Since I grew up after World War II, September 11, 2001, was — as it was for many of us — by far the most cataclysmic public event of my life. I may have experienced it staring at a television screen in my Los Angeles bedroom, but watching those planes fly into the Twin Towers like a time bomb from the Middle Ages changed my world view, even altered many of my relationships, forever.
And, although I certainly didn’t know it at that moment, that assault on modernity led inexorably to the founding of Pajamas Media and ultimately PJTV. Pajamas Media is very much a child of 9/11.
Not just because of me, of course. A large number of people banded together online then, realizing that a war of civilizations had been joined. They became known as the “war bloggers” and a good number of those bloggers are still with us now.
Was it by accident that Glenn Reynolds commenced Instapundit — our most popular blog — one month before 9/11?
Well, probably. But it was a fortuitous accident because it gave us some place to go and from which to expand outwards. The war bloggers were early adopters of sorts in the global struggle against fundamentalist Islam.
Or was it Islam itself? That is the question we are still asking ourselves ten years after that fateful day. As I write these words, news comes that the Libyan revolt against Gaddafi has been heavily infiltrated by allies of al-Qaeda, that same al-Qaeda that supposedly suffered a mortal blow with the assassination of bin Laden.
Of course, it didn’t, because Islamism (Islam?) is an ideology and ideologies only suffer a mortal blow when they are really and truly no longer popular. A cursory look at the so-called “Arab Spring” yields the opposite conclusion.
Irredentist Islam in its Sunni and Shiite strains is everywhere now, not only in Egypt, Libya, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and (hugely) Iran, but even in putatively secular Turkey where the reforms of Ataturk seem a distant memory. It has also spread to Latin America through the nefarious alliance of Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez.
And this Islamic ideology has a major advantage in durability over the totalitarian ideologies that pervaded the twentieth century — Nazism and communism. It promises eternal life. There is no easy way to disprove that.
Cataclysmic- or apocalyptic? Notice today’s Google logo features 7 horns and 10 heads (an inverted “beast” reference… the artist got it backwards).
They’ve been doing this for at least a year now. The Drudge Report does it too – inserting increasingly overt references about Revelations and flying saucers. Look in their archives if you don’t believe me.
That’s actually Freddie Mercury on the Google logo. It would have been his 65th birthday today.
Always thought it sort of amusing that Queen was the first rock band to get official approval in Iran, given Freddie’s status as a gay icon.
“Fat-bottomed mullahs, you make the rockin’ world go round”
Freddie Mercury is not Iranian. He is born in India, in the Parsi minority community in Bombay. His family later moved to South Africa and then to the UK. The astonishing irony that was lost on the Iranian mullahs in this case is that Parsis are people who fled Iran to their new homeland in India after the Islamic conquest and the terror unleashed on the Zoroastrians (the predominant religion of the Persians at that time) of the Persian Empire more than 1300 year ago. Of course in the tribal culture of the Middle East, the worst sort of infidel (Freddie was an outrageous rebel growing up to be a brilliant gay rock star in the UK) is a tribal hero as long as he does not live in Iran!
Freddie Mercury is not Iranian. He was born in India, in the Parsi minority community in Bombay. His family later moved to South Africa and then to the UK. The astonishing irony that was lost on the Iranian mullahs in this case is that Parsis are people who fled Iran to their new homeland in India after the Islamic conquest and the terror unleashed on the Zoroastrians (the predominant religion of the Persians at that time) of the Persian Empire more than 1300 year ago. Of course in the tribal culture of the Middle East, the worst sort of infidel (Freddie was an outrageous rebel growing up to be a brilliant gay rock star in the UK) is a tribal hero as long as he does not live in Iran!
Teach your children well: teach them all about the qur’an and the crap it has in store for western civilization. teach them weaponry – not to be afraid, to be facile in handling and cleaning (get permits as well!!). teach them secular law and respect for others, but not to hesitate to use force if necessary. teach them American Exceptionalism – nothing better for breathing and living free!!
Teach them to walk softly but carry a big stick.
Teach them to teach their children and make this generational. our enemies have – we must stop being Eloi.
Am Yisroel Chai!
When you wrote Irredentist Islam in its Sunni and Shiite strains is everywhere now, not only in Egypt, Libya, etc., you should have included the Asian countries where Thailand is having a hard time dealing with IEDs and the like, the Philippines, Indonesia’s minorities suffering at the hands of the Muslims and even Pakistan with its Muslim sectarian violence.
I believe that China is also having its problems with that religion of peace.
Indeed.
Our MSM just doesn’t get what’s happening in the world. A friend of mine was a Christian missionary in Indonesia when 9/11 happened. A few days later, the Indonesians he served hustled him and his family to the airport and out of the country, a couple of hours before a Muslim mob came to kill them, and settled for torching his house. Those brave Indonesians have been suffering at the hands of the religion of peace ever since; my friend has never been able to return on a permanent basis — mysteriously, there are no more visas.
In Iraq, the Christian minority is being destroyed as the government we spent blood and treasure to set up turns a blind eye.
