“No doubt the ugly head of freedom has reared its head again.” (at 1:30)
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
The guy in the video says, “we do not believe in freedom.” A lot of people will say, ‘this is the Islamic Terry Jones’. In all justice, Terry Jones and his adherents never flew a plane into anything. But the idea would be that if each side could restrain its radicals, then “moderates” could dominate the discourse.
The problem is that there appears to be an asymmetry of willingness and expectation. This reflects itself in a policy that “handicaps” the Westerner, perhaps in the belief that the onus of giving way is upon him. But the question remains. How much of the War on Terror is driven by the same expansionary quality that brough Islam to where it is today?
Maybe burning the Koran is a truly bad idea. Maybe we should read it.
9/11/11
burn saudi flag day
saudi flag
Be a good boy pal and go wash your hands and feet. Brush those teeth too.
link
There seems to be an asymmetry of moderates too, Wretchard. I wonder how many commenters were on Saudi TV today talking about cooling the rhetorical flames. F
Already read it. I’m ok with burning it. No loss. A little more free space on the planet afterwards.
Y’know, maybe Rev. Jones had it just right. Every weekend, someone should announce another burn the Koran day and get the Islamic masses seething. Then, do nothing. Hahahahaha. Or, to give it its formal name, deconditioning.
Geert Wilders 9/11/10
link
Burn the American flag?
Big whoop, they do that eight days a week anyway.
Now it’s ” Islamic moderates” they’re telling us to hold our hands about? I remember when the wishy-washies were bleating that we daren’t do anything the Soviets didn’t like, for fear we would discredit THEIR ” moderates”. Or the red Chinese “moderates” or the North Vietnamese “moderates”, or the al-Fahta ” moderates”, and probably if you go far back enough, their predecessors were peddling the same line about the supposed “moderates” in Nazi Germany, the Confederacy, Santa Anna’s Mexico, and King George’s England. Hell, probably the Spanish Armada, and the Huns invading Europe, too. About saber-tooth tigers I don’t know, but I’ve got my suspicions.
The “moderate” on the other side is the Holy Grail, Prester John, and Loch Ness Monster of America’s parasite intelligentsia. No one’s ever seen it but they can’t stop believing, ’cause it justifies their narrative. Again and again they have insisted that America refrain from acting in its own interests,turn away from doing the needful thing at the needful time,so that they can act as ” honest brokers”- between the fire department and the fire.
All to encourage and dignify the magical mystical ” moderates”, whom they alone know how to talk to and encourage. And who, time after weary discredited-but-never-acknowledged time, are shown never to have existed at all, or to have been present in such tiny numbers as to wield no influence whatever.
When someone speaks to us of ” engaging the moderates” on the other side, we can be sure the speaker already has his tenured appointment picked out, or his office as Assistant Secretary of Obfuscation, or the head of some nifty little NGO that launders more money in a week than Tony Soprano would in a year.
When I consider the future, I thank God that I have reached the age where I can honorably take refuge in drink…
“You gotta turn on evil / when it’s coming after you”
LET’S ROLL
To have a discourse there has to be some shared notion of reality, rationality, cause and effect, logic. Lacking some common parameters for the understanding of the universe there can be no discourse. Unless it is considered “discourse” to babble along with the mad in a madhouse.
5. Josh
Deconditioning-Yep; for both sides.
I think that Winston Churchill figured our the religion of the prophet Mohammad way back in 1899. There is not such thing as a radical Muslim, because the words of the prophet require that believers kill non-believers … and anyone born into the religion who values his own life will not oppose the enforcers. That is why Muslims do not denounce those who kill and lie for the prophet.
People burning stuff is getting to be so passé. Can’t somebody be more creative with books and flags?
Two moderate muslims are sitting around a fire, toasting goat entrails. The first moderate muslim says, “The stoning was beautifully done, but I held back in moderation out of consideration for the slut whore’s husband who rightly denounced her for showing her face at a window without a veil.“
“And rightly so,” the second moderate muslim said. “I too threw only small stones.”
“I heard at the oasis,” the first moderate muslim said, “that an infidel threatened to burn the holy book, may he be urinated upon by a herd of syphilitic camels.”
“There are worse things than being urinated upon by syphilitic camels, my cousin. I say we respond judiciously and moderately to the very thought of burning the holy Quran. Let us capture some infidels and slit their throats and send the pictures to YouTube.”
“Good idea,” the first moderate muslim said, “even though Allah, Peace Be Upon Him, has given the infidel guns.”
“Exactly,” the second moderate muslim said. “That’s why we’re moderate.”
Walt, I like your prose!
The insanity is the double standard. For the Muslims as well as the Progressive elements of the West there are no boundaries as to what they can do, but they expect there are boundaries as to what they can fear in the way of retaliation, and they retreat behind them whenever it is expedient for them to do so.
Stop the insanity and remove the boundaries beyond which the West is not supposed to go. Until that is done the best that can be achieved is stalemate. That is where we are now. Never conduct a war where you do not intend to win.
Radical – thoroughgoing or extreme esp. as regards change from accepted or traditional forms.
Radical – of or going to the *root* or origin; fundamental
The left’s error with Islam pertains to the first definition of radical. Hence for the leftist only *extremist* Muslims are the problem. Yet, the *root* of Islam is murder and deceit.
There is no difference between *extreme* Islam, and *fundamental* Islam…they are one and the same!
9. geoffb
Thank you for your clarity and astuteness. You’ve enriched us all by hitting the nail on the head, even though living on another planet. Thanks for visiting.
Fine, I’ll not bother you more.
I might just point out, apropos of nothing specific, that it was our own guy, George Dubya Bush, who in reacting to 9/11 called Islam the religion of peace and established ROE that gave them every chance. When Bush did this, I assumed he was giving everyone the benefits of Christian charity, deservedly or not, wisely or not. When Obama does anything remotely similar, my evaluations of his motives are very different. If nothing else, he should have the benefit of the results of Bush’s actions.
Symbols, … the symbolism of actions, of attitudes.
The religious wars between different religious sects in the Holy Land is not in our interests.
The only US interest in that region is oil–we support totalitarian regime in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia but that is no longer in our best interests, it is a hangover from the Cold War.
If Muslims want sharia law in the area–ok
If Israelis want to continue apartheid–ok
We have no reason to get involved — if we we do we will see increasing espionage from Israel and hostility from the Muslim world.
We should stay out of this tribal/religious war.
We can destroy either side in 24 hours–our support of apartheid in Israel has given us nothing and cost us $100 billion with no return.
Turkey is a NATO member and a rising power with influence in the Muslim world– they can help us reach a deal with Iran on energy– Iran is not a strategic threat to the US– they may be a threat to Israel– but that is not our problem, if Israel wants to be the last of the colonists to fulfill some religious dream– ok, but we in the US have no interest in these theological and tribal disputes.
Our civilization: Athens gave us logic; Mt. Sinai gave us ethics; Jerusalem gave us holiness; England gave us the scientific method; Europe gave us the Enlightenment; America gave us practical ways to implement all of the foregoing.
What do we do when our adversaries do not use Aristotelian logic? When our scripture tells us “love the stranger” and theirs tells them to forcibly convert the stranger or kill them? When we follow evidence and value truth and they preach taqyiia? When we have discovered human rights and individual liberty and they say “all is predetermined; inshalla?” When, despite our failings, power goes from the bottom up and for them it goes from the top down? When we would be open to them and they would be closed to us? When they have privileges and rights here but we have none there?
Our optimistic Western minds wish to believe that all conflicts are solvable through reason, discussion, and compromise. We imagine that complex problems are like a 10,000 piece jig saw puzzle, and with enough diligence and patience we can put the pieces together.
But what if we think that we got a 10,000 piece jig saw puzzle of Mickey Mouse but what we actually have is 5000 pieces of Mickey and 5000 pieces of Donald Duck? What if there are some puzzles so non-congruent that they can NEVER be put together?
Of course, we don’t really want to accept such a thing. To do so would be too grim. But reality has a stubborn way of imposing itself, even if we try to delay it.
When you try to blend Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with an air raid siren you don’t get a musical synthesis. The air raid siren will destroy Beethoven’s Ninth unless someone in the orchestra pulls the plug on the siren. That is precisely what we are facing.
Who will prevail? Will it be Plato, Aristotle, Moses, Jesus, Francis Bacon, Locke, Newton, Diderot, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Leonardo, Michelangelo? Or will it be Muhammed, Abdul Al-Wahhab, Ibn Taimiyya,Umar al-Daraqutuni, Malik ibn Anas, Khomeini?
Despite our generous Western temperament, you can’t blend Beethoven’s Ninth with an air raid siren. The sooner we face that, the more likely we will survive.
I cordially invite all members of the Belmont Club to my own personal Koran burning-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx_ElFXjmJY
The motivation for Muslim terrorist is
1/ US support of totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc
2/ US support of a racist, colonial, apartheid regime in the Holy Land.
We can solve this overnight and the terrorist will evaporate if we focus upon US best interests–do a deal for the oil until we come up with other energy sources and end this Wilsonian nightmare of imposing our values on others who do not believe in them.
We can take out Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran etc overnight— let us make it clear to them and get them in line and to heel with our best interests.
The motivation for Muslim terrorist is
1/ US support of totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc
2/ US support of a racist, colonial, apartheid regime in the Holy Land.
And that explains the Bali nightclub bombing, yes? And Theo Van Gogh’s murder? And the slaughters by Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah in the Philippines? The South Korean pastor murdered by the Taliban? Iraqi Christians kidnapped and murdered in Iraq? Because all these slaughterees were Americans supporting Israel, right?
Look, Victor, you are free to believe your “dirty Joos” refrain if you like, but this is the wrong audience to try to peddle it to. Try DU or Huffpo. Or try wrapping your head around the fact that the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism are not in U.S. foreign policy, nor Israeli settlements, but maybe, just maybe, in the Koran itself, and the twisted evil hearts who look to it to justify their evil.
The Ground Zero Mosque is about creating Conflict, Contention and Controversy — not bridge building. In that respect, it has been quite successful.
If Evangelical Christians had wanted to build a community center at the same location to reach out to New Yorkers, the bureaucratic paper work would have been lost for ten years. But the way was quickly cleared for this mosque. Why?
The political Left is about acquiring ever more power. To do so they must show themselves to be better than the people they are taking the power from. The Mosque allows them to pose as the tolerant “supporters” and cast opponents as narrow minded bigots. Their superior moral fiber justifies concentrating more power in the hands of the ruling class at the expense of the hinterlands. Of course it is all a pose — the Left is quite intolerant. For them it is about winning the argument. The argument is not about the Ground Zero Mosque or burning the Koran. The argument is always about giving the Left more power at the expense of the citizenry.
Of course taking power, money, and opportunity from people and keeping most of it and giving the remainder to your favorites is not a nice thing to do. So in this case the “pose” has more to do with the Left convincing each other that they are the worthies than with convincing the benighted mobs out in the countryside. And, of course, motivating the base to show up in November is also a major part. If Conflict, Contention and Controversy will alienate “minorities” from Republicans and the Tea Party (which the minorities often agree with), then the left is all for it.
It is a sin to burn a Koran…
…unless you put the heat to use by roasting some SPAM!
Hey Thrasymachus @22: You forgot the pork hot dogs.
The Islamic hope for Pakistan was that a country ruled democratically and by sharia, would push Islam to a new level of just modernity. That has not been the result, so far.
In the wake of 9/11 our Pakistani democratic friends have been less than friendly in our eyes, and less than democratic to their own people.
It launching the attack against Iraq, one of the goals was that secular rules would allow different sects to lower their arms and negotiate democratically. That has been one can legitimately argue, the result thus far.
What is sad about the reverend’s incendiary sermon is that there may be hearts and mind critical to our eventual success that will never hear the clear and common sense call to personal liberty and individual responsibility and the need to stand before ones peers conscience of ones self and answer for what one has or has not done. The reverends act could, and the president’s twist of fact could without intent, hammer a big nail in all that our soldiers and sailor have bled to accomplish thus far.
We can and should demonstrate for the others the democratic experiment is not through. We have the opportunity to change a failed government for one that right the ship of state again and do so peacefully. That message will be stronger than any pyrotechnic display
I do not know if there is such a thing as a moderate Muslim, I don’t care if there is or is not. I only wish to have proved that there is such a thing as a civilized Muslim who can loose the stoning standard when we know through cold scientific trial that the standards they would employ are fallible, are cruel, are insincere and medically emotionally and spiritually false. I would rest easier if I knew Muslims could lose the body cover when security requires it and who can bring to task and to justice those Muslims who cannot abide change when such actions and measures seeming backward in our culture are proven to be nothing less than backward indeed and for which no reasonable rational nor humane reason exits to support.
I know that such a Muslim exists, I am not willing to call our experiment done and tell Columbia to put the light out.
There are Muslims that I am aware of, who actually meet the requirements as described, who are neither under the gun of a rival more radical tribe or sect nor no longer practicing the so called religion of peace. That the radical Islamist movement is a failed movement by all standards of humanity, it is true that the Islamist is just stubborn enough to wish to drag all of human kind back to a time and place when they actually would appear to be progressive.
I have not given up on the awakening of Islamic thought and permanent change, but they better see the light soon because quite honestly my children are not as patient and not nearly so forgiving as I.
Vic..
I lost you at Leftist equivalence.
Try again.
Vic…
Turkey is a Dependent…
So just how much influence can she have against a power that is literally changing her own polity?
Thanks.
hdgreene…
The rabat at Ground Zero is FITNA or a NODE of conquest.
It is almost entirely about causing the kafir to twist into knots.
See Alinsky.
‘Rules for Disturbers of the Peace.”
Victor, you are addressing a group of people that have actually read a little history, and are fully aware that the faithful of Dar-al-Islam have been striving by military assault, political agitation, organized infiltration and intimidation to subdue their neighbors since these tactics were used by the Prophet Mohammed himself.
That’s about 14 centuries, guy.
They had invaded Spain in the 8th Century, and were stopped in France in 730 Anno Domini, occupying the Iberian Peninsula for another 750 years. The Islamic armies of the Ottoman Turks were attacking Vienna in 1683, after invading and occupying Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, et cetera, for three centuries and more. And that’s ignoring the conquest of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Israel, Syria, Persia, and Turkey in just about ONE CENTURY after the death of Mohammed.
The first Christian crusade was an effort to force the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem to restore to Christian pilgrims the right to visit their holiest city.
In fact, the fanatics of Islam are even more brutal toward their own co-religionists, and slay them with even more enthusiasm than they do the infidel. Think of the “Honor Killings” of unruly daughters, wives, fiancees; Think of the celebratory stonings, canings, hangings and acid facials for adulterers, fornicators, and insufficiently modest women; Think of the corpses of homosexuals dangling from industrial cranes lining the elegant boulevards of Tehran under the gentle rule of the Ayutollahs.
You may argue as to whether these acts by the founder of the faith and his inheritors are good or otherwise.
But…
Please cease attempting to lie to us that the hostility of Islam results from American, Israeli, or any other Western unwillingness to compromise or seek accommodation with the Muslim world.
Perhaps Vic can start a discourse with Rauf. They seem to have a “shared notion of reality, rationality, cause and effect, logic.”
America is badly divided,which does not bode well for the future whoever has sway in government. Much of the western world is similarly robbed of resolve by a mixture of political correctness and doubts about our cultural values – which at least in part derive from that PC virus.
As long as one side can kill indiscriminately while the other tries to be at least semi-civilised, there’s going to be difficulty in exerting enough force in the right places to make the cost of continuing too great for them.
Just as they say that their targets are not “innocents”, to get around their own strictures, we have to be able to say that the embedded family and assorted entourage of islamic fighters, when they become “collateral damage”, are not “civilian” casualties – and in any event who put them in the position of human shields?
The Long War Journal reports an uptick in drones taking out Taliban hierarchy, and there was also a report recently about fighters trying to cross into Tajikistan and being killed while trying to get away from the increased action in Northern Afghanistan. Perhaps Obama will want to win this one, particularly with polls looking bad for him and the dumbocrats.
Concerning #23 above: I’m Adolph Schickelgruber and I approave of that message.
When we sent the Marines to the ” shores of Tripoli” centuries ago– the mission was clear— no more piracy of American ships in the Med.
There was no attempt to change Muslim culture, and we achieved the mission. We focused upon our best interests.
It is absurd to think we can impose democracy etc on Islamic countries.
US democracy and culture goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215–it took a very long long time to develop.
Israel and its neighbors are entangled in a religious/tribal/territorial dispute which will end in tears– we do not have a dog in that fight and we should focus upon American best interests–oil and trade.
After 911 Iran was our ally in the fight against AQ– Iran is not a strategic threat to the US and we should do business with them for our energy needs and to help us exit Iraq and AfPak.
Petraeus has made it crystal clear– our unconditional support of Israel is a major liability to our interests in the region, and puts American troops lives at risk. Israel spies on us http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard and sells our advanced weapons technology to Russia and China and takes a $3 Billion+ hand out every year with no ROI for us.
It is time to put American interest first.
Belmont hard man Subotai Bandahur –lamentably MIA of late, is writing in the comments at a Savannah, Georgia newspaper covering a weird incident linked via instapundit.
Victor:
“After 911 Iran was our ally in the fight against AQ”
No it wasn’t, and when you state this with a straight face, it does make us wonder about your other confident assertions, if we didn’t already.
Michael Scheuer former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit pointed out that after 911 Iran offered to and did in fact,help us with intelligence on AQ.http://non-intervention.com/.
Iran can help us exit Iraq and AfPak if we make a deal.
Turkey and Brazil are willing to be intermediaries.
We need to put American interests first and stop trying to be the worlds social worker and stop being distracted by the domestic lobbyists for alien nations— like AIPAC.
Victor, re Iran and us. So when exactly did the decree announcing the cessation of hostilities by Iran against the great Satan come down? I must have missed that little bit of back page below the fold stuff
I am kind of glad to hear that Subotai is out there. It would be interesting to see how many went from the Belmont Club on to other things. To what, sometimes I shudder to think, but what that’s how it is. Even if it were to end today the blog has been a great ride. We have over 113,000 comments in this version of the Belmont Club alone. Many commenters have a distinct personalities so distinct, we recognize them even when they fool with their handle. Some vanish for a long while and then, they come again as if from some distance place.
Wretchard, I miss Whiskey, and his loss here was self-inflicted. Perhaps the clarity on the value of free speech that this Koran burning issue has brought could convince you to invite him back…
Subotai is definitely one of my favorite commenters here. The last comment of his I saw here was after a long absence, and he said something about injuring his hand. He didn’t express any displeasure with Belmont Club.
I’d like to find that comment and link it, but I can’t figure out how to work the search function.
I haven’t seen him at Whiskey’s blog, so I assume his absence is not related to Whiskey’s departure.
It’s heartening to see the images of the huge crowds (estimated at 40,000) at the anti GZM 911 rally in Manhattan. You would think that the news organizations would take an interest in an event that draws so much passion from the public, try to understand it, and report on whether such an event could be another indicator of a cultural movement.
But, hey. This is the Age of Idiocy. It’s easy enough to imagine NYC news rooms filled with executives dressed like the Mad Hatter all agreeing with each other that if they don’t show the huge crowds then they ipso facto do not exit. In walks Imam Rauf with an even more pretentious Hatter outfit. Rauf breaks out into song that he has worked for peace his whole life. The executive chorus joins in. ‘Peace is a good thing. Build the mosque.’
Here’s a couple other sniffs of the North wind to suggest that the back of this fantasy Recovery Summer has been broken. Camille Paglia demolishes Lady Gaga, and says that she wasn’t that good anyway. At the urging of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin the Turban, President Obama catapults himself into political irrelevancy with the appointment of his 41st imperial czar – the Asian Carp Czar.
You never know what’s coming, but when you feel the ground move you know that something is on the way.
“We have no reason to get involved — if we we do we will see increasing espionage from Israel and hostility from the Muslim world.”
Actually, we have a VERY good reason to get involved; our security. The invention of the airplane ( you HAVE heard about them, haven’t you?) means the USA is no longer protected by two oceans. The invention of the ICBM means that an attack on America is never more then 30 minutes away. This is the 21st century and time and distance are no longer obstacles to violence.
“We should stay out of this tribal/religious war.”
