for morality and politics. Otherwise, our own people will recognize the increasing emptiness of our culture, and hear the call of the minaret. That’s the stealth jihad, more dangerous than the violent jihad.
A large segment of the west is dangerously steeped in (im)moral relativism. Their goals are to strip our souls, to void any distinctions between evil or good, and to eschew any moral dimensions between groups.
Their specious mantra that all religions are at their base fanatic, is both absurd and dangerous. There is NO other religion during modern times, other than Islam, which is used as a justification for worldwide murder.
This anti-religion revolution has its seeds in the 1960 counter revolution.Its main purveyors are now well seasoned, well entrenched, well educated hard leftists who understood that to seize power one had to be in control of the cultural institutions. And it is this recognition which has made them the most lethal force to our survival, even more so than the Islamic terrorists, as they control the minds of our next generation leadership.
Hence, the otherwise inexplicable symbiosis between Islamists & the hard left, despite one killing in the name of religion & the other demonizing it at all costs, except when it comes to the ‘other’.Both want the west to fall so they will collaborate unless stopped.
I humbly recommend that we set up institutions for our own counter revolution, that is, if we want to survive. We are at war on many fronts.
#84 David S offers:
“How about cultural exchange, education, and public works, to improve the lot in life of the muslim world, and take away the poverty and desperation that makes recruiting jihadis so easy? Is that just too secular? Not enough ‘language of faith’? Not the ‘war’ you would prefer to wage?”
Spoken like a person who has no concept of the power of religion. Spoken like a person who thinks people “cling to their religion and their guns.” Spoken like a person who believes that universal kindness and the power of “reason” can disarm the world. Spoken like a person who pukes and stomps his feet when he hears someone call a person evil. Spoken like a person who thinks “infidel” is just a playground retort.
For your sake, David S, best you stay ignorant and all aquiver over the righteous possibility of a United Nations of saints. But please understand that to a radical Islamist you are a coveted useful idiot.
If there is a glint of a silver lining in the dark cloud of modern terrorism, I think it would be that the atheists, secularists, agnostics, and islamists have done us a favor by causing us to examine our Judeo/Christian Faith and I hope, in most cases, that examination will leave us stronger and more able to fight against this clash of civilizations, or as some might say, civilization vs. barbarism.
fred: I think your comments are on point and well said.
To the author: Thank you for bringing up this important subject.
Islam uses our multiculturalism and its language to strike at our internal conflicted nature which is our Achilles Heel.
Osama bin laden has called us “Paper Tigers”.
Violent (radical) Islamists laugh all the way to the next bombing spree with our mumblings and rumblings of “understanding and inclusiveness”. This is the brain dead world view brought to us by multiculturalists, whose adherents often own high positions in western culture, such as Archbishop of the Church of England, Rowan Williams.
Winston Churchill said it best…
An appeaser feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Tho’ I love healing over wounds and making peace as much as the next person, the observations below strike me as dangerously naive.
(for the record, some middle eastern countries have been using the tactic of blaming the west, most often the US, for a long time. It’s a useful ploy (for example, among the Saudi ruling family or the Egyptians) to tell their own people that the source of any discomfort, poverty or repression they may experience is the fault of some western country.)
Personally, I feel no blame or responsibility for conditions elsewhere in the world. I complete blame the insane Mugabe, the insane Ghadaffi, the wealth hungry al Bashir, the megalomanical Oogoe Chavez and all the bad actors anywhere and everywhere for whatever unfortunate plight of their respective peoples.)
Better to make friends…How about cultural exchange, education, and public works, to improve the lot in life of the muslim world, and take away the poverty and desperation that makes recruiting jihadis so easy?
For the wealthiest and most powerful Nation in the world to attempt to help people in the poorest Nations of the world isn’t simply a matter of charity, it is a necessity unless they are ignorant of the consequences that will happen if they don’t.
Most kafirs do not know that the Medinan “revelations” of Muhammad’s sock puppet deity abrogate (abrogation is an Islamic doctrine which states that later revelations cancel out earlier ones)the earlier Meccan ones (which are associated with the surahs that are more “tolerant” and not imperialistic and military).
Always interesting to me, the difference in tone between the (earlier) revelations at Mecca and the (later) ones at Medina.
(revelations are not in order in the Koran, so it’s not always immediadely obvious which Sura preceded which)
The revelations Mohammed “received” at Medina were generously in support of his lifestyle and gave tips as to how to divvy up the loot and so forth, whereas, as you say, the earlier ones at Mecca had a less practical and more “spiritual” emphasis.
Very accommodating guy, Allah (SWT).
People here don’t get it. You claim to believe in evolution, yet you fail to see it’s implications. Muslims are using violence against us as a group.
Unless we retaliate against them as a group, jihadist and porn-star-muslimah, they will step up their attacks. One of these groups will die – the central assumption of evolution – the one least efficient in putting lots of kids on the planet AND having them survive.
You cannot reason with a violent ideology. You are all, I’ve seen 1 (ONE) comment that at least made the point, even if not exactly offering to help. Unless you’re ready to kill muslims for being muslim, there is no answer.
None.
Either that or evolution is dead wrong. I suggest you “atheists” choose the position your faith presents. Otherwise you might reconsider and call yourself “egoists” – and admit to be thinking on the basis of what directly costs you personally and nothing else.
It strikes me how much more muslims believe in evolution, or at least implement intelligent actions according to it’s theory, compared to atheists.
You guys believe in nothing. Soon you will BE nothing. And that will be that.
A very interesting dialog taking place here. In the language of faith. Mostly.
Very few secularists would be able to say “Give me liberty or give me death.” For them, death is THE END. They don’t believe in a loving, merciful God who will welcome them and where they will be reunited with loved ones who went before them. When faced with the choice that Islam gives, conversion or death (for pagans and atheists), they will convert. You will see it. They would rather convert falsely and give lip service to Allah/Satan than die and give witness to a martyrdom by embracing the Cross. Christians and MAYBE Jews would be offered the Dhimma, a crushing status of being an untermenschen paying a crippling jizya for the sake of staying alive, and any Christian or Jew who does not resist this is neither faithful to God or faithful to the universal gift of human liberty – given to us by our Creator.
Yes, to the Christian and Jew, our very liberties are derived from the Creator. Not from The State. Not even from us, although it is our task, burden, and gift to defend liberty at every turn. The Muslim worship of Satan – which is what “Allah” really is – must be resisted even if it means we be killed. A coward dies a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.
tanstaafl: would you at least be willing to admit that the United States has made mistakes in propping up dictatorships in foreign lands, that repress their own people, to “protect our national interests”… specifically our corporate interests and to protect our oil supply? Osama bin Laden exploits the misuse of American taxpayers money for these kind of things as amunition to recruit and brainwash his martyrs. Do you know what hubris is and where it leads? Absolutist “extremist” ideology is playing right into their hands, and will NOT win the war against terrorism… look at what IS working is Iraq, are you blind? We must be willing to fight to the death and win the war without fear, but we must also recognize our own mistakes and learn from them, and recognize that indiscrimate killing of human beings makes you as evil as the ones you want to defeat.
#105 “Bill in NY”
Shouldn’t you be over at DailyKos, where they are down with that interpretation of events? You aren’t convincing, even if you did your best to run up the flag for Marx and the revolution. Typical New Yorker… one of the most Leftist places in America, where people still blame their country for 9/11 instead of the terrorists and their cult/ideology of Allah/Satan.
You won’t find PJM a receptive echo chamber for that stupid reasoning. Best you get on over to Columbia U or NYU for a more receptive gathering and echo chamber.
Yes, Bill, I will acknowledge that the United States has made some rather egregious foreign policy missteps over the course of recent history.
I attribute a lot of those maneuverings and moves to the culture of the spy agencies themselves, the mentality of…if we tweak x (e.g., prop up this guy) then y (according to the model) will happen. Problem is, events in the world rarely follow the model. (just as the climate rarely follows the computer models of the AGW freaks, small political comment there
)
The same spy agency mentality that was so focused on personal infighting and interagency turf wars (CIA/FBI) that we missed all the blatant signs (well, most of us missed) in the many years building up to 911.
I will even acknowledge substantial goof ups in more recent time, such as the post 2003 handling of the invasion of Iraq. It took a General Petraeus to set things right (well, as right as they can be, under the circumstances) esp. in his understanding for and respect for the Iraqi people themselves.
I’m skeptical of the the attempts to get North Korea on line and the carrots being thrown to have it join the “world community”.
The world community and the IAEA are also being seriously mocked by the nuke happy Iranians, and have been for a long time.
I would join a lot of Europeans in saying that the US hasn’t done too well in acting in a capacity as the world’s cop.
I will not, however, succumb to a mentality of…”oh, mea culpa, let the grandiose United States of America somehow set aright all the crappy moves of dictators and megalomanics everywhere on the planet”
As the Reverend Jeremiah (Bullfrog) Wright might say…(you know, the guy who shouted at his congregation last Sunday, Dec. 7, that the US killed innocent Japanese in Hiroshima on December 7 1941 ?!)…anyway, as Bullfrog is fond of saying, “nonono”.
Osama bin Laden exploits the misuse of American taxpayers money for these kind of things as amunition to recruit and brainwash his martyrs.
You’re there, for the recruiting sessions ? I’ve read the Al Qaeda manual. A lot of the appeal to the brain dead, repressed teenagers who, ultimately, blow themselves (and people in their vicinity) up, is the heaven/virgin thing.
Another dimension is inculcating “hatred” for the state of Israel. I’m sure some of the recruits have never even heard of Israel.
Faith and reason should not be enemies. Faith is not insanity; reason is not hubris and godlessness. Life of any kind that denies reason is insanity, and it may be asserted that life of any kind that wholly denies faith is inanity–emptiness.
In recent years, perhaps the best voice for these principles was G. K. Chesterton. I could quote him for a hundred pages, but two things come at the top of the list: “When people cease believing in God, they do not start believing in Nothing. They believe in anything.” And that Chesterton saw Islam as the implacable enemy not only of Christianity but of Christendom.
As for protecting our oil supply, the Saudis would have no oil business were it not for American technology and expertise in the 40′s and 50′s.
It’s hugely ironic that the countries with some of the the biggest reserves (Iran, Venezuela…)now use our petrodollars to finance groups and agendas deleterious to the United States.
Some in the Saudi royal family sponsor Wahabbists with petrodollars.
…the United States has made mistakes in propping up dictatorships in foreign lands, that repress their own people, to “protect our national interests”… specifically our corporate interests and to protect our oil supply?
It’s a very broad statement you make.
You use oil everyday in a thousand myriad ways, not just putting gas into your car. There’s not a country in the world today that doesn’t attempt to protect and ensure its oil stream/supply in one way or another.
Are you equally critical of the Chinese deals with, for example, Sudan that are indirectly (and directly) related to the carnage in Darfur ? Not to mention the oil deals struck between the Chinese and the Iranians.
I’m writing quickly, will be back later, with more, if necessary.
Bill, there will not be any indiscriminate killing. Just as the terrorists don’t indiscriminately kill. They (try to) kill only non-muslims.
I’d love to be able to say that the problem is that you don’t understand your enemy, but that is not the case. What is working in Iraq is a temporal rational insight : islam will kill muslims and infidels, and many more muslims.
Their insight that their faith is out to kill them, is temporary. They will not be able to convince their children of this, and have them remain muslim. That is a choice presented to their children, one that forces a choice between life, and death. Islam is death, and Iraqi’s have seen the death.
They believe because they have seen, and felt, and died. From their children faith will be required. A faith they will not teach them. The only way to make peace in Iraq even have a semblance of permanence is to convert them to another faith, allowing the reunion of Iraqi’s. You can do this forcibly or “count on it happening”. However even you must realize that if it doesn’t happen, Iraq will die.
And you can hope the switch of generations will take 50 years. In reality, it will not even take 15.
Here’s language of faith in the face of terrorism :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy
The cultprits according to her -despicable- faith you ask ? Not the people who pulled the trigger. Not muslims. Not islam.
“The only way to contain (it would be naïve to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We’re standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There’s no third sign and there’s no going back. Choose.”
YOU (readers here) did it. I just wish we had terrorists. That showed this woman “the monster in the mirror”. Her mirror – that is. And killed the monster. The pen is defineately not mightier than the sword. It’s time people saw that.
