Obama’s Middle East Delusions
The entire subtext of Obama’s outreach narratives (made explicitly in his al Arabiya interview) is that his own unique pedigree and worldview have exempted him from American pathologies and thus culpability for them. In the alternate brain chemistry of the Obamites, there is no contradiction between worldwide Islamist vows to kill our diplomats or burn embassies and Obama’s much-vaunted boasts of restoring American popularity abroad. The derangement goes like this: those who hate America are mistakenly still mad at the old Bush America and have not yet evolved to duly appreciate the new Obama America. In other words, the vestiges of right-wing extremism still confuses those abroad, who have not yet caught on that America is on their side.
In the present case, bewildered press secretary Tim Carney essentially said just that: that when protestors burn flags, kill Americans, and destroy icons of American power, they aren’t really mad at us, Obama, the White House, or American foreign policy. Instead, they are just confused over disgusting Terry Jones and a reprehensible handful of Copts:
We also need to understand that this is a fairly volatile situation and it is in response not to United States policy, and not to, obviously, the administration, or the American people, but it is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy, this is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.
“Not…directed at the United States” — perhaps tell that to Ambassador Stevens as he suffocated to death.
4. What Must Muslims Do?
It is not brain surgery to enter the modern world. Follow some South Koreans or Chileans around for a week with a video camera. Grow up and stop blaming those on whom you depend for everything from drilling bits to laptops. Adopt the now seemingly impossible: consensual government, a bill of rights, secular tolerance for religious diversity, gender equality, meritocracy, respect for science and empiricism, a free market, and a free press. In other words, join the 21st century.
Otherwise, Westerners must make themselves as immune from Middle East passions as is possible. In that context, not tapping vast new domestic finds of gas and oil on public lands is suicidal, given that such potential income and independence would soon make the Gulf irrelevant to our survival. Let the Kuwaitis or the Iranians deal with the Chinese. Of course, elites warn us not to “overreact.” But overreacting, compared to the present radical appeasement, is the moderate, rational course.
A good start, then, would be very quietly to start trimming aid at about $100 million every month, and quite coolly rejecting visas from the Middle East (putting thousands of future Mr. Morsis on hold). We can put travel restrictions on the Middle East, and ask the Egyptian ambassador to go home for a month or so to think things over and see whether he really wishes to protect our embassy. Elites shriek, “Oh, but you’ll only isolate Morsi and alienate the moderates.” Perhaps, but we might also remind them that American friendship is based on reciprocity and must be earned rather than assumed. How odd that the only good thing that either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton has said throughout this depressing spectacle was Obama’s flub that he didn’t quite know whether Egypt, the recipient of over $1 billion in annual U.S. cash, was an ally or enemy. So only by accident does he make the Muslim Brotherhood government a tiny bit unsure of exactly how we feel or what we might do.
Good Evening Victor,
I love reading your work and listening to you speak.
I noticed a typo on page 3 of this article: “they aren’t really made at us” should read “they aren’t really mad at us”.
Thank you for being a voice of reason.
Also, Dr. Hanson has referred to the current White House spokesman as Tim Carney. His actual first name is Jay, not Tim.
In fact, Bob would be more appropriate. Baghdad Bob Carney.
Actually, Debbie would be more appropriate, as in Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz. “Baghdad Bob” was such a long time ago, but Debbie is fresh and new and everyone can remember her blatant falsehoods from earlier this month.
Debbie or Jay, either one is okay.
What would it be like if there was a presidential press secretary who didn’t have to lie constantly just to keep his job? I guess one must go back more than 3 1/2 years, to Dana Perino and Tony Snow.
No, Art Carney, after Jackie Gleason’s comedic sidekick, would be the most fitting moniker for the president’s spokesman.
dr. hanson’s title is wrong
obama isn’t harboring “delusions” but working hand-in-hand with the brothers
and everything’s going just fine and dandy
And you pointed that out because????????????????????????????????????
My comment was referring to the typo comment.