In Egypt,”The Arab Spring is the Coptic Christian Fall.” http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=572936&p=1 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0SGpZZm1mo
In short, wherever the “Arab street” has its way, there is no concept of human rights in the Western sense. What we are seeing is the kind of “democracy” that terrified the Founding Fathers — a majority unrestrained by the rule of law, doing whatever theyt please to anyone and anything they consider undesirable.
Islam simply isn’t a “religion of peace.” Ask Charles “the Hammer” Martel. For that matter, ask anyone who lived in Europe before the 18th century, when Europe’s technological advances finally reduced the military threat from the Turks to a more easily managed issue. Peace and security came only through superior European military power — Islam itself never really changed.
This isn’t a “clash of civilizations” either. Our enemies are not civilized in any meaningful sense. They are barbarians. Their art and music are poor imitations of western trends. They produce no scientists, no philosophers, no writers.
They are not peaceful. They are not civilized. They are murderously violent barbarians.
m00tpoint
“This isn’t a “clash of civilizations” either. Our enemies are not civilized in any meaningful sense.”
Indeed. Syrian-American (and ex-Muslim) Wafa Sultan insists we’re not dealing with a clash of civilization, but rather a clash between civilization and barbarism.
Add also the Sikhs, the Hindus and Buddhists, Bahai, the Sudanese and all black North Africans. Jihadists or “moderates”, µuslims are embarked on a quest for world hegemony, funded by oil money from otherwise totally unproductive countries. There is no Islamic enlightenment.
PJM’s memorial to September 11 is touching, and to be applauded. The overt attempt to turn Ground Zero into a memorial to Martyrs for Allah must be fiercely opposed. Islamaphobia is something everybody who loves freedom should be inoculated with. Islam is Theocracy, brutally enforced. Democracy cannot co-exist with Sharia Law. Islam is determinedly regressive: to follow it is to to embrace serfdom,make Mecca the center of society and governance. The twits who urge tolerance are the termites of our Republic.
All praise to Roger Simon and his associates in joining hands with another socialism apostate, David Horowitz, in fighting the single greatest threat the world now faces.
Recently the Ismailis have been in the news. They say that only their leader can declare jihad. By contrast the Sunnis are much more likely to believe in private sector jihad. But within such a generalsation there is room for exeptions. Religion is often a very private affair. Every religious leader is followed in a different way by each of his followers. There are as many types of Christianity as there are Christians. Ditto Budha and the Budhists, Confucius etc, Mohammed, and so on. This is because none of us are clones. We cannot follow as our neighbors follow. So it is a better distinction to say “Islamism” rather than Islam.
Even so we need to admit that Islam is more than a religion. If it were only a religion we would hardly notice it, and our differences would be mild. Unfortunately Islam is also a totalitarian political movement and an organised crime syndicate. The political movement is just as brutal as Leninism or Hitlerism, and more deeprooted because it covers so many more habits of life, such as eating, dressing, inheritance law, commercial law and more. The criminal side of Islam is astonishing in its long list of sinister crimes, such as slavery, genocide, torture (FGM), kidnapping, extortion and protection rackets, polygamy, honor killing, spouse abuse and so on.
If we are to survive then:
(1) We have to allow the religion and stop the crimes.
(2) We have to allow the religion to die by showing all humans that Mohammed was not a holy man. He was a criminal and he made up the religion so he could get women, money and power.
There is no short cut. Our civilisation will not survive unless we do those two things. Unlike Soviet Communism or Nazism, Islam despises science. It can never be disproven on Earth. The closest we can get to proving Islam is wrong is by showing people what Mohammed was really like. Even then many will not change, or they will change very slowly. But it is the best we can do. We have to contest Islam at its weakest point – the life of Muhammed – which is also its fundamental point.
The good news is that the only accounts we have of Muhammed’s life are from his devoted followers and those accounts show clearly that he was a cruel criminal and a liar. Also the portrait of Allah in the Koran is a portrait of a cruel and dishonest god. So some of the work is already done by the Muslims. They do not know it because their sacred books are jumbled to hide the truth. Islam is handed down by word of mouth. Unlike Christianity or Judaism, it cannot be revealed by private study. That is the Gordian knot. Once we unravel that knot we are safe. We cannot cut that knot. We must tell the truth in a way that is halal to Muslims, or they will not listen. They will say we are making it up.
It can be done because the Muslim scholars have a fair idea of Muhammed’s chronology. They can attribute many anecdotes about Mohammed to certain times in his life and many verses in the Koran can also be linked to certain times in his life. So it is a matter of linking (in one story) the anecdotes and the Koranic verses to the events in his life. That has not been done by any Muslim. When it is done and accepted by the Muslim scholars then we have a history of the founding of the religion and it will show Muhammed as he really was. Slowly but surely all humans will come to their senses. Common sense and common decency will prevail. The criminal enterprise will lose its followers.
You are a serious thinker and have made extremely valid points — it’s going to be a long war in every sense of the word, but you have nailed one of the battlefields quite accurately.