Toqueville said somewhere in his book on America that great accomplishments only come from two sources: nationalism and religion. I’m fine with either “language” so long as it works. Let’s not forget that someone who approaches Western culture from a primarily Greco-Roman perspective (I prefer Plato to the Bible most days) will also have a lot to lose under an Islamic regime. Even as someone who prefers his politics be secular, I have no problem working alongside someone of faith to accomplish what used to be called “the common good” (until that phrase got so perverted by the Left as to come to signify things like paying women to have babies they couldn’t really afford or, in a more recent example, paying bank executives to run banks they can’t really run).
Nietzsche said that “Religious wars prove the masses are capable of understanding subtleties” or something very similar. Right now, the masses of the West are definitely not understanding the ways in which religious ideas can drive actions and clear the conscience of those taking those actions, however despicable those actions are.
venividivici @112
Got no problem whatsoever working alongside secularists like you. I too am a fan of Graeco-Roman culture, but am more a fan of Aristotle than Plato. I tend to side more with the Romans than the Greeks, insofar as it was the Romans who truly understood what citizenship really was and, at least initially under republican government, understood the beginnings of the concept of balancing the different parts of government. Romans universalized, to some extent, the idea of citizenship as something precious and to be earned.
It was no accident, I think, that God chose the Romanized world of the Mediterranean to seed His Word and His Church. It was an auspicious time in history for that, since travel and communications were rather rapid for that era. The persecutions of the Church were sporadic and generally provincial in nature. For most of the time period of the Roman Empire, Christians and Jews were not molested by the State. Romans were generally more tolerant of all religions than were the barbarian cultures of East or West.
Dar al Islam is on the move, but so is Gramscian Marxism. Please read Robert Chandler’s “Shadow World: Resurgent Russia, The Global New Left, and Radical Islam.” Our society’s transmission belts are thoroughly penetrated and controlled by the Gramscian Marxists, who have encouraged and created this atmosphere of dumbing down of America’s kids. The destruction of Christianity and the family, already underway, is by the design of the strategies outlined in the writings of Antonio Gramsci.
So, it’s a race to the finish. Who are we going to take bets on? Will we bet on the Communists winning? Will the Muslims beat the Communists to the finish line? They both want us subdued and our Constitutional Republic destroyed.
The barbarians are already inside the gates.
Fred, you are either over-caffeinated or you need to go take a nap dude. I’m a former Marine, I’m a conservative, I’m a capitalist, and I don’t hate America or blame America. But you can’t even admit that as a Nation, we have made mistakes in the past to pump money into other Nations to support dictators who repress their people to protect our own National interests… and Fred, that aint what I think America is about. I believe in God, I’m not afraid to die, and my friend… I’ll kill anyone who makes a conscious decision to take the life of innocent people, because in my mind they made their own choice to die by doing evil. However, that said, I don’t subscribe to indiscriminant ethnic (or religious) cleansing (mass murder) which would make you better than them how? Show me in the teachings of Jesus Christ where your hatred is justified. You use big words, and you talk a big fight, but if you want a Crusade go sign up for active duty… except you will find the warriors on our side are fighting side by side in Iraq with muslims to regain independence and security for their families. I don’t have time for your breed… intellectual warriors who preach hate and want war but not be the one to fight it. Go take your meds now and rest easy. Tanstaafl, if we can admit to making mistakes and learning from them, we stand to gain in winning the war… that’s my point, just as we have seen our military do in Iraq under the leadership of Gen. Patraeus… the war is NOT just a military battle, and it MUST be won on the battlefield of ideas in the hearts and minds of the people at the same time. You believe in all that America stands for, you believe in freedom and justice for all, then you export that belief and stand with those who fight for it wherever they fight for it… and you NEVER compromise by propping up with money or guns a dictatorship just to preserve comfort and security at home. We don’t have to be the police of the world, we just have to practice what we preach, and that means paying attention to what the corrupt politicians are doing with taxpayers money. If that’s not patriotic enough for you, then so be it, as Jack Nicholson said: “You can’t handle the truth”.
Oh, by the way, that all started in reference to the quote from Obama further up the thread… and if you read what he said… I don’t think you have to agree with his politics to appreciate that what he said is food for thought… it’s just that some people are so damned blinded by partisan politics and hatred they won’t even open their puny little minds (no matter how over-educated they are) to consider anything the other side says… and that’s UN-American as far as I’m concerned.
Christianity, at least the milksop variety in fashion nowadays, equips us and disarms us at the same time. It equips us with the understanding of what makes the enemy tick; it disarms us with all that nicey-wicey claptrap about turning the other cheek. Give me the old-time warrior bishops, who, obedient to the injunction against shedding blood, went into battle with maces which bash instead of swords which cut. I’d follow those holy killers gladly.
If you deny the existence of God, an attitude becoming all too comonplace in the western world, you place a human being on a pedestal! But which human? There are far too many who think that each is a law unto himself or herself. Indecision or chaos or both will be the result.
TO: Paul M Hupf
RE: Indeed
As I like to put it, the atheist First Commandment reads as….
So from their perspective each one of them is a god unto themselves. And the resulting squabble from these power-hungry lesser gods will only divide them when it comes time to resist the Islamists. Just like the internecine squabbling amongst the similarly power-hungry defenders of Acre allowed the Muslims to take that citadel.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A house divided against itself, cannot stand. -- Abraham Lincoln, citing some Wag]
TO: Bill in NY
RE: Really?
Where, when and in what capacity.
Pardon my request, but I’ve encountered SO many people to claim they served in the military and when it came time for telling the truth of a matter, as in “Where, when and in what capacity,” they suddenly get VERY quiet. Or worse, start hurling ad homs.
The latest being the [in]famous cedarford, hereabouts.
He started doing what you’ve just done to fred; meds and naps, indeed.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. More to follow, after I’ve reviewed your other posts here….
Excellent commentary! This IS what is happening and why “Reason” as a philosophy is not up for the job. Worse, the number one attack on faith by the secular West is aimed solely at the Judeo-Christian faith, a suicidal move if there ever was one for the secular man who values liberty, for Christianity tolerates debate and ideas, where other cultures do not, for to chose to become a true Christian is fundamentally based on the choice made by free will, not by force or intimidation. How much time is spent worrying over and mocking Christian beliefs when not a glance by self-same secularists is given to say, Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god whose statues grace Indian households? Why? Is it simply safer to tear away at Christians than Ganesh worshippers, hwo are plainly also people of faith? Or do secularists dismiss serious worship practices by every sincere people who are Ganesh worshippers as beneath their attention? Or do secularists actually have more of an affinity to idol worship than to the invisible? Militant Islam is perfectly poised to exploit this willful blindness, this obsession with one, to the ignorance of all others. See the recent Newsweek cover: Making sense of the madness in Mumbai.” Madness? A secular dismissal and twisting to hide the truth. What purpose does it serve to call it “madness?” t means there is no reason, no tracks, no planning, no funding, just superstitiously “happened.” Take a pill? The secular man will throw all he holds dear overboard when he is threatened with death, he has no basis to hold to what’s good and right, for there is no other world, no greater purpose. Death is the end of the secularist, he is tied to the physical and material, the world. Thus, he tries every means to hold on to his own life and is hostile to anyone perceived by him to threaten his existence. It’s why secularists are so invested in “Saving the Planet.” They become furious with other people if they perceive that those people are using up what they need to survive. And in order to save their own skins, they will convert, accept humiliation, and sell out their own countrymen. Look at the “Reason-based” post-Revolutionary French. They are quite earnest and decent people on the whole, but throughout history, at the moment of truth, confronted with the big decision of Right and Wrong, they clutch, to the disgust of their own allies. Their “Reason” cannot carry them over that line to the beyond that faith requires, the faith the fearful human being needs to help him or her do what’s right in the face of death.
TO: Bill in NY
RE: For Starters
What where you referring to from fred when you said….
I’d like to start with that comment from you.
RE: Formatting
You may have noticed that I use a particular form of formatting my comments. This is to (1) draw the attention of the addressee, (2) give them a quick ‘clue’ of what they’re going to be addressed with and (3) provide a citation of something communicated to remind them, as well as inform other viewers what the HECK is going on.
You might want to consider doing something similar.
Additionally, I’d recommend breaking up those AWFUL blocks of text with an occasional blank line. As in where you stopped addressing fred and started addressing tanstaafl.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Feel free to disregard my advice if you’ve run out of meds or need a nap.
fred,
Yep, I’m very familiar with Gramsci and his acolytes. Ironically, Gramsci was an advocate of Classical education, in order to teach the working class the virtues of freedom. Essentially, Gramsci wanted everyone to be a Cicero. His epigones have no such lofty ambition, preferring instead to rule over imbeciles.
The barbarians are definitely in the gates, so at some point we have to expect the battle will become “hand to hand” and prepare accordingly. C’est la vie, I guess.
Smilla said: “The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” W B Yeats
More from that poem (The Second Coming): “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ….”
This is where we are headed. Obama and folks like him who believe that we can arrive at a reasoned middle ground with radical Islam are simply and dangerously delusional.
“…the war is NOT just a military battle, and it MUST be won on the battlefield of ideas in the hearts and minds of the people at the same time. You believe in all that America stands for, you believe in freedom and justice for all, then you export that belief and stand with those who fight for it wherever they fight for it… and you NEVER compromise by propping up with money or guns a dictatorship just to preserve comfort and security at home.”
Baloney.
The Suicide of Reason, by Lee Harris, provides a comprehensive analysis of these issues and shows that much of the thesis offered here is correct. He suggests the carpe diem ethos of modern western society has diminished our ability to project into the distant future the results of our behavior (or to even care about that future). When contrasted with the unlimited time horizon for Islamic jihad the west is left at a great disadvantage. One more thing, it will take a lot more than just a ‘language of faith’ for the west to turn this around.
Tomcpp:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy
NO. That article is NOT in the language of faith. That is a secular approach, and it is weak, and stupid. The author is a fool with an agenda, who is trying to justify random killing so that some societal good or other that she wants can be achieved. Her position is not moral: it is opportunistic.
People who seek justice do not wander around, shooting total strangers at random. That is not justice. That is murder. Further, is is not some sort of minimizable murder arising out of some intolerable situation, or sad circumstance. This is no heat-of-passion killing. It is unjustifiable killing done “in the name of God”– blasphemy. The local Muslim religious people know this. That is why they have refused to let the people who have committed these vile acts be buried in Muslim cemeteries.
The action by the local Muslim authorities to bar the burial of these killers in a Muslim cemetery is an indication that the local Muslims understand the moral implications of this act of terrorism in the same way that we do. These people will ally with us, if we let them. They, like the Iraqis, will help us close the gates of Hell.
I would only add that Realpolitik was a sober response to the world as it is, and an assessment of our ability to influence the rest of the world at a given time. Realpolitik is, in essence, an acknowledgement that we must pick our battles. George Bush’s genius (yes, I meant to pick that word) was in recognizing the limits of Realpolitik. He recognized that, while we must pick our battles, there are times to fight, if we are going to preserve the freedom that we cherish. It is true that we can buy a precious time of peace and stability by allowing tin-pot dictatorships to continue to exist, as the lesser of evils. But, if we do that, we are only postponing, probably not eliminating, the day when we have to deal with evil.
Additional recommended reading for incredible background:
“Empires of the Sea, The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto and the Contest for the Center of the World” by Roger Crowley
From the cover: the account “of the decades-long battle between Christianity and Islam for the soul of Europe … climaxing between 1565 and 1571 …” Just as Scalia points out, the battles of the past were not fought with people who were apologising for or ashamed of what they believed.
There is nothing new under the sun…and those who do not know their history will be doomed to repeat it.
Valerie,
If the majority of Muslims are on our side, then why is there no religious freedom in Iraq? Sharia Law is the basis for Iraqi law and Sharia Law is very hard on Christians in Iraq. They are disappearing, being killed and threatened every single day of their existence there. All the Christians in Baghdad have left and have either gone to ground in Mosul or left the country entirely. Some have fled to Kurdistan, but even their existence there is precarious, as they never know when the Muslim majority will turn on them. In Mosul, the Christian community there is reeling from a very bad two years of constant killing and persecution. They are slipping out of the country and going elsewhere. Jews are simply no longer in Iraq and foreign Jews do not feel safe there.
