Although I can’t see it from where I live, I can hear the fireworks show go off at the Hollywood Bowl. It’s only a mile or so away, probably even closer as the crow flies. Tonight there must be quite a display because an intermittent fussilade has been going off for the better part of an hour. Usually it doesn’t bother me. I’ve been living here so long (16 years) I basically tune it out. But tonight it feels nerve-wracking. I listen to the pop-pop-pop and think of London and Sharm el-Sheik. We live in a very small world with carnage everywhere. Who knows when it will be here again?
I know some people blame this all on the War in Iraq. John Howard answered that hopelessly naive wishful thinking the other day. But those who choose to believe it (and it is is a choice of a certain sort) ought to consider this chronology. Islamists were blowing up tourists in Egypt back in 1997, generating 58 corpses in their own historic city of Luxor. They were also trying to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, as we know. It goes on. Yet the morally myopic like the Mayor of London continue to blame it on the West. Hard to wrap your head around that. Anyway, for now, the fireworks at the Bowl are over.
MORNING UPDATE: Of course many of us turn to our own Big Pharoah in Cairo at a time like this. He had a Instapundit link this morning also driving traffic his way. According to the live tracker of BP’s site, people were coming to read from around the world… but no one from Arab countries. Sad.
United States: 44
[Israel] Israel: 2
[Japan] Japan: 1
[New Zealand] New Zealand: 1
[Singapore] Singapore: 1
Netherlands: 1
ìI know some people blame this all on the War in Iraq.î
Their predecessors were the ones who uttered similar reasons explaining why Adolph Hitler acted so belligerently. The pacifist mindset refuses to face the fact that some people will be our enemy regardless of how nice we are to them. Osama bin Ladin is enraged simply because we exist. The sons of Mohammed are suppose to dominate the world. Instead, this honor belongs almost exclusively to the West. To be blunt, the core values of Islam, as commonly practiced, cannot even begin to compete against the values of Western Civilization. Can anyone point to a single major accomplishment by a Muslim who did not obtain a Western education in the last 400-500 years? I have previously linked to Bernard Lewisí insightful piece in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It perhaps behooves me to do so once again:
ì But why the hostility in the first place? If we turn from the general to the specific, there is no lack of individual policies and actions, pursued and taken by individual Western governments, that have aroused the passionate anger of Middle Eastern and other Islamic peoples. Yet all too often, when these policies are abandoned and the problems resolved, there is only a local and temporary alleviation. The French have left Algeria, the British have left Egypt, the Western oil companies have left their oil wells, the westernizing Shah has left Iran — yet the generalized resentment of the fundamentalists and other extremists against the West and its friends remains and grows and is not appeased.î
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
Roger:
I have to say I heard that question and all I could think was : Oh shut up you idiot.
I read the ranting of some British imam about Iraq and I thought to myself ‘there was a moment of silence in Iraq for the dead and where were you? Hoping more babies would be vaporized by some martyr?’
I am losing patience. Sirhan Sirhan, the Munich Olympics, Yom Kippur, the embassy hostages in Thehran, Lockerbee, more than 200 dead Marines in Lebanon, the USS Cole and our embassies in Africa, dead tourists from the Phillipines to Tunisia to Egypt, Beslan, Kashmir, Thailand where the Buddhists are asking for guns to protect themselves from decapitation, Bali, Spain, London and of course 9/11. And that ain’t all.
I am sick of the excuses. There will always be an excuse. The Iraqis are writing a constitution and trying to build a civil sopciety and the people who are killing them are other Muslims not Brits or Americans so I suggest these socalled angry Muslims pull their heads out of their asses and realize they are their own worse enemy…not people like me. I would just as soon never hear the word Islam again.
Yoni Tidi on Hugh Hewitt yesterday said that there are many British tourists at Sharm el-Sheik at this time of year (note those quoted in the linked report). Could they have been the targets as Australians were in Bali?
…so I suggest these socalled angry Muslims pull their heads out of their asses and realize they are their own worse enemy…not people like me.
And I further suggest the consequences of turning people like me into their worst enemies would be very bad indeed. Every time one of these bombing occurs and we get the usual crap from the usual suspects, we inch closer to not caring about separating the “peace loving” muslims from the islamofascists. This is dangerous territory. This is why Tom Trancredo’s off-the-cuff remarks about bombing Mecca were not answered with the same general outrage as Durbin’s Gitmo/Nazi comparisons. There are many who already feel it would be an appropriate response to a chemical, biological or nuclear attack on the US.
Who knows when it will be here again? They keep telling us it’s just a matter of time. I’m here to tell ya, if this shit starts up in this country, there will be hell to pay.
Kyda: Sign me up. I found myself heatedly arguing with someone yesterday who was still insisting that some element of racial profiling is unacceptable in security programs.
Unfortunately, he was on the tv screen… and I was not.
-O/T[?]