May I add as a comment to Roger Simon: can we please stop picking on the Middle Ages? The idea that there is something essentially medieval about the use of advanced technology to carry out the mass ambush and slaughter of innocent bystanding civilians is nonsense, the sort of distortions of history that are typical of (a)modern secular humanist academics and journalists, and (b)jacked-up Islamist ideologues. Both groups,of course,only attribute the random slaughter impulse to medieval European Christians, while buying into the equally bogus notion that medieval Muslims were the only educated, technologically advanced, and culturally tolerant people of their time — also nonsense. Homework required here.
Winefred, you are of course right about the Middle Ages, which I was of course using as a rhetorical trope. What would be a better metaphor? Cavemen? But then that might be unfair to cavemen.
I respectfully disagree–I think the Middle Ages are a good comparison. After 9/11, one of the books I found most useful was The Waning of the Middle Ages, by (I think) Huizinga. It was written before WW One, so before any current sociology, and about Europe, not England, so totally out of my frame of reference. The information seemed startlingly current. I still turn to it–partly for hope. If some parts of the world can move on from this brutal mindset, perhaps others can as well.
Graceful.
There will never be an end to Islamic radicals because they are taught @ too early an age to hate. There is only one solution.
Like your nic, WeMustResist,
The weaving together of the threads of the Koran, major Hadiths and the Sira has been done and the result is something, a supposed religious story about the sacralizing of violence, death, oppression and slavery and the codification of a medieval tribal theocracy. http://www.politicalislam.com/store/category/primary-doctrine-books
Mohammedans will never willingly reveal this story of evil to us, they don’t want it to make sense. We are the non-believers, the kafir, the Enemy. The Trilogy is their playbook. The Islamic trilogy is their secret code that tells them how to live on earth to get to heaven and how to destroy our civilization, how to make us convert, leave, or die. They sure as heck don’t want us to read their playbook.
Mohammed’s life as it is portrayed in the Koran and Sunna, is a Hollywood movie blockbuster with intrigue, sex (lots of it and some kinky) battles, violent assaults, and murders right and left. Mohammed makes a mafia don look weak. And he’s the perfect man that they must emulate. Allah, his god, is blood thirsty and encourages his violence and deceit. It’s a horror show for sure.
No time is more appropriate than right now for the Muslims inside America to publicly explain in detail what they’ve actually done, are doing, and will continue to do, to actively fight the barbarism of their co-religionists. This onus is entirely the Muslims’.
The massive hypocrisy of Islam and their concept of taqiyya presents these Muslims themselves with an overwhelming burden of a generalized lack of credibility.
So, how can this interior Muslim oxymoron be resolved?……it can’t be, and won’t be. And, that’s exactly the essence of the Muslims’ problem.
So we Americans must plan and execute a “work-around” of the Muslims in our midst and at the very minimum actively assume a wartime posture at least equivalent to that of 08 December, 1941, and be extremely wary of their mosques and madrassas as likely subversive cells.
We must never forget the Islamist attacks of 11 September, 2001. We must never permit the metastasizing of Islamism within our America such as we are witnessing right now inside continental Europe and the British Isles.
“And this Islamic ideology has a major advantage in durability over the totalitarian ideologies that pervaded the twentieth century — Nazism and communism. It promises eternal life. There is no easy way to disprove that.”
Bunk. The Japanese used the same tactics with their “Kamikaze” or suicide pilots during World War II. They were promised eternal glory in their afterlife if they simply blew up an American warship. The Japanese also used suicide boats and small man-guided rockets to attack our ships as well. How far did it get them? Not far. After they were convinced that we would do anything in our power to stop them, including using nuclear weapons, they gave up.
You can shift the attitudes of an entire race of people as long as you are willing to prove to them that you are perfectly willing to destroy them if they keep on attacking you. Say what you will about George W. Bush, nobody attacked mainland United States after 9/11 while he was president. Such has NOT been the case with Obama. Between the Ft. Hood shooter, the Christmas “underwear bomber,” the Times Square bomber, and the attempted assault on the New York City Subway system, to name just a few of the attacks on us since Bush left office, radical Islamists need to know, really understand, that we will wipe them AND their countries off the map if they try to attack us. It worked on the Japanese, it will work on them. And we had better do it before they have the means to do it to us with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
“Such has NOT been the case with Obama. Between the Ft. Hood shooter, the Christmas “underwear bomber,” the Times Square bomber, and the attempted assault on the New York City Subway system, to name just a few of the attacks on us since Bush left office, radical Islamists need to know, really understand, that we will wipe them AND their countries off the map if they try to attack us. ”
I heartily agree that this is what the terrorists need to be told in the most convincing way possible. But the reality is that Obama does not say such things. In fact, I’ve twice seen statements from his administration that convey a very different stance. Those statements talk about how America will survive and bounce back if such an attack happens but don’t offer a single word to the effect that America will seek payback. In other words, terrorists are effectively promised that America will DO NOTHING but lick its wounds and rebuild. This is clearly not going to discourage the terrorists even a little bit.
And that, I fear, is precisely the message that Obama is trying to send to the terrorists: “go for it guys, and don’t worry, we won’t try to hold you to account”.
Thanks to PJM for all it does. And especially for all those who dedicate much and sacrifice daily so that we can not only remember the events that have shaped our past, the key facts that unveil our present and the truth so that we may mold our future.