In every single Muslim country Christians live as dhimmis. They are second class citizens and have to pay a very heavy jizya tax, which is stipulated under Sharia Law and called for in the Qur’an.
You aren’t seeing the whole picture. If you work for DoD I can understand why you are putting out there the government’s party line in this matter. But the U.S. government is simply very wrong in its long term assessment of Islam. The facts of history – past and present – do not support the view of there being a benign Islam.
There are only cultural Muslims who do not practice all aspects of their faith, and Muslims who do. The ones who do are not the ones you are describing.
Let us hope that more Muslims do indeed become cultural Muslims or even apostates. It is far preferable that they convert to Christianity, but even becoming secularists will do in a pinch.
Specifically about Mumbai, there is plenty of the language of faith being spoken against the Muslim terrorists there-
by groups like the BJP and Shiv Sena and other Hindu fundamentalists, who,when not invoking the name of God(s) against Islam, are quite happy to use the language of faith to attack Christians and burn churches (sometimes with the Christians inside)
Tricky business, this being a Holy Warrior…
Chuck: not that it makes any difference, nor do I think it is any of your business, and not because it makes me any better… I added the bio info only because Fred (talk about ad hominum) accused me of being a communist (in so many words) because I live in NY. I served 8 years active duty, including 4 years US Navy aboard USS Camden AOE2 stationed Bremerton WA. then enlisted USMC re-entered basic training Paris Island, and served 4 years 82-86 VMAQ-2 electronics warfare squadron Cherry Pt NC. I’m no hero, never claimed to be. These kids today who answered the call and fight these wars are heros, not me. But for anyone who wants to call themself “conservative” and make the case that anyone of the muslim faith is automatically the enemy and we need to have a crusade to kill them all… that’s not conservative, and it’s not Christian. When I read the quote that was attributed to Obama in post #80, I made the comment that our country has made mistakes in the past, and I think what Obama said (if it is really what he said) makes sense and it’s true… and that’s what brought on the comments I’ve seen so far from people who can’t handle the truth… you’ve gotta be a hard-headed nut job to think that America is perfect and never made mistakes, and if you really love America and what she stands for then you have to examine not only what’s good but where we have made mistakes and try not to repeat them… and stop being so damned defensive, like I said before, unless you just can’t handle the truth because it threatens your version of reality. Anyway, that’s that Chuckles… didn’t want you to think I was “running away” because you think you’re so damned smart that anyone who disagrees with you has to be the enemy. I think it’s good that people can disagree, because if two people agree about everything, then one of them is a waste of space. I’m pretty tired of rabid so-called conservatives who can’t even read a paragraph by Obama without the knee-jerk response… you give ammunition to the liberals who say conservatives are a bunch of “mind-numbed robots” who listen to Rish Limbaugh (and yes, I do like to listen to Rush Limbaugh myself when I get the chance to). As to the comment about Jesus Christ, here’s a link to a 3-minute movie I think says it better than I can, knock yourself out ->> http://www.OneSolitaryLifeMovie.com
TO: Bill in NY
RE: Bio-Matter
Thanks for the information. Electronic Warfare Squadron? Sounds interesting.
Much appreciated compared to the results I got from cedarford for asking the same and getting vitriol involving my deceased parents and my terminally ill mother-in-law in reply.
Interesting.
I see fred suspecting you of being a “leftist” because you live in the state of New York, (if that’s what you mean by “in NY”). And you certainly come across like one in your opening statement to tanstaafl about American foreign policy mis-steps.
Maybe you should consider how you present arguments better. Maybe if you’d placed your latter statements at the head of that comment to tanstaafl.
I also notice that tanstaafl did recognize those foreign policy mis-steps.
Well, Bill, Obama has a nice touchy-feely campaign approach. But I think it’s been pretty well established that poverty is not the root-cause of the ‘madness’ of militant Islam. All too many of the perps of 9/11 and 7/7 were well educated and well off.
So hearing it again and taking exception to it is hardly what I’d call ‘knee-jerk’ mentality.
And as for the affect of American foreign policy mis-steps in the region, the only one I can think of is the Shah of Iran. And tell me….
….is Iran better off today than it was with the Shah?
I don’t recall tanstaafl thinking America is perfect. Nor fred. But you, for some reason, seem to attribute that to them.
Heck. Even tanstaafl agreed with you about American foreign policy mis-steps. But apparently you don’t quite appreciate that. Or at least you didn’t mention it in your latest missive here.
I’d suggest you’re being ‘defensive’ yourself. Dropping to ad homs about ‘meds’ and ‘naps’ just because fred suspects you of being a Leftist.
Give it a rest, Bill. I’ve been abused by the best.
Just because you disagree with me doesn’t make you an enemy. My enemies are those who would tear down the Constitution of the United States. And being a Marine I’m confident you remember the oath you took to uphold and defend that against all enemies, foreign AND domestic. It’s the same one I took when I enlisted in 1970.
Smartness or dumbness has nothing to do with it.
I agree. I learn more from a good discussion than I do just thinking by myself.
As Paul put it…..
As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another. — Paul
As I said earlier, Obama was playing lovey-feely politics when he said that. That doesn’t make it smart. And amongst those of US who have followed the war on terror since 9/11, or even earlier, his statements about poverty as the root cause are recognized as bogus in the first place. And with respect to foreign policy mistakes, Iran is much worse off NOW than it was under the Shah; massive deaths in a futile war with Iraq in the 80s, a totalitarian regime that is even worse now than the Shah ever was.
Well. Some of US here recognize you as being more ‘liberal’ than you claim. Your emphasis on foreign policy mistakes and defense of Obama are what we with some experience in military intelligence [Please. No jokes as I’ve seen better analysis of unclear situations done with IPB than in any corporate or civil government agency I’ve encountered.] would call ‘indicators’.
Face it. Those comments of yours don’t sound like a ‘conservative’. They sound like a ‘liberal’.
Lovely photography.
Nice font.
Great message.
However, a quibble and a query…..
The quibble is about Jerusalem not being a ‘big city’? And Christ visited it when he was 12. The author might want to modify that passage to read “He seldom visited big cities”. That instead of “He never visited big cities”.
And the question is, who here was advocated the mass murder if Muslims? You mentioned something to that affect in an earlier post but I’ve not seen the comment here. And something about how Christ would not call for such hatred.
Would you please point it out to me?
Thanks.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Don’t know what your faith is exactly, i.e., whether you’re a Premie, Postie or Ammie. But from the Premie perspective, there are going to be a LOT of people killed during the “Day of God’s Wrath”. Why would that be?
Lemme get this straight:
“The rhetoric of jihad rides the language of faith.”
Uh-huh. And Mohammed rode into heaven on a white horse. You know perfectly well that such victories as these butchers have achieved rode on explosives, airplane fuel and bullets. Nevertheless, you claim that talking (to them? amongst ourselves? you didn’t make that clear) in a language they understand is what we need to do.
Uh-huh. Which faith?
The one that claims “our imaginary friend likes us the best”?
Or the one that claims “babies can be born without sex and three-days-dead men can live, and when you die you won’t really be dead, and if you don’t believe it then you deserve eternal torture”?
We’ve had millennia of such arguments and you see what it’s achieved, yet you think we need more faith, or better faith, or faithier faith, than the other faithy guys.
I’m with those few commenters who side with something different: reason.
TO: Weemaryanne
RE: [OT] Okay….
Reason THIS away:
Revelation 8:10-11
Paul describes a star burning on the earth, killing men and poisoning waters. The stars name is Wormwood.
In 1986, at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, a nuclear reactor goes haywire, burns through the roof of the containment structure, kills a LOT of men who try to bury the glowing molten pile, and currently has poisoned the waters underground aquifer leading from the Black Sea.
The translation of Chernobyl from its native Ukrainian to English is “Wormwood”. According to a emigre from there, it’s the plant that grows around the town.
So, how is it a man from the First Century can describe, in terms his contemporaries would understand, a runaway nuclear reactor at a place called Wormwood?
I look forward to your ‘rational’ reply.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I have SERIOUS doubts about your claim to ‘reason’…..
Indeed, I think you’re in serious denial.
TO: All
RE: Errata!
That should read leading TO the Black Sea.
Sorry about that. Just brewing my morning coffee now.
God bless all here,
Chuck(le)
[There’s too much blood in my caffeine system.
TO: All
RE: Errata 2
Just having my coffee now and I noticed that I reported that Paul had reported the incident in Rev 8. My apologies, it was John. Not Paul.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. George and Ringo had NOTHING to do with this…..
After reading through all the previous posts I can more believe in the expression “Never underestimate the stupidity of the (fill in the blank) people.”
An alarming number of posters seem incapable of making the distinction between an ideology and an individual and ascribe actions and motivations between the two interchangeably. For the most part the same posters make equivalencies between Christianity and Islam when it is obvious that they have very little knowledge about either.
There is a Bible story that perhaps best illustrates the fundamental difference between the Judeo-Christian Tradition and Islam.
God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham obeys without question and just before completing the sacrifice God sent an angel to stop Abraham. The shallow mind will recoil from a cruel God. The wisdom seeker will see that this story signifies that people must live together with a radical change in the relationship between man and God and man and man than what was common at the time.
Being human in the Judeo-Christian tradition does not require absolute obedience to God, and neither is it desired. Individuals must get to the “right” decision about how to live with each other on their own. In a grand oversimplification, this belief is the foundation of Western Civilization.
Any person who has read the biographies of Mohammed alongside the Koran to see what Mohammed was saying and doing at the time each chapter from the Koran was revealed must reach a completely different conclusion about how Islam views how people should live with each other.
Islam demands absolute obedience to Al’lah in every detail of the life experience. Human beings exist to advance the dominion of Al’lah over the entire earth and for no other purpose.
The difference between Christianity and Islam is day and night. Life and death. The elevation of the human spirit and its enslavement to the whim of Al’lah.
Reason and secularism are capable of satisfying most of our material needs as we progress through our stay on this earth. What is needed against the threat of radical Islam is something more. Western civilization was built on values derived from millennia of Judeo-Christian cultural development. Our modern ‘live for the day’ attitude (operating on reason alone) has resulted in secularization and abandonment of many of these historic cultural values. The willingness of individuals to defend a principle to the death is one of these values and it is disappearing before us.
My sense is that this battle is being fought by Islamic radicals who rely on reason not at all and the West that is having an internal struggle between those who rely totally on reason (and do not think we need to fight this battle) and those who rely on a blend of enlightenment rationality and traditional values which enables them to stand for something and defend it against violence.
I am able to read the musings of all kinds on the internet and the ones I think are the most troubling expound the virtues of individual liberty (libertarians) but decry any suggestions that we just might have to defend that liberty militarily. And I will repeat that ‘language of faith’ is not enough, success will take action.
I responded to this article at The Unreligious Right
Wow so the simple reality is : we need to militarily attack muslims @ random. That is a message that will be understood by all.
If any mosque runs a 1/100.000 chance of getting blown up friday evening at (what is it ? 17h ?) we will have won. Islam will shrink to a millionth of it’s current size in a matter of months.
If we answer terror with terror, it won’t take all that many victories. And questions of “why didn’t allah protect them ?” will spread over the muslim world, especially if mosques can be blown up inside muslim countries in addition to inside the western world, with many idiots inside it.
I suggest blowing up mosques, and justifying it the way muslims do : quote from the quran (example use the statement of 9:111 where allah says all muslims are murderers and state you were only blowing up killers).
You need force. Force convinces people. Most of these idiots are only attracted to islam because they think it allows them to force their will on others. Utilizing “science” for terror will turn them all in a matter of months.
I think a Truman type approach would do the job. I do believe that in Iraq we had a quick military victory but did not accomplish the needed objective of imposing recognition and acknowledgement of utter defeat on the masses of Iraq. Japan recognized such after the atomic bombs hit and the southern states of the US did after Sherman’s march through Georgia. I’m certain there are many more examples.
If muslims who do not support the jihad we have been facing do not accomplish a reform of Islam that makes the concept of jihad disappear, then we will eventually reach a tipping point that will dictate that the West annihilate this monster.