If that was an option, I would agree. Unfortunately, it isn’t. See the previous para about Islam being able to attack America on little or no notice. Tell me, when did the vote to have Al Qaeda attack the WTC held? I must have missed it. How about the Cole bombing or the Kobar Towers? The suicide attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon? Did you know that there were over 4700 attacks on Americans or American interests by Muslims between 1980 and 2000? The State Department used to keep a list until it became non-PC.
My point is that the Muslims have attacked us. We didn’t start this war, they did. There is only one end to it, only one choice. One of the sides will surrender. Us or them. No other way. The Muslims are on a mission from Allah and Allah doesn’t negotiate. We hurt them enough to make them quit or they hurt us enough to make us quit.
“We can destroy either side in 24 hours–our support of apartheid in Israel has given us nothing and cost us $100 billion with no return.”
Are you completely amoral? Destroying any group is called genocide. Genocide is why Israel exists. It was tried on them by Hitler and the Nazi’s of Germany. Are you seriously suggesting America should keep company with that crowd? If you want to associate yourself with genocide, go ahead but leave us normal people out.
Returns on the 100 billion have been considerable. You are just ignorant of them. Here is one to think about. The USA worked on drones from the 1960′s to the 1990′s without making real progress. Israel took our work and finished it so now we have our most effective weapon in the war against Islam. It is the only weapon the Muslims really fear and it is a way to beat them that doesn’t require genocide. A real value at only 100 billion.
Unless, of course, one is a genocidal maniac.
So, when GW, never a bright guy, but not as dumb as ALgore, said that Islam was……THE…religion of peace, I guess the rest of us were some other religion, like war, or strife or something.
Well, OK then.
w/41; LOL –”I shudder to think…” –yessir, i know exactly what you mean. Shane has gone back to that saloon, and this time he’s wearing that short barrel Peacemaker. Ah damn –i do wish it was all a script, and we could write our role in it.
My guess on Subotai is that he is trying to buck people up –buck up those who are –well –unsure as to how much crap they ought to take from the government, what with the big picture in mind and good people trying to follow a lay hippocratic oath, ‘first, do no harm to the enemy of your enemy’. So a Sun Tzu guy like Subotai will show up and plant his banner, extending a flank or reporting on what’s out there in ‘no man’s land’ –then to move down the line to a different site and try to help it too.
Strong voices testifying that you (“yes you“) are not nuts but absolutely right to be feeling like you’re under powerful psychological attack and actually in danger, hell that’s the only rally point there is in this sitzkreig-on-the-homefront. Sgt Foghorn Leghorn comes to mind, “Boy I say BOY, that’s redoubt not re-DOUBT!”
“Maybe burning the Koran is a truly bad idea. Maybe we should read it.” – Wretchard
Did both. I read it. Then burned it.
45. Rosinante
“ We didn’t start this war, they did. There is only one end to it, only one choice. One of the sides will surrender. Us or them. No other way. The Muslims are on a mission from Allah and Allah doesn’t negotiate. We hurt them enough to make them quit or they hurt us enough to make us quit.
I agree with all but your very first sentence. I’m sure that from the Arabs POV it’s very obvious we did start this war, several decades ago. Israel was established as a homeland for the Jews back in the teens by Great Britain. The decision was codified in the Balfour Delaration. Various theories have emerged to explain why this happened, but the point is that it did. Jews started migrating and adding to the already considerable Jewish presence in Palestine, all while the British did their best to back away from their promises, and by many accounts eventually became more pro Arab, especially after the extent of the oil reserves was discovered. Then came the Holocaust, a European creation, and when the war was over so came the state of Israel.
If I was Arab it wouldn’t be hard to imagine ” This is European colonialism. They bartered this land with the Jews for their support in WWI, or for their supposedly moderating influence amongst the Bolshevics, or something. Then some of their governments start systematically exterminating Jews, and many of the others who weren’t knew full well that it was happening and ignored it, and refused refuge to the victims.
So now, under a cloud of their guilt, the Jews are rewarded by taking our lands from us. Maybe they should have partitioned off a section of Germany for the Jewish Homeland, instead.
I wouldn’t expect something like this to appear radical in their streets, probably little more than common knowledge. The question is what would someone like that need as a remedy? Right now it looks like nothing other that the complete elimination of Jews and the destruction of Israel is the only acceptable remedy, and that’s intolerable. So until that attitude changes, nothing in the ME will change. If a mans end goal is not acceptable, then it doesn’t matter how he got to the point where he thought the goal necessary, or whether he has just complaints.
The resentment will always be there. Maybe someday the required remedies will soften and something may occur to bring peace to that region without wholesale bloodshed.
On another thread, someone recommended Destiny Disrupted.
It is an excellent book – well written with no political axe to grind. One of its main points is that until perhaps the 1800s, Muslims regarded the Muslim world as -the- world, and paid little attention to the West. When they woke up, they discovered that the West was a far more advanced and powerful world and that some of their states had been, in their eyes, colonized. In their eyes, we started it
This reality did not fit well with the teaching that dar-el-Islam would be triumphant. Combine that with the message from the Wahabis that all would be well if only Muslims returned to the true faith, and here we are.
Israel is seen as a colonial outpost, but it could go away tomorrow and little would change. If we got off the oil teat, then no one would care about the region. That day is a long way off, so we are stuck with sucking up to and defending Saudi Arabia, which continues to fund the Wahabis.
I’ve read it. A rambling, disconnected piece of B.S., but nobody should burn books. We should burn Muslims! (just kidding, most of my family are followers of Islam).
Thrasymachus @ 22 — Thanks for sharing! Next time, try marinating the Koran in bacon grease ahead of time; it will improve the burn.
Let me add that the point of burning a Koran for many of us is NOT to inflame those famous moderate Muslims — it is to make a point about free speech to our very own “Piss Christ”-admiring would-be Ruling Class.
If our Ruling Class prefer the company of Muslims, let those would-be Rulers move to a Muslim land. Soon! Before the rest of us give them a one-way ticket to Mecca.
37. buddy larsen
Buddy you must never sleep. You beat me to it. I was going to post about Subotai’s comment this AM but over slept because we went to a county fair yesterday and I was beat down. Chasing two little girls at the fair is a job for a much younger person.
W
“It would be interesting to see how many went from the Belmont Club on to other things. To what, sometimes I shudder to think, but what that’s how it is.”
I’m not quite gone but only drop by once in a while. My mission now is getting out the vote, making people aware of what is going on and getting them rilled up and angry enough to vote. And of course helping those that need help registering and getting to the voting place. So far after months of doing so, I can report that we [I picked up a few helpers] are doing really good even by my high standards. As to the “shutter” the group that I am lucky enough to belong to has almost completed it’s two year old plan to build a redoubt, equipped for long term storage of water and food and complete with a livestock section as well as food production on a large scale farm. Energy has been provided by three separate methods, along with enough spare parts and renewables to keep it running for many, many years. In case your wondering this venture cost many, many thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours.
If it is not needed for its original intent it will be used for our vacations and a source for all of us to have meat, vegetables and fruits at little or no cost.
44. Peter Boston
Peter, if you mean the ground swell of Americans waking up and getting pissed and getting ready to vote and kick the bums out, your right. But there are still millions of Americans who just either don’t have the time or inclination to get involved. And that is OUR job to change. OUR JOB to get involved and make sure that Americans who never cared or hate politics to understand that they must get involved to save and protect their families, themselves and our Republic.
45. Rosinante
““We should stay out of this tribal/religious war.”
If that was an option, I would agree. Unfortunately, it isn’t. “
Of course your correct. Our mistake over the last thirty years was trying to ignore or placate those of Islam, Socialism and Markism that are determined to destroy us. That time is long gone…forever.
One last thought. Israel is now ISRAEL, no matter how or what the rest of the world thinks. They were there from the beginning [proven by archeological digs] and then they were allowed back into a land of sand, dust and misery. They then by their labors made it a productive land. Where if the Arabs had been left to it, it would still be a land of nothing more than sand and misery.
Then the land was fought for by Israel. And THEY WON. To the Victors go the spoils and the land. The Arabs will never acknowledge that they have lost, not in one hundred or one thousand years. Jordon is the home of the Palestinians but Jordon will not allow them to return as free citizens, but continue to just take money to house them as perpetual second class residents. Taking profit from their misery.
Arabs have never cared for or taken care of their own.
Israel does take care of their own and will never, ever give in to it’s enemies.
And yes, THE KINGDOM is our enemy. When that is understood and we vanquish them by any and all means, including destroying the monument of their evil religion, the world will have a much better chance of defeating Islam and giving its followers a chance at a freedom and happiness that has been denied them for over a thousand years because of an ancient evil cult called Islam.
Well… continue the discussion. Tomorrow I am going back on the line.
What will you do for our Republic?
Papa Ray
Read the Koran for a starting point, then try and understand the Muslims have interpret it, and how it relates the the West.
People speak of “tolerance” as if it is a virtue. Hitler was tolerated for far to long. Stalin? Pol-pot? Idi Amen? Illegal aliens? Arafat?
How about today? The Black Pussy Party? Eric Holder? Current leadership in Iran and Venezuela? Violent sex offenders? I think tolerance is over rated and a vice not a virtue.
Some people talk of the “Ruling Class” as if they are immune to the realities of life. I think the “Ruling Class” had better remember the French Revolution and temper their behavior accordingly.
From the video “The Koran is the holy word of God”
You figure it out. Is Allah dumb? Did Mohammed get it wrong? Did Mohammed think he was Allah? Are both Allah and Mohammed dumb?
“Scholars of the nation of our Prophet say, ‘The tree which Allah forbade Adam and his spouse to eat was wheat.’” Tabari I:299
“Satan wanted to meet them in Paradise, but the keepers prevented him from entering. He went to a snake, an animal with four feet like a camel. Satan tried to persuade it to let him enter its mouth and take him to Adam. The snake agreed, passed by the keepers, and entered without their knowledge, because that was Allah’s plan.” Tabari I:275
“And Allah taught Adam all the names as follows: He taught him the name of everything, down to fart and little fart.” Tabari I:267
“The Prophet said, ‘Kill the snake with two white lines on its back, for it blinds the onlooker and causes abortion.’” Bukhari:V4B54N52
“‘Messenger, how did you first know with absolute certainty that you were a prophet?’ He replied, ‘Two angels came to me while I was somewhere in Mecca…. One angel said, “Open his breast and take out his heart.” He opened my chest and heart, removing the pollution of Satan and a clot of blood, and threw them away. Then one said, “Wash his breast as you would a receptacle.” He summoned the Sakinah, which looked like the face of a white cat, and it was placed in my heart. Then one said, “Sew up his breast.” So they sewed up my chest and placed the seal between my shoulders.’” Tabari VI:75
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘If a fly falls in your drink, dip all of it into the cup and then throw it away, for in one of its wings there is a disease and in the other there is healing, an antidote or treatment for that disease.’” Bukhari:V7B71N673
“Lo this Qur’an is a conclusive Word; it is not a thing for amusement. It is no pleasantry. And it is no joke.” Qur’an 86:13
I encourage you to read the Koran and Sunnah (Mohammed’s deeds and sayings) in chronological order. Your head will spin.
Islam is called an Abrahamic religion because some of the same names are used in the OT. The so called Bible stories in the Koran are like nothing you ever read before. True, some of the names are the same but the stories are beyond comparison. Some of the Koran stories are word-for-word copies of apocrypha (false writings)from a Babylonian Jewish sect, and some just go off in completely different directions.
About 75% of Islamic wisdom documents describe what Mohammed did to non-believers or wanted to do, or told his followers to do. Every person who disagreed with Mohammed or questioned his authenticity or wisdom was murdered with Mohammed’s blessing and approval. The murderer was rewarded with booty.
Before some yahoo comes chiming in with the fact that there are crazy Bible stories too – I understand that. The huge difference between Jewish/Christian orthodoxy and Islamic orthodoxy is that the Jewish/Christian tradition is interpretive. Jewish/Christian wisdom documents are written by men and inspired by God. Except for a narrow vein of dogma each person can interpret their own meaning.
Islamic orthodxy is vastly different. The Koran is the actual word of Allah. It cannot be changed. It cannot be interpreted in any way other than the literal meaning of the words. Mohammed is the perfect person. Everything he said and did can and should be imitated.
There is no school of Islamic jurisprudence that will dispute the previous paragraph.
This is how the whole moderate Muslim thing gets dicey. The principles of orthodox Islam (Sunni, Shia doesn’t matter) are so far beyond the bounds of acceptable human behavior that the only way to describe a ‘good’ Muslim is as a ‘bad’ person. No person who knows what the Koran/Sunnah actually say, believes they must be accepted literally, and uses them as the basis for human relationships is a good person. Rape, murder, robbery and slavery are not good things.
Muslims who don’t really know what’s in the Koran/Sunnah, or who do know and do not accept them as literal canons of behavior may be ‘bad’ Muslims but they can certainly be ‘good’ people or anything at all.
Muslims like Imam Rauf who are educated in Islamic jurisprudence know very well what they’re doing. Rauf is a good Muslim. He is on a mission. If Muslims like Rauf have their way your grandchildren will either be Muslim or they will wear a yellow star like the Jews/Christians did in Cordoba and step off the sidewalk when a Muslim walks by.
Let’s put the true face on Islam. The politicians and talking heads who are trying to sell us the religion peace nonsense must be challenged on their knowledge of orthodox Islam.
Batman: “What do we do when our adversaries do not use Aristotelian logic?’
Dave, prior thread: ‘The World of Islam seemd to be on the track to civilization in the 8th and 9th Centuries. Clerics and Intellectuals called Mu’tazilites were the definging element. These worthies were rationalists and believed in natural law.’
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) was the great Mu’tazilite, following upon Avicenna. Mu’tazilites, following Aristotle, had to face contradictions between science and Koran. Faced with an offer he couldn’t refuse, Averroes affirmed that both science and Koran were truth, i.e. a “two-truth” system. Aquinas rejected two-truth, because there can only be one truth. If the Bible uses language of “four corners of the earth,” it must be metaphor, since the earth is round, etc. The Church first censured Aquinas, then affirmed his teaching. Christianity is, as a result, open to scientific thinking (except among our young-earthers).
Islam and its schools are two-truth, i.e., double-think. There is no rational discussion possible about the Koran and Islam with a two-truther.
Obambus’ new and old economic advisor on Fox News this morning (and others). Hey, I like him. Smart. Young. He mostly answered the questions put to him, though Chris Wallace is nearly useless as a journalist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austan_Goolsbee
http://www.realfirststeps.com/stand-up-comedy-tips/austan-goolsbee-funny-standup-comedian-close/
Check out the routine between about 2:30 and 4:01. “We came to Washington and knew we had to do the right thing (throw money at the problem), and things hadn’t been so bad for quite a long time, so we had to go back to the old textbooks (Marx and Trotsky), ..”
(yes, I accept that as comedy … for the most part)
Goolsbee only lied a little (on Fox) when he said that we’ve had positive private job growth – this is true, but +20,000/month is less than +120,000/month needed just to break even, so it’s a political little white lie and I guess it comes with the territory.
aardvard @ 56: Islam and its schools are two-truth, i.e., double-think.
Not really. Islam is one-truth school and eventually suppresses (eg, beheads) all alternatives. “If this knowledge is from the devil we do not need it, and if it is from Allah we already have the perfect source.” I forget the historic luminary(s) who used the above quote.
quibble with batman @ 21: Islam is very much bottom-up, compared to say the Catholic Church. This is both a (populist!) strength and a weakness, in that there is no central control over the most radical, who as a result have a much stronger influence in the history (and present) of Islam, than radicals tend to have in any western cultures.
On
How Obama Thinks
Dinesh D’Souza, 09.09.10, 05:40 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated September 27, 2010
The President isn’t exactly a socialist. So what’s driving his hostility to private enterprise? Look to his roots.
What then is Obama’s dream? We don’t have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father’s dream. Notice that his title is not Dreams of My Father but rather Dreams from My Father. Obama isn’t writing about his father’s dreams; he is writing about the dreams he received from his father.
Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called “Problems Facing Our Socialism.” Obama Sr. wasn’t a doctrinaire socialist; rather, he saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign looters and restoring them to the people of Africa. For Obama Sr. this was an issue of national autonomy. “Is it the African who owns this country? If he does, then why should he not control the economic means of growth in this country?”
As he put it, “We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now.” The senior Obama proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he insisted that “theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”
Remarkably, President Obama, who knows his father’s history very well, has never mentioned his father’s article. Even more remarkably, there has been virtually no reporting on a document that seems directly relevant to what the junior Obama is doing in the White House.
While the senior Obama called for Africa to free itself from the neocolonial influence of Europe and specifically Britain, he knew when he came to America in 1959 that the global balance of power was shifting. Even then, he recognized what has become a new tenet of anticolonialist ideology: Today’s neocolonial leader is not Europe but America. As the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said–who was one of Obama’s teachers at Columbia University–wrote in Culture and Imperialism, “The United States has replaced the earlier great empires and is the dominant outside force.”
From the anticolonial perspective, American imperialism is on a rampage. For a while, U.S. power was checked by the Soviet Union, but since the end of the Cold War, America has been the sole superpower. Moreover, 9/11 provided the occasion for America to invade and occupy two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and also to seek political and economic domination in the same way the French and the British empires once did. So in the anticolonial view, America is now the rogue elephant that subjugates and tramples the people of the world.
It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying.
Its been awhile, but at one time we were discussing various ways of gathering information. IIRC I spent a few lines reminding all of us of the simple expedient of content analysis.
Look at this weekend’s content. The nation is beginning, ever so slowly, to catch up with the lies (hudna) and distortions (MSM) surrounding Islam.
It may be time to ‘Nail 99 Thesis’ to the Rock at Mecca’. The 99 (or so) items should define Reformed Islam (Maybe with a pithy name that works in Arabic and English).
The points should include, at a minimum:
1. Allah is not God. Allah is a Arabian pagan goddess. God is (insert Arabic for God).
2. Koran, if truely direct dictation, has been altered by men. (Note, most Islamist do not read, and certainly not Arabic.)
3. Government, of men, is the minimum needed to form a civil society. Government or behavior obeying God’s law is above and beyond man’s law, and is an act of worship in and of itself. Worship, true self fullfilling worship, cannot be forced, it must be freely given. Sharia, therefore, is untenable, and must be one of the constructs inserted into the Koran by evil Allah worshippers. “Give unto Ceasar..”
All BCers can grow the list. It is part of a frontal assault on the true enemy, Unreformed Islam.
It will cause a firestorm. I would rather the firestorm be now, and mostly non-nuclear, than later…
More symbols: Camille Paglia on Lada Gaga!
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/magazine/article389697.ece
Gaga is in way over her head with her avant-garde pretensions… She wants to have it both ways – to be hip and avant-garde and yet popular and universal, a practitioner of gung-ho “show biz”. Most of her worshippers seem to have had little or no contact with such powerful performers as Tina Turner or Janis Joplin, with their huge personalities and deep wells of passion.
Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages. Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions.
(this is just the start of a longer article that is behind a firewall)
This sounds like some of the best Paglia in a while. Paglia was fantastic in her book “Sexual Personae”, and wrote outstanding columns online in the earliest days of the Internet. And then, she faded. Here we have Paglia’s sharp eye back online, but does Paglia understand modernity – by which I mean post-2008? The libertarian Paglia infamously supported Obambus. In my read, Paglia simply failed to understand either the candidate or the context. Or perhaps Paglia was just as tired of the world as she seems to perceive is symbolized by Gaga. Maybe that’s the real message here, Camille, should you happen to read this. Gaga is everything you say she is, and proud of it, and she is you, too, the current you, the current me, the current us, and that’s the sad truth of the matter.
–
ps – aadvard. apologies for many previous misspellings.
#60 michaelhoskins
Islam works very well for the elites in king and clergy cultures. There is no incentive to change. Do you think that any of the 20,000 Sauds want to see things differently? I believe that the threat of cultural change triggered by outside influence is a primary driver of the WOT. If you loosen the screws in a totalitarian system the place flys apart.
Islam is oppressive. It’s a mind killer. Remove a cultural Muslim from the direct influence of cultural peer pressure and he/she would run away from it. Apostasy is not punishable by death for nothing. Unfortunately, just moving Pakistani neighborhoods from Lahore to London is not enough.