This act of near-selflessness (many do this as an extra job, for nearly nothing in compensation) is heroic enough. From my seat in the cf bleachers, it is more than that. Much more.
The truth is under assault. This land of ours is a target and its salt of the earth people are as well.
The thief, the nanny and the stalker have combined forces. The thief seeks to confiscate, the nanny to obfuscate and the stalker to obliterate our way of life.
Sleeper cells of each are in the house. Disguised as something benign, or simply lying in wait. Legislation by ambush. Seizure of the economy. A dormant virus, resistant to treatment by doses of reality, having invaded the body politic and having made the mass media necrotic, we have a walking sickness of our national soul.
Those buildings crumbled ten years ago, I knew two girls working in them in New York. Identified in bits and pieces, not as whole beings.
It changed me as well. Forever.
I once was content to sit and watch from the sidelines. I viewed politics as a curiosity. Did not vote. Never took a side in an election. Rarely voiced an opinion.
I was moved to comment, often….and more passionately than ever before. I have always loved my country, just did not enjoy politics. I watched as some danced in the streets and passed out candy. I watched as some said the hijackers and mass murderers were “minutemen” and “heroes”.
I watched…and I have continued to watch….to see who was an enemy of my country. Who murdered those girls and the other innocents.
And what has been written, displayed in movies, on TV, and in politics…about my country and my countrymen.
The thief, the nanny and the stalker have shown themselves time and again. Thank heavens for PJM and those who shine a light on those who mean to harm us….from afar…and from within.
Thank you for your kind words and for your contributions to this site.
Roger, I consider you a friend…and while I don’t have heroes…you, VDH, Glenn…come as close as I get.
I have come into a situation where I am about to try to do much, much, much more…if, I can pull some things together.
Call me if you would like to discuss. And again, thank you for doing what you do. Your country owes you a debt it might never be able to repay.
Wow! So beautifully said, CF, and with people such as yourself who can put such words to paper, we have a chance. You have stated the true, cold, hard facts of our current situation, and give me hope that there are more of us out there than we know.
As a New Yorker, it ripped me to the core and changed my life forever. Politics was always one of two issues I never debated, but we live in a different world now, and silence is no longer golden.
Please keep up your great work, and stay in touch. Too many have given too much to watch this great country crumble at the hands of tyrants.
Roger, since you were around at the beginning, perhaps you can answer something I’ve been curious about: why did they call it “Pajamas Media”, an unserious name for a place to discuss serious issues?
It came from the CBS executive who called those who unmasked Dan Rather’s lies about Bush’s National Guard papers – some of them founders of this site – “amateurs in their pajamas.” Hence we decided to call it Pajamas Media. And hence… colloquially… the pajamahadeen. (Proust, of course, and many other great writers, wrote in their pajamas.)
“pajamahadeen” – perfect to counter mujahadeen and their jihad!! LOL… can we call this counter jihad as “pajamahad”??
This term was used around 2003 across the blogosphere.
Having been a reader since the beginning ( I found Insty in Oct 2001) I can also remember the debates about the name. Many people thought that a serious name was needed and in fact IIRC there was one chosen. Oops, someone else was already using it; so a reversion to founding principles (not a bad idea) was put in play and PJM it will always be.
I was working within sight of the smoke from 9/11 in an office in Conn. Many people were shocked and hysterical since there were many friends and family that worked in the WTC. A good friend of mine was late to work and wound up stopped one subway stop before ground 0. He was headed for the 72nd floor of WTC 1.
Great article!
One needs to expose the current administration in appointing more than 10 or 15 Muslims in high level positions who are influencing the policies of our government vis a vis Muslim immigration to this country and our policies towards Islamic countries. This government has adopted PC/MC mentality that prevents it telling the truth about Muslims and 9/11. They have issued directive to its employees not to mention, Islam, jihad, jihadists, extremists etc while talking about 9/11. If possible they would like to rewrite the history with no mention of Muslims being responsible for 9/11. It’s our duty to keep the true history of 9/11 alive and not allow Obama administration to completely white wash it.
The West must win Islam economically,morally may be militarily.Then we`ll be able to explain them that the eternal life can`t be promised for the murderers.
One thing 911 revealed is hijacking four planes and using them as missiles to destroy buildings and massacre people on US soil won’t get you nuked.
I figure we have much more efficient weapons than nukes now-a-days. Precision guided, hyperbaric weapons can deliver hell to a front door near them, with much less muss and fuss than a nuke. The overpressure is quantitatively the same in amount, if not in extent.
If you disagree, then time to invent some.
Keep up the great work. I was a faithful reader of yours when you had your own blog, and was there with ideas when you were first thinking of consolidating like minded bloggers into what became PJM.
I can always rely on the quality blogging of people like Victor David Hanson, and Bill Whittle, to both inform and often, amuse me at the same time.
I figure we are half way done with the war against radical Islamism. The seeds of democracy are firmly planted in the East now, and it’s only a matter of time before the citizens of these countries take over from the despots currently running them. Now, that’s no guarantee of peace in our time, but I like our chance now more then ever.
Keith -
I fear you are much too sanguine. I live in Indonesina – the “muslmc Demcratic Success Story” – a contry I have knwn fro 50 years. I can tell you things are going south in terms of Islam.