Chuck at #131
My caustic initial remarks to “Bill in NY” were the outcome of running his standard pap about our alleged oppression of Muslims in their lands (I am distilling his many remarks down to a common theme)and supporting dictators who crush those peoples. I can’t help filter it that way, because I used to be a Marxist many years ago (thankfully, I kept an open mind and evolved beyond that stultifying ideology). Thus, I am accustomed to hearing that gross simplification that is part caricature, a little bit of truth mixed in, and lacking a background in the 1,400 year history of jihad violence and conquest. Bill’s comments essentially encapsulate, in street form, the “blowback” theory of the conflict that is a serious error in appraisal of the conflict. I’ve encountered this recirculating miasma of “we’re the bad guys” so much that I just assumed that “Bill in NY” was one of those kids from some NYC university who cheered Ahmadinejad when he pranced into Columbia U last year, for his U.N. victory tour and jeremiad against the Jews and Crusaders.
I cannot recall exactly where I read it in one of Robert Spencer’s books or at his site, JihadWatch.org, but I seem to recall that Muslims consider “oppression” any condition in which Islam is not triumphant over the kafirs. Thus, many Muslims living in the West consider themselves to be “oppressed” by virtue of the fact that they can’t get Sharia Law put into pre-eminence in the lands where they are a minority.
Any, thus I think “Bill in NY” has received a one-sided view of this conflict. If he is actually more nuanced than the opinions he has deigned to share with us, he hasn’t given us a clue of it yet. If he is a Muslim or Muslim “revert” (the Islamic term for a convert)then it is expected that he would carry the water in this way. Finally, I will admit that I don’t know exactly how he came to embrace the views he expressed. I may have erred in the typology I filtered them into, again, being as I am very familiar with how the Left processes these matters.
TO: All
RE: Tomcpp
Obviously, Tomcpp is European. And I can understand why he thinks they need to attack Muslims at random. It’s probably VERY scary in Europe these days with Muslims torching cars all over France, shooting playwrites in the streets of Holland, threatening cartoonists, etc., etc., etc.
Good thing those sorts of things don’t happen to US. We probably WOULD be shooting Muslims. And maybe there’s something about our approach to ‘gun laws’ that has prevented that.
Hey! Doesn’t India have VERY strict gun laws too? So strict that even cops in Mumbai with weapons didn’t draw them and shoot the Muslim terrorists as they were murdering innocent people?
How VERY interesting…..
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[When the shooting starts you are either a combatant or you're a pop-up target. -- CBPelto]
Two points:
First, while the people perpetrating terrorist actions probably act mostly out of ideology, and therefore should be met with religious language, those directing their actions may have motives more grounded in the worldly. It is my belief that many of the higher-ups in the global jihad are using religious language to puruse political ends. If this is true, these people can still be dealt with using the language of the west.
Second, doesn’t the strident and combative language like that used in this article perpetuate the percieved threat from the west to cultural values of the middle east? What I believe the west needs to do is to recognize that there is a grievance being expressed and to work to resolve it. I think that peaceful and inclusive resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict would go a long way towards that end.
While I certainly don’t argue that religious language has no place in modern discourse, I do think that a little level-headedness can go a long way towards peace. No one wants war in and of itself, but people often use war as a means of resolving a conflict or defending against a percieved threat. Luckily, we have developed non-violent means (many of them faith-based) for conflict resolution.
Has no one noticed that radical Muslims use very precise reasoning to plan and achieve their stated goals?
What’s this “reason?” It’s a process of logical thinking based on the information available. If-then. IF one kills infidels, THEN one goes to paradise. Perfectly logical, based on reasoning, which is a natural human ability, like language, but reasoning is always based on learned inputs. IF one makes nice, apologises profusely, pays tribute or reparations,and clarifies the communications issues that create disharmony THEN peace breaks out all over. That’s a line of reasoning that uses a different set of assumptions to arrive at a logical conclusion. Technically, like the radical Islamic reasoning, it is perfectly correct, in terms of the PROCESS of reasoning.
Put these the two lines of reasoning together and the killer version wins. Both are perfectly correct results of logical Reasoning. But neither of them is based on the TRUTH. Reason is only as good as the truthfulness of the information available to the reasoner.
So, secularists can argue their positions until they are blue in the face, but they are a noisy sideshow, completely irrelevant, for they fundamentally do not understand what’s going on, but they are so sure they’ve got it figured out, for they have an egotistical belief that religion and faith are nothing but fantasies for lessor minds than theirs. Secularists worship their Ego and Id, jealously guarding what they perceive as important to their personal survival, but refuse to admit it, while all other people worship something greater than themselves. The other huge chasm between secularist and people of faith, no matter what their faith, is SIN. Secularists reject sin, arguing vehemantly that it doesn’t exist, which wildly sets them apart from ALL faiths which acknowledge that sin exists and is a barrier to harmony with God and thus,ultimate peace. That’s the overwhelming majority of the world’s population, a universally shared belief in sin, the need for atonement and reconciliation with God. Secularists are thus completely out of synch with everyone else. All the offerings to idols are offerings to compensate for sin, which is why making the proscribed offerings every day is so important. Take that abruptly and violently away from people and they have no means to clean themselves of sin, in the way they’d been taught was true since infancy. No cleansing of sin, means eternally blocked from God. It doesn’t matter what a secualrist says about this, they are speaking about something they do not understand, and even the most basic pagan notices the dismissal and is repulsed and insulted. Therefore, the real conflict will be between people of faith, with the current clash between one faith which demands submission of all other faiths to it. Mumbai, as a great city of India is a target, and remains a target, for India is overall a nation of idol-worshippers, despised by radical Islamists. But pathetically, the standard secular retort for atrocities is, “Why can’t we all get along?” The secularists, focused on the Self, cannot comprehend the love a man or woman can have for God, and the natural desire to defend what they believe to be true when it comes under attack. Waltzing in with the arrogant and ignorant, “Can’t we all just love each other?” is a slap in the face of grieving and wounded people. The secularists rail at their favorite stereotype of the clodhopper Christian, but secularists do not see the insult they deliver to Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans and Muslims with their inane and ignorant world view that denigrates these peoples’ faiths. Christians in fact, do understand, and thus are able to connect far better from a shared,common ground to other people of other faiths, respecting the honest and profound desire of people to be reconciled with their Creator. Where the debate lies is which is the correct reconciliation, and how is that argued and proved, using what people understand of their world. The wrong answer is death, and the right answer is life, so people of every faith take the debate very very very seriously. Their salvation is at stake, they should not be ridiculed for considering this with profound seriousness, but secularists do ridicule this very thing.
But the question is, why do secularists hate Christianity the most? By their actions, they prove this to be true. Aren’t other religions more egrecious, by the standards secularists put forth? Yet secularists do not waste a moment on other faiths. All their bile is curiously reserved for one religion. As Scalia pointed out, if a Christian group had demanded foot baths at a public school and prayer time in the cafeteria, and special school lunches for religious purposes, the secular screams would have been deafening.
TO: Mark
RE: Okay….
Go for it! We’re all with you…
…up to the point they put a dull knife to your throat for being an unbeliever.
Then again, if you accept Islam at that point, we think you’re a sorry excuse for a human being. And we’ll no longer be ‘with you’, as you’ve absolutely NO concept of personal integrity.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Image is everything, until the tread meets the pavement.]
Mark doesn’t believe that the Mullahs in Iran and the leaders of other Islamic jihad groups are motivated by the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet. The 1,400 years of jihad conquest similarly was motivated by a sense of grievance against kafir societies.
The views he expresses exactly mirror the ones of the foreign policy advisers of President Obama. We will see in the coming four years if their analyses and remedies are a match with reality, present and historical.
Keep in mind that a corollary of the belief that the leaders of the global Islamic jihad movement is that these same leaders are being rational actors in the world of geopolitical struggle and that the umbrella deterrence strategy announced by the Obama team will be an effective measure providing security for the despised State of Israel. The Obama team thus declares that the Mullahs can be deterred by Mutually Assured Destruction. In other words, Obama is promising Israel that U.S. nukes will destroy Iran after Iran has destroyed Israel.
Behind the scenes, Israeli sources have said that Obama and his national security team will put pressure on Israel to completely pull out of Judaea, abandon Jerusalem, give up its boundaries in Samaria, and hand the Golan back to Syria. This is the price that they demand from Israel for the MAD deterrent that will keep Iranian nukes from hurtling towards Israel.
I would like to see Mark provide an explanation of the linked ideas in logical sequence that buttress his belief that the higher ups in the global jihad movement and their state sponsors are not motivated by Muhammad’s and Allah’s injunctions in Surah 9:5. In other words why should we not take them at their word?
TO: wanumba
RE: Three Guesses….
….first two don’t count.
But the vast majority of people wouldn’t ‘appreciate’ the concept.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The greatest trick Satan ever pulled was convincing people that he doesn't exist.]
Some people claim to be ‘reasoned’ and thus to not have a faith. They have a religion. It may be the holy words of St. Rand the Just, or some other prophetess, but they have one. Such people also tend to be religious fanatics as understood by 1)a great deal of enthusiasm PLUS 2)a willingness to toss aside basic tenets of their belief in order to accomplish some goal. With those two facets working together you get someone who’s ‘end’s justify the means’, has holy assurance of rightness of action, and is very committed. Such ‘reasonoids’ could be very dangerous, but I think most of them recognize how terribly few of them exist, and so simple pragmatism stays their hands.
Reason, rightly understood, supports following Christ. The reality of Christ is supported by a mound of evidence sufficient to overwhelm the person willing to be convinced. It takes very little faith to be a Christian.
We need to confront the death wishers inside our culture, and outside it. And yes, I’m aware that not every cultist of Reason is a fanatic or a reasonoid. Some can be valued allies. But some large percentage of them are a danger to the Republic.
Mark, what “grievance” exactly do you think is being addressed? The fact that Israel exists? The fact that we exist? The fact that the US, India, and a lot of the rest of the world aren’t Moslems? What are they supposedly so angry about here, and what are we supposed to do to soothe them?
What sort of work is the west supposed to do, in order to address their alleged “grievance?” We’ve already dumped gazillions in foreign aid on Islamic countries, rescued the threatened Moslem populations of Kosovo and Irag, when their co-religionists (and the Europeans) couldn’t be bothered to help them against Saddam, or the Serbian genocide; We’ve supported the Palestinians, even when they elected Hamas; we rescued Arafat after Black September, refused to support the Shah of Iran, an ally, during the Khomeini revolution, helped the Saudis pump oil, put pressure on Israel, and, in general, have been quite supportive of the Islamic world, even allowing Saudi students to still come here and study, despite 9/11.
What more are we supposed to do to address their “grievance”, hmmmm? Name some specifics, please, not just “grievances”, or some sort of “work” we’re supposed to do which will magically result in the Islamic world becoming peaceful. (Usually when people talk like this, they mean “The US ought to dump those (*(*&&^^%%$^ Israelis!”)
See how easily Marx’s words “religion is but the sigh of the oppressed creature” have slipped into the reasoning process of our policy elites?
These people inhabit a world where they think the very things that motivate them, i.e. power, control, booty, also motivate the minions of Allah. They think the leaders simply use religion as a narcotic for the masses. The interesting thing of it is, if you examine the political and economic dimension of Islam – and Islam is the penultimate political cult – you will find that it differs little from Marxism and its Communist variants. So, our elites (many of whom are closet Marxists) want to sit down with Allah’s chieftains and agree as to how to divide up the world. That’s really how it is. Allah’s minions and Marx’s minions play God with people’s lives and liberty. Right now, because the Gramscian Marxists are militarily weak – and in the United States our military power is really only on short-term loan to the current Marxists about to take power – they opt to appease Allah’s minions. They know that Allah’s warriors will die for their cause, while Marx’s minions have no such desire to sacrifice their lives for the socialist utopia. So, they are willing to meet the demands of Allah’s warriors in order to try to buy time and space to try to further the socialist utopia in the non-Muslim world.
What the minions of Marx do not understand is that Muslims are not permitted to make any permanent peace with the kafir. Only “hudna” is allowed. This is where Allah’s earthly political leaders put it over on the Marxists, because the Marxists never heard of “hudna” and do not know what it means. However, Arafat frequently spoke of it, in his Arabic speeches delivered before the Arabs. It would be a hudna that would buy time for the Arabs to build their strength for the renewal of the jihad.