For the younger or more ideologically motivated Muslims my guess is that there is a very high correlation between the psychopathy of young jihadis and that of regular old street gang members. The jihadis get the extra boost of being told that what they are doing, now matter how horrendous, is actually virtuous. Plus, no street gangster thinks he can ever get to run city hall – jihadis are told that they will if they keep on doing what they’re doing.
Idiot politicians who bend over to accommodate institutional changes in our own system reinforce that belief.
Peter B.
You are, of course, correct. I have no illusions that Islam can reform itself. I am proposing external forces: Main force, and Propoganda.
It is possible, within our current ability to communicate, for a dedicated psyops group to rewrite and market a Reform Islam. And make it stick. Religion created in the halls of the CIA. LOL
When it really mattered, Woodrow Wilson was a wimp. The United States could have declared war on Turkey when the genocide of Armenians was in full swing. Woodrow Wilson did nothing because he was scared of Turkish threats.
If the United States had declared war on the Ottoman Empire in defense of Armenians, I think it would have made a difference. Moreover, it would have been difficult for Germany and Austria-Hungary to honor its alliance with Turkey on the basis of murdering Armenians.
Historically, Islamic states have never flinched from imposing their laws on unwilling subjects. Remember Kafiristan! During the earliest years of our republic, the United States paid taxes to Muslim overlords in North Africa. This disgrace only stopped in 1815 with America’s victory over Algeria.
The “reaction to American imperialism” argument is bogus. Iran sided with the Axis during the World War II, so it was a legitimate enemy of the Allied powers. The Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Adolf Hitler and organized an SS division. Should the United States have capitulated to Japan rather than (gasp) fight Muslims?
If one looks at American subsidies for Israel, they skyrocketed after Sirhan Sirhan’s assassination of Robert Kennedy; America’s support for Israel was miniscule before then. For that matter, America’s intervention in the Suez Crisis was opposed to Israel, yet the Eisenhower administration didn’t (and don’t!) receive credit for that from Islamists.
If the United States of America were to suddenly cease to exist, I do not think for a second that Islamist terrorism against Americans would end. If anything, it would get worse. Much worse.
Al-Qaeda is, in many respects, a reaction against jazz music – specifically black music. Try reading Sayed Qutb’s writings yourself, and you will find him venting against jazz. Part of the long “casus belli” of al-Qaeda’s “declaration of war” against Americans includes the fact that some Americans gamble. Yes, gambling. No more dreidels!
Leftists routinely lecture other people to try to understand one’s enemies, but they almost never take their own advice and try to understand their own neighbors. Leftists tell others to have empathy, but they rarely ever show any empathy themselves.
Wretchard: “It would be interesting to see how many went from the Belmont Club on to other things.”
I will ditto Papa Ray with regard to my current efforts. (“My mission now is getting out the vote, making people aware of what is going on and getting them riled up and angry enough to vote.”)
I continue to skim BC, but, due to the demands of the current mission, there is not enuf time to read all the postings, let alone the comments. If I take the time to write something, it is usually directly related to the mission.
I am not having near the success as Papa Ray, but continue the efforts because
1. We all must do what we can.
2. It’s a non-linear world (I learned this on BC) – maybe some action of mine will have unforeseen (positive) consequences.
Finally, wish I had a redoubt like Papa Ray.
“The motivation for Muslim terrorist is
1/ US support of totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc
2/ US support of a racist, colonial, apartheid regime in the Holy Land.”
If that statement was true, please explain Muslim actions BEFORE the existence of the USA or Israel.
The facts are that Islam is an expansionist religion that uses terrorism as it’s main means of expansion. Ever since 622 AD or so. almost 1400 years. Israel is 62 years old. The USA is 218.
Please explain your outrageous lies in that light of those FACTS.
55 Peter Boston
“Let’s put the true face on Islam. The politicians and talking heads who are trying to sell us the religion peace nonsense must be challenged on their knowledge of orthodox Islam.”
Peter, you speak the truth, not only the truth of the matter but of the underlying evil.
But speaking it here is one small thing, because not many read here. YOU must speak it everywhere you can, make it appear in all avenues not just the web.
How to do that. A good start is to take up your voice and your propagada and hit the road. Stop at the first house you come to. Ask for premission to speak or leave them something that will inform them of the evils of Islam and the terrors to come if we don’t stop it.
Yes, I know it is hard to do this sort of thing. The first day I went out on the street and knocked on doors, my heart was afraid. Afraid of what? Of rejection, of not being able to accomplish my self made mission.
Guess what, shyness and rejection can be handled, over come and if you keep plugging, keep knocking on doors you will be able to communicate, to open eyes and to help not only our Republic but your family and yourself.
It is not easy but easy never gets you anything. You can’t do all of that and communicate with average Americans from behind a keyboard, because almost all Americans never, ever read blogs, and not all even have computers or internet access.
Take care, take charge and get on the line.
Papa Ray
P.S. michaelhoskins your ideas have much merit but I answer you in the same way. Your ideas must get beyond the internet. Prehaps if you could get Beck or Palin to get involved with the thrust of your Ideas you might be able to have an impact on the cult of Islam.
Email them, sell them on your ideas. Each of us must do all we are capable of doing in the fight against the Left and Islam.
One Link:
“An Alarming Video Every Westerner should see”
Papa Ray
Gadfly (#11) Yes what Churchill wrote is spot on! Imagine what he would say if had ever run into the current day Progressive/liberal/Democrat!
The cymbals have clanged some MSM cartoonist’s ears.
…-
“Someone at the Herald actually gets it… just wow!
http://thechronicleherald.ca/toon.php
Posted by: AtlanticJim at September 12, 2010 10:06 AM”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/014852.html
I backed out at #18 after the sarcasm in #17. Then comes this,
to rub it in and perhaps conflate me with Victor in some way. I do not agree with Victor. So let me try to be clear.
Victor seems to at least believe that actions can have effects. That there is a real world out there where humans interact with it and each other. Such is not the case in the schools of thought which are today’s Islam.
In them the will of Allah not only created the world and everything in it but constantly creates it, destroys it and then creates it again. Instant by instant. Each cycle has no relation to the next except the will of Allah. There are no “causes”, no “effects”, no “rationality”, no “logic”, only the absolute will of Allah. The very thoughts in your mind are simply creations of this instant of Allah’s will. There can be no discourse any more than there can be discourse with a madman.
The link I put up in #9 was to an interview with the author of a recent book. A link commenter Josh also put up the other day. The book goes into detail about the fact that the world as seen by Islam is a world of the will of Allah and nothing else. I bought the book back in August and have read over half of it as of now.
The reason I bought it is not that it discusses the “will of Allah” but that it tells of a time when for a short time the dominate school of Islamic thought concerned itself with resolving the differences between Islam and rationality as taught by the Greeks. That that school did exist brings some hope that Islam will find a way to reform itself into a system of belief that can co-exist with others.
That is one point of interest but one which Islam will have to do or not internally. The other interest is that there was around 800 AD this war of philosophies inside Islam. One pitting a world of rationality against a world of will. Will won. The Progressive Left is also in many ways a world of will pitted against the world of rationality. I’m reading the book because I wish to see how that battle 1200 years ago was lost and if any lessons can be applied to the current one.
I’m sorry for being a bother with my apparently pointless, unnecessary, and no so well written comments. Back to my own planet again.
@56 aadvard: You are correct that for about 150 years (roughly 900 – 1150) major Islamic thinkers contributed to philosophy, science and medicine. Averroes was one, Avicenna was another, and Al-Farabi a third. The trouble is that just as the West was undergoing the renaissance the Islamic world shut down its intellectual curiosity and growth. For the past 800+ years it has been frozen.
@58 Josh: You are partially correct — there is no single equivalent to the Pope in Islam. However, there is also no Islamic tradition of commentary that matches the Talmud or the writings of the Church Fathers or the Scholastics. Therefore Islam’s sacred documents are the first and last word on all subjects. Theologically there is no bottom up for modern thinkers to interpret, as there is in both Judaism and Christianity.
Furthermore, what I really had in mind was the less powerful point that in the West there is some degree of bottom up governance while in Islamic countries there is little if any. There is no Arab democracy. Turkey is the main country referred to as more or less (getting much less each day) democratic among the Islamic countries.
If we don’t unplug that air raid siren soon, we will be unable to hear Beethoven’s Ninth. That would be an incalculable loss.
Historically we had a brief problem with Moorish piracy which we solved through war and diplomacy in 1815.
Modern Islamic militants motivation is fueled by three things:
(1) the U.S.-UK military presence in the Muslim world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan;
(2) the half-century of U.S.-UK support of or protection for Arab police states in such places as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria; and
(3) unqualified U.S., UK, and Western support for Israel.
One might note, parenthetically, that these three motivators are among the causes listed by Osama bin Laden for the war he declared on America in August 1996, nearly 14 years ago.
The US had no problem with the Islamic world until after the 1967 Mid East war.
Our unconditional support for a Racist, Colonial, Apartheid regime in Israel is not in our best interest and we should withdraw support and cut of all aid the regime.
This is a matter for the UN.
It is clear that it is too late for a 2 state solution.
What will happen is a 1 state solution.
At first as an apartheid state— which the US should boycott– follow by a South African solution and reconciliation.
We should reach out to Iran and listen to what they want.
The Revolutionary Guard is mainly a huge business enterprise. We can reach a deal which will help us stabilize Iraq and AfPak.
If we do not engage with Iran the China will continue to do so to our disadvantage.
The Islamist enemy we face would permit virtually none of the things we prize — elections, liberties or freedoms (as defined in the West), gender equality, etc. — in a country it governed.
But very few Muslims are willing to kill themselves to stop us from enjoying those things.
There are many, however, willing to die to end U.S. intervention in the Islamic world.
Victor:
Try reading about the history of the Middle East before you spout off.
Anti-Americanism was very strong throughout the Middle East during the 1950′s and 1960′s.
Furthermore, the United States of America is an empire internally. If you truly oppose imperialism, you would necessarily recognize the “right” for states and Indian reservations to secede from the Union. Do you truly desire a Second Civil War?
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are very clear about what they want for America. They shout it at the top of their lungs every Friday. They have been saying it for over thirty years.
THEY
WANT
US
DEAD.
The rest is just commentary.
geoffb, I think you’re points are well made. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, after nearly a millenium of stagnation the muslims will claw their way to rationality. It could be that this current conflict is what propels them to do so. Never before in their history have they been confronted with their own abject failure as a civilization. And now they are poking the great big bear of America, while being gleefully egged on by leftists. We can’t see how it will end, but this is going somewhere. And that somewhere may be the end of Islam as it has been known for the last several hundred years.
Yesterday in Geneva Kissinger made the follow points–http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkbxdEMf1sz9wSlnZpldm0T0QK_gD9I58S6O4
“Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Friday that Afghanistan’s neighbors need to be engaged in order to find a long-term solution to the conflict there.
Pakistan, Iran, China and India all have an interest in preventing a Taliban victory and al-Qaeda from establishing itself in Afghanistan, Kissinger told an international security conference in Geneva.
“The presence of a terrorist, drug-producing state in that geographic location will affect every country,” Kissinger said.
“For Pakistan it will undermine whatever order exists today,” he said, adding that Shiite-majority Iran would also be threatened by a fundamentalist Sunni regime in Kabul.
“In many respects India will be the most affected country if a jihadist Islamism gains impetus in Afghanistan,” said Kissinger.
“Even China, with its problems in Xinjian, cannot be indifferent,” he said, referring to China’s northwestern province which has recently seen increased Muslim unrest.
Nixon talked to China, we need to talk to Iran.
Good to see the foreign policy realists are coming back into power.
batman @ 71: In Islam, democracy is considered anti-Islamic, as it puts a government of men above a government of Allah. Yet as I understand it, every group may raise its own imam, and they do not just lack a centralization but have a history of hating the idea of a “pharoah”, their own caliphate was I guess a mixed bag, at most a prime minister of sorts … I have not read anything on the matter, that I can recall, but of course I suppose one man or another will try to create such an office, it seems only human nature. I vaguely recall there are sections in the Koran on the subject. At the time of Mohammed the Jewish temple had been destroyed and the Jews had a distributed structure, the Catholic Church was only just forming and held little authority in the secular world, neither Christians nor Jews were terribly well disposed towards the memory of the Caesars, nor did the Arab tribal structure recognize much hierarchy up or down, outside of the tribe. Just noodling here.
The Arab, tribal, bedouin culture was about survival, not progress as such, progress wasn’t even invented in the west for another thousand years after Mohammed. Freedom – variation from the norm – probably meant death as often as not. These are the roots of Islam.
On Nixon going to China…
1. Chairman Mao wanted to talk.
Richard Nixon went to China because China needed to talk with the United States. It sent clear signals, he read them, and he took advantage of them.
2. Chairman Mao wanted to talk with Nixon.
Richard Nixon had a stellar reputation as an anti-Communist. Chinese Communists did not want to negotiate with anybody else because while he represented anti-Communists, he domestic opponents did not. If anybody other than Nixon had negotiated with China, they would have been labeled as “soft on Communism”.
A modern day “Nixon” would be a politician who burns the Koran and has the “credibility” to speak for Koran burners. We don’t have any politician like Nixon now. Should we?
3. If so-called “realists” want to talk, so what?
It does not matter whether the United States “needs to talk” with someone if they aren’t interested in talking. For example, if Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani refuses to talk with any American official, that’s the end of the story. Bullying a grand ayatollah into granting an audience is bad manners.
If the Iranian government wants to talk with the United States, channels have been open for thirty-one years and will be open in the future. Just because the so-called “realists” in the Washington establishment are desperate for an audience with Iranian officials doesn’t mean anything in the Middle East. The question is whether the Iranian government is interested in discussion, as opposed to one-sided lecturing America about all of its faults.
Don’t confuse real dialogue for a “sock puppet dialogue” where one person does the talking for both himself and the puppet. When there is asymmetry in what each side is allowed to say, the entire discussion becomes a farce.
“When Dihyah protested, wanting to keep Safiyah for himself, the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims.” Mohammed’s own words – Ishaq:511
So you have to ask yourself – are Mohammed’s words and deeds relevant today? Do the deeds of the Prohpet help to shape behavior of Muslims in 2010?
The quote below is from a new article suggesting that the model of behavior established by Mohammed 1,400 years ago is very much with us today.
They are attacking the young, the elderly, and especially the girls and women, whom they kidnap, forcibly convert, or traffic into brothels. Phyllis Chesler
Ms. Chesler is speaking of events that are happening in India now. Maybe even as we speak.
It is very difficult, maybe near impossible, to cleanly split apart an individual’s cultural imperatives like so many molecules and say with any certainty that ‘this is from religion’ or ‘this is from tribal customs’ but when you see the same kind of behavior over and over again and can easily find the legitimization of that behavior in the Word of God should we not draw some reasonable conclusions?
Only in an Age of Idiocy are these discussions removed from the public square.
78. Alexis
Don’t forget that a few months before the Soviets and the Chinese fought a battle and a series of scrimishes over their common border.
Here is the declassified briefing on it;
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/index2.html
So Henry the K. ( Dr. Kissinger) saw it as an opportunity to drive a wedge between The two largest Communist powers.
Here is the MSM’s slant on one of the series of scrimishes fought;
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,898533,00.html
Overall the Soviets beat the Chi-Coms. By beat I mean they inflicted more casualties, in raw numbers. That didn’t mean anything to the Chi-coms, who don’t even blink at casualties under 1 million. The area being fought over was a swamp. Except in winter, when it is a frozen swamp. Less then 100 people live there. They claim citizenship with whoever has the most guns pointed at them.
Basically, in real-politik, the Soviets thought the Chi-coms were getting uppity and bitch slapped them. The Chi-coms went crying to Uncle Sam, since back in the day, NOBODY bitch slapped Uncle Sam. Not without drawing back a bloody stump.
Times have changed. Nowadays Uncle Sam is into self flagellation. Bitch slap him and he wets his lace fringed pants.
The question is not whether we’re committed to Israel’s security, the question is whether they’re committed to ours.
AIPAC and the neocons are trying to drive us into war with Iran— that is not in our best interests.
General David Petraeus sought to have the West Bank and Gaza transferred from the U.S. European Command to his own Central Command, arguing that U.S. policy in this conflict was having a harmful conflict on the security of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story
Iran wants to talk with the US and Turkey and Brazil have offered to help make that happen.
Kissinger has just reframed the Iran issue and supports our talking with Iran— if we cannot reach a deal we can always walk away from the table–there is no downside to listening to what they want and pursuing mutual self interests.
If we do not engage with Iran then they will become a client state of China.
Iran is currently China’s third largest supplier of crude, providing China with roughly 12 percent of its total annual oil consumption (nearly one million barrels daily).
Iran-China trade value reached $30 billion in 2010 and is expected to increase to $50 billion by 2015.
Ali Akbar Saheli, Iran’s former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the two countries “mutually complement each other. They have industry and we have energy resources”.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China_%E2%80%93_Iran_relations
The majority of Irans population is under 30– they like America– they just do not like our self destructive policy in the Mid East.
As Kissinger said on Friday
-Pakistan, Iran, China and India all have an interest in preventing a Taliban victory and al-Qaeda from establishing itself in Afghanistan.
“The presence of a terrorist, drug-producing state in that geographic location will affect every country,”
It is time for a Realist approach to our foreign policy in the region and that means talking with Iran.
Martin Owens (#7), concerning ‘moderate” Muslims, you are right on. The religion of “moderate” Islam as practiced by “moderate” Muslims is one that exists only in the imaginations of non-Muslims of any political stripe who do not want to face the fact that our very civilization is being assaulted and that we, as civilized people, are eventually going to have to rise up up from our comparatively easy lives and make the sacrifices necessary to defend civilization as it now exists.
It is encouraging to know there remains a place where Israel has vocal friends…Best
“No doubt the ugly head of freedom has reared its head again.”
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” Thomas Jefferson
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0100.htm
“Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion… God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/memorial.html
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government (Communism, Fascism, Islamic Sharia) becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.” Patrick Henry
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
“Live free or die.” Gen. John Stark – Hero of Bunker Hill
http://freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/henry.shtml
OT – Current Events Update: Are you better off now than you were 4 trillion dollars ago?
“No doubt the ugly head of freedom has reared its head again.”
“Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion… God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/memorial.html
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government (Communism, Fascism, Islamic Sharia) becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.” Patrick Henry
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
“Live free or die.” Gen. John Stark – Hero of Bunker Hill
http://freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry
http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/henry.shtml
Congratulations – we have our very own Pat Buchanan.
He can’t help himself -antisemitism is a mental disease.
Please don’t feed the TROLL.
batman 21: “When, despite our failings, power goes from the bottom up and for them it goes from the top down”
Josh 58: “quibble with batman @ 21: Islam is very much bottom-up, compared to say the Catholic Church.”
I think batman was referring to Islamic Government where; like Monarchy, Fascism and Communism, political power does indeed go from the top down. The legal and political expression of Islam is totalitarian. Islamic government is an oligarchy of the Imams, by the Imams for the Imams. Like Monarchy, Fascism and Communism; Political Islam is the enemy of the Republican form of government and the sacred equal rights of the individual.
“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights… The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.” Thomas Jefferson
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” George Washington
“That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln
There is absolutely nothing that we want that the mullahs are prepared to give.
Let’s start with Zero’s pronouncement that America will never be at war with Iran.
Since that is Tehran’s Number One concern there’s really nothing left to discuss.
Iran is NOT all that interested in war with Israel; hostilities – yes, outright war – no.
Iran is stepwise building her military towards a nuclear sheltered blitzkrieg across the Gulf. If you merely study their Order of Battle it is obvious that she has no combat capability vs the USN or Israel.
The whole ‘Death to Israel’ ‘Death to America’ ™ is a dodge. It’s purpose is to confuse Kuwait City and Riyadh and the rest of Araby.
It’s rather like Hitler ranting about Bolshevism — and then attacking everybody else first.
Tehran figures that, like Stalin, she can ‘come to the aid of stricken Araby’ after the ‘perfidious Jews’ ™ attacked the Arab League at some summit called as a consequence of Hamas attacking Israel. Of course any such attack would be a false-flag Islamic Republican Guard Corps gambit.