The problem is that our gov’t will NEVER figure this out. A child could see it but State & the prez are completely out to lunch. Being nice to these people & apologizing does nothing but breed contempt for the West. Cut off all foreign aid, freeze all visas, kick all muslims outta the military & get the troops ready is only thing they will even notice. Islam is stuck in the 600s & has no one to blame but themselves. Being in the West & seeing all of the progress & freedom simply incites the violence & hatred in them to grow. The detest democracy & worship Hitler. We simply never learn as the hand wringers in DC never get it. Just treat them nice & they will be nice to us. Yeah, right… That worked well against Hitler, didn’t it???
Those of us living in the Middle East (on the front lines) understand what the POTUS – and his recalcitrant crew – is wrecking.
One has to spend sufficient time in Jerusalem to witness rabid Islamic fueled mobs, as they squat atop/near the Temple Mount. One can glean the same frenzied eyed looks in so many Islamic adherents, it is as if they are gripped by a death cult.
I kid you not!
NO amount of western groveling will satiate their blood lust, and their Allah bent quest for western submission. Moreover, appeasement only whets their jihadi appetites.
See – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/, for starters.
Pay particular attention to ‘The Crisis of Our Times’, cited within the above commentary, by Professor Paul Eidelberg, a man who truly knows the score.
It explains the heretofore inexplicable, as does ‘Islam & Blood’.
By the way, Barack HUSSEIN Obama understands where the conflagration is headed, and he is rooting for the other team. As to his surrogates, some do too,albeit others are operating without any real knowledge base of regional politics, and the pillars of Islamic doctrine.
Deadly.
I wrote a few weeks ago that Obama and his puppeteers were deliberately fanning the flames of global jihad. The results are now starting to manifest. Elements of the cabal are trying to precipitate a global conflagration, first by turning the middle-east over to radical regimes, and then isolating Israel. Much of what we see on the surface are the results of deliberate plans being hatched behind the scenes, including the gradual encroachment of Sharia in the West. Besides treason of the highest order, there is an element of madness within this administration.
Please stop your link-whoring.
Adina Kutnicki, Israel;
You are probably a nice person, I don’t know, but your constant and persistent blog linking here grows old and tiresome. If your writings are worth reading people will find it on their own without you selling it all over the web.
Give it a rest.
He is on topic, and definitely not a troll, so what is the problem? You are free to pass over his comments, and not click on his links.
I was shocked to see a number of comments jumping all over an Israeli woman who links her blogs here. The same could be said of me, though I live in Southern California. I recommend PJ Media articles constantly on my FB page, and that is the way the internet works: to circulate ideas that MSM censors. Is the fact that she is a woman, and that cogent analyses of antisemitism or anti-Zionism are verboten in the MSM, a relevant consideration? For my own latest see http://clarespark.com/2012/09/16/thought-crimes/. Sadly, antisemitism is rarely addressed in all its manifestations in the academy, let alone MSM, even Fox News. And I deeply wish that freethinking was a key, pervasive element of our American culture, but sadly, it is not.
Get over it.
Just more Micro Targeting disinformation from the party of envy.
I have to agree, it’s link-whoring and it’s unwelcome. It’s not anti-woman and it’s not anti-semetic. Readers object to shameless links on movie fan sites, too. A big, awkward web address is ugly and it breaks up the conversation.
This is Dr. Hanson’s blog, Hanson is not linking to you, Kudnicki and Spark, YOU ARE LINKING YOURSELVES. Repeatedly. Hanson doesn’t have time for links, unless it’s a footnote.
If your comment is smart or funny, a reader can google your name and find your work.
I’ve read both Kudnicki and Spark, as I recall, through instapundit: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/. But I also rely on Glen Reynolds and his crack staff at instapundit to hand select well-written opinions worth reading. You don’t get to LINK YOURSELVES on instapundit, either.
I think you guys need to back off. Nobody is making you click on her links. I welcome her point of view and frankly wish that she would write more on this site. She has given valuable incite on many topics and I’m sure that she will continue. Let me ad another statement, “If you don’t like what I have to say, don’t read it. Otherwise bite my a**.”