The Marxists are the ultimate fools of history. But right now they are the most dangerous fools, because they now dominate our policy communities and weaken our natural instincts to protect our peoples, our heritages, our religions, and our liberties.
Re CHuck P:
Yep!
Re: Mark The West has to understand there are grievances? India is not “the West,” and never has been, yet it is at the top of the list of infidel targets. So, better include India, and China, and Japan, and Burma and Thailand and Sri Lanka,etc etc which all fall into the correct grouping of religions based on idol worship, and are not and have never been considered part of “The West.” Idol worship is an abomination to Islam. The grievance is that the populations of these nations aren’t Muslim. Period.
The “grievance” is simply that radical Islam has not succeeded in converting all nations. And by what measure of justice should this ethnocentric “grievance” trump all other peoples’ desires to have a free choice in their faiths, not forced into one by terror at the point of a sword? For all the faulty practices of Christianity, Christians have indeed learned over the centuries that forced conversions are worthless. So, what was the grievance that the West must consider in Gudjarat when Muslims stopped a trainload of Hindus and burned them alive inside the railway cars? What a surprise that the Hindus then rampaged through the town looking for Muslims once word of the atrocity arrived.
So again, what’s all the hang-up with the West? Seems the East has a few “communciations issues” to work out, too, but one never hears about that, it’s always slam the West. But maybe it’s the simple truth that Westerners are not taught that it’s justified to rampage when they get provoked, so it’s much safer for a brave secularist to lambast them than Hindus or Muslims.
No, David, of course there’s no war. 9/11 never happened. Mumbai never happened. There is no conflict in India between Hindus and Moslems. Nothing’s going on in the Philippines with Moslem insurgents. There is no problem in Darfur, no Saudi oil shieks funding radical mosques, oh, no, no, no, no, no! It’s just not happening, and, even if it is, it’s not Islam’s fault!
…
Having trouble telling the difference between war and crime? I thought so. Understandable given the dilution of the term war. Hell, we are waging a “war” against “drugs” – so I guess a “war” against “terrorism” makes just as much sense. Not.
Cultural exchange? The British 7/7 bombers were all described as seeming like normal, well acculturated young English blokes, fond of soccer, fish and chips. The 19 9/11 hijackers were all from prosperous, middle-class backgrounds, had gone to school and lived in the US for a while. They were very much aware of the modern world, and could have made a living in it, if they wanted to. They didn’t. Again, it’s that faith thing, you don’t understand.
…
I have no trouble understanding that people can act in ways that deceive and confuse the infidels. How does this constitute a war?
The jihadis use the internet, to recruit. They use cell phones as bombs, and to take pictures of infidels being beheaded, which they gleefully pass around to each other as special treats. Iran is working on getting a nuclear reactor. They’re very much aware of the modern world, and quite willing to use its tools for their own ends—-which aren’t ours. It’s that faith thing again.
…
Yes, just like our military industrial complex uses the internet to recruit, uses remote controlled drones to kill, and continue to take pictures of “terrorist” suspects being tortured, which they gleefully pass around to each other. We’re not so different, really. And the ends are the same – power for its own sake. Bingo. No faith required.
Give the Islamic world more money? How much money has been already poured into the black hole that is the Palestinian authority? Yassir Arafat was listed by Forbes as one of the richest men in the world. It doesn’t seem to have helped bring peace to the region. Egypt has gotten billions in foreign aid from the US. Why should it be our job to educated and fund Islamic societies, and not, say, Saudi Arabia, with all its oil wealth? And how are we supposed to educate the Islamic world? Since when is the US in charge of the educational system of any Islamic country? As far as that goes, aren’t a sizable Saudi students coming here to go to our colleges every year? What more are we supposed to do to educate these guys, so they’ll love us and won’t kill us? How are we supposed to take away their “poverty and desperation?” Give them still more money? Bomb Israel, so they won’t have to do it themselves? Start pressuring India to give into the Islamic radicals? Could it be that, maybe, the poverty and desperation of many Islamic countries is part and parcel of the Shari’a system they live under, and not our fault? Or is everything in the world supposed to be evil Amerikkka’s fault?
…
Impoverishing and isolating the Islamic world. Yeah, that will work much better, right? Nobody is blaming the USA but yourself. We didn’t start the fire – why should we consider taking effective action to put it out? Not our problem, right?
It’s the faith thing again, which you obviously don’t get. It’s not poverty, it’s not despair—at least not despair caused by us—They don’t need any public works from us, and they don’t want our culture, our education, or anything else from us, except our submission. It’s the faith thing.
…
Again – most practitioners of Islam have no interest in using violence to win our submission. It’s much easier to win submission demographically, anyway. But don’t pretend that the ill-advised invasion of Iraq is not a contributing factor to despair in the Islamic world.
Spoken like a person who has no concept of the power of religion. Spoken like a person who thinks people “cling to their religion and their guns.” Spoken like a person who believes that universal kindness and the power of “reason” can disarm the world. Spoken like a person who pukes and stomps his feet when he hears someone call a person evil. Spoken like a person who thinks “infidel” is just a playground retort.
…
Wow. Reading a lot into this, aren’t we. Just trying to point out that answering the violence of a fringe minority by engaging in wholesale violence against a culture is a poor way to win hearts and minds. Glad to see you’re prepared to jump to unfounded conclusions regardless of the victim.
For your sake, David S, best you stay ignorant and all aquiver over the righteous possibility of a United Nations of saints. But please understand that to a radical Islamist you are a coveted useful idiot.
…
I’m afraid your brand of idiocy will be much more useful to the radicals than mine. To each his own. Party on, dudes. Just don’t come crying to me when your senseless violence backfires on a worldwide scale.
Deal?
That worked because Japan is a nation. Islam is not a nation, nor are the radical islamicists nationalists.
In The Shield of Achilles Philip Bobbitt illustrates the issue thus: Napoleon’s claim to legitimacy lay in his ability to further France’s territorial claims, thereby bettering France. This was a new development, certainly newer that the Tsar’s claim to legitimacy, which lay in his ancestry and his person. Napoleon failed to appreciate that, and so failed to anticipate that the Tsar could burn his own capital to deny Napoleon’s army shelter. Had Napoleon burned Paris to deny it to an invading army, he would have lost the foundation of his legitimacy, and with it the popular support that made him effective. (After his escape from Elba, the first thing he did was raise an army of loyalists and seek to show that he was still the master gerneral–that he still had the power to expand France.)
We are facing a threat that uses the nation-state but is not the nation-state. It thrives in wild places where the nation-state has never properly taken root, in Afghanistan, in the SWAT of Pakistan, in Ethiopia and Somalia, places that are protected by the sovereignty granted to nation-states. Often called Westphalian Sovereignty, it did not take its current form until the twentieth century. If the name “Edward Mandel House” means nothing to you, it is now time for you to learn, and the best source I have seen, as far as this issue is concerned, is again The Shield of Achilles, in particular the chapter called Colonel House and a World Made of Law. (I prefer to call it “The Architect of the Twentieth Century.”)
The increasing influence of the NGO, whether it be Greenpeace or the Red Cross or al Qaeda or international drug syndicates, Bobbitt describes as the rise of the Market State. In TSoA he shows that changes in power structure from the Kingly State of the Tsar to the Territorial State of Napoleon, from the Nation State of the Twentieth Century to the Market State, have been taking place since the time of Machiavelli. In Terror and Consent he frames the problems we face when such states seek to rule and grow by terror rather than by the consent of those they govern.
While Bobbitt’s work is not the end of rational thought on the matter, it may be the beginning of it. I strongly encourage those who have the intellectual fortitude to read both books. If you do pick up TSoA, please read and re-read the introduction until you can say “That should be obvious–but it isn’t.” I have no financial interest here, but I do have an interest in the safety of civil society. As Chesteron said, you must not threaten the voter, notwithstanding the obvious threat that if the Opposition get in, the country is ruined.
TO: All
RE: David S & ‘War’
I guess David S never heard of guerrilla warfare. And that’s what this war is.
David S, ignorant or worse, as he is, thinks that all war must be conducted by people in proper uniforms and backed by a particular nation-state government or alliance thereof.
I mean, SERIOUSLY…..
How can anyone with more than a couple of synaspes to rub together not recognize ‘war’ in Mumbai?
David S is obviously wrong. Worse than that, based his latest, he is stupid. Or even much worse, he’s an outright liar.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and proud of it.]
David, having trouble telling the difference between a war—and a war?
9/11, Mumbia, 7/7, etc., were not attacks on individuals. They were not murders in the ordinary sense, but mass killings, intended to intimidate the governments of those countries they occurred in. They were not done for gain, to take out a rival gang or during the course of a robbery, or to silence potential witnesses.
As for impoverishing the Arab world. . . uh, ever heard of Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Dubai? If we are trying to impoverish the poor dears, we’re not doing a very good job of it (not to mention the inconvenient Palestinians, and all the foreign aid they receive).
But, of course there’s no war! Nothing’s wrong, except we need to give the Arab world more money! When we give other countries more money, they always love us, right? It’s worked so well in the past! And it’s a CRIME! Not a war! Crime! We just need more police, that’s all! More police, that’s all! Get somebody to go over there and arrest those guys, right? Book ‘em, Dan-o! And give them more money.
That’ll work. Just keep telling yourself that.
TO: njcommuter
RE: What Might Work
No Islam is not a ‘nation’ state, per se. However, Islamist terrorism on the large scale IS supported by nation states, e.g., Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Cut off those sources of support and the attacks such as 9/11 and Mumbai will likely be dramatically reduced.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[All war depends on logistics and logistics depends on money.]
Wanumba, yes, Islam certainly seems to be on the outs with every country it contacts, doesn’t it? China, Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India. . . the list goes on. Its list of grievances appears to be endless. If it were any group other than Islam acting this way, our pundits would be wondering if, maybe, just maybe, the problem might not lie with Islam itself, and not with any “grievances” it allegedly suffers; but Islam has become the new uber-victim of the left, and so anything it does must be understood, and forgiven—and, oh yes, they must be given more money, and we must understand why they hate Israel.
Oh, and David? 9/11 occurred before our invasion of Iraq. And India, as I recall, actually opposed the invasion, and, at any rate, had no troops there. So how can the Mumbai atrocity be blamed on Americans in Iraq? What have the Filipinos done to any Moslem country? What did those school kids Beslan, Russia, have to do with Irag? What does China have to do with Iraq, or the black Christians and animists attacked by Islamic armies in Darfur?
And how is what the terrorists are doing a “crime”, and not, say, a concentrated effort to sway governments, thereby controlling them, and making them submit to Islam? The terrorists didn’t knock over any banks in Mumbai, that I recall. They did spend a lot of time torturing and murdering a Jewish rabbi and his wife—solely because they were Jews—and shooting a lot of kafir Hindu people who were just going about their business, and shooting foreigners, just because they were foreigners. These do sound more like polical/war motives, rather than just criminal ones. Criminals usually just want to get the swag, and get out. Serial killers love killing for its own sake, but they work alone and they’re not organized (they’re too crazy for that) and they aren’t bankrolled by countries like Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or given automatic weapons by them, or formed into military type cadres for the sole purpose of disrupting a given society, and wrecking its economy (both Mumbai and the Twin Towers in New York were big financial centers). Criminals are usually in favor of strong economies—they’d just like to get more of it directed their way, without having to actually work.
But it’s okay, Dude, you just party on, and keep telling yourself there’s no problem, it’s all America’s fault, we’re just as bad as Saddam Hussein! Moral equivalence—the most comforting thing in the world! If we’d just leave Iraq alone, everything will be fine, the Arab world will love us, and, hey, let’s give Dubai some money! They’re impoverished, they need help in building up their luxury hotel paradise!
TO: All
RE: A ‘Grievance’ Experiment
If I make a grievance about some people around here, e.g., Mark and David S, will they go away?
Probably not, because I won’t threaten to kill them.
But if the Islamists took umbrage with them…..and brought their case directly to their throat…..
Three guesses as to what they would do. First two don’t count….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone renounced violence forever? I could then conquer the whole stupid planet with just a butter knife.]
Chuck, you wouldn’t even need a butter knife—just your fists! That would probably be enough to intimidate a non-violent, passive world into obedience.