Plan B would be to target an OPEC confab. Then Iran would rush in to defend Arab OPEC from a wicked Western plot to steal muslim wealth.
Either gambit requires a nuclear shield, hence the urgency.
As for the Order of Battle:
Midget subs, hovercraft, rubber boats, suicide troops, infiltration squads, commandos are only consistent with jumping the Gulf.
The range of the S-300 is such that if positioned coastally, it would thwart the Arab air forces.
Promptly after the blitz, Iran would grab the microphone and announce that she has no more territorial claims. Further, that she had to respond to protect the Shia living in the oil fields.
Iraq, Syria, Turkey would completely fall into her orbit — even more so than today.
THAT’S what the mullahs see in their tea leaves.
——
As for Victor…
Give us a break.
Re: #81 – As Kissinger said on Friday
-Pakistan, Iran, China and India all have an interest in preventing a Taliban victory and al-Qaeda from establishing itself in Afghanistan.
…kinda like things were on 10 Sep 2001…?
How’d that work out?
#86, f47
Recently, I left a site when it became painfully obvious that the administrators were purposefully using trolls to publish hateful anti-Semitic ravings.
For several weeks, the topic was Israel’s accidental attack on the USS Liberty in June 2007. When I asked those using the site to give some review to NSA files released in 2007 (about 1700 pages) covering the various investigations into the accident (10 American and 3 Israeli), the trolls and administrators let me know in about two minutes that evidence was immaterial to their feelings. Rarely have I witnessed such a profane mockery of justice under the guise of free speech.
@ 89
Clinton had 10 opportunities to to kill or capture Bin Laden during his administration— he and Berger did nothing.
Bush had one opportunity to take out Bin Laden–at Tora Bora — he did not take it because he was concerned about the loss of American troops– the Northern Alliance was bribed and let him go– our bombs stormed an empty castle.
Almost 10 years after NATO occupied Afghanistan it is not only the world’s largest producer of opium, but also of hashish, surpassing the traditional global leader, Morocco.
There are at least 2 million heroin addicts in Russia, some put the estimate as high as 6 million, the heroin comes from Afghanistan– there is a similar heroin epidemic in Iran.
All parties in the region have an interest in preventing the establishment of a narco-terrorist state in Afghanistan.
Kissinger s analysis and recommendations are correct–we need to involve Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia in the solution.
We need to talk with Iran.
Demonizing Islam will get us nowhere and may well lead to a self fulfilling prophesy.
Our current strategy in AfPak is failing— we are spending $100 billion per year in a country that has a annual GDP of $14 billion per year— that is crazy.
“US support of a racist, colonial, apartheid regime in the Holy Land.”
I know, but wadda gonna do? There is no support in the U.S. or the EU for liberating the Holy Land from Islam and returning it Jews and Christians, as it was before the religion of peace conquered, subdued, and enslaved the land.
Blert @ 88 – Iran’s latest missiles look like Ming the Merciless’ weapons in Flash Gordon so I agree with your analysis of the mullah’s Order of Battle.
FWIW: The Iranian military is undergoing a major enhancement of its technical prowess if the flurry of new weapons unveiled in recent weeks reflects actual capabilities rather than grandstanding. . . . How real some of the Iranian technical efforts are remains a separate issue, however. A recent assessment on the nation’s military capabilities by the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes that “most claims to build advanced guided weapons and military electronics [are] grossly exaggerated” even if “real progress” has been made in the past decade. . . . Iranian officials also vow to develop their own surface-to-air missiles. The country has been looking to buy Russia’s S-300, but Moscow has so far balked at delivering the system despite an initial agreement to sell.
Victor 92: “Demonizing Islam will get us nowhere and may well lead to a self fulfilling prophesy.”
Demonizing Islam is a rational self-defensive response of our generation to Islam’s threat to our life and liberty, and is like our father’s and grandfather’s rational demonization of Fascism and Communism; this is because Islam contains in its belly a totalitarian political/legal system as well as a mass-murdering jihad war fighting system. Political and Military Islam is the self-fulfilling prophesy of Religious Islam.
For example— we have perfectly good relations with Indonesia— a Muslims country with a population of 222 million 86% of whom are Muslim.
Turkey has been a NATO ally through out the Cold War to the present– they are fighting side by side with our troops in AfPak– Jordan- Egypt-Tunisia- Morocco etc are all US allies.
To demonize all Muslims because of few educated fanatics and some tribal goat herders is absurd and counterproductive to our US best interests.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims, customers, trade partners and allies.
Claiming all Muslims are Nazis is inflammatory and completely false.
The big failure in Iraq was Wolfowitz crazy obsession that all Baathists were Nazis and his demand that we fire the whole Iraq army— leading to chaos that lasted for years.
Muslims are among the largest investors in Apple and other high tech companies as well as companies like News Corp and leading financial industries, hotel chains and real estate holdings throughout the US and Europe.
Muslims fund major academic departments at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and elsewhere.
There are as many as 8 million Muslims in the US and the population is increasing.
The Know Nothing anti Muslims are the same as the Know Nothing anti Catholics of a previous era in the US.
There are as many as 8 million Muslims in the US and the population is increasing.
CAIR claims 7 million. Pew Research Center claims 2.5 million. Adherents.com puts the upper bound at 2.8 million.
@87 Storm-Rider: Thanks. You understood my point perfectly. I was referring to governments in Islamic dominated countries.
But in addition I want to emphasize that in Judaism and Christianity individual thinkers have been free to compose the Talmud and Responsa literature in Judaism, and the writings of the Church Fathers and Scholastics for Catholics, not to mention a host of interpretative works in the Protestant tradition.
In Islam there is no comparable interpretative tradition. The qur’an is supreme in Islam and not subject to interpretation or to modification. Thus this aspect of Islam is “top down.” Unless this changes there can never be a “reformation” within Islam.
If we continue to believe that Islam is similar to the Judeo-Christian traditions, we will continue to fool ourselves. Yes, they have retrofitted their history back to Abraham and they claim that their ninety-nine named deity is the same as the God of Judeo-Christian understanding, but closer examination shows the unbridgeable differences between Islam and Judeo-Christian faith and practice.
As I said earlier, we have a puzzle box with 5000 pieces of Mickey Mouse and 5000 pieces of Donald Duck — or if you prefer, 5000 pieces of Jerusalem and 5000 pieces of Mecca. You have one side performing Beethoven’s ninth symphony and the other side blaring an air raid siren. The longer we fail to see this the more vulnerable we will be.
We have good relations with Indonesia because we are separated by the Pacific Ocean. Non-Muslims in Indonesia are in religious minorities subject to legalized second class citizenship. History proves that once Muslims form a majority in any nation they legally dominate and subjugate all religious minorities. Muslims are like the Germans of the 1930′s and 1940′s because they are subjects of a totalitarian political/legal system which uses coercion and violence to maintain power. During World War II we were not at war with every ordinary German, but those ordinary Germans by and large supported the evil of Nazi Law, Nazi military force, and the Nazi S.S. and Gestapo. Most ordinary Germans during World War II were peace-loving, but they did not sufficiently stand up for peace or for human liberty; and the same can be said of ordinary Muslims today. Ordinary Muslims in Islamic majority nations by an large support the evil of totalitarian Sharia Law. I take no comfort in the knowledge that the world is populated by 1.6 billion Muslims – with 8 million in the U.S. Our status as customers, trade partners and allies is reversable to that of second class citizens as soon as they can create conditions for implementation of Islamic Sharia Law. Investment by Muslims in American corporations is part of their infiltration and eventual domination of our society.
“Meet the men and women of Wilayatul Hisbah, which in Indonesia means “control team.” They’re part of a special police unit that enforces Islamic law, known as sharia. Their headquarters is in the Acehnese provincial capital of Banda Aceh. Marjuki recently gave CBN News an exclusive look at how his men and women enforce the moral codes of the city. The destination this morning — a major intersection a couple of miles out of town. “We’ll be looking for women wearing tight outfits, unmarried couples, things like this,” said Sharia Officer Hendra Sabri, while riding in the back of a police pickup truck. The province of Aceh started implementing Islamic law in 2001.”
http://www.persecution.org/2010/08/15/islamic-police-ridding-streets-of-sin-and-vice/
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/story-of-the-12-year-old-indonesian-christian-schoolgirls-beheaded-by-muslims/
http://infidelsarecool.com/2009/07/23/indonesian-muslim-cleric-terror-against-non-muslims-is-justified-defends-ritz-carltonmarriot-attack/
http://www.persecution.org/2010/08/23/indonesian-bishops-ask-president-for-respect-for-religious-freedom/
http://www.persecution.org/2010/09/09/church-building-in-bogor-indonesia-re-opens-%e2%80%93-for-a-day/
http://www.persecution.org/2010/09/07/threats-and-opposition-against-christians-mounting-in-bekasi/
Victor 96,
We have good relations with Indonesia because we are separated by the Pacific Ocean. Non-Muslims in Indonesia are in religious minorities subject to legalized second class citizenship. History proves that once Muslims form a majority in any nation they legally dominate and subjugate all religious minorities. Muslims are like the Germans of the 1930’s and 1940’s because they are subjects of a totalitarian political/legal system which uses coercion and violence to maintain power. During World War II we were not at war with every ordinary German, but those ordinary Germans by and large supported the evil of Nazi Law, Nazi military force, and the Nazi S.S. and Gestapo. Most ordinary Germans during World War II were peace-loving, but they did not sufficiently stand up for peace or for human liberty; and the same can be said of ordinary Muslims today. Ordinary Muslims in Islamic majority nations by an large support the evil of totalitarian Sharia Law. I take no comfort in the knowledge that the world is populated by 1.6 billion Muslims – with 8 million in the U.S. Our status as customers, trade partners and allies is reversable to that of second class citizens as soon as they can create conditions for implementation of Islamic Sharia Law. Investment by Muslims in American corporations is part of their infiltration and eventual domination of our society.
“Meet the men and women of Wilayatul Hisbah, which in Indonesia means “control team.” They’re part of a special police unit that enforces Islamic law, known as sharia. Their headquarters is in the Acehnese provincial capital of Banda Aceh. Marjuki recently gave CBN News an exclusive look at how his men and women enforce the moral codes of the city. The destination this morning — a major intersection a couple of miles out of town. “We’ll be looking for women wearing tight outfits, unmarried couples, things like this,” said Sharia Officer Hendra Sabri, while riding in the back of a police pickup truck. The province of Aceh started implementing Islamic law in 2001.”
http://www.persecution.org/2010/08/15/islamic-police-ridding-streets-of-sin-and-vice/
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/story-of-the-12-year-old-indonesian-christian-schoolgirls-beheaded-by-muslims/
http://infidelsarecool.com/2009/07/23/indonesian-muslim-cleric-terror-against-non-muslims-is-justified-defends-ritz-carltonmarriot-attack/
http://www.persecution.org/2010/08/23/indonesian-bishops-ask-president-for-respect-for-religious-freedom/
Sure there are moderate Muslims. The ummah has other names for such people, however: “Apostates” and “heretics”.
As I argued in a previous thread, part of our problem is that we’re fixated on winning hearts and minds when what we really need to be winning is souls. The problem isn’t just that Muslims are afraid of dying for betraying the faith, it’s that they’re also afraid of going to hell for all eternity afterward. As long as this fear exists, Islam is going to remain a threat to mankind. So, if there are a billion Muslims on the planet, our goal should be to have one billion apostates and heretics instead – people who can stand up to Islamic supremacist tyranny in this world without fear of being damned in the Hereafter for doing so.
Victor 96: “Muslims fund major academic departments at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and elsewhere.”
“Saudi money combined with the Leftist predominance in academia and the media has created a tremendous synergy… Synergistic opportunity is another word for “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” And that always feels good. Taken in combination it has opened a window of opportunity to shove the most reprehensible ideas straight down the throats of (the) public.” Wretchard
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/09/17/the-free-exchange-of-ideas/
“Several years ago, a multimillion gift from the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was shared between Harvard and Georgetown universities. These monetary efforts began in the 1960s and ’70s, with Muslim donors funneling millions of dollars into American universities to support Islamic studies, hire faculty specialists in Islam, and fund the writing of books and seminars on the topic. Such support represents one of the biggest problems academia faces today — that is, how to arrive at a fair and balanced discussion when it relates to Mideast studies… As we look to educate ourselves and the next generation about Israel and the Middle East, we should question the sheer amount of cash being offered and the influence these people are thereby buying, creating bastions of noncritical, pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.” Asaf Romirowsky
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=29607
We should be aware that Terry Jones the– would be Koran burner— was run out of Germany for running an abusive cult-his Church has an alliance with the Westboro Baptist Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
Which mocks our troops funerals, preaches hatred again Jews, Gays and Catholics. They appear together at their various hatred events.
We wonder why there are such disparate estimates concerning the number of Muslims in the US, U.S. News & World Report estimates 5 million + in 2008– maybe– given the hatred being expressed to Muslims — people are reluctant to respond to surveys.
Churchill also disliked Hindus– he called Gandhi a half naked fakir– during WW2 he was indifferent as millions of Hindus starved while he exported rice from India and refused to allow relief supplies from the US and Australia to be sent to India.
Demonizing and humiliating Muslims is a boxed canyon — a fatal dead end.
We clearly need common operating system for international commerce– just as we are developing common accounting practices–so we can trade with China, Russia and Muslim countries– to a large extent we have these in place– let us accept that the Wilsonian dream was a casualty of Darwin Rules.
Storm-Rider, #98: History proves that once Muslims form a majority in any nation they legally dominate and subjugate all religious minorities.
They don’t even necessarily need a majority to accomplish this, if they can gain control of social, cultural, legal and political institutions first.
It occurs to me that the quickest path to Islamization for the West would be the legalization of polygamy. That would effectively give each Muslim man as many as five votes (their own, plus those of their four subservient wives) in any given election. In other words, they could command a simple majority vote with as little as 10.1% of the electorate.
Victor 103,
Demonizing Totalitarian Islam is a badge of honor – just as it was for Nazism and Communism. Unfortunately ordinary Muslims are trapped within a politicized religion which is built upon life and liberty destroying totalitarian legal/political principles – just as ordinary Germans were trapped within Nazism.
Commerce will take care of its self if it is truly based on free enterprise. Burning the Koran would not lead to organized Muslim violence if Islam were really a non-totalitarian religion of peace.
@ 100
There is an Israel Lobby http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby
There is a Saudi Lobby
There is a Trial Lawyers Lobby– etc
But the most powerful lobby in Congress is the US Military and they have spoken loud and clear that our support of the apartheid regime in Israel endangers the lives of American troops.
Talk frankly to any Marine commanders– who are the sharp edge– and they will tell you that the current regime in Israel is a liability– not an asset– the US Army General Petraeus sent the same message to Congress– it is only a matter of time until the boom comes down.
The Israel Lobby’s hustle to get the US to attack Iran is the last straw– the demonization of Islam is part of their strategy– a big fail-
The US military knows that is not in US interests to attack Iran and it would bring us into direct confrontation with China– look at the economics.
US voters will not allow their son and daughters lives to be sacrificed for the apartheid in the Holy Land by Israel.
If Israel wants to attack Iran they will face China’s wrath — good luck with that! they are on their own — as The Economist warned months ago.
#104 -
Any positive things to say about civilizing this planet that Jews may have accomplished?
What positive things have the followers of mohammed accomplished in the last week, month, year, decade, century, millennium ?
Judaism – if you want to convert, show real interest, for non-jews keep the 7 noahide laws you will be ‘saved’.
Christianity – please convert, no forced conversion, follow the bible.
muhammadanism – for Jews & Christians convert or pay jizyah all others, my way or the neck cuts. religion of peas and farts!
This is totally off-topic but apparently the Govt of Queensland has decided that anything that is gun-like must be registered as a firearm. You know: a bar of soap with a pointy end might qualify. Or a stick, particularly if small boys have brandished it while yelling “bang! bang!”
http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-freaky/toy-guns-will-have-to-be-licensed-in-queensland-under-new-firearms-laws/story-e6frflri-1225900910503
W, your perspective would be very helpful.
Jews have clearly made many significant contributions to Christian/Western civilization in science, philosophy and humanity.
The issue is Israels current regime– which is, in fact, opposed by many Jews. http://mondoweiss.net/
“The conflation of “Israeli” and “Jew” in the American press is purposeful.
Israel’s supporters here would love to paint opposition to Israel as hatred of Jews.
Which is why I also, and stridently, oppose the official recognition of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. Not only is it not a Jewish state (about 20 percent of its citizens are Arabs), but by describing it as a Jewish state we are falling into a trap: it would mean that all criticism of Israel would be criticism of the Jews—and therefore, anti-Semitic.
The purpose is not to open debate but to close it; not to reinforce political language but to censor it. Language is the most powerful weapon in any political arsenal.
It’s important that we get it right.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/03/hbc-90006744
There is a significant Jewish population in Iran and they have constitutional freedom– there are many Synagogues in Iran.
The current regime in Israel is an apartheid regime–like the old South Africa– it is doomed– as at least 2 ex Israeli Prime Ministers have pointed out.
We will not sacrifice our US sons and daughters lives for a doomed apartheid regime in Israel–it is over– if Lieberman etc want to pursue that madness then they are on their own– as The Economist and Petraeus made clear.
Victor, your tenacity and seeming rationality are admirable, but your assertions are profoundly skewed.
You clearly want to believe the problem is our obstinate mis-understanding and mis-characterization of Islam.
But you CANNOT wipe out the tens of thousands of atrocities inflicted by Islamic faithful against Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, communists, Presbyterians, Pagans, Catholics, Animists, Baptists, followers of Bahu’ullah, Jews of all sorts, et cetera ad infinitum annually for the last five decades, and the Jihadist violence of their conquest of scores of countries and cultures, and the slaughter and subjugation of their neighbors for 14 centuries.
Simply, you cannot defend the proposition that WE are DEMONIZING Islam. The Jihadists ARE demons.
If you want to be useful, try to work out a way for the so-called MODERATE muslims to overthrow their spitting, slavering, murdering MASTERS and show us their enlightened selves.
I SAW the Iranian people trying to throw off the vicious Ayutollahs early this year…
OUR STINKING PIECE OF CRAP for a Coward-in-Chief sided with the Ayutollahs, and stood silent while they slaughtered, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered thousands of young Iranians. (Evidently, he wanted to see how well the gambit worked for them.)
Even to the extent we here agree with your hypotheticals, we now have a government that seems likely to apply those same methods to its own domestic opponents, and tolerate terrorist attacks on its own population so long as they do not imperil its DOMINATION of the political process that keeps it in power.
Until we can get an administration and legislature that are not obsessed with looting the country, bribing half the electorate with loot extorted from the other half, and obliterating the educational process so as to ensure no one will be able to spot their inversions of logic, we will not have an enlightened or rational policy for the Islamic world.
I invite you to point out errors in my post…
58. Josh
“re. aardvark @ 56: ‘Islam and its schools are two-truth, i.e., double-think.’
Not really. Islam is one-truth school and eventually suppresses (eg, beheads) all alternatives. “If this knowledge is from the devil we do not need it, and if it is from Allah we already have the perfect source.” I forget the historic luminary(s) who used the above quote.”
That would be Caliph Omar himself, in 642:
Via Wiki:
Several historians have given varying accounts of an Arab army led by Amr ibn al ‘Aas sacking the city in 642 after the Byzantine army was defeated at the Battle of Heliopolis.
The Syrian-Christian author Bar-Hebraeus (1226–1286), otherwise known as Ibn al-‘Ibri, wrote in his Chronicon Syriacum of the destruction of the Library by Amr on the authority of 13th century Muslim Egyptologist Abd-el-latif in the voluminous work “Account of Egypt.”.[27] Amr is said to have sent to the Caliph Omar in Medina for instructions, and to have received: “As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed, then, and destroy them.”[28]
As I advised previously but didn’t follow through – please do not feed the TROLL.
In the US we have enough natural gas reserves to run all our commercial traffic for more the 100+ years– it requires a small adjustment to the standard internal combustion engines.
The hysteria and hatred towards Muslims is absurd — there are a 100+ Jacobin AQs who we need to kill — no problem–
Israeli apartheid policy is doomed but is causing major problems for American interests in the World.