And I wonder if you have kept up on the news from Egypt and Libya. IN Iraq and Afghanistan the Us has established states with Shariah constitutions.
Live among Muslims and you have no illusions. Indonesia is unrecognizable now to people who knew it before. Except to BHO, who hears no, sees no, speaks no Islam, not the real one,
Unfortunately not half. We are only looking at the end of the very beginning.
Until there is a governing stability under some standard of a rule of law that protects individuals and their property, and at least a moderate level of economic freedom in the areas listed in Mr. Simon’s piece, we will be a long ways from victory. These elements are the only long-term defenses against authoritarianism, nihilism and other manifestations of the worst of the human condition. How we get there is a tough road.
“And this Islamic ideology has a major advantage in durability over the totalitarian ideologies that pervaded the twentieth century — Nazism and communism. It promises eternal life.”
True enough Roger – but finding individuals whom wish to hasten their entry into the promised land is the challenge of the recruiters looking for martyrs. Once you run out of the fanatically eager you have a tough time recruiting those less than eager to reap the rewards of martyrdom – 77 virgins – or whatever the count is now. Sow doubt and you’ll dry up the supply.
On another note – is it surprising to anyone that having another weak foreign policy president in office (democrat – what else?) gives islam opportunity to advance the ’cause’ and oppress the unwashed (I mean this in the literal sense) masses? Can we prove that Zero has actually aided the advance of this cause? Aided and abetted by his fellow idiots in Europe who seem eager to appease the islamists. And if it isn’t appeasement then what is it? I really believe a case can be made for aiding the islamists on Zero’s part.
Carter certainly gave aid to the islamists – aid that changed the political landscape in the Middle East forever during his stint as POTUS. The current POTUS will have many footnotes from history writers – will the fall of Israel be among his notable achievements?
I for one hope Israel does not fail. Too bad I’m more concerned about Israel’s future than some of the citizens of Israel seem to be – demonstrating in the streets for more giverment (my word for liberal government) and less spending for – among other things – DEFENSE! Is Israel becoming more like the thing they most despised in all of their history – Rome?
FTFY.
The jihadis, at least, do not represent a civilization, therefore it is not a war between civilizations, but a war pitting civilization against their hatred and their need to destroy.
Maybe so, McGehee, but the jihadis have their own view of civilization – global caliphate, sharia for all, etc. It’s just not ours.
I agree with McGehee. The barbarians are not civilized, even if they think they are. A tribal society based on primitive fears is not a civilization.
I have a view of a civilization, which I have used to write science-fiction stories for (as it has always turned out, anyway) my own amusement.
A view of a civilization is not a civilization. You can’t wage a war “of civilizations” if you don’t have an actual one to work with.
Thanks for this post, Roger, and for your upcoming coverage of the anniversary. It sounds like you have some useful things planned. It is so easy to get alienated from one’s fellow man these days, and this anniversary is really underlining that for me. It is nice to have a place where one can find some solidarity and wisdom.
As to the “language of 9/11,” I never even use the term “9/11.” Sounds too much like a brand name. I spell it out every time: “the atrocities of September 11, 2001.”
“…like a time bomb from the middle ages…”
The worst ideas find ways of being recycled in newer, more insidious forms in succeeding generations. General Gordon wrote while in Khartoum of the Mahdi’s destruction of Egypt and the Sudan, “It is far more a question of property, and is more like Communism under the flag of religion”. The nexus between Islam and the left lies in the fact that both are totalitarian ideologies, they recognize their common bond. Even though they may not see it or mention it, they know in their bones that they are kin.
I think many of us sense what is happening around the world, and particularly here in our own nation. I keep remembering what Bill Clinton said in November 2010: “We are headed towards a national divide which will set be in place by 2050″.
Pajamas Media is the only website where I feel I am seeing the truth written. I am trying to pass it on to any of my friends who are interested in reading the truth. Most people aren’t or they don’t want to hear anything that challenges the main media. I have great fear for my young great nieces and nephews on what kind of America we are going to pass on to them. In the meantime their parents are too busy trying to make a living to have time to read and search for the truth outside of the sound bites they hear from the liberal media. I am not well educated but teach myself through reading. What can ordinary citizens like myself do? I have such a helpless feeling. I don’t think our elected representatives are listening and have their own agenda. The younger generations are very liberal coming out of liberal academia. How can that be changed. It is a live and let live mentality until something or someone gets in their way. Like take away their smartphone, etc. Americans only respond through their pocketbook so I have felt that these lean times were good for everyone specifically baby boomers on down because they have had everything handed to them on a platter. We need to eliminate unemployment benefits so that people will take those jobs that others claim Americans are not willing to do and only the illegals will do. I have such a difficult time understanding the liberal attitudes to Islam. Don’t they realize that when Islam takes over that it will be the liberal views that will be addressed first such as abortion, gay marriage, vulgar dress, etc.
Roger – I have been a reader of yours since before Pajamas Media, and have always appreciated your perspective and perspicacity. In addition to Bernard Lewis,have you read Robert Reilly’s “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis”? It is a tragic, and humane look at how the Islamic world turned away from the legacy of Greece, and into an intellectual dead end. I very strongly recommend it (it’s available on Kindle too).