When I read the quote that was attributed to Obama in post #80, I made the comment that our country has made mistakes in the past, and I think what Obama said (if it is really what he said) makes sense and it’s true… and that’s what brought on the comments I’ve seen so far from people who can’t handle the truth… you’ve gotta be a hard-headed nut job to think that America is perfect and never made mistakes…
Not just “attributed”, it’s what Barack Obama said, one week after September 11, 200l.
I will argue (to the death
) that any continuing effort to attribute those attacks (and so many others, before and since) to the imperfection of America of to dwell on the “poverty” in Islamic settings that foster violent jihad and think America can “fix” that poverty…is dangerously naive.
The Whole Quotation
TO: TalkinKamel
RE: Butter Knives Not Required
Don’t care to soil my hands on some of them.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Never hit a man with glasses. Use your fist!]
David, having trouble telling the difference between a war—and a war?
…
Deep thoughts?
9/11, Mumbia, 7/7, etc., were not attacks on individuals. They were not murders in the ordinary sense, but mass killings, intended to intimidate the governments of those countries they occurred in. They were not done for gain, to take out a rival gang or during the course of a robbery, or to silence potential witnesses.
…
War is open, armed conflict. These are surreptitious criminal attacks. There is a difference.
As for impoverishing the Arab world. . . uh, ever heard of Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Dubai? If we are trying to impoverish the poor dears, we’re not doing a very good job of it (not to mention the inconvenient Palestinians, and all the foreign aid they receive).
…
Ah, yes. Conflating the monied class with the masses. Apparently we should do the same, and eschew logic?
But, of course there’s no war! Nothing’s wrong, except we need to give the Arab world more money! When we give other countries more money, they always love us, right? It’s worked so well in the past! And it’s a CRIME! Not a war! Crime! We just need more police, that’s all! More police, that’s all! Get somebody to go over there and arrest those guys, right? Book ‘em, Dan-o! And give them more money.
…
There is something wrong – but it’s not a war unless we make it one. You can’t seem to comprehend how this problem could be solved other than through genocide. Calling these criminals soldiers only legitimizes their cause. If you continue to pursue hatred and contempt for an entire culture, you will reap what you sow.
That’ll work. Just keep telling yourself that.
…
I guess the war you are so fond of must be going well….
Oh, and David? 9/11 occurred before our invasion of Iraq. And India, as I recall, actually opposed the invasion, and, at any rate, had no troops there. So how can the Mumbai atrocity be blamed on Americans in Iraq? What have the Filipinos done to any Moslem country? What did those school kids Beslan, Russia, have to do with Irag? What does China have to do with Iraq, or the black Christians and animists attacked by Islamic armies in Darfur?
…
America’s apparent contempt for Islam and continued war mongering against Iran, our willingness to ignore international norms and invade sovereign nations without provocation, and to torture innocent persons couldn’t possibly contribute to resistance against the West, could they?
And how is what the terrorists are doing a “crime”, and not, say, a concentrated effort to sway governments, thereby controlling them, and making them submit to Islam? The terrorists didn’t knock over any banks in Mumbai, that I recall. They did spend a lot of time torturing and murdering a Jewish rabbi and his wife—solely because they were Jews—and shooting a lot of kafir Hindu people who were just going about their business, and shooting foreigners, just because they were foreigners. These do sound more like polical/war motives, rather than just criminal ones. Criminals usually just want to get the swag, and get out. Serial killers love killing for its own sake, but they work alone and they’re not organized (they’re too crazy for that) and they aren’t bankrolled by countries like Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or given automatic weapons by them, or formed into military type cadres for the sole purpose of disrupting a given society, and wrecking its economy (both Mumbai and the Twin Towers in New York were big financial centers). Criminals are usually in favor of strong economies—they’d just like to get more of it directed their way, without having to actually work.
…
The crimes are perpetrated against the people, not the governments. It is certainly convenient to pretend that our government played no role in providing the weapons, opportunity and motivation.
But it’s okay, Dude, you just party on, and keep telling yourself there’s no problem, it’s all America’s fault, we’re just as bad as Saddam Hussein! Moral equivalence—the most comforting thing in the world! If we’d just leave Iraq alone, everything will be fine, the Arab world will love us, and, hey, let’s give Dubai some money! They’re impoverished, they need help in building up their luxury hotel paradise!
…
Actually, we are much worse that Saddam, in many ways, if we are judged by the actions of our government. But as an apologist for western imperialism, you wouldn’t see that. By the way, how did Saddam come to power, and who supported his decade long war against Iraq? It didn’t have anything to do with the US, did it? This is a mess that we have been stirring up for a long time.
TO: All
RE: David S & ‘War’
I guess David S never heard of guerrilla warfare. And that’s what this war is.
…
No. It’s not. Saying it is does not make it so. It’s a good excuse to rape the constitution at home, though.
David S, ignorant or worse, as he is, thinks that all war must be conducted by people in proper uniforms and backed by a particular nation-state government or alliance thereof.
…
That does seem to be the way we are proceeding, despite the foolishness of it.
I mean, SERIOUSLY…..
I have no trouble understanding that people can act in ways that deceive and confuse the infidels. How does this constitute a war? — David S
How can anyone with more than a couple of synaspes to rub together not recognize ‘war’ in Mumbai?
David S is obviously wrong. Worse than that, based his latest, he is stupid. Or even much worse, he’s an outright liar.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adj., Ignorant and proud of it.]
…
Of course, you have no evidence to support your position, so personal attacks will have to do. Glad to know that you are proud of your own ignorance.
TO: All
RE: A ‘Grievance’ Experiment
If I make a grievance about some people around here, e.g., Mark and David S, will they go away?
Probably not, because I won’t threaten to kill them.
But if the Islamists took umbrage with them…..and brought their case directly to their throat…..
Three guesses as to what they would do. First two don’t count….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone renounced violence forever? I could then conquer the whole stupid planet with just a butter knife.]
…
Actually, I will go away, but not because of your grievance or your butter knife. It is abundantly clear that continuing this thread will only provide more opportunity for you to make personal attacks and advocate for your wrongheaded approach to the world.
You demonstrate your ignorance and stupidity by referring to “the Islamists” as if this were some monolithic group. This is the same reasoning that fundamentalists always use to justify violence against another sect. “They are all the same, and they want to hurt us.”
I am happy to dialogue with intelligent persons of any political or religious stripe. I also believe fully in my right to defend my life and liberty. However, I must allow you the last word in this discussion, because I can see that you will continue to blather and pontificate until the end of time if given the opportunity.
I am much more afraid of the morons like yourself that have risen to positions of political power here and abroad than I am of a few misguided young muslims.
TO: All
RE: The Gutless Wonder, Revealed
It’s another Monty Python Moment from David S.
Not being able to defend his position, nor having the wearwithall to do so, he flees the field of engagement.
And his parthian shot of how he’ll be “happy to dialogue with intelligent persons of any political or religious stripe” rings false as I just engaged him in a matter of ‘fact’ on another thread in this venue.
Typical ‘progressive’ mentality. Fact and reason and discussion mean nothing to them….when facts and reason and HONEST discussion come to the forefront.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Liberals aren't. Progressives won't.]
That’s okay, David S.!
Party on!
India is part of the west, Mumbai wasn’t an act of war, because the victims were unarmed and not in uniform,and, anyway, it was just a crime against people, not the government, and, anyway, if you say it’s war, you’re just an imperialist, because it’s not war, it’s something else!
Anyhoo, America is worse than Saddam. Anyhoo, it’s all America’s fault. Nobody but America has ever done anything bad, and Mumbai is just an excuse to rape the constitution. Whatever.
Gotta agree with Chuck(le); either you’re a liar, or just stupid. Of course, you nothing says you can’t be both.
Chuck(le), I appreciate your well-reasoned and documented comments and contributions. Far beyond what I am able to do, but would if I could. Thanks.
P.S. SERIOUSLY….
This person is more afraid of people who can engage him intellectually than people who have dull knives with which they’ll cut his head off???!?!?!
We’re talking SERIOUS mental issues with David S…..
Chuck,
I see your fans are here in support, as you continue with the personal attacks. Again, asserting that you are making a factual argument does not make it so.
And yes, I am more afraid of a moron like yourself with his finger on the trigger of a nuclear warhead (or a thousand of them) than some kids with their AK-47s.
Your failure to engage in any rational thought or argument is what bugs me. Are you a big fan of GWB?
Attempting to assess my mental state here is just pathetic, Chuck. I’m only back on this thread now to tease you for being a moron.
Is there some small chance that you might actually be able to make a reasoned argument in defense of yourself?
I suppose hope springs eternal.
DS
…a few misguided young muslims…some kids with their AK-47s.
One of those “misguided young muslims” (a doctor with Iraqi citizenship) just got convicted in Great Britain.
His partner in crime in the Glasgow airport caper (they were frustrated when their two car bombs had failed to go off the day before as they tried to kill/maim 500 or so human beings at a London nightclub) was an engineer who didn’t survive the burns he sustained when they drove their Jeep through the airport’s front door.
The “kids with AK 47′s” in the Mumbai caper were very intent, on torturing and killing Jews in the city’s Jewish center, among other goals.
You can read about the doctor convicted in Great Britain
Here
You can read a litany of capers of other “misguided young muslims”
Here
Now, now, tanstaafl, these are just harmless kids, waiving AK-47′s around. As is well known, it is impossible for an automatic weapon, in the hand of a mere kid, to harm anybody! No, no, they’re just high spirited young ‘uns, up to a bit of mischief. Ignore them, and they’ll go away. Even if they do manage to kill lots of unarmed civilians, it doesn’t count as a war, because they haven’t announced it’s against the civilians’ government, and nobody’s wearing a uniform. Furthermore, the civilians themselves weren’t armed, which is good, because they might have been tempted to shoot back at those harmless youths, and their innocent AK-47′s. Just call the police, because it’s just a crime. Of course, these youths often seem to be supported by, and get their weapons from, other nations, such as Pakistan—who then refuse to arrest them, or prosecute them. So it’s kinda hard to treat their atrocities like crimes, because said nations, like Pakistan, seem intent on protecting them—almost as if they considered them soldiers, fighting for them.
But it’s not war. How could you possibly think such a thing? After all, it’s morons such as you, with your finger on nukes (do you really have thousands of nukes at your disposal, Taan?) who are much more scarey!
Pakistan, by the way, also has nukes. And Iran is working on getting some. But places like Pakistan and Iran don’t scare people like David S., for some reason. Only America, and the west.
/Sarc. off.
RavinKamel,
I guess you are being dense on purpose. I didn’t single out America. Any nation with idiots in control of nukes is a much greater danger to Americans than the youth of Pakistan.
In the USA we also have heavily armed youth assaulting our civilian population here at home, if you need some automatic weapons to stoke your fear. Perhaps we should declare that we have a civil war here? School children against the US government?
Every society has violent misguided youth. Declaring war against an entire society is not the answer to this problem.
The language of faith is just an excuse for religious fanatics to wage war on infidels – Christians or Muslims, it matters not.
DS
David S., in your post #163 your talk about “America’s contempt for Islam”, and go on to accuse the USA of “war mongering” against Iran, and turning the Islamic world against the west. That sounds to me like you’re singling out America.
In your post #168, it actually sounds like you’re accusing Chuck of having his finger on nukes, which is a bit strange—however, you ask if he’s a big fan of GWB, again singling out America, and America’s president for special blame. You don’t mention the fact that Pakistan has nukes, or Iran, or say that you believe these nations could be a threat. Is it only America you see as a threat? Kinda sounds like it.
Every society has violent, misguided youth. Most societies, however, manage to rein said youths in, and not export them to other countries where they attack civilian populations in the name of their religion, hijack airplanes, turning them into flying bombs, shoot up malls, turn themselves into walking bombs or plan to blow up airports, such as the jihadi who wanted to blow up LAX.
I don’t get your burbling about how I want automatic weapons to stoke my fears, and create a civil war with school children attacking the US government. Huh? Whu? Myself, and other posters like Chuck, were talking about 9/11, Mumbai, 7/7; none of these incidents involved, to my knowledge, school children fighting US officials. Please, try making some sense.