In the prior comment string called “What’s Next?”, check out the first three words of Kevin P’s response to that question in his 4:48 PM comment. Eery.
From that Haaretz “chronology” link…Eleven terrorist attacks in Egypt from October 21, 1992 to November 17, 1997. So much for Iraq now being the cause of Terrorism in Egypt…
Inter prominent members of the left from ACLU to Kennedy,arrest or deport any supporting terror,then whenever this happens vapourise a number of Madrassers without warning.
No Middle Eastern supporter of terror by deed or word should be able to sleep peacefully in their beds.Do it suddenly ,do it quickly,do it now.Don’t let this drag on for decades.
Let it be treated for what it is War!
I would just as soon never hear the word Islam again.–Terrye
No kidding. As long as that throwback remained under it’s 3rd world rock, its ‘minority’ nature went pretty much under the radar. In that respect Osama has comitted a tactical error by stepping up his CRUSADE against infidels.
But as much as Islamic Fundamentalism now revolts me, at the risk of being labelled a Nazi(again), the actions of the ‘loyal’ opposition offend me almost as much.
And I’m not talking about any specific political force. I’m referring to that amorphous mass of opinion that serves as an ‘objective’ fifth colume for Islamic propaganda. The appeasers and the apologists are making me very angry indeed. I sincerely believe that their ‘negativity’ is actually contributing to the damage the Islamofascists are able to do.
If we had a Western Civilization that was able to present a unified front to these lunatics,there might well be fewer deaths and mainings.
Fed-up I am. When the next atrocity occurs in the US, I am willing to bet that drastic things will happen. It really is long past time to get serious here.
Dougf
“The appeasers and the apologists are making me very angry indeed. I sincerely believe that their ‘negativity’ is actually contributing to the damage the Islamofascists are able to do.”
They are directly encouraging and enabling the terrorists.The terrorist bombs are not targeted on the military or right orientated organisations they are indiscriminate.Attacks are for the attention of the liberal left submissive progressives who are terrors target audience.
The sales pitch at the moment is the invasion of Iraq but this is just part of the game of “Simple Simon Says” once we start giving way, another perceived or invented affront to terrorist sensibilities will emerge.
We may as well end this thing now,if not for ourselves,then for future generations.
PeterUK ó They’re not just “enabling” and “encouraging”; they’re actively financing: lefties in the UK and Europe are actively funneling money to the terrorists. Now England has its own native-born insurrection to show for their caring…
Richard,
Hence my call to inter them at 08:01am,a freudian lapse on my part, I meant intern,but whatever!
Peter, your suggestion to start destroying madrasses is an excellent one.
I now have heard that the majority of dead (over 80) and injured in Sharm el-Sheik are Egyptian hotel workers. Somehow I don’t feel they were the targets.
UK police now report that the man they shot in the Underground is unrelated to the bombings although:
Could we be looking at a new breed of terrorist/martyr? One sent not to destroy, but rather, through suspicious behavior and associations, to draw fire for the purpose of inciting the Muslim community and generating outrage among sympathetic others while at the same time inducing doubt among the authorities about their “shoot first, ask questions later” tactics.
Normally I’m not one given to such a level of paranoia, but, like the man said, you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you.
Kyda:
I heard that. It reminded me of the shooting in NYC a few years ago of a young black man who was reaching for his wallet when police thought he was reaching for a gun.
The police could just refuse to assume any responsibility for this and blame it on Israel.
In truth I wonder why he did not stop and why he was wearing that coat. Maybe he was just unlucky or maybe he was going to be outfitted with a bomb elsewhere. We will never know now.
But the shoot to kill poicy was something the Israelis have done to take out people so quickly they can not detonate a bomb. This sort of tragedy goes with the territory. I think they should add his death to the tally.
re the morning update, Omar posted in the comments at the Big Pharoah. At least one Arab country heard from.
Sigh.
Terrye: “I am sick of the excuses. There will always be an excuse. The Iraqis are writing a constitution and trying to build a civil society and the people who are killing them are other Muslims not Brits or Americans so I suggest these socalled angry Muslims pull their heads out of their asses and realize they are their own worse enemy…not people like me. I would just as soon never hear the word Islam again.”
Damn straight!
——-
re racial profiling
It is NOT a good idea and I’m not being PC here. Random searches are the BEST way to go about this. We are not involved in a static situation where you can make some rule about current circumstances and that will hold forever.
The enemy watches what we do and what our procedures are and they adjust their tactics to counter our methods. So we stop searching 80-year-old grannys..that seems reasonable at this time. But the enemy will find a way to sneak something into granny’s purse.
The professionals know what they’re doing. We don’t.
Roger, lamenting that no Arabs linking to the BP site; Arabs don’t read. They listen to Al-Jazeera to tell them what to think and do.
I’m impressed you know who John Howard is!
An aspiring Aussie screenwriter.
cheers
Dave.