We need to let these racist in Israel that they are on their own.
victor you are a loser – a pat Buchanan wannabe antisemite -
a pretend american patriot that would be glad for another holocaust – with apologies to wretchard for my spewing.
http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway/arabsinisrael/index.htm
ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN ISRAEL
The freest Arabs, Christians, Jews and Muslims in Mideast are Israelis
Even after the “Palestine Liberation Organization” got authority over 95% of the Arab Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the more than one million Arab Palestinians in Israel chose to continue to live under Israeli sovereignty in the Jewish state of Israel rather than choosing to live under the all-too-unfortunate oppression which is the lot of their Arab and Muslim brothers throughout the Middle East. 77% of Israeli Arabs would even live nowhere else than in Israel. Moreover, millions of Arab Palestinian imagined “refugees” desire to “return” living in Israel.
Joshua #99: Time for you to fit the Battle of Jericho. Agreed that the problem is a theo-cultural multi-phobic pathology. A deep-seated belief that rational thought and ethical behavior result in eternal damnation. Along with a demonic compulsion
to perpetuate everything that makes themselves miserable and force same upon others.
There has to be sharp and repeated interventions into their ring of denial. Interventions that cannot be ignored. Simultaneously, alternatives have to be rather forcibly and incessantly presented so that some degree of acceptance (no matter how reluctant) is assured. Only way to ever “sober them up” and get them out of the hell of their own making.
And yep, it will be dangerous. And I am not as worried about violence on their part as I am of our own and other western governments criminalizing what will work.
We have to shield our own Mu’tazilites from our own Ash’arites.
Some ingenious tactics have been suggestyed. All well and good. But these will be meaningless without a cohesive strategy and a real good set of logistics besides.
And with that, I am momentarily out of implementive ideas—–hopefully only momentarily.
“Saving their souls” summarizes things nicely, thank you.
In terms of American interests Israel is trivial.
Calling everyone anti Semitic–Those who points out that the current regime in Israel is racist and apartheid– does not work anymore as Tony Judt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt
proved.
Invoking the Shoah to to justify an apartheid in the Holy Land is obscene.
Get real– there are a few AQ 100 fanatics who we will get– Israel and Saudi interests are not in American. interests.
The US Military understands this reality as do the US voters.
Mad Fiddler:
It may interest you that several Palestinian academics dislike the appellation of “apartheid” in reference to Israel, among them Professor Hisham Ahmed of Bir Zeit University.
The term “apartheid” is quite apt, however, for one American ally that the United States military saved from extinction not once but twice. That ally (if you can call it that) is Saudi Arabia. Although Israel does have some segregationist practices, they come nowhere near the sheer brutality and arbitrariness of the Saudi system.
Arabs who grew up in Israel are Israeli citizens. Palestinians who grew up in Saudi Arabia are Palestinians – that’s not merely apartheid, but apartheid within the Arab nation.
Saudi Arabia has been subverting America’s political system and prestigious universities for much the same reason that Ptolemy Auletes systematically bribed Roman senators of various factions toward the end of the Roman Republic. Just as the United States sadly has propped the Saudi royal family in power in modern times, the Roman Republic propped up the Ptolemaic dynasty long past its shelf life.
Al-Qaeda’s vendetta against the United States is basically a proxy war within the Saudi royal family. If we look at antiquity as an analogy, we need to regard Saudi Arabia – especially our putative “friends” as the enemies they are. Just as Egypt was able to use part of the Roman military as its auxiliaries, we must take care not to become the auxiliaries of people who will happily stab us in the back.
The United States and Israel have disagreements – lots of them – and these disagreements would turn into full-blown animosity if Islamists left the US and Israel alone. However, Islamists are generally stupid, for they would rather take what they want by force than obtain the same thing through kindness. They would tell America to betray its allies rather than simply standing back and watching the US and Israel bicker.
Apartheid? It was originally a euphemism for segregation. And Islamic custom has traditionally mandated segregation by religious community, often with Nazi-style badges to be worn by dhimmis. To castigate Israel as an “apartheid state” while refusing to criticize anti-Jewish pogroms, anti-Christian pogroms, and classic “apartheid” humiliation of dhimmis in Muslim lands is total and utter hypocrisy. One should refrain from criticizing that speck in the eye of Israel for a very obvious reason.
Mad Fiddler:
As a rule, it is wiser to believe that someone is telling the truth than telling a lie unless that person has a track record of lying. There is a penalty that comes from being deceived. However, there is an even greater penalty that comes from assuming that an honest man is a liar – the honest man get offended and becomes your enemy. It is my experience that most people tell the truth; even liars tell the truth most of the time in order to give their lies credibility. Moreover, clergy are more likely to tell the truth. If an imam says he wants you dead, believe him.
For example, when Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani said he wanted elections, he meant that he wanted elections. He said what he meant and meant what he said.
The problem the United States has is that the State Department and its archipelago of allied think tanks routinely presume that people lie. Perhaps most people do lie in Washington, DC! This attitude of presuming a hidden agenda from one’s allies and enemies is very dangerous.
When villagers in Vietnam were asked why they supported Communists, they replied, “Because they are nice to me.” American interrogators generally assumed greater sophistication from their enemies than ever existed.
It fails to dawn on Washington policy makers that our enemies might actually mean what they say when they say they want us dead – every Friday at prayers.
That’s the problem we have with our so-called “elites”. They think their opponents are as duplicitous as they are. They think their opponents are as “rational” as they are. They think they opponents are as cold blooded as they are. They think their opponents are as dishonest as they are. They think their opponents are as inclined to sell their “friends” down the river as they are. They are occasionally right, but they are usually wrong.
Like it or not but Americans will not support their children s dieing to support the current apartheid regime in Israel.
It is what it is–talk to any US Marine commander–it is over.
As Kissinger recommends we need to talk with Iran– we can always walk away from the table.
We are living in 2010 not 700 nor 1400– demonizing Islam does not make sense for American best interests– do the economic math–be rational and face reality– so America can win.
Sharia and dhimmitude coming to a town near you – better learn to stay off the sidewalks. and don’t forget to sew on your dhimmi clothes patches, all this from the religion of peas and farts.
Pardon me if these comments have a high dose of nuance.
I don’t think that burning a Koran is a good idea. It is partly aesthetics. It is partly a desire not to give offense to rational Muslims. It is partly a desire not to put a target on my back. And yes, it is partly sheer cowardice on my part.
That said, I refuse to see burning a Koran as un-Christian. There is plenty of scriptural and traditional precedent for doing such a thing within Christianity. (Read Acts 19…) It does not help the cause of those who argue that the Koran isn’t a sorcerer’s scroll when large numbers of Muslims act no differently from Ephesian silversmiths.
Islam may claim to be a monotheistic religion, but a very large proportion of its adherents act in a very polytheistic manner. Muslim da’wa may proclaim rigid monotheism, yet when Sudanese janjaweed tell their rape victims, “We have killed your god,” they show their monotheism to be wishful thinking. There is a key difference between a monotheist and a polytheist who seeks to murder all gods other than his own.
Personally, I don’t regard the Koran to be all good nor all bad. It clearly isn’t perfect. The problem is that doctrinaire Muslims claim that it is not merely perfect but also divine; it is as if they treat their Koran as an incarnation of their deity. There are many parts of the Koran that are actually quite funny so long as one doesn’t take the book too seriously. Why would one want to burn such a great joke book? Let’s face it, few things are ever quite so hilarious as somebody else’s religion. It may not be polite to tell people what one thinks of their religion, but the humor is still there.
The Torah can be quite funny when making reference to the religions of neighboring peoples. For example, the story of the daughters of Lot getting their father drunk is a clear parody of an earlier story of Ea getting drunk and giving the arts of civilization to Ishtar. I also think Genesis 19 is a commentary on the custom of temple prostitution (as a prerequisite for marriage) among Moabites and Ammonites.
A defeatist wrote, “it is over”.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
– Yogi Berra
Nixon didn’t go to China to capitulate. The Iran’s de facto government expects nothing less than the capitulation of the United States.
@ 121 Alexis
This is not a joke, 1000s of American troops have died — you think that is a joke?
Shame on you–
Have you been in the Military? do you have sons or daughters in the US Military?
We need an America first policy moving forward–
Ah, Victor Victor.
To feed, or not to feed? That is the question. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
Where to begin?
Israel is not an apartheid regime. There are a million Arab citizens. They have equal rights. Yes, they complain about discrimination, but so does every minority in every country. Their vote counts the same as my vote. They have their elected leaders, who sit in the knesset on a fat salary and do nothing but posture and bluster to gain 30 minutes on the news. Just like my elected leaders, I might add. They can emigrate to any Arab country in the world, but none of them want to. They can ask to redraw the border so they’ll be part of the future Palestinian state, but the thought terrifies them.
The situation in the west bank is due to security concerns, not because of racism, to protect Israeli civilians. Like the four people who were gunned down just a couple of weeks ago by Hamas terrorists. From 1967 to 1988 there were no checkpoints, no barriers, nothing to even mark the border with the West Bank. Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza came to work in Israel every day in their tens of thousands. The older generation still speaks Hebrew and fondly remembers their Jewish employers. The younger generation knows only Arabic, watches Al-Jazeera, and wants to be martyrs.
As for the lives of Americans, they are not lost because of Israel. Bin Laden attacked the US because of the presence of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia. They arrived after Iraq invaded Kuwait, to protect Saudi Arabia. Not because of Israel. The decision to topple Saddam was made by the US, not Israel. Israel had no love of Saddam, but he was far from being the greatest threat to Israel. To suggest that the U.S. is some sort of pit-bull which looks to Israel for its orders is laughable, and makes a mockery of the true balance of power between them. Just one example: Do you think Netanyahu wanted to freeze construction in the territories? It was the last thing he needed. His coalition may well collapse now because of it. Why did he do it? He did it to please Obama. This represents the true balance of power between these allies – America is by far the stronger partner.
As for the attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, they are being conducted by those who do not want a strong American presence in the middle east allied to a stable and strong Iraq. The main culprits are Iran and Syria. Even if Israel had never existed, they would still not want this presence, and would continue to act against it.
As for Jonathan Pollard, he was a spy, was caught, and punished. He spied for Israel, not Russia. Many things were falsely attributed to him to provide cover for true Russian spies – like Aldrich Ames.
As for what benefit the US gains from its support of Israel, first and foremost is a high degree of influence on Israeli actions. The end of the second Lebanon war, and the end of the seige on Arafat’s compound in Ramallah in 2002, and the recent construction freeze are recent examples. America’s ability to influence Israel also gains it influence with Israel’s neighbors.
Other than that, much of America’s military support is spent on arms in the US, stimulating the US economy. Intelligence co-operation is another asset for the U.S., not to mention various Israeli military developments and inventions. Israel is also a base for the American fleet in the mediterranean.
Is it worth $2.75 Billion? That’s a fair question. But to pretend that the relationship is like that of a leech on a fish is quite wrong. And to quote Walt and Mearsheimer in support… sigh…
@ Victor (118) who said “Like it or not but Americans will not support their children s (sic) dieing (sic) to support the current apartheid regime in Israel.”
Recent and authoritative survey says otherwise:
“Most Americans Name Just Five Countries That U.S. Should Defend Militarily” http://bit.ly/dznXhR
“Most Americans remain willing to help defend only five other countries in the world militarily, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Not surprisingly they’re among the countries that most agree are America’s best allies.
Just like last year, Canada leads the list of 18 countries regularly in the news when Americans are asked whether the United States should provide military assistance to that country if it is attacked. The other four – in order – are Great Britain, Israel, Germany and Mexico. The level of support is basically unchanged from last year’s survey with the exception of Mexico for which support is down slightly.”
So Victor, what evidence can you provide that refutes or otherwise qualifies the survey results?
V @ 123: My current service obligations prevent me from speaking as freely or extensively on the variety of topics discussed here at BC as I would like. I would put the same question to you as you have put to Alexis, who has spoken so eloquently on this, and many other subjects over the years that I have read BC. Regardless, please have respect for our fallen brothers and sisters by leaving them out of the discussion. I am disgusted every time I see their memories used what I often perceive as a mere prop to score some sort of rhetorical point.
If your arguments have true power and merit, and I believe that they do to some degree, you do not need to resort to such crass emotionality. The dead cannot speak for themselves, and those who have left friends and comerades behind, and have seen this close up must often be circumspect, if we speak at all. Speak for yourself, if you have seen it up close, but please do not presume to speak for those who are unable to speak for themselves in order to try to prove a point. It is not up to you or me to say “They died for nothing!” or, “They died to advance a great cause!”. In the end, only history will tell.
For my part, people like Alexis, as well as Geoffgo, Batman, and Mad Fiddler, among many others, often align with my own (constantly evolving) thoughts and positions, although in any case with far more elegance, insight, nuance, and erudition than I could manage on my best day.
V: Before I sign off, I want to make clear that I also think that your characterizations of Israel are wide of the mark, to say the least. Again, this sort of mindless rhetoric does no justice to one’s argument…. I agree fully with Jonathan above.
With respect,
Highlander
Victor, you make me want to vomit. If there is one people on this planet with proof that without defensible borders they are as good as dead, it is the Jews of the Jewish state of Israel.
You pick and choose various bits of commentary and then reconnect them into lies and repeat them like the monster in Young Frankenstein trying to soft shoe onstage with Gene Wilder.
I know some Marines –a guy i work with every day has a Marine son in Afghanistan, and i live on the edge of the great Texas Aggie reservation. You would not last long around here posing as the spokesman for the Marines and trying to sell the notion that the Jews and Israel are two different things and that Israel can fall without the ghost of Adolf Hitler rising to finish the demonic work he already carried so very far, in our living memory. You know, that work. Ask this child about it –or better, her older brother charged with protecting his little sister.
Be sure and expand the picture and take a long look into the little girl’s eyes.
Then remember that any of her relatives alive today are Israelis who for some reason lost on the likes of dirt like you, do not want their little girls sitting in the street starving to death like this one.
Notice the child is trying to offer a smile or a greeting to the photographer? Despite her condition? Want to know why? But you already know, don’t you, that it’s because she has been raised to be civilized and to treat other people correctly. She was probably taking piano when hell came to town and kicked in her front door. Left to live, she would have been a scientist or professional, and would have raised her children in her turn, traditionally and carefully and made them into valuable, accomplished, correct citizens.
And it’s not a matter of living in the past, trying to protect an old photograph. It’s that the forces that did that to her are rampant again, and are slavering at the chops wanting to do it again. This time with me witnessing. So Victor, you know what? I would much rather kill you myself, with my bare hands, right now, than to even face the prospect of having to see that happen to another child.
You know, if you can’t stand sharing the planet with people who can run faster than you, either don’t get in a foot race with them, or just shoot yourself. Trying to kill or better yet get someone else to kill those fast runners for you, to satisfy your low, envious, jealous, brooding, venomous prejudice, is an exceedingly unseemly and nasty way to be.
You say i can’t call you an anti-semite? Okay, then, what are you? And what is an anti-semite?
PS, if it wasn’t for mealy-mouthed sonzabitches such as yourself, the Mideast war would have ended in one of the wars leading up to the six day war, or with the Six Day war. Wars end when one side gets defeated and *knows* it. Then they can get about rebuilding their ‘story’ in another direction. Victor Davis Hanson has written on this topic. Billy Sherman’s march to the sea did the confederacy a favor. In the same way, Israel could have long ago done the same oblique favor with the Palis –whipped ‘em in war, then went to work as trading partners a la Germany and Japan post WWII.
But no. Shitheads such as yourself will not allow that –too much fun sitting around the professors lounge scheming and chanting “let’s you and him fight”.
Let me be very clear on this point, Victor. You cannot, you will not, ever do a damn thing for your supposed beneficiaries the Palestinians. What you will continue to do for the Palis is keep them poor, ignorant, utterly Dependant, and living bereft of hope for a fourth generation in their squalid misery, mentally tortured daily by totalitarian opportunists inside and exploiting their culture, deranging their children and treating the whole people like internecine. this is what your philosophy, that is you yourself personally, have done since WWII and are doing today and will continue doing for as long as the rent-seek and meal-ticket shall last.
There is one force on this world that is ready, willing, and able to rescue the Palis, to get them back on their feet and return them to health and independency and pride.
Know what that force is?
It’s Israel. Specifically, the Jews of Israel. Ready, willing, and able, to begin repairing the damage that YOU, Victor, and the likes of you, with your lies and self-serving posturing, have done.
but you won’t get out of the way. You’re too comfy right where you are, sanctimoniously preaching your shallow thoughts or worse, your intentional deceits.
What’s oppressing the Palis is you. The IDF is just one of your chess pieces.
Wretchard,
Actually, no reason we couldn’t do both. Buy 2 copies, Burn one quite publicly (Dipped in porked fat or dog dung, of course! ^o^). Read the 2nd and then burn that one too. For those who are on a budget just read it before burning it. Doubtless our Moslem brethren will rejoice that their scripture is selling so well when we do this. ^_~
OT but the wittiest thing I’ve seen in a while.
pelosium – densest element in the universe
#129 bl
Why bother? Anybody who argues with characterizations isn’t even worth the read.
pb/131; i know. i just felt like typing, i guess. might as well step outside and argue with a fence post.
I spent some time in Riyadh few years ago. Amazing how poorly the locals treated the Palestinian ex-pats (who often were more able (more experienced, better credentialed) if not smarter than their hosts). Esp. in work situations. Saw none of that in Haifa (esp. in the hi-tech companies). And the same was true in the outskirts of Cairo as well (where the army is still baking bread to prevent the food riots caused by the U.S. grinding corn into gasoline). The Palestinians are the ones who should make the outreach to the Israelis that we (have already) made to the Iranians. They don’t know who their true allies could be (esp. if what they want is a prosperous and peaceful existence for their children).
It’s curious how the Left’s advice, if inverted 180 degrees and prescribed for the “aggrieved” would actually have the desired or better result. (save where the desired result is a mask for a different goal).
Ari Tai
If memory serves, the very first targets of the 2nd infitada were the Palestinian businesses that had sprung up all over the West Bank after the Oslo calm. Guess there is nothing more threatening to a totalitarian than an independent businessman.
We can all take comfort in knowing that the Age of Idiocy will not last forever. Who knows how many more damaged lives will result before it ends, but end it will. Even an Ivy League PhD cannot insulate you from reality.
I notice Victor does not actually respond to the points people make refuting his arguments and his theories, but continually spouts the same rhetoric and talking points in different ways.
Man, its been a while since I have been exposed to an honest-to-Allah troll.
It’s been my experience that going around the carousel with a troll on all sorts of topics just let’s them dodge. One needs to pin them down on very specific points, otherwise they do the shuck, jive and wriggle to avoid having to actually defend their assertions.
Notice,
POST EXHIBIT A
“The motivation for Muslim terrorist is
1/ US support of totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc
2/ US support of a racist, colonial, apartheid regime in the Holy Land.”
It boils down to TWO things, folks! TWO! Simple as that, and it all is the fault of the US when it comes right down to it!
Well, that IS a relief, right? Because if the problem is as simple as all that, then the solution will be; US change in policy. Peace in our time!
OOPS, but then the pesky Belmont Club posters, using their nefarious facts and logic, point out much evidence that shows hostility from Muslims seems to encapsulate many more nations and people than just Americans.
We then get:
POST EXHIBIT B
“Modern Islamic militants motivation is fueled by three things:
(1) the U.S.-UK military presence in the Muslim world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan;
(2) the half-century of U.S.-UK support of or protection for Arab police states in such places as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria; and
(3) unqualified U.S., UK, and Western support for Israel.
Oh, now its THREE things that this whole thing boils down to folks! All in the space of one comment thread it’s gotten worse.
And it seems the reasons and culprits have multiplied a bit. It’s not just the US, but the UK. Oh, wait…it’s also Egypt, and Saudia Arabia and Algeria! Oh, and all of the Western World, apparently! And especially the JOOOOOOOSSS!
Anyone remember the old Jerky Boys bit with Saul Rosenberg talking to the damages lawyer about filing a claim about the numerous indignities he suffers at his workplace:
“Who are you going to sue?”
“You!”
“Me? For what?”
“Damages…that you are giving me?”
“But why sue me?”