When michievous, misguided youths start shooting up the civilian population of other coutnries; when they carry sophisticated weaponry, supplied to them by their own governments, when their merry, boyish pranks involve taking hostages, attempting to disrupt governments and destroying financial centers, most sane societies term such merry prankery “War”, and respond accordingly. When young men go into other countries and start shooting and blowing things up, they are acting like soldiers, and should be expect to be treated like them.
If societies don’t want war declared against them, they need to stop encouraging, excusing and arming these poor, misguided boys. Or somebody else will. Maybe a little midnight basketball perhaps, or a tough yet compassionate guidance counselor?
Kamel,
Agreed. We do need to stop encouraging, excusing and arming the poor, misguided boys of the US military. Otherwise it is clear that we have invited the world to declare war on us, and if we don’t stop doing it, somebody else will stop us.
We are making enemies faster than we can kill them, and insisting on prosecuting ‘war’ against islamic societies will only accelerate recruiting for jihad.
Most Americans oppose our occupation of Iraq – but all Americans must face the consequences of our military blunders.
The sad fact is that our current government has abandoned the ideals that made America great in favor of endless war, warrant-less surveillance, and the end of the rule of law. Until the USA honors the values that made us a beacon of hope in the world, we will continue to be an attractive target, and justifiably so.
The American Century is over, mostly because GWB and his cronies scorn the values that made America admirable.
DS
Jeekers, David S.! You just finished complaining that I unfairly accused you of singling out the US! And then, you single out the US, as being the source of all violence in the world. Then you gloat over it’s allegedly being the end of the American Century, and claim we are no longer admirable.
David, I believe that you are either:
1. A jihadi sympathizer, if not an actual supporter.
2. A fool.
3. A liar.
4. Any combination of, or all of, the above.
There’s no use continuing this conversation. Your hatred for the US, and admiration for those poor, oppressed youths blinds you.
Jeekers, David S.! You just finished complaining that I unfairly accused you of singling out the US! And then, you single out the US, as being the source of all violence in the world. Then you gloat over it’s allegedly being the end of the American Century, and claim we are no longer admirable.
…
The USA spends more money on violence than all the other nations of the world. I do know that it is painful for you to realize that your logic is just as valid in reverse. Do you approve of the values being promoted by GWB?
David, I believe that you are either:
1. A jihadi sympathizer, if not an actual supporter.
2. A fool.
3. A liar.
4. Any combination of, or all of, the above.
There’s no use continuing this conversation. Your hatred for the US, and admiration for those poor, oppressed youths blinds you.
…
This is precisely why you will never understand what is happening in the world around you. You can’t tell a friend from an enemy, and believe that “if you aren’t with us, you are against us”. Even if I am a jihadi a fool and a liar, your inability to carry on a meaningful dialogue remains.
I don’t hate the US, in fact I have a deep and abiding love for the USA – that’s why it is so troubling to me that we are running headlong toward disaster. The fact that you can’t stop applying the jihadi label long enough to see this only speaks to the scope of the problem.
DS
TO: All
RE: Speaking of ‘Personal Attacks’
I find it ‘interesting’ that David S:
[1] Has had presented comments ‘refused’ by the moderators at Dr. Helen Smith’s article at her recent item at PJM.
According to the good doctor, there was an overdose of vitriol with a lack of rational discussion involved.
[2] Furthermore, despite his claims that he isn’t coming back, David S seems to have nothing better to do that ‘come back’ and try to argue his futile positio that anyone who disagrees with him has serious ‘issues’ with ‘reality’.
Obviously, David S has a problem with remembering his promises to leave US alone. Either that or he is an outright liar….just like those people on the ‘left’ who, in the run-up to the 2004 General Election, swore they’d leave US if George Bush was re-elected. Obviously THEY LIED as well, as they are STILL with US.
At ANY RATE….
….David S seems to be here to stay. So ‘have at’! You don’t get these kinds of opportunities every day here. Most of the people who think like David S are ‘drive-through shooters’ at heart.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Let the games begin!]
Chuck9le), as I said, David S. appears to be a liar, a fool or a jihadi supporter. Of course, nothing says he can’t be all three together!
At any rate, whether it’s Mumbai, the Philippines, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, he seems determined to place all the blame for Islamic violence on the United States. He also seems to think that recognizing you’re in a war is the same as going out and nuking another country. Naw, let’s just let the cops deal with those maladjusted youths! (Uh, what cops? What police force? Who’se supposed to take them into custody, and where are they supposed to go to prison? Do they get read their rights? Suppose their own countries refuse to prosecute them, or even acknowledge there’s a problem with said youths attacking other countries? What if the youths refuse to stop killing people, or blowing things up? Are we just supposed to accept the deaths of countless civilians, because doing something about it might upset Islamic countries?)
TO: David S
RE: Okay….
…tell US how much you ‘love’ US.
Tell US when, where, how, and in what capacity you served US in the armed forces of US.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Yeah, Dave, you love the US. According to you, it spends more money on violence than any other country in the world—but you love it. Yah. Right.
Seriously, do you even read your own posts? And do you really expect us to believe you love this country you claim is so violent, and sending soldiers around the world to kill innocent people?
(How does this image of all-evil America, by the way, explain the recent violence in Mumbai? Or the torture/murders of the Chabad rabbi, and his wife? Or the Islamic violence in the Philippines, or Indonesia? How is the United States responsible for this? As I stated earlier, India actually opposed the invasion of Iraq. So, if everything’s America’s fault, why are Pakistani Jihadis attacking India? You’d think, if all Islamic violence was about Iraq, they’d be supporting India. And why is it, say, Moslems are supposedly upset about Iraq, but not grateful for US intervention in Kosovo? or for the billions we give Egypt in foreign aid? Or for rescuing Arafat’s sorry butt after Black September, when he really didn’t deserve it? Evil as it is, the US has done some nice things for the Islamic world).
(I know, Chuck, I know, it’s a waste of time, and was going to give up, but you did say, “Let the games begin”, and this kind of thinking really needs to be debunked).
Oh, and David, I don’t support GWB. And, whether I do or not, what does this have to do with the rise of the global jihad, or Ms. Scalia’s proposition that a secular society might be ill-equipped to face an enemy motivated by their faith?
As for telling friends from foes. . . well, I don’t consider friends those who attack unarmed Jewish rabbis and their wives and children, or Filipino farmers, or ordinary Indians, going about their business or Americans going to work at the Twin Towers the morning of 9/11. If you mean we should dump Israel, you ought to say so, instead of vague goings-on about not being able to tell friends from foes. (And I’ll still disagree with you, but at least it will be about something specific).
Chuck & Kamel,
If service in the US military is your only measure of love for the US, I can see why we have such a difficult time communicating.
It’s not hard to find evidence that the US military receives more funding than all other military forces on the face of the earth combined. But it is not particularly important, because I’m simply pointing out that neither the language of faith or military violence will solve this problem.
I never claimed America was all-evil. That’s your own distorted “us or them” mentality again.
I love that we have a country with a powerfully inspiring Constitution, and that the People work tirelessly to more fully express the promise that it holds. Our current administration is a temporary setback – America will shed the military empire eventually, and move closer to the ideals that undergird the Union.
Endless war is not the answer.
Peace.
DS
Oh, man, I do so love it when somebody uses the lame old “peace” salutation! Makes me nostalgic for my old tie-dyed t-shirt, and love beads. Right on! Power to the people! And so such like.
Dave, you certainly don’t sound as if you love the US from your earlier posts, such as #173. As I said, do you actually read you write?
And I notice you keep skirting the questions I’ve asked about the jihad in the Philippines, India, etc. to drone on and on about how much you dislike GWB—and, yes, America, and how America funds violence, blah, blah, blah (more than Saudi Arabia, funding Wahabi mosques around the globe? More than Iran, with its terrorist connections? More than, say, North Korea, which supports an army and shoots off missiles while its population starves?)
You also my questions about why these terrorist attacks aren’t acts of war, and the original question of this thread, which was how can a secular society resist an opponent motivated by faith? Can you get off the subject of Irag, and your disapproval of GWB for a moment, and address those? 9/11, for instance, was, apparently, planned for years, meaning the plot must have begun while Clinton, who was quite friendly to the Arab world, was still in office. It certainly can’t be blamed on the Iraq invasion. Neither can the Mumbai attacks, or Islamic terrorism in China, Russia and so on. As far as “endless war” goes, it seems Islam is actually responsible for a lot of it at the moment, not the (non-existant) “American Empire”. Yes, I know, you’ll blame it all on maladjusted youths, who just need a bit of midnight basketball. Then you’ll say American soldiers are just as bad. But of course that doesn’t mean you don’t love America.
So, if you think fighting back against terrorism isn’t the answer, that it should just be treated as a crime, do you have any suggestions as to: 1. What police force would you send after terrorists? 2. What court would you try them in? 3. Where would you hold them prisoner, while awaiting trial? 4. Who should carry out the sentence?
Asking for help from terrorists’countries of origin doesn’t seem to be the answer; India tried that, and Pakistan is refusing to prosecute, and help them find, any remaining Mumbai terrorists, or give them any sort of satisfaction. Afghanistan refused to renounce the Taliban, or turn over Bin Ladin, after 9/11. Ask the UN? It’s nothing but a gaggle of corrupto-crats—and the Blue Helmets usually cut and run when somebody starts shooting back at them, which means the US is then asked to come lend a hand, which means the US is being asked to fight once again, and I thought you didn’t approve of the US getting into fights? Or do you approve when it’s fighting for the UN? (Actually, by the way, our going into Iraq was partly to uphold the UN sanctions against it).
The problem is, it really does take only one side to make a war. If you don’t fight back, the one who’se invading you wins. Then you are conquered, and can’t fight back. Peace.
Kamel,
You believe my distaste for the current occupant of the White House is incompatible with love of country. I believe the opposite is true. Anyone who is satisfied with the current occupant is someone who cares not for the USA.
As I acknowledged above, there are violent religious fanatics all over the world. Some of them bomb our troops in the middle east. Some of them bomb abortion clinics in the USA. Some of them bomb public spaces throughout Europe. Some of them bomb villages in the hinterlands of Pakistan. They are simply violent criminals clad in religious language.
In most cases, police-work would be the appropriate and responsible way to prevent these attacks. If the warnings given by the intelligence agencies hadn’t been ignored by GWB, 9/11 would have been easily averted. We have had the tools to prevent these attacks all along, but instead we have provoked massive retaliation by invading and occupying sovereign nations under false pretenses.
The police force now known as the Homeland Security Administration is the organ responsible for removing this threat – the military is not equipped to do this work properly. Offenders would be tried where they are criminally liable – local jurisdictions can handle these criminals perfectly well. We all know that rendition and torture are counterproductive, and that military courts are not the appropriate place to try non-military criminals.
Let me know when the invaders get here. The idea that the USA will be conquered by kids with pipe bombs is laughable. There is no military threat to national security from religious fanatics, aside from the current commander in chief.
The so-called terrorists don’t have the means to invade and subdue the USA. If we wage war against the people of the middle east, we are the one side making the war.
Think about it.
Peace.
DS
David S., you’re still dodging my questions, obsessing over George Bush and the US. You ignore everything I say about the international scope of terrorism, and the history of Islamic terrorism before 9/11, and go on about homeland security, etc., etc., etc., ignoring everything I say about India and other beleaguered countries, and about faith. Also, you airily say that we can put all our trust in Homeland Security, but you don’t address any of my questions about what to do when police work fails, or it’s just not up to the task. What about when a terrorist gets released, and re-joins his old comrades, to kill again? What about a case like, say, Lynn Stewart’s, where an imprisoned terrorists is aided by his lawyer into passing along messages to his followers, resulting in more deaths? (Now that case would have been better handled by a military tribunal!)
If the terrorists get their hands on nukes, or a bio-weapon, they most certainly will be able to bring down the US, or, at least, large parts of it. Even an attack like the one in Mumbai could cripple a large financial district, and scare off potential foreign investment—not to mention the priceless lives that would be lost, in such an attack.
The invaders have already arrived. They arrived here on 9/11. If you can’t already see that, nothing is ever going to convince you. You’re too deeply involved in your Bush obsession (even though Obama is now president elect) to admit this to yourself. You can say “peace”, “Peace”, all you like—kinda like whistling in the dark—it’s not gonna happen.