Thank you for all you have given us through Pajamas Media and PJTV.
“…Islamism (Islam?) is an ideology…Islamic ideology has a major advantage…over…Nazism and communism. It promises eternal life…”
Roger Simon gets it wrong once again. You might thing that a Jew who knows precious little about Judaism would think twice about commenting on Islam about which he knows even less.
Christians and Jews also promise eternal life to martyrs but this has never inspired Christians or Jews to strap on bombs or in any other manner commit suicide for the cause. A single division of Hitler’s Wermacht would have made short work of all the Muslim armies combined even though the Nazi’s didn’t preach eternal life and the Muslims do.
Simon has foolishly bought into the Muslim propaganda that its adherents have an advantage because Westerners love life and Muslims welcome death. This is pure shuck. The promise of eternal life for martyrdom gives the Muslims no edge at all.
Recall the images of Egyptian soldiers abandoning their 40MPH tanks in 1973, pulling off their shoes, tossing their rifles, and hoofing it back to the Suez Canal in their bare feet. Recall the images of Iraqi soldiers on their bellies kissing the boots of embarrassed American troops.
Arabs are a scavenger breed. Cunning and treachery, not courage, is the teaching of Mohamed both by sleazy example and by evil preaching. The only reason we are still crapping around with these primitives ten years after 9/11 is because we’re burdened by weak leaders taking their directions from the eunuchs in the State Department led by the like of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.
As for Simon’s oleaginous preening about PJM, the less said the better.
“Arabs are a scavenger breed.”
Wow. I don’t even know what to say… that mindset is just beyond racism and ignorance…
ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald
Oh, God – I may self-induce a coma until Sept. 12 to avoid a full week of stuff like this
and this from Glen
“Pajamas Media is very much a child of 9/11″ – that is so funny -
So right
The wars of last century were between the authoritarians (who claim to be god) and those who believe in liberty through a secular rule of law.
This century will be like the last, same battlefields, new targets. Let’s get to work.
Hmmm, Roger, did you once post at a blog which will not be named as “Roger Dodger?” If memory serves me, the Rodger Dodger of 2002 or so was much more liberal than Roger L. Simon circa 2011.
Well, some of us are both older and wiser now. Some *sigh* regressed.
One week before 9-11 I stopped working at 195 Broadway, just two blocks from the Towers. We used to eat or order lunch there everyday.
As I watched the towers fall on that morning, knowing that all of my friends and coworkers were just a few hundred feet away, I could not help but thank heaven above that I was not there for it.
For those of us who lived in the area and lost family members that day (a distant cousin at Cantor) the disaster was tangible in ways you can only imagine. My house on Long Island was less than 25 miles from ground zero. My neighbors and relatives were in a full on panic in the ensuing weeks and months, we expected to hear news of crop dusters flying down 5th Avenue with biological agents and such.
I spent the following days trying to figure out if my family could survive a blast from a 10 megaton suitcase nuke in Manhattan. We bought an inflatable raft with an outboard motor and made pre-arrangements for evacuating Long Island to my sister’s home in CT by traversing Long Island sound.
It was crazy. I made a decision that as soon as possible, I would relocate my family to the other side of the bridges, upwind from Manhattan. A few short years later, we were making a new home for ourselves in the cornfields of Pennsylvania, far from the dangers of being near ground zero.
That day set in motion events that would change the lives of myself, my wife and my children. It was not something that happened on tv to other people. It happened to me.
People forget today the utter panic that washed over us in waves as a nation that day. They roll the whole thing up with Iraq and Afghanistan and mentally label it “something Bush did”. Hindsight has afforded them the luxury of demeaning the event into some petty, partisan political squabble.
It was real that day. It was real.
Your description of neighbors and relatives and your evacuation preparations remind me very much of my sister who with her children were my last remaining relatives in the metro area on that day (they all but one have moved out here to California since). While I may have teased her about her “survival” planning, I did understand completely.
That same sister is an RN who, like most medical personnel in the area, had to report to work that day. The urban NJ hospital she worked in at the time serves a sizable Palestinian neighborhood through which she routinely drove to get to work. On 9-11, she was forced to make her way through a boisterous block party while those Palestinians danced and celebrated in streets not 25 miles from a smoldering Ground Zero. I don’t hold all Muslims in contempt, but I do hold Islam in contempt and since that day, any talk of Muslim victimhood falls on deaf ears.
9-11 is one of the most over-emphasized events in history.
It always stuns me when I hear comments like this. It’s like I am speaking to a person from another planet. Close to 3,000 citizens (civilians!) murdered on our soil, during a time of peace – and in an unimaginable way – and you think it’s over emphasized?
I wonder what goes through the mind of someone like you.
I would like to not only compliment Roger and the rest of the PJM staff for fine work, but many of you who comment. I frequent several blog sites through the week, but seldom learn much new besides the information gleaned from the articles.
Here, I can learn as much from the commenting as I can from the article itself.
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I read many of the comments from above. If I may make my own observation about Islam. If you want to defeat Islam, you must first disprove Islam.