“SUE EVERYBODY!”
My, this seems to be a little more complicated all of a sudden. And even so, it does not explain Muslim hostility and aggression against Black Africans and Buddhists and Hindus, but I am sure those folks were doing SOMETHING to deserve their just rewards at the hands of Mohammed’s righteous warriors!
It’s also humorous to note that the term “terrorist” Victor uses in the first post, morphs into “militants”. Perhaps realizing he committed a little Freudian slip, or just realizing that admitting that they are terrorists undermines his whole argument that they are some sort of freedom fighters?
Victor, like most Trolls, cannot even keep his own rhetoric straight, so I fail to see the point in arguing with him. Simply post how he is wrong, without addressing him, and those rational beings who happen to read him will see him for the silly fraud that he is.
Buddy: “You say i can’t call you an anti-semite? Okay, then, what are you?”
Victor has been around for a while. Since he enters the room when Russia needs to spin the news, I assume he’s employed by the same.
Victor’s talking points relate to Russia’s interests, which seem to me to be: marginalize the U.S. in the Middle East, sow instability, pick up pieces, consolidate influence.
Here is another Pajama Media post by Raymond Ibrahim that is smack on topic: The Specter of Muslim Disloyalty in America
This article is informative because Ibrahim details his source material and explains why we should be asking the question of whether or not a ‘good’ Muslim can be loyal to America, even if he has taken an oath.
It’s hard to believe that even at this late date that many or maybe even most people still will not acknowledge that Islam is not just another religion.
It is rather interesting how the style of argument used by “Victor” appears to be that of an Iranian Muslim. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
He also appears to have some skill with smear campaigns, attacking Israel at every opportunity. His tactic has been Iranian state policy since at least the mid-1990’s. In essence, the Iranian government seeks to turn the United States into a vassal state.
Iran is engaging in legitimacy warfare; there is precedent for this in Persian history. Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Ptolemaic king of Egypt) declared war on Antiochus II Theos (Seleucid king of Persia) with the war aim of forcing him to divorce his wife Laodice I and marry Berenice Syra, the Pharaoh’s daughter. The Pharaoh achieved his war aim, thus reducing the Seleucid Empire into a vassal state.
Likewise, Iran is attempting to compel the United States to divorce Israel and force the United States to “marry” Iran on terms set by the Iranian government. Iran does not want to let the US-Israeli relationship wither on its own accord, but rather seeks to force the United States into dismissing Israel as an ally. If Iran can show how it can compel the United States to divorce Israel, it would effectively control American foreign policy.
The Iranian government likes to see itself as an Islamic state, yet its diplomatic strategy is not merely Pharaonic but embodies the worst kind of legitimacy warfare practiced by the Ptolemaic dynasty. Legitimacy warfare doesn’t always work. For example, Ptolemy II did his daughter no favors by forcing her on Antiochus II. Berenice Syra and her son wound up dead after Laodice I came back to court and killed them.
buddy larsen & Peter Boston,
While light is the stuff of the universe, it was a word that made it so.
Words have consequences, e.g. Mein Kampf and Das Kapital.
Evil must be confronted and words provide the ammunition for initiating that dialectic.
1. it is written in un readable chicken scratch.
2. some books you can judge by their cover.
3. The ones who do read it show what it contains, submit, become a dhimmi or stand still and die.
Blood, death, misery and ignorance is all it contains with recipes and guides for each.
No thanks, Lan Astelam.
“As I advised previously but didn’t follow through – please do not feed the TROLL.”
What troll? Victor is a agent provocateur, working, I would guess, for the SVS. With unemployment in Russia even higher then the USA, it would be cruel to deny him a job. Especially since the SVS would just replace him with someone that wasn’t so blatant.
Lots of paid guns on the Web. Soros, Pickens and other billionaires use them to astro-turf issues that they can profit from.
Pickens must be having fits. His plan to become the first trillionaire took a major hit in California the other day. LNG is VERY dangerous. Millions of automobiles running on LNG will produce hundreds of San Bruno style explosions. Daily.
So we can expect to see legions of Pickens agents on the WWW telling us how that would never happen with a car or truck. I’m starting a list of places where LNG has exploded to use as ammo against them.
Facts are the best weapon against ignorance. Facts are what did in the AGW crowd.
As Lord Palmerston said about the British Empire
–in US foreign policy we have no permanent friends, only permanent interests–.
Israel was an asset during the cold war—under its current regime it is a liability–both SecDef Gates and General Petraeus have made this fact crystal clear repeatedly in the last few months.
We have complex commercial and foreign policy interests with 191 Member States of the United Nations.
In NATO we have complex mutual defense interests with 27 other independent member countries.
Kissinger is correct -we need to involve Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia in the solution to Afghanistan.
We need to talk with Iran.
We can both talk and carry a big stick and that is what we will do to further American interests moving forward.
I don’t agree with him but Victor presents his argument courteously and clearly. I say skip the insults and name-calling and simply refute his facts and challenge his logic. Let’s be adults here.
Victor does not believe what he says. In Alinsky fashion, he merely forces others to argue to exhaustion. There is an implicit contract in argumentation; If you have better points, I might change my mind. To argue without telling others that contract does not exist, that nothing they can say will change what you say and claim–claim–to believe is to argue in bad faith.
We don’t know what Victor believes. Probably wishes to have the on-the-ground results, the real ones not his hypotheticals, of his talking points, while knowing he can’t sell what he really wants.
As I see it Israel is not a liability to us because, unlike their neighboring Islamic nations, Israel is not a totalitarian society. We need to talk with Iran as Churchill would have talked with Nazi Germany – had it not been for Chamberlain. The best way for a liberty-loving Constitutional Republic to move forward is to ally herself with other liberty-loving nations such as Israel and, when necessary, oppose liberty-suppressing nations like Iran.
“Israel was an asset during the cold war—under its current regime it is a liability–both SecDef Gates and General Petraeus have made this fact crystal clear repeatedly in the last few months.”
“US Gen. David Petraeus reiterated Tuesday that “Israel is – has been, is and will be a – an important strategic ally of the United States.”… Petraeus caused a stir in Israel last month when he charged that the Arab-Israeli conflict hurts America’s ability to advance its interests in the Middle East, fomenting anti-American sentiment and limiting America’s strategic partnerships with Arab governments. He also telephoned IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi to reassure Israel that comments attributed to him regarding supposed Israeli intransigence were spun out of context.”
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=173116
“Earlier this month, a posting on the Foreign Policy website caused a firestorm by reporting that in January, Gen. David Petraeus “sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers.”… The report, which was presented as context for the recent blowup between the Obama administration and Israel, was quickly seized on by critics of Israel as confirmation of their view that U.S. support for Israel hinders America’s national security interests… But on Wednesday, Petraeus poured cold water on the controversy, explaining in detail why “all three items…were wrong, frankly.””
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/25/petraeus-sets-the-record-strai
I conclude from his comments and that of General Petraeus himself that Victor is not stupid; he is a deceiver.
skip…
The San Bruno fire was a pipeline emission of natural gas.
LNG: LIQUIFIED natural gas, i.e. the condensed state of methane shipped across the ocean and but rarely by train or truck.
Pipeline gas, MAINS, ranges between 2,000 psi to 4,000 psi. The higher pressure is used to store gas during the late summer right in front of winter demand. This pressure swing is almost certainly what did in the line integrity under San Bruno.
I would expect PG&E to derate that entire section of mains until further notice. An X-ray back-scatter profile may be needed before re-pressurization.
———
If methane becomes cheap enough — and it sure looks so — it is entirely viable for refineries to use it as a feedstock. Its hydrogen is easily manipulated — and can be blended with heavier fractions to produce even more fuel grade hydrocarbons.
Hence, the vast discoveries of methane/natural gas can have a positive effect on our balance of trade even before CNG ramps up.
I don’t see LNG being ever used in commute vehicles, ever. It would be viable in unit-trains. The western roads have their own gas reserves. As in a prior era, when they owned their own coalfields, it would be a small matter for them to vertically integrate their fuel demand with supplies.
——
Vic…
I hope you’re going this for money. Any student of negotiations knows that multi-party talks = null result.
Afghanistan has no ‘solution.’
What solution may be had lies in other lands, all of them muslim.
I have to tell you that your writing comes off as someone with English as a second language who none the less has spent a lot of time as propaganda apparatchik.
While presenting yourself as a conservative American-Firster; it is plain that you don’t have an Amero-centric world view. You’re a fake – though and through.
Let’s start with: “Israel was an asset” schtick. American’s never regard allies as ‘assets.’ All of our Allies are liabilities. America is not an empire, she’s an anti-empire. That she’s a very large — world dominating — anti-empire does not change that fact.
It was America that dismantled the European Empires — all of them. FDR’s failure to appreciate the British Empire was a bone of contention between him and Churchill.
It’s no co-incidence that the third world got its independence upon the age of American pre-eminence.
The only empires left of note are Russia, China and Iran. They all qualify because entire nations are forcibly held against their wills inside their respective borders.
If any of these three were to permit cession astonishing large hunks of their polity would flee.
—–
There is one overriding reason why the ‘Israeli problem’(tm) gets so much press. She’s open and safe for hostile reporters/agitators. All of the serious hot spots are terrifyingly dangerous.
Like the drunk hunting for his keys under the streetlight — visibility is the be all and end all for reporters. The fact that the keys are down the street in a tough neighborhood is reason enough to stay put.
Reporters don’t get paid to solve anything. They operate under the fetish that their gab makes a difference, that they are bring out the truth. How self-indulgent can one craft get?
Which brings us full circle to the jerk: Victor.
Everything this bot spews is cant. It’s the cant of the Professional Left.
Soon I expect it to be put to music. It certainly is repetitive enough.
Quite amusing how a harmless, intelligent but abrasive character like Whiskey gets banned by Mr. Fernandez while he allows a nasty, tiresome shill for the Arabs like “Victor” hijack the whole damn site.
I’m outta here.
Gordon/143; –between Starling/125 and Storm-Rider/146 specific facts emerge that refute and rebut these charges rifle-shot fashion. In the wee hours this morning, sick with 9/11 images off the tv and on my way to hit the sack, i gave this thread a quick read, and there is this voice that in addition to spinning deadly enemy propaganda, is doing it repeatedly in such a dismissive, superior, condescending tone that i couldn’t help but remember –in the stimulation of such vulgar velvet violence –the true fundamental issue at stake. That’s when smoke started coming out of my ears and i whipped out the keyboard and in remarking on that fundamental issue, fell down and called names. I probably shouldn’t have linked that Warsaw photo, which i can always find because it is in the J folder of my filing system, as even a glance at it boils my blood and makes me see red. But you are right, name-calling is foolish, and to those who read my self-indulgent descent into it, i apologize. But, to be honest, my hands are still twitching, maybe i’ll go in the kitchen and literally break some eggs to make an omlette.
Read the original article from Foreign Policy on the deep background to the Petraeus testimony to Congress his written testimony and his verbal testimony. The written testimony is much more outspoken
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story
General Petraeus said what he said and meant what he said to Congress and the Troops and people in the ” flyover states” heard his message and understood it.
Later AIPAC attacked him and Petraeus ” cooled the mark out” he is a smart warrior.
In the US we have a long history of integrating immigrants who had been at each others throats for generations in their home countries.
We achieved this through the policy of E Puribus Unum.
Since the 60s and the influence of the New Left we have let this powerful policy slide—it is time to build it up again in all our institutions– particularly our schools K12 and our Universities.
Europe and particularly England made a much worse job of it since the 60s– they adopted a failed and flawed policy of multiculturalism. They now face the prospect of “Rivers of Blood” Enoch Powell warned about the consequences http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html .
What we are seeing in Islam now is a war within Global Islam.
Hopefully this will be a prelude to an Age of Enlightenment as occurred in Christian Civilization, balancing Faith with Reason.
The Age of Enlightenment lead to the founding of the USA—but it also led to the horrors of the French Revolution– a nightmare of history from which we have still not full awoken.
The question is– how can we help global Islam follow the American path of enlightenment and avoid the horrors of the Jacobins and their the Reign of Terror in France?
In many ways AQ are the modern Jacobins.
The main thing we must do is get our own house in order and return to the policies of E Pluribus Unum —Never codified by law, E Pluribus Unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act adopting In God We Trust as the official motto.
Maybe we should have stuck with original motto or at least give them equal weight.
Vic, First of all, your claim the US did not try to change Islamic culture by ending the piracy is false. Piracy was a legitimate form of business at that time, a part of their culture, and we changed that. And you might want to read up on that if you are really interested. We attempted regime change, the deposed brother for the usurper. Just as the goal was in sight the state department cut a deal with the tyrant- go figure.
Israel spying on the US? Say it isn’t so! And we never spy on them, do we? They just seem to be better at it. Everything I need to know about Israel vs. Palestine I learned from the Palis destroying perfectly good farms they could have used to feed themselves. Were they trying to ensure victim status permanently or were they simply touched by those unclean Joooooos? Does it matter WHY they hate so vehemently?
Iran will always be a threat as long as they develop WMDs and talk about destroying whole nations.
Lastly, while I and many on here agree that burning books is not an attractive act, I personally think it is a good test of whether Muslims are compatible with American Constitutional beliefs. We tolerate the good with the bad as long as we are not violating someone else’s rights. And Highlander is correct to take you to task for using the military for your points of view. You speak only for yourself, as do I.
Let’s see, what are the modern-era genocides? Well, there’s Turk /Armenian, there’s Hitler/Stalin’s, there’s Mao’s and Rwanda. here’s a question, which USA political party was in power during each of them?
So what’s my point? You be the judge. Is it just the way the cookie crumbles, is a moral atmosphere a fig newton of the imagination?
Speakeasy’s right –the Barbary Wars went on and on for the longest time. it was in two phases with a several year pause in the middle while the first peace deal was tried and failed due to pirates unable to stifle their habits of taking merchants and enslaving sailors. The second phase then began, and it ended with a true peace only when the US Marines convinced the Arab sultans that Americans were crazy and might really come after them in their own palaces. There was an overland desert march by a contingent of Marines, a march that the Bedou could not have made, which attacked a pirate city from the landward, away from the sea guns and walls. After that, the pirate cities along the coast said, “enough, we quit.”
Vic,
As someone who is not particularly religious, E Pluribus Unum is fine by me. But that Unum has to be based on the US Constitution and all that goes with it. You want to be an American? Then, if I so choose, I get to be an ass and burn the Koran or call Mohammed a savage war-monger who has sexual congress with farm animals. You don’t have to like it, just tolerate it. What pisses Arabs off more than anything about Israel is they defended themselves against three nations and won so, apparently, Allah wanted them to exist. And just who are you to go against Allah’s wishes?
Sinner.
But Victor (great handle there) is right that the Mideast war is greatly confounding and that America would be better off if there was not one. That’s not a huge insight. The issue is that there is an aggressor in fact, and it outnumbers the defenders of their family and hearth, by a hundred to one, and is backed by oil and great foreign armies which want that oil, or at least want to deny control of it to anyone else, and who see Israel as a frontier fortress of Oceania, and want rid of Israel on that basis.
The America-Firster, if he is a true America-Firster, must not stop there, though, but must take one more step. That is, what will be the effect on America of Israel being over run by that enemy-in-echelon? Peace and goodwill? With no memories of having sold down the river a friend who counted on us? No problems with a Pol Pot (whom i forgot to include above) getting hold of Israeli civilians?
No chance that a foreign power will leverage that cheap-lift KSA oil in their industrial plant, to out produce a deep-depression energy-kaput USA, to knock out our sovereignty too, and come take our magnificent food producing lands? And do us in as they will have done the Israelis? No chance of that, America-Firsters?
The huge investment of Muslim money in US companies is a good thing–gives them skin in the game and a self interest in the success of the American enterprise.
Likewise the investment of Muslim money in American Universities– as long as it is transparent and the courses are of the highest academic standards and open to peer review.
The real threat to our Universities are the Confucius Institutes— there are now around 90 in the US and growing.
They are funded by the Chinese Communist Party.
They target science and engineering schools close to industrial centers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute
While they are mainly pulpits for Chinese propaganda– which is legitimate– they have also been implicated in intellectual property theft, industrial espionage as well as military espionage— which is not legitimate.
Victor @ 150: But let’s assume Petraeus is at least moderately intelligent, could he have made his statements and requests as a matter of good communications, and with every expectation or even hope of being turned down? Or even out of curiosity as to the reaction he would get?
I do not assume that Biden properly understood or properly reacted to – anything.
156. Victor: “The huge investment of Muslim money in US companies is a good thing–-gives them skin in the game and a self interest in the success of the American enterprise.”
I don’t think it’s a good idea, and that’s why I eschew Caribou Coffee, 87.8% owned by the First Islamic Investment Bank, “which, among other things has the following philosophy: ‘Above all, ensuring that all activities conform to Islamic Shari’ah’” :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1946853/posts
But Victor is correct that American foreign policy should be governed by American interests. Right now, I’d say it’s governed in no small part by Saudi money, to the extent that political votes and academic interests are funded by that source and act reflexively to serve and thereby preserve that funding.
American interests are ultimately, I’d say, dependent on who stands with the U.S. when hostilities erupt. Would that be Israel or, say Jordan, or any other Muslim country?
Hmmm. Have to think a long time about that one? If the U.S. wants some countries to rely on, it better be willing to support those countries and let them know they have U.S. support. Appeasement does not build alliances, only conveniences.
I like having Victor around, at least for one thread, to provide creative left-retreatist talking points. I think Wretchard gives him access just to provide skeet for Belmont Club target practice. Got to get in that practice to stay sharp.
Until now I haden’t realized that General Petraeus harbored irrational views on the nature of Islam; I stand corrected:
“As head of Central Command, General Petraeus’s area of responsibility includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. That is, CENTCOM is the U.S. military’s bridge to the Muslim umma, much of which despises America. The vast majority of Americans couldn’t care less about that. It is Islam’s problem, not ours — we’re not dying to be loved by a dysfunctional civilization that produces most of the planet’s terrorists. But for the Wilsonians who deem it worth our time, money, and lives to try to remake the Islamic world, Muslim animus is something that must be addressed… We need, they tell us, to exhibit a little sympathy. We need to be more understanding of the totalitarian, iniquitous, misogynistic, homophobic, virulently anti-Western and anti-Semitic culture that dominates Muslim countries… General Petraeus is a uniquely gifted warrior and intellect. He is also a major enthusiast of the Islamic Democracy Project… And that’s what Petraeus’s counter-insurgency theory is: a civil-society strategy for an America that no longer believes we have to defeat our enemies first, that pretends most of our enemies are actually our friends, and that thinks we not only owe the world another Marshall Plan but one that starts in 1944 instead of 1947… Petraeus is not a disinterested raconteur, nor was he pretending to be one. His purpose was not simply to relate facts dispassionately so that political officials could decide what to make of them. He was there to urge a political point of view… Moreover, he claimed the lack of progress was a principal “root cause” of regional instability. That was a telling choice of words. Nowhere in Petraeus’s 56-page statement did he discuss Islamist ideology. Nowhere did he relate the fact that calls for Israel’s destruction, based on scriptural interpretations by Islam’s most influential authorities, are entirely mainstream in his “area of responsibility.” That, somehow, is not a “root cause” of instability; when it comes to Israel… No need to dwell on Islamist ideology or the fact that one of the “two peoples” denies the other’s basic right to exist. Instead, what we really need is “mutual trust” — after all, why wouldn’t you trust people for whom your annihilation is their fondest wish?”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229502/petraeuss-israel-problem/andrew-c-mccarthy?page=1
Here is an excerpt from General Petraeus’s written testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16, 2010:
“enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to advance our interest in the AOR (Area of Responsibility). Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.”
I believe the General is wrong about Israel and about the nature of Islam. Islam is a force for totalitarianism and will not be reformable until Islamic understanding of the Koran, Sira and Hadiths is reformed (not going to happen). Such irrational thinking about our World War II Nazi enemy would express its self like this:
“enduring hostilities between England and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to advance our interest in the American AOR (Area of Responsibility). British-German tensions often flare into violence and large scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Great Britain.”
It is time to choose sides – Israel vs. Islam – Liberty vs. Tyranny.
wretchard @ 41 – it is more like this for some of us:
Later, Tater…..