You don’t love America. You love some idealized, progressive America in your head; the perfect people’s paradise that will come, when George Bush is out of the picture, and the eeeeeevil American empire is brought down. You don’t love the reality, and, deep down, you really don’t want to see it safe and defended.
Merry Christmas, David S.; I really signing off now, since it’s pretty obvious no matter what I say, your replies are going to be along the lines of Bush/American Empire/misguided youths/police work (but never explain exactly what sort of police work, or what we’re supposed to do about jurisdiction, or who we send to arrest the prankish youths if they flee back to their own country). Someday you might wake up and smell the coffee, but I doubt it.
TO: David S
RE: Heh
It’s not. But it IS a measure of your understanding of warfare. Something you obviously lack. And hence your obfuscation about it with this bit of tripe.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[In a choice of evils, war may not always be the worst. -- Abraham Lincoln]
TO: All
RE: David S: Gutless Wonder
Perhaps. You ‘love’ what you benefit from amongst US. However, you failed to answer the simple question of whether or not you have laid YOUR life on the line for US.
I think this is a key indicator.
Not that he cares. He’s never laid his life out on the line for anything, based on his lack of reply to my simple question.
Additionally, he cannot provide any evidence we have established an ‘empire’. Otherwise, Japan and Germany and Italy would be colonies now. Let alone the Philipines.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Kamel,
Lynne Stewart was tried and convicted in civilian courts. I may not agree with the verdict, but the case shows clearly that civilian courts can carry water for the government – there is no need to create an inquisition via military tribunal. The sad part is that her conviction demonstrates another reason that war is not the answer – in this case, ‘war’ serves as a handy excuse to ignore the rights guaranteed to us all by the Constitution.
Police work doesn’t always succeed – but military force fails more spectacularly.
Preventing a nuclear or biological attack by terrorists is not something the military is built for.
We invaded and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan – nobody has invaded or occupied the USA.
I love my country, but I fear my government. Thankfully this is a country where the People can change the government.
Speaking of coffee, that sounds like a good idea. Coffee break!
DS
Chuck,
@186
Perhaps. You ‘love’ what you benefit from amongst US. However, you failed to answer the simple question of whether or not you have laid YOUR life on the line for US.
….
I’m registered for selective service, so my life is potentially on the line. What do you think this has to do with love of country?
Additionally, he cannot provide any evidence we have established an ‘empire’. Otherwise, Japan and Germany and Italy would be colonies now. Let alone the Philipines.
…
The Oxford English Dictionary gives these definitions of imperialism:
1) An imperial system of government; the rule of an emperor, esp. when despotic or arbitrary.
2) The principle or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests.
GWB has served as a despot, and our invasion of Iraq is a good example of advocating imperial interests. If you want more examples, we can review the history of the Republic at your leisure. It goes back a long way, so clear your calendar if you want the full accounting.
DS
It was the Taliban who controlled Afghanistan (specifically the one eyed Mullah Omar who has recently emerged in the news) who refused to turn over Osama bin laden. Bin laden had become the Taliban’s financial benefactor, and he and his band of Afghan Arabs had, quite literally, subsumed the Taliban. He owned them, in other words.
There was no Afghan gov’t, essentially, when the Taliban finally exerted control in the country.
Lynne Stewart’s act of espionage (carrying messages out to his cronies from the jailed blind Sheikh Rahman, who was (and is) in jail following his conviction for the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center) was completely despicable. There is nothing in the world good to say about what that idiotic attorney did.
Many elements of Pakistan help the “anti terrorism” efforts of the United States. The ISI (Pakistani intelligence) has, reportedly, been hugely infiltrated by pro terrorist elements and (also reportedly) such a complicated action as Mumbai could not have been carried off without major support from (some) Pakistanis.
However, I still want to believe that pro sanity forces can (and will) prevail in Pakistan.
It is a reflection of brainwashing to find the American government the most culpable or threatening in all of this mess. Your personal essential liberties have not been up-ended by increased powers under FISA and the Patriot Act.
It is not an accident that there have been no successful terrorist strikes on American soil since September 11.
To call the current President a despot is a reflection of sheer ignorance. For the record, Hillary, Kerry, Edwards, Biden…all voted in favor (Oct 2002) of authorizing use of force in Iraq. In fact, 77 US Senators voted “yea”. Some, in the aftermath of mishandling following the 2003 invasion, wound up recanting or waffling in a cowardly fashion, or trying to do what was popular (with popular opinion) rather than do what was right.
Tanstaafl,
The Taliban was sponsored and came to power because of US intervention under Reagan. They are another example of the problems created by managing a global empire. Osama is a red herring.
Lynne Stewart’s story points up some of the problems encountered when the constitution is not taken seriously.
Extra-judicial detentions are a most egregious violation of essential liberty. Suspension of habeas corpus and warrant-less surveillance are violations of essential liberties. Torture in violation of human rights conventions is a serious threat to essential liberties. What part of this is confusing?
The attack of 9/11, terrorist attack or not, was a failure of the Bush administration alone. There has been little need for a follow-up attack, as GWB has set about destroying the country from within. No terrorist could ever have hoped to cause the extent of damage that has been done by the Bushies.
The current President is a despot, as evidenced by massive violations of essential liberty, and the use of doctored intelligence to sell a bogus war. Senators who voted to provide the tool are distinct from the administration which used it so arbitrarily, but for the record, some senators actually saw that it was a scam. It wasn’t difficult to see.
The invasion of Iraq is all about oil wealth, personal glory and family honor- democracy, terrorism or WMD are all excuses.
DS
You’re a perfect echo for the talking points of the Left, DS.
As was pointed out to you above (it obviously didn’t sink in), the attacks of 911 were in the pipeline, revised and revised again, for many years preceding GW Bush’s presidency.
As for follow up attacks, trust me, people (not yourself) have been working very hard on your behalf to interdict other plans for attacks on America.
You throw around grandiose statements that ring hollow. You make no substantive remark as to the self-serving idiot Lynne Stewart and give no examples relative to detentions, suspension of habeas corpus (the guys at Guantanamo aren’t, in fact, eligible for this Constitutionally guaranteed protection) and so on.
The United States Senate voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force against Iraq. The United States House of Represenatives voted the same in a majority. I guess you’re just smarter than all those individuals in Congress who were “scammed”, many of whom spent the previous decade making extensive public statements as to the threat of Saddam Hussein.
It was under Bill Clinton, 1998, that removal of Saddam Hussein became the official foreign policy of the United States.
Iraq Liberation Act
I’ll say one thing positive about you DS, you’re reasonably “articulate”. (which is what Joe Biden said Fall 2007 about Barack Obama around the time he (Biden) was arguing that Obama wasn’t sufficiently experienced to serve as US President
)
tanstaafl,
I reiterate:
…what would be most helpful would be to use reason and enlightenment to help resolve the underlying issues that drive the fanatics. Insisting on a war, and couching the war in religious terms, is simply a recipe for continued and amplified disaster.
If we lead by example, and persecute our ‘enemies’ with the ‘language of faith’ as our tool, we only embolden these fanatics to do the same. Better to make friends.
…
The “Iraq Liberation Act” that you cite is much more along the lines of making friends than the invasion led by GWB.
Warnings of 9/11 were clear and unambiguous, and this administration chose not to intervene.
I won’t deny that objective measures indicate that my intelligence exceeds the average congressperson’s.
We’ve lost more Americans in Iraq now than we lost on 9/11. Thankfully there is a new Commander in Chief arriving next month who stands a chance of turning things around.
Peace
DS
PS –
http://LynneStewart.org – Hosts a complete archive of her case – it’s not hard to see that she was tried and convicted for doing her job as a lawyer.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_go_ot/guantanamo_detainees – Just the most recent case where the judicial branch has been forced to restrain an out-of-bounds executive.
…it’s not hard to see that she was tried and convicted for doing her job as a lawyer…
I didn’t go to your link, but what she was convicted of was carrying messages out to the incarcerated Sheikh Rahman’s terrorist cronies.
Which amounts, in my view of the world, to an act of treason.
The not so good sheikh, BTW, is a personal favorite of Osama bin laden. From Palestine to Colorado (where, I think the guy is incarcerated these days), any imprisonment of mentors and leaders in “the movement” really sticks in the craw of Islamists. …Now Rahman has been ailing (blind, diabetic & heart) for a long time. When he dies in American custody, you can expect some hell to break loose.
Warnings of 9/11 were clear and unambiguous, and this administration chose not to intervene.
Another grandiose and empty statement, completely without meaning, sense or facts to back it up, beyond the unheeded warnings of one FBI guy in the southwest or somewhere as to his sense of what was going on with Atta & friends before it actually happened.
Thankfully there is a new Commander in Chief arriving next month who stands a chance of turning things around.
Cough
AlGore (you know, that chubby guy who personally uses more of the Tenn. energy grid than thousands of Tenn. households combined and who travels about by private jet, spewing hot air and wasted jet fuel emissions into the planet’s atmosphere ?…but I digress…) AlGore just said last week that The One™ doesn’t have much time left to stop the seas rising and so forth 
You’re gonna get bizness as usual from Washington insiders and politicians. Hope your bubble doesn’t burst too badly.
tanstaafl,
If you can’t even take the time to research your own examples, how do you ever expect to understand the world around you?
You are simply regurgitating talking points from Karl Rove. At least you acknowledge that there were clear warnings of 9/11 from the FBI that went unheeded.
There is no doubt that America faces many challenges due to the abysmal policies of Bush & Co. From global carbon emissions to fiscal meltdown to middle east conflicts, there is a big mess left by an extended period of Republican largess.
Thankfully we now have someone competent, who understand these problems, preparing to take over. He won’t be able to fix it all in 100 days, but at least he can get us started on repairing the damage.
DS
Thankfully we now have someone competent, who understand these problems, preparing to take over.
Barack Obama has never demonstrated any particular competence in any of his public positions, community organizer (he got discouraged and boogied to Harvard law), state senator (obtained through questionable means and Tony Rezko, the convicted felon due to be sentenced after the inauguration, how convenient, his biggest fundraiser (not to mention being the guy who bought and sold to the Obamas a portion of the lot next door to their Chicago mansion), the state Senate where most of his votes were “present”, the US Senate from which he’s been largely absent since taking office 2005, “running” for President for 2+ years, his choice of “pastor” for 20 years, whose latest gaffe, pontificating at his old church December 7, was to blame the US for attacking “innocent Japanese” on Dec. 7, 1941, when, in historical fact, that day is “Pearl Harbor Day” the day the American fleet was attacked by the Japanese in Hawaii)
(man, I’ll get typers’ cramp if I keep up this litany of Barack Obama’s demonstrated bad choices and incompetence…)
We don’t even know if he was a “competent” student, since he has never released his transcript of grades from Columbia and Harvard.
But you just keep on keeping on with the love and adoration, DS, because they need all the foot soldiers in the army of True Believers they can muster.
(oh wait, Barack Obama is a competent speaker when he has a prepared speech/teleprompter in front of him. Without those tools, however, he’s full of uhs and ahs and quite a bit of blarney…)
Is David S. still going on about how the American invasion of Iraq is the source of all the world’s ills? Good Heavens!
By the way—I guess the Mumbai terrorists didn’t get the memo about how Obama is going to take care of everything now, because they scheduled their attack after the election.
Oh,and David? It is never part of a laywer’s job to help his client carry out crimes while he’s in custody, or deliver messages to his client’s subordinates that will result in crimes being carried out. If Lynn Stewart had been delivering messages for a mobster, instead of the (to you) politically correct shiek, you wouldn’t be so quick to defend her as just doing her lawyer’s job (at least, I hope you wouldn’t).
tanstaafl, are you and Karl up to your old tricks again? Now what did I tell you about being his sock puppet! Stop regurgitating his talking points, right this minute! If you must regurgitate anything, it should be leftist talking points! Lynn Stewart was just doing her job, it’s all Bush’s fault, Obama is the Lightbringer, and will fix everything, and make the trains run on time, too!
(Okay, end of sarc. Tanstaafl, it wasn’t you I was making fun of. . . )
I am a Nigerian Christian and I’ve been alarmed at the West’s heinous compromises of her godly Christian root in the name of diplomacy.
These godless fundamentalists are already at the West’s jugular. Except we pray, they’ll soon overrun even the White House and 10 Downing Street. Your cherished culture and values have already been destroyed
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