About as close an example I can find for a correct course of action, and this is only my opinion, is what General Douglas MacArthur did in dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion after WWII.
Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms and a constitutional form of government could not be put into place as long as the Japanese people looked to their emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito was forced to renounce his divine status.
The problem with Islam is not Al Qaida, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or Hezbollah. I believe these are secondary issues arising from the real crux of the problem – the Koran is false testimony from an immoral man.
Disprove the Koran and Islam will eventually crumble. Easier said than done, but ultimately required. And you certainly don’t disprove by placating their “holy” warriors, with political correctness run amok.
It required two atomic bombs to bring the Japanese into the proper frame of mind for reform. It took the firebombing of German cities and civilians and the utter crushing of the German military before Germany could be reformed.
We have a huge fleet of bombers in mothballs not to mention a large nuclear arsenal. So why are we still pissing around with these desert savages ten years after 9/11?
We have gone soft. Ours is not the WWII generation. And American boys and girls are paying with their lives every day for our moral and political weakness.
During WWI and WWII Germans were portrayed (accurately in my view)as subhuman monsters beholden first to the Kaiser and then to Hitler. Grotesque images of Germans and Japanese were common fare in both private and official American government publications during WWII. Churchill referred to the “Hun” without worrying that some fool might call him a racist.
As for deconstructing Islam, Tex, the problem isn’t in the doing. Mohamed was an illiterate brigand. The Koran is a pirate’s code. Deconstructing Islam is easy. Childsplay for anyone with an IQ over eighty. Unfortunately, it is the only religion the lowly Arabs have and they’re sticking with it.
The Christians of the Levant where Paul preached and Christianity was largely developed were not converted to Islam by conviction but by the sword. Unfortunately, when a modern Christian hears a Muslim call him a Crusader he can’t imagine who the the world the Muzzy could be talking about. Raising arms in aid of the Cross just isn’t a modern Christian’s lifestyle. It’s ignorant, violent and racist.
When contemporary Christians remember that many millions who call themselves Muslims today are the enslaved descendents of Christians victimized and forcibly converted by the marauding “prophet”, maybe we’ll have some chance of bringing this war to swift conclusion.
David, I can assure had they nominated me King of America in Oct. 2001, Tora Bora would not have been a concern, there would have been no loss of American life there unless the bomber crashed while passing over the mountain range, and Bin Laden wouldn’t have strolled over Pakistan. He and his band of malicious thugs would have been a scorch mark etched into a piece of molten glass.
You are correct. We have grown soft…
If anyone bothers to read my comment, they may be surprised. When I turned on the television that morning and saw what was happening my first thought was, “Why should anyone be surprised?” I immediately suspected Muslim terrorists. All the evidence had been there to prepare us all for it.
By the same token, when the Murray Building in Oklahoma City was blown apart, I had the same thought: “Why should anyone be surprised?” How long had the U.S. Government ignored the populace, how long governed against the interest of the people? All the evidence was there once again.
Nowdays, still more evidence is right before us, preparing us for another large Muslim attack, and, although related by the merest of threads, violence in the streets by America’s protected classes. I won’t be surprised when I see it.
Agree completely – precipitated by a stinging Obama defeat; worse if the vote close. Then charges of racism and voter fraud, followed by rioting in the streets and acts of sabotage and anarchy.
Said in 2008, my biggest worry was not if Obama were successful, but if he should happen to fail. And failed he has.
My view of the hatred spewed here is that those doing it ought to be locked up and the keys hidden. I’ve never seen such rubbish anywhere in my life. No one has suffered more from the outcome of 911 than the Muslim people themselves. The putative Christian U.S. population has turned into a self-loathing wretch of bigots who wouldn’t know peace and fairness if it struck them on their heads. It is disgusting and I am ashamed so many find this palatable. With attitudes like this, I have little doubt our nation is doomed and I am not surprised by the crises we now face. I hope you are all proud of the way you have conducted yourselves here. I pity any children you allowed access to, for they will have no chance for a normal life.
“My view of the hatred spewed here is that those doing it ought to be locked up and the keys hidden.”
Laughable. The only hatred being spewed here is yours.
“I’ve never seen such rubbish anywhere in my life. No one has suffered more from the outcome of 911 than the Muslim people themselves.”
Spare me the Muslim victimhood speech.
Take your nonsense elsewhere.
I WILL NOT SUBMIT!
A True 9/11 Lowlife: Natarajan Venkataram
Call them low-lifes or low-lives, they abound in our society today and Natarajan Venkataram isn’t the first and won’t be the last. He just qualifies as being among the lowest for stealing as much as $10 million in funds intended to identify the remains of the World Trade Center’s 9/11 victims.
India-native Venkataram admits to stealing from New York City’s Medical Examiner’s office, is abjectly sorry for his acts, is currently in federal detention at the Fort Dix Army Base, and refuses to turn over what’s left of his thievery.
Compounding his gross iniquities, he’s bitching about prison conditions.
The job of identifying the remains of 1,100 of the approximately 2,780 people who died at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 is stupefying as evidenced by the vast number yet unidentified a decade later.