I did not care for Gen. Petraeus’s faux “surge” in Iraq. I do not care for Gen. Petraeus’s faux “surge” in Afghanistan. His betrayal of Israel came as no surprise.
What neither the General nor his president comprehend is the full-bore support of voting, Evangelical Christians for Israel. Come November, they may get a taste of that medicine.
Mr. Netanyahu needs to stall “negotiations” with the PA until after the election’s results are in. I would start by very publically insisting on Mr. Abbas’s declaration of Israel’s right to perpetual existence, in English. That should throw some scree in the gears.
Stating the obvious: “Victor” is a troll, perhaps even a software “bot”. He posts his serial narrative, irregardless of the discussion, and never acknowledges or engages in responses. You could string his posts together, almost line for line, and find a primary school level essay, posted one paragraph at a time.
Whatever his agenda is, it does not match Wretchard’s are the majority of posters here, who post engaging, witty, and at times wise comments about the events of the world. His polemic, reflexively anti-Semitic and generally anti-American, could originate from any of perhaps 200 countries around the world. He is clueless of what America is actually all about. But he’s probably not an Islamicist – maybe a Lyndon LaRouche type hold over – not sure.
I suggest we ignore his drivel.
Old Salt
who stands with the U.S. when hostilities erupt?
The answer is— the Anglosphere —Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—through ECHELON–SIGINT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence%29
With the UK involved in sharp edged rough stuff.
After that NATO members with varying levels of commitment and competence.
Glad we got the facts on what Petraeus actually said straight— finally– common agreement and understanding all round.
Also General David H. Petraeus received the 2010 Irving Kristol Award at the American Enterprise Institutes Annual Dinner. http://www.aei.org/speech/100142 there is a video and transcript .
The award was given on May 6 2010 AFTER he gave his congressional testimony in March 2010—-he got a standing ovation after his AEI speech.
“Israel was an asset during the cold war—under its current regime it is a liability–both SecDef Gates and General Petraeus have made this fact crystal clear repeatedly in the last few months.”
POV. IMHO, it is Gates and Petraeus that are the liabilities. Gates might just be worse then McNamara. Petraeus is a clever guy, but he has the spinal characteristics of a Jelly Fish. He will spew forth whatever his political bosses tell him to. No moral fiber and a monster ego.
“We have complex commercial and foreign policy interests with 191 Member States of the United Nations.”
Is there a point there? Germany and France had complex commercial and foreign policy interests in 1939. As a point your paymasters might be interested in, so did Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941. As the Panzers clanked east, Soviet trains full of food and raw materials were going west.
“In NATO we have complex mutual defense interests with 27 other independent member countries.”
I disagree about how complex they are. America spends trillions defending NATO. NATO stabs us in the back at every opportunity. What is complex about that? It would be more in America’s national interest to abandon NATO and keep Israel then the other way around.
“Kissinger is correct -we need to involve Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia in the solution to Afghanistan.”
Evidence please! Coalition War is the hardest kind. It only works when there is an overriding interest shard by ALL members of the coalition. Since 80% (4 out of 5) of the nations you named support terrorism, then adding them to any coalition would be foolish and absurd. Plus the USA doesn’t need them. They provide nothing but another source of friction, which war has enough of already.
“We need to talk with Iran.
We can both talk and carry a big stick and that is what we will do to further American interests moving forward.”
Absolutely. We need to start bombing Iran, while at the same time telling them what they need to do to stop the bombing. Talk in the morning, bomb at night.
Once the Mad Dog Mullahs figure out that they, nor their Russian buds can stop the Bombing, they will start talking up a storm.
Like Al Capone said; “A .38 and a smile will get you more then a smile alone.” It is like negotiating with a Donkey. Hitting them upside the head to get their attention is often required. In the case of Iran, they don’t think we will hit them. The best way to get them to reconsider is to hit them. A love tap will do it. A JDAM through Imadamnutjob’s bathroom window while he is taking his morning dump would be even better.
re: “Until now I haden’t realized that General Petraeus harbored irrational views on the nature of Islam; I stand corrected” – Storm Rider
Petraeus is a politician. Most general’s are, to one extent or another. The best are an excellent combination of warrior-leader, diplomat, and deft politician.
Petraeus has been “drafted” back into a difficult military environment. Yes, he’s there to bail Obama out, but Obama has also put him there to fail. Obama no way intends, or has ever intended, to “finish” the war in Iraq or Afghanistan with victory. Having the “Hero of the Iraq war” take the Afghan war down into ignominy and failure is the perfect exclamation point for Obama, who has always maintained that nothing George Bush did after 9/11 bore any credit to him, the nation, or the U.S. military at all. Final narrative: It was all a huge, stupid, even criminal mistake by George Bush and the Republicans.
Petraeus, on the other hand, is out to win. He can’t engage the host country unless he is at least “balanced” between Israel and the Islamic states, with a “wink..wink” during private conferences that “we’re in this together”, whatever “this” happens to be to the Afghani, Iraqi, Saudi, Israeli, etc. host.
I give Petraeus a long leash; he’s got a job few want and even fewer would take. I’d prefer spending American lives for American interests, e.g. “No American help for a Sharia-based constitution – you have to make a break as Japan did with Shintoism post WWII”. I’d also prefer we wait on investing a nickel on “nation building” until (a) the war is over and (b) The gulf oil states send matching funds under a “U.N. mandate” (no “Islamic Crecent” Wahabi Islamic sponsored proselytizing under the guise of “relief”).
All said: I no longer feel that Afghanistan is worth one single American life – the Afghani’s haven’t earned that. I believe allowing America boys to die for a President’s “political viability” is immoral. Obama has not defined an achievable mission. Petraeus is doing what he can for our kids over there, but if it were I, I’d fall on my sword before I’d be an Obama party favor.
Now, if a new President want to move on Iran, I’ll grab my cammies and M4, and this old sailor will rejoin the game. Any mission that actually defends American interests, that actually protects U.S. citizens and results in lower danger to Americans at home – I’m up for. America has a defendable “narrative” – freedom, the Bill of Rights, self-rule – which is worth living or dying for. We should certainly NOT support with fortune or blood any country that has a counter-narrative.
Old Salt
“I believe allowing America boys to die for a President’s “political viability” is immoral.”
Absolutely. That is the bone I have to pick with Petraeus. He should have resigned, saying that POTUS has given him an impossible job and no support just to gain political points with American lives. That is what I mean by ‘Lack of Moral Fiber’. Physical courage is facing the threat of bodily harm and doing what is right anyway. Petraeus has demonstrated physical courage enough so there is no doubt he possesses it. Moral courage is doing what is right regardless of the harm it does personally or professionally. So far Petraues has shown no signs of being aware that moral courage even exists.
To elaborate my point.“Kissinger is correct -we need to involve Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia in the solution to Afghanistan.”-
Kissinger pointed out dangers for these countries of having a narco-terrorist state on their borders or near borders in Afghanistan.
For example–Russia suffers most from Afghanistan’s narcotics exports.
Russia is the world’s largest consumer of Afghan heroin, and official statistics point to a staggering 30,000-40,000 deaths each year as a result of overdoses authorities link another 100000 deaths each to drug-related issues.These are young people–Russia’s future–they already have a demographic crisis.
–Even more worrying is that Russia has a spiralling HIV problem, mostly resulting from addicts sharing needles, with an estimated 1 million people HIV positive.
A coalition war is not what I am suggesting—the US military excels in the Leviathan stage of warfare–destroying CCC capability, OODA disruption etc, for example we took Baghdad in days.
It is the next stage of warfare we need a coalition for—the Systems Integration Stage—policing, customs control, sanitation, health, pacification, economic development, infrastructure etc.
We do not want to have our excellent combat troops tied in that stuff– it takes the edge off–let Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia take care of that under our direction and leadership.
The Indian Army alone has enough capacity to put boots on the ground to achieve Systems Integration in Afghanistan but the burden needs to be shared with the other states to keep a level playing field and speed execution.
US would provide oversight at low cost to us.
We need to develop these coordination and collaboration capabilities anyway.
So we can do what we do best– the Leviathan Stage of War—then mobilize a coalition of others–UN or whatever– to do the Systems Integration Stage of Pacification and Civilization.
The General is involved in complicated diplomacy.
At NO TIME would I want a war-fighting General to place on the record his true strategic opinion. Such would be treason.
War is deceit.
It also does not follow a straight path.
As a coalition, the ISAF has many politicians to serve.
What you have in public is cant.
The MC, Militarily Correct, statement on the record that does not complicate matters even further.
The LAST thing I would expect out of CenCom is praise for Israel.
———
As a historical side-note: Panzer General Erich Hoepner penned an anti-Bolshevic polemic for his troops in the days before Barbarossa.
When push came to shove, Hoepner stalled further penetrations east of Leningrad -sparing the city. Along the way, he did everything possible to grind-up and destroy the Death’s Head Division. By the time he was through, the 3SS was destroyed and Barbarossa a failure. He let Hitler know, in the end, it was all deliberate. Hoepner, not withstanding appearances, did not want Hitler to prevail.
As for the 3SS, it was their considered opinion that Hoepner was trying to kill them all! He knew what they were all about, and he made sure that the division suffered like no other. By the time they were pulled out of the campaign their medical staff rated the troops as being in worse condition than a death camp inmate! And the doctor in question had just come from the camp system!
On the record, it is obvious that Hoepner — when possible — did what he could to destroy the Nazis in Germany. For some reason, he could never get Hitler to visit his front. What a shame.
@162. Old Salt
“He posts his serial narrative, irregardless of the discussion, and never acknowledges or engages in responses”
If you read the earlier narrative— there was no discussion– just irrational rants and ad hominem abuse and weird insults that did not warrant a response.
I pointed out what Petraeus actually said days ago–only now has anybody actually read it.
There has been a tectonic shift in US policy on the Holy Land–a few smart Israeli diplomats and reporter picked on that—most other people here and there seem to be in total denial.
The change was decided upon well over 12 months ago.
It is a done deal.—
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Where under crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
Storm-Rider@159 said: “Until now I hadn’t realized that General Petraeus harbored irrational views on the nature of Islam; I stand corrected:”
Keep in mind that General Petraeus is a warrior with a very specific mission, and that his statements are to be considered as tactical elements of that mission. I suggest to you that if you had his job you would be saying the same thing and for the same reason – his public statements are a core part of his strategy.
Recall the old saying: “truth is the first casualty of war.”
I think Victor’s on autopilot. A Victorola, if you will.
#128 & #129…
That’s why I likes Buddy…
142. Victor
There is no status quo for the moslems in Europe. They will keep pushing until they are stopped and turned back.That means that eventually they will either subjugate the pagan Europeans or the Europeans will rebel and force them out wholesale from the continent. The likelihood is that it will be the latter.
The job of all American patriots is to ensure that the European moslems return to their home countries.
ScenarioA 171,
I believe General Petraeus is a brilliant man, but I also believe he is confused – or deceived – about the true nature of our enemy. Imbued with common sense, none of our Generals or Admirals during World War II said about our allies what General Petraeus said about Israel.
“Enduring hostilities between England and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to advance our interest… British-German tensions often flare into violence and large scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Great Britain.”
I would never have uttered what General Petraeus said about Israel because words are important. The General’s words have generated confusion in the minds of American people – confusion about who is our enemy and who is our ally – thereby reducing our wartime national resolve. “Truth is the first casualty of war” means confusing your enemy, not confusing your own people.
As England was in 1940, Israel is our ally in the eternal struggle for human freedom; so our favoritism for Israel should be publicly stated national policy. Let the chips fall where they may – let the Islamic world choke on the reality of our Constitutional Republic and our love of freedom. God, for the sake of our children, I wish we had three nuclear power plants for every major American city – and all of our factories back from China and Mexico.
173 Charles
The point of view I presented regarding the Holy Land is much milder than what you will hear in faculty lounge in Americas 1st tier, 2nd tier, 3rd tier colleges across the US.
The views of students are even more strident.
These are our future leaders
Go to Europe and the views are much, much more strident across the population
Go to the UN countries and increase that stridency by 1000%.
Among my business executives colleagues in the US there is little or no support for the current regime in Israel–main reason– Lieberman is seen as a Russian Mafia thug, he is a convicted child abuser, under indictment for corruption, an ex member of Kach-Kahane–he probably is not even Jewish like 50% of the 1 million Russian immigrants to Israel– he is the only foreign minister in the World who does not live in his country– he lives in the West Bank–
executives do not want to meet with him– diplomats do not want to meet with him–
why would any civilized country hire a thug like that as Foreign Minister?
The Israeli hasbara has been a disaster–Mossad operations in Dubai was a key stone cops operation and alienated Australia, New Zealand,Canada,Ireland, Germany and Poland by stealing passports and the US by currency manipulation.
The murder of 8 Turks and an American citizen on a “peace flotilla” just piled it on.
When you have dug yourself into a hole — stop digging.
American business and diplomacy has a brand and our support of the current regime in Israel harms that brand–
Petraeus said the same thing re our troops.
There are some very intelligent, rational people in Israel– but they are not in the current regime– ultimately people there will vote with their feet.
Meanwhile— time moves on and we have to pursue US best interest for our US citizens.
“The point of view I presented regarding the Holy Land is much milder than what you will hear in faculty lounge in Americas 1st tier, 2nd tier, 3rd tier colleges across the US. The views of students are even more strident.”
“The German university students were among the earliest groups to back Hitler. The intellectuals were among his regime’s most ardent supporters. Professors with distinguished academic credentials, eager to pronounce their benediction on the Fuhrer’s cause, put their scholarship to work full time; they turned out a library of admiring volumes, adorned with obscure allusions and learned references.” Leonard Peikoff
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/review_rand.htm
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/chapter1.htm
@176. Storm-Rider
Stepping over Godwin’s law—It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches. In other words, Godwin put forth the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all discussions—regardless of topic or scope—inevitably wind up being about Hitler and the Nazis.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
The reality is that the Israel brand is dead– it has squandered its moral property– what I do not understand is the massive denial about that reality.
Israel is full of bright smart people– but it has been hijacked by a home grown Taliban group– when I was in undergraduate school students still idealized Israel kids of all faiths, wanted to visit a kibbutz– make a contribution and have a good time– by the time I entered graduate school that had gone– now it is ancient history–dead and buried– what happened?
The hasbara spin has been a disaster– the brand has gone and that is a shame.
Victor, do you see any Jews surviving in Israel under your scenarios? While it’s true Israel used to have better support on the European (and American) street, they have not survived even this long by taking outsiders’ advice.
I think Israel’s major mistake has been taking too little action against the Palestinians. Perhaps they had no choice, but in an endless conflict bad things can happen, which is not the case if the conflict is brought to an end. Easier to ask foregiveness, and all that.
But mostly you seem to think there is a reliable negotiating partner somewhere in the Arab world, for Israel or the US, and I can’t see why you, an apparently rational person, would believe that.
I’ll take a stab. In its early years Israel had a strong utopian socialist streak. For a while it was the darling of the international left. Eventually its economy became more free-market oriented, it gained the support of the United States, and the Soviets threw their support to the Arab countries. So the “cool kids” didn’t like it anymore.
Godwin’s so-called law is irrelevant; only the truth matter here. Islam is a totalitarian legal/political system under a cloak of religion – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Islam differs from Nazism only in that the Nazis never developed a stealthy religious outer garment – they remained a wolf in wolf’s clothing. The reality Victor denies is that Totalitarian Islam’s brand is evil and needs to be dead. I believe Victor is an “intellectual” who is an ardent supporter of the enemy camp.
Israel had the chance to be be the technology and financial hub for the Mid East– a combination of Silicon Valley and Switzerland– Gaza /Palestine could have developed its off shore natural gas reserves to become the new Dubai— that future is now dead.
There are 500,00 colonist/settlers in the West Bank– they will not leave and the IDF will not eject them– it would take a civil war.
The Holy Land is destined to be an Old South Africa like apartheid state a 1 state solution with much pain and isolation– eventually it will be like the new South Africa.
A great opportunity was lost by actions on both sides– the future looks very bleak and ethnic cleansing—genocide— is a real possibility.
America gave it our best shot– now we have to move on to pursue our best interest.
Again–
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Where under crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.”
Read the whole poem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m
—and Weep—–and grieve for a lost opportunity– then?
174. Storm-Rider
re: ScenarioA 171, I believe General Petraeus is a brilliant man, but I also believe he is confused – or deceived – about the true nature of our enemy.
Brilliance is not the same as judgment or wisdom. History is full of brilliant people who were so impressed with their own brilliance they wound up making fools of themselves (and sometimes causing incredible amounts of misery, destruction and death).
I also believe your observation up thread that he is a deceiver is correct. The hypocrisy of the murderous Rules of Engagement imposed on our troops which he so blithely acquiesces to in comparison to the policy platitudes he spouts is appalling. He is financing his lofty geopolitical agenda AND his career with the blood and lives of the men and women of our military.
Now, regarding his putative brilliance, Old Salt noted, correctly:
165. Old Salt – Petraeus has been “drafted” back into a difficult military environment. Yes, he’s there to bail Obama out, but Obama has also put him there to fail. Obama no way intends, or has ever intended, to “finish” the war in Iraq or Afghanistan with victory. Having the “Hero of the Iraq war” take the Afghan war down into ignominy and failure is the perfect exclamation point for Obama.
This very scenario has been discussed here at BC in previous threads. If Petraeus can’t grasp this obvious reality and continues to willingly allow himself, and the troops under his command to be used, and used up, in this way then history may indeed remember him as one of the American military’s most brilliant fools.
160. RagnarD
I guess it’s almost time to misbehave… /g
Israel had the chance to be be the technology and financial hub for the Mid East– a combination of Silicon Valley and Switzerland– Gaza /Palestine could have developed its off shore natural gas reserves to become the new Dubai— that future is now dead.
There are 500,00 colonist/settlers in the West Bank– they will not leave and the IDF will not eject them– it would take a civil war.
When? Just when did Israel take this wrong turn?
When they first started to settle the West Bank after 1967? I suppose an argument can be made for that, but an equally strong argument is that, the Arabs having started that war, the Israelis won that land by blood and conquest, and with the Saudis even then backing only the most radical, there was no chance at all of peace, no matter what other path Israel pursued. Arabs seethe, we know that now – and should laugh at it whenever it occurs, laugh and send up the Predators, but laugh first and last.
It’s a lovely vision, Israel supplying the brainpower that Saudi Arabia totally lacks. I believe you tip your hand when you envision the Palestinians developing the offshore gas. May I suggest it is not just Israel’s loss, that Saudi Arabia’s loss is even greater, they might actually be a going 21st century concern, if they were friends with Israel now, or twenty, or fifty years ago. But no, they love their goats and their dogma and their bloody, misanthropic dreams.
The real answer to Afghanistan might just be to declare half the country open to western colonization and settlements. Let the real estate interest pacify the frontier, they’ve been good at that throughout history.
Skipper, you said in 141: “Facts are the best weapon against ignorance. Facts are what did in the AGW crowd.”
I can’t help remembering the scene in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” — “Bring Outcher Dead!!!” — one body on the cart perks up and says, with a hopeful inflection, “But I’m feeling much better…”
Whack’em with a damn great mallet.
Cartoons used to be restricted to Saturday mornings for the kids.
Vic now brings cartoon logic to life.
As a fitna provocateur he’s very much in the C-4, ‘ballast from the past.’
Vic wants us to place all of our bets congruent with new-wave diplomacy: the Bubba-Zero axis.
For Vic, allies are swappable assets.
If ANY of Vic’s nostrums were pursued WWV would erupt.
More cretin than seer, Vic assumes that a fulsome nuclear state is going to gracefully exit to make a more ‘Vic-comprehensible’ world.
In Vic’s world, China, Iran, Russia and a rogues galley of orcs can stroke us all towards a bright shining light upon the hill.
If that means ground zero for the mullah bomb; then the answer is yes.
If that means that anything constructive can come from V’s fantastic understandings; then you get a one way pass to the First Directorate.
—–
I know that we re-patriated some dis-information agents recently. They’re back in the swing already – very apparently.
I do wonder – would the federal government be allowed to destroy cannabis if that cannabis had verses of the Koran written into it? What if coca leaves had verses of the Koran written on them?
Imagine if a Koran were made of a hallucinogenic material. Imagine if burning a Koran were not a matter of giving offense, but rather a matter of honoring it. Imagine if such a burning could honor the message of shunning idolatry by regarding the Koran not as an idol but as a holy sacrifice to a higher level of consciousness when the fumes given off by the book help “open one’s mind”.
Imagine if such a Koran were infused with incense, giving the entire event a scent of holiness. Imagine mystics in a trance praising God as they burn the sacred text as an offering. If the Koran were truly sacred, the holiest imaginable thing in the universe, what greater sacrifice could there be than to burn such a book as a sacrifice to God?
Muslims may be willing to sacrifice their lives for their cause, but are they willing to sacrifice their sacred book to please God if He so commands it? If Muslims are unwilling to sacrifice their holy Koran, even if God commands it, wouldn’t that mean there is a limit to what they are willing to sacrifice to God’s will? Who am I to argue with a mystic whom God has directed to burn Islamic sacred texts as a means of honoring them?
To join the Mafia, each new “made man” is supposed to burn a piece of paper, regarding that paper as a saint and thus burning a saint vicariously. Imagine a new brotherhood where each new member were required to burn a Koran to join, not out of hatred but rather out of a desire to honor Islam through burning its sacred texts.
Perhaps the federal government would be constrained from destroying drugs if those drugs were in the form of a holy book. How could the federal government do otherwise given how burning such contraband would be blasphemy to countless Muslims?
Weirder things have happened than worshipping God by burning His holy scriptures.
On a related note, I would like to know whether a Muslim, out of taqiyya, can burn a Koran in order to infiltrate an enemy group. Or, does publicly burning a Koran irrevocably turn a Muslim into an apostate?
@186. blert
Sorry about your head injury–call a nurse–ok! –take care just press that button by your bed– good boy
Anyone who has attended any defense related briefing in the last 7 years is familiar with Thomas P.M. Barnett http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/
Who made the case for 2 kinds of warfare
1/ Leviathan– shock and awe– get some!
2/ Systems Integration–here is the plan– can I help you with that? get it done!
The Marines and Special Forces specialize in warfare # 1
Nation building is warfare # 2
His point is to not confuse the two campaigns– coalition partners can do war fare #2 our US dominance is in war fare # 1.
There are crowds of idiots and pathetickers in the USA who have enjoyed an easy life so long, watching the horse manure that Hollywood and the NY entertainment “industry” spews out, that they think the good guys are only good guys so long as they shoot the guns out of the hands of the bad guys.
I am not joking. I’ve heard exactly that thought too many times, along with the complaint that the police have no right to pile six or eight officers onto a lone “suspect” to subdue him. “That’s not FAIR!”
The stupid pricks have never bothered to consider— much less actually study — the requirements we pile on the uniformed police officer. For instance, the notion that once an officer has told a suspect that they’re under arrest, that officer is obliged to use whatever force is necessary to actually control and hold the suspect. No discretion.
A great winnowing is long overdue. In the past, when stupid fu*kards start acting like the rules of physics, epidemiology, or statistics don’t apply to them, bad things start to happen.
You see’em waltz out after doing their business in the toilet stall and breeze out the door without a glance at the soap and lavatory, you know the coming plague is going to be very much helped along by their selfish prick arrogance. All the centuries of civilization, the decades of striving by Ignaz Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, John Snow and battalions of health workers who’ve established how diseases are spread — out the window!
Or they try to tell us that Islam is our pal, and we can all just get along just fine, if only we would just abandon the Jews, the Trinity, the Constitution, and, well, any thing of any value…
I remember Edmund Blackadder trying to teach counting to Baldrick with a handful of dry beans. He places a single bean on the table.
Baldrick, “That’s one bean.”
Blackadder, placing a second bean, “And now?”
Baldrick, “Two beans.”
Blackadder, adding one more, “And now how many?”
Baldrick, “Three beans.”
Blackadder, placing one more legume, “And with one more?”
Baldrick, without skipping a beat, “Some beans.”
Who made the case for 2 kinds of warfare
1/ Leviathan– shock and awe– get some!
2/ Systems Integration–here is the plan– can I help you with that? get it done!
The Marines and Special Forces specialize in warfare # 1
Nation building is warfare # 2
His point is to not confuse the two campaigns– coalition partners can do war fare #2 our US dominance is in war fare # 1.
Yeah but most of that is airhead crap.
First, we actually neglected to *do* the real shock and awe in Iraq, instead we called dropping big bombs on vacant fields by the same name. Crapoloa.
Second, war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means, not the other way around. Nation building may be good stuff or not, but it is not war. Colonialism might be, but nation building is not colonialism – at least not necessarily, and not the way we’ve been doing it, which is mostly very poorly.
But your complete nutcase idea is that our allies will bestir themselves to do it. You suggested we enlist the Russians and whoever to join us. Do you really see this happening? Isn’t this the same pap that Obambus has been spewing since his campaign days? Hasn’t he bowed to everyone on the friggin’ globe by now, with no positive results whatsoever?
My man, you have lovely ideas, but apparently no connection at all with the real world.
“systems integration”, forsooth, that’s when you walk out, find the nearest bar, and take the taxi home.
@191. Josh
Sorry if my language is above your pay grade I should have been clearer.
In Japan we did warfare # 1 very effectively and then spent years and millions doing warfare #2– nation building– under MacArthur
In Europe we did warfare # 1 very effectively and then spend years and millions doing warfare # 2 under the Marshall Plan.
That is the reality– we excel at warfare # 1 we need to delegate warfare # 2
At this point in Iraq and Afghanistan we are at the warfare # 2 stage
My argument is that we can get others to do warfare # 2 faster and cheaper by supervising other nations to do that task for us.
US troops need to keep our edge and dominance in warfare # 1
A simple point that will keep us on top of the food chain and save us money while keeping our troops sharp and focused upon the main issue.
I do not believe that US troops should be community organizers– I believe US troops should be our killer defense system.
Others have different opinions– what is your argument and evidence for a different view?
Systems Integration is the technical term for pacification and civilization– installing a compatible operating system– for those familiar with computers.
addendum-
We could also employ US retired bankers, teachers, architects, judges and police officers,social workers etc to do warfare # 2—ie nation building.
In AfPak we can employ Indians,Russian etc for pennies on the dollar to do these task and they will know the language and culture etc.
A simple idea–that some may see as trivial–
We could of course adopt the Roman Empires approach and kill everyone and sow the land with salt–that would not go down too well with the WTO or the UN– but it is an alternative for consideration.
My main point is that we need to focus combat troops on what they do best and what we need them to do for US best interests–and make a distinction between the two requirements–to dominate and win.
How is it Vic that EVERY one of your bon mots is a years old retread at the Club.
Only when you espouse them — they are without insight, originality or creativity?
You must be a replicant…. Cant, can do.
Victor, i’m trying to follow all this –let me ask you, the 5,000 year old tribe that took that wrong turn during graduate school –do you ever wonder if perhaps it was because of your major?
That possibility would bother me no end.
But Kissinger could answer the question, and it would give you a chance to let him know that those countries he wants us to talk to, we’re talking to them already, and have been for some several centuries (well, save one, but ping pong fixed that up). If they have something to say to us, or us them, ve haf vays off gettig ze informationz backz n forths.
–but is there something specific regarding Israel that you recommend we secretly negotiate with those named countries?
if not, i hardly see where our alliance, or rather our erstwhile alliance (pending an election or two), with that nation precludes any cooperation with the central Asian contiguousnesses. If any lube is needed, a $60 bb arms sale to KSA ought to provide it. The 80 some odd Strike Eagles are to hold off Iran, tho of course, that moving phalange that writes can always change the direction of its script, there’s no problem there, the poem says so. Tell ‘em what they want to hear, then stab ‘em in the back. Why not? Are they any better than the South Vietnamese? Plus in the Boat People stage they’d have it much better; there’s not as many sharks in the Med & South Atlantic.
Oh buddy, wherever you may go when you disappear from the BC you always return just in time to take on these antisemitic/paleo/lubyanka/whatevertheyare/trolls
Where would this hotel be without you? Seriously….;)
mary, thanks for that –sweet thing to say. Count me a member of the marymcl fan club, too, backatcha mutual. i dunno why i ebb and flow on the writing n opinionating. Something will proscribe it for a few days, then it’s hard to fire back up –and a long time can go by. There’s several folks i see come and go on the same sort of lune-atic rhythm. Wretchard and some others can stay sharp at all times without going on months-long outback droolabouts –dunno how they do it –but there’s never explaining how human minds work, they can explain everything but themselves, seems –
Mad Fiddler 191: “I’ve heard exactly that thought too many times, along with the complaint that the police have no right to pile six or eight officers onto a lone “suspect” to subdue him. “That’s not FAIR!””
The same line of “liberal” irrationality applies to our military where your accurate observation about police officers can rephrased to: “I’ve heard exactly that thought too many times, along with the complaint that our military have no right to pile twice as many soldiers onto the “enemy” or drop bombs from 30,000 feet to defeat him. “That’s not FAIR!”
The so-called Modern American “Liberal” is irrational; they want more of the liberty-hating bad guys alive and more of the liberty-loving good guys dead. The so-called Modern American “Liberal” is like a stupid sheep in the pasture – they can’t tell the difference between the guard dog and the wolf – they simply fear canine teeth of any kind – or – more ominously – they prefer and root for the wolf. We should stop calling our domestic opposition “liberals” (as if they believed in the Declaration of Independence) and just call them self-loathing fools in the former case – or domestic enemies of liberty in the latter case.
You got my drift, Storm-Rider.
The mental capacities of the Leftward Scuttling herd allow them to look at any situation and grasp a very finite level of complexity. Add any further complications and it’s “some beans.”
Of course, I don’t actually believe that anyone on the left is stupid, dumb, retarded, slow, simple, or otherwise of low intelligence.
As a rule, you will more often be correct to attribute idiotic thinking to insanity, delusion, and well, mis-informed dogma, than to stupidity.
And you can’t ignore the possibility of plain old evil.
@ 195
Graduate school was medicine—you do not find many anti-Jewish people in such departments– on the contrary.
What happened was the assassination of Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin by right wing radical terrorist Yigal Amir.
That was the final blow to the Israeli brand world wide and the end of its dream to become the finance and technology hub of the Mid-East.
Since then Israel has managed to alienate all its remaining friends–for the US it is a crazy aunt in the attic to whom we dole out $3Billion per year with no ROI and with no compliance in return.
Israel is irrelevant to the Kissinger proposal re Afghanistan and, as Petraeus said, a liability to our broader interests in the larger region.
As PMs Barak and Olmert predicted Israeli is now on the old South Africa path, apartheid, pariah status, international boycotts and ultimately a multi-ethnic One state solution.
@ Victor (201) who said “That was the final blow to the Israeli brand world wide and the end of its dream to become the finance and technology hub of the Mid-East.
Since then Israel has managed to alienate all its remaining friends–for the US it is a crazy aunt in the attic to whom we dole out $3Billion per year with no ROI and with no compliance in return.”
Israel may not be the finance hub of the Middle East but if it’s not the technology hub, I’m not sure who can claim the title. Even the most cursory glance at the list of Israeli companies traded on the NASDAQ suggests that they far outpace neighboring and regional countries. Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Saudi, the Gulf countries–none come even remotely close, not even when taken together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_companies_quoted_on_the_Nasdaq
Even more interesting is to examine the list of Israeli companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq. Note how many have been acquired and by whom–Phillips, Marvell, HP, eBay, Verifone, SanDisk, Motorola, Stanley Works. You, Victor, may assert that there’s no ROI but a lot of people who do tech for a living say other wise. They clearly recognize the enormous intellectual resources in the Israeli state and are investing millions at a time and billions in the aggregate. Crazy aunt in the attic my a**.
Victor, with your #201 you’ve finally hit an acceptable level of tone and depth of criticism. In #201 you’ve framed a political point of view, and have limned a problem that can be solved by Israeli voters in Israeli elections. With no sinister imputations with grave implications contingent on unlikely knowledge, nor parallel constructions presented without the pertinent parallel (aka “deceit”), you’ve freed your commentary of heaviness with light matters (politics electoral weigh light) and lightness with heavy matters (the holy land and the people defending it, and western civilizational vitality), have quit the trifling with pronunciamentos from idiotic altitudes, which have been suggesting a dramatically unbalanced insouciance toward matters of existential import for a friend and ally of the United States of America, a nation with yet a still-recoverable reputation for loyalty and steadfast resolve, and have settled onto an individual expression of opinion, all well and proper, if still wrong, in my opinion.
@202. starling
You are correct Israel has a lot of sci/tech talent
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology– is a world class institution.
However-Barak warned last week Israel faces a massive brain drain if things do not change from the momentum old South Africa path.” talented Israelis can land on their feet anywhere in the world” he said.
To clarify my point– until the murder of Rabin by an extreme right wing terrorist–Israel was on the path to becoming the Switzerland and Silicon Valley of the Mid East, with massive investment from the oil rich states and a thriving trade, talent and intellectual property exchange with its neighbors–the US was poised to help make that a reality. That dream is dead–
Instead Israel is now isolated– it is an incubator for tech companies that are then bought by big US Tech companies.
That is a very different model in which the talent could emigrate almost over night–leaving nothing–that is what Barak predicts will happen.
MF/199; LOL –well it’s better than LOL –how ’bout MFF –”some beans” is Mad Fiddler Funny –
–and it’s also what Esau traded his position in life for, showing perforce he wouldn’t keep that position. And he’s been bitter every sense, at the trade, rather than properly at the truth, which is that his own free will made the trade.
***
V –is it the South Africa vision, or is it the Iran Bomb, that is affecting international risk capital? Ehud Barak, intellectual and proven great warrior that he is, is a political animal and very ‘liberal’.
Muslim investment in an overt manner in anything Jewish is a complete non-starter.
South Africa, your template, is now engaged in a pogrom against the Dutch/English/Africaaners.
A land that was famed for gold exports has wound down. China, Canada, America now lead the pack. By local standards, those had been well paying jobs.
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe used to have a currency as good as gold. Now it stands example of what is to come for South Africa.
Gaza/Hamastan is your broken window into the future: agri-business destroyed at first opportunity in a fit of social rage. The fact that it was their property mattered not.
Without Israel to blame and to restrain themselves — Araby would tear itself apart. And AQ would be there to help matters along.
Israeli relations with the Arabs have been a LOT worse and time marched on.
I well remember the sin of the anti-suicide wall. After a great wailing at this eastern wall — now silence.
For the Professional Left even passive defense is not permitted for the Jew.
——-
That atheistic American Jews distance themselves from Israel calls to mind Saint Peter who’s connection to Jesus ‘got flexible’ when the hour was dark and blood was hot.
The fact is that our MSM works a broadcast pulpit far more mercantile and trashy than Jimmy Swaggart. Like any true professional they really need lots and lots of money but can’t bear to stick out their hand. Corporate handles that. Instead they rove the safe battlefields of Zion handing out video sermons.
Their card:
Have camera,
will pontificate.
And we thought shamans were so stone age!
BTW, it would surprise most just how many journalists are the sons and daughters of pulpit mounting reverends.
——
Based upon the record, ending racial discrimination in Africa = pogroms and mass expulsion followed by dire poverty and a collapse in medical care.
Even the Indians are fleeing South Africa!
——
My nephew is over there at this time and his account of ground truth is extremely disturbing and sad. Basically, it’s a population implosion. Call it the Black Death II.
It’s not surprising that the western left is busily consigning national narratives to the inevitable march of marxist inevitability –historical forces being generated by people as they are.
The ruin of South Africa, for example, may be due to this process, or it may be due to Teddy Kennedy wanting to be president, and ginning up a western economic embargo of the SA gov’t in order to attract votes from the American left and the race-identity blocs he was working so hard to make too-big-to-fail.
Of course, when white farmers began being murdered in numbers, and their lands expropriated, Teddy by then was ‘over’ his Oval vapors, and onto some other destructive no doubt project, and couldn’t be bothered to make any statement or somesuch with which Mandela could’ve possibly leveraged something different for SA.
I think this was a case of the well known Dem Party “Oops!” syndrome.
Israel cannot fail because that would mean victory for totalitarian Islam. No country is perfect, but Israel is not a totalitarian society – I believe freedom is valued in Israel. Freedom is hated by the Islamic enemies of Israel and the United States as the video at the top of this essay illustrates.
The assassination of Rabin was an act of evil, but that one event does not define Israel any more than the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or JFK defines the United States. Most assassinations of political leaders, even if done by avowed right-wing anarchists, fit into the playbook of left-wing superstructures. The easiest way to the Marxist Left, Fascist Left and Islamo-Fascist Left is through violence by far-right anarchists who, more often than not, are employed by one of the Leftist flavors mentioned above.
This video correctly defines the meaning of “Right” and “Left.”
http://www.viddler.com/explore/CSC130/videos/25/
http://vodpod.com/watch/605221-the-american-form-of-government
Buddy Larsen @ 128
Thank you very much. I am so committed to BC that I try to read the postings and comments all the way through. This time though, Victor’s canned screed had become so tedious I was ready to just give up… But then you came along with your posting at #128. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
Rabins assassin — Amir was not some crazy loner.
Amir was a tool of the Settler militants and their supporters on Israel’s not-that-far Right; the nihilistic expression of religious fanaticism and bloodcurdling nationalism.
Amir personified Israel’s enemy within, the coup d’etat waiting to happen.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/juliankossoff/100015293/killing-the-peace-israels-enemy-within/
Sept 14 2010
Gates to Meet With Russian Defense Minister @ the Pentagon
As a sign of the importance Mr. Gates places on the visit of the Russian minister, the defense secretary has set aside all of Wednesday for three formal working sessions before a final working dinner.
Expected to be on the table is Afghanistan — where the Russians have provided a vital northern supply route for NATO forces.
This is part of the exit strategy for Afghanistan that Kissinger announced last Friday in Geneva,
he said– Russia, Pakistan, Iran, China and India all have an interest in preventing a Taliban victory and al-Qaeda from establishing itself in Afghanistan—a narco-terrorist state.
Kissinger concluded “an essentially unilateral American role cannot be the long-term solution.”
Even if there is a Fascist Left (Fascism is not Right) in Israel as you believe, Israel will not become a Fascist Nation; there are too many liberty-loving Israelis who will resist Israeli Fascism. You should be worried about Islamo-Fascism in Israel; i.e.: conquest of Israel by the Ummah – the International Islamo-Fascist Left.
oneeye/209, how rewarding it is to read that. Just the knowing someone takes note, justifies reading & responding rather than ignoring someone like Victor, whom i think turns out to be not worthless after all, but just misguided. That “apartheid state of Israel” for example, is a hot button intended to create hatred (whether V knows that or not).
But ‘apartheid’ has a definition, and Israel does not meet the definition. If it does, if the word’s loose use is to be defended as acceptable slang, then i occupy the apartheid state of Texas, with latins choosing the southern river valleys, africans the eastern woodlands, germans the central hills, anglos the northern plains (insurance salesmen Dallas) and amerindians and mestizos the great chiricahuan desert far west.
Heck, Israel is apartheid the way people are apartheid –people grow up with and marry into families like their own, choose neighbors like themselves, because they want to be with others who all send & receive same nonverbal understandable social signals –because mis-sends are often misleads and insulting and thus it’s extra work to get along with unfamiliars. Is this a spectacular insight?
So one can’t sit in one’s mostly this or that race neighborhood and criticize Israel with a false hate word and still be worthy of any respect on the topic.
Especially in light of the unprecedented and, were it not become so familiar and ordinary, intolerable perpetual war of aggression and extermination being waged against the state of Israel and the people.
And particularly in regards to the word ‘apartheid’ in the light of the intifadas and their apartheid plastering of jewish-only body parts in Israeli metro areas, maybe Israel should be an apartheid state –but still, she isn’t (read the definition, it takes official policy and governing procedures –IOW, state action and ethos).
What other small state faced with similar circumstances would be able to make that claim after all that has happened? Answer: not too many, if any. Yet, in a display of crowning injustice and perfect inversion, that charge is thrown at Israel, daily, frivolously, as if words mean nothing, even tho words are what begat the very sapiens sapiens incarnation that we all are part of.
ok no more ranting from me –sorry –got a case of logorreah –must be something i read –