Many of the dead were vaporized in the fiery cataclysm of the attacks and relatives of the dead have suggested some remains were ignominiously dumped at the former Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, where an estimated two million tons of Ground Zero debris from the WTC were literally dumped to enable the rebuilding of the center complex.
The contentions of the relatives have been substantiated by the recovery of hundreds of bone and other human fragments at Fresh Kills as well as on the roof of the Deutsche Bank building.
Not that the ghoulish Venkataram cared about the horrors of 9/11 or where victims were buried or dumped. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5366.)
Thank you, Roger, and everyone at PJM. Love this site.
USAGE The traditional, etymological meaning of fortuitous is ‘happening by chance’: a : fortuitous meeting is a chance meeting, which might turn out to be either a good thing or a bad thing. In modern uses, however, fortuitous tends more often to be used to refer to fortunate outcomes, and the word has become more or less a synonym for ‘lucky’ or ‘fortunate.’ This use is frowned upon as being not etymologically correct and is best avoided except in informal contexts.
And I thank God for Pajamas Media et al. I, too, awoke that day, but did not become engaged until I heard a speech July 2, 2008 when Obama spoke of the need for a “Civilian National Security Force”, answering to him. (http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/obamas_civilian_national_secur.html).
Bells went off, and am now knee deep in it. PJM gives me inspiration.
One trope I would like to see dispensed with in the next ten years is one you used yourself: the “war on terror”. Terrorism is a tactic not an enemy. We might as well call the Vietnam war the “war on guerilla”. Give me a break.
And thanks for at least posing a question many will not: Islamism (fundamentalist Islam, radical Islam) or just Islam? – Just Islam. We are fighting a war against Islam. We have been for 1200 years and they started it. Until that truth is universally understood (excepting the few intransigent meatheads that will always remain in any debate) and addressed we are going to be spinning our wheels in this fight. Islam is evil. There are good Muslims, but they are simply ignorant of their own religion and they need to wise up, and quick.
My apologies if this has already been said, but I don’t have time right now to read every comment. The ones I’ve read so far are as good as the article. Kudos.
“… that assault on modernity led inexorably to the founding of Pajamas Media and ultimately PJTV. Pajamas Media is very much a child of 9/11.”
Wow, I really didn’t know that!
Many thanks to you, and everyone else here. I cannot imagine my life now without PJM!
THANK YOU BIN LADEN
for Pajamas Media.
Great good has come from the evil you did.
Having PJM is worth the lives of 3,000 Americans. Good God!
If it was that alone, no. I should have said that PJM is one of many good things that have come from the evil of Bin Laden’s attack on our country-the most important of which is the awakening of America to the civilizational struggle with Islam. PJM for me has been a great voice in this awakening.
Simon: “The good news is that some of us are now awake –even if made so in the most brutal manner ten years ago.”
As a one-time student of International Politics (including Middle East studies) long ago, what I came to recognize after 9/11 is that in all those studies we dealt with Islam hardly at all; it was never seen as an event driver of consequence. We’d note, for example, that Turkey and Iran were “Muslim, but not Arab”, as if that provided a full understanding of why they could have relations with Israel. My modest library from those days contained not a single volume with “Islam” or “Muslim” in the title. That’s no longer the case. I fear though that our political leaders still don’t get it. All we get from them is political correctness – “outreach”, accommodation, multi-culti nonsense, etc.
You know one of the things I like best about you, Roger? Since the early days of your original blog, your erudition has added many words to my vocabulary. Today’s word: irredentist: One who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to one’s nation but now subject to a foreign government. Thank you.
For all I enjoy reading Roger’s articles, the first paragraphs of this one gave me pause, since I am … a bit or so … younger than Roger. For me, WWII was ALWAYS “ancient history”, and Vietnam was something that the grown ups rambled on boringly about when I was 3 or 4. My mom even took me to a protest, once. When I was that age, I didn’t know or care what it was about of course.
But my response to 9/11 was akin to my response to the Challenger explosion over a decade before: “Wow. Finally; I’m astonished it took this long to happen.” My best friend still has the recording from his answering machine that I left where I said “We’re living in a Tom Clancy novel!” (a reference to the novel “Debt of Honor”, in case you have not even now heard about the obnoxious parallels)
In both cases the evident danger was forecast decades before, and I’ve always been astonished at the goggling response to, what to me, should have been obvious.
After all, I first read about OBL back in 1983 or so, and had been expecting a large-scale spacecraft disaster since the miracle of Apollo 13. I don’t know what rock the rest of you have been hiding under since I was 5, but you should maybe consider crawling out from under it.
I mean, common sense and all. Seriously. The world is a hostile and dangerous place; deal with it.
To Roger, all PJM and PJTV staff and associates,
Thank you!
For too many years my life and vision from the biblical perspective, were lived in the desert created by post-modernism with its humanism and cynical disbelief. Then along came the light when you and others received the grace to speak and write truth.
Now remembering the horrors of 10 years ago, please let me share the inspired ballad, MIRACLE IN TRADE TOWER TWO, which followed a three-day fast. Please see
http://www.endureinstrength.org on homepage select
MIRACLE IN TRADE TOWER TWO
Blessings to you!