I too vote for links by any and all, and appreciate both clare and adina.
I thought the point of blog posts and comments was to spew our own opinions and LINK to other ideas and work so as to expand everyones understanding … my bad I guess … we should just stick to our own personal opinions in the comments …
I agree –let Kudnicki talk –why bench an eye witness?
I have learned a great deal from Adina and Clare. Their work is substantive, and it’s not something you see in many other places. I might be irritated if the links weren’t worthwhile, Joe, but they are, and more than that. I encourage you to take a look at them.
I like Robin’s links too.
Big deal. What, your tired eyes cant skip 2 or 3 (blue) lines. Lighten up.
I pray for the Israeli people because this raised Muzi POS president will allow a genocide to happen to your people to appease savages and their religion. I am a Christian and he doesn’t speak out when Jesus is covered in urine or Mother Mary is painted with feces. But let someone say something about the Muzis and he’s quick to sign UN Resolution 1618 saying no one can insult Islam.Islam is an insult to everyone that believes in our God given freedoms and I cuss their religion..
Oh, they have figured it out. You are laboring under the delusion that Obama is truly interested in keeping America strong, nothing could be further from the truth. He has nothing but contempt for the American Dream and its supporters.
And WE the people will be paying, not the administration, not the elites, not the academics (but I repeat myself) not the people who have guided this ship to disaster – they will get in the lifeboats while we sing another anthem and raise another flag before we sink into history. They will have high schools named after them. We will be removing the graffiti.
But I heard for the last 4 days that Muslims love Obama……And that some how seems important to this administration.
(I don’t get it)
Proof of the Ferris Bueller truism:
“[Y]ou can’t respect someone who kisses you ass. I just doesn’t work.”
Okay, so what are we going to do about it? How about zombie’s Truthaganda war? May I suggest that during the coming week, people hold “rallies for truth” wherever they can? Signage suggestions:
IT’S NOT ABOUT A VIDEO
IT’S THE POLICY, STUPID
OBAMA’S APOLOGIES ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST
DON’T LET OBAMA/CLINTON LIE THEIR WAY OUT (with blow-up of dead Chris Stevens)
CLINTON/OBAMA’S MAN-CAUSED DISASTER (with blow-up of dead Chris Stevens)
YOU CAN’T BLAME BUSH ANYMORE
THE DAY I’M INAUGURATED…THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS AT AMERICA DIFFERENTLY. — BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 21, 2007
Also see zombie’s column for further ideas. http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/09/14/narrative-wars-slap-the-honey-boo-boos-with-truthaganda/
I spent most of the weekend spreading Honey B’s all over the internet. It felt sooo good. Just seeing the headline made me feel better. Thank You.
Dr. Hanson –
As always, you take a tremendous amount of facts, give them context, and make them understandable. Thank you.
Dr Hansen, Thank you. For putting into simple and eloquent thought what I’ve been screaming for ages. Complete and utter disengagement should be the norm. Ah, but I babble on… Thank you.
Well said Dr. Hanson. Your blog is a voice of reason,,, too bad it isn’t read in the White House.
My answer to the Muslim threat would be to remind the that we have the knowledge. We CAN drill through glass.
For those who might be looking for a deeper explanation of Islam and its history, pick-up any of Robert Spencer’s books on the subject. Islam preaches war against the infidel. Islam requires that it be constant until the infidels are eliminated and Islam is the “one” religion. That, too, is a constant in the equation.
The main paragraph in “A Footnote” at the end is simply brilliant. Krauthammer is jealous I bet.
Hey, Hansen doesn’t belong in any sentence about Krautwhiner! Maybe an idea to spell out that K was entranced by Obama, alongside Noonan and Brooks. K is by far the most arrogant of the three, and a textbook example of a man whose reach exceeds his grasp. He also looks like Dr. Strangelove.
Please don’t sink to the level of leftists who feel that negatively commenting on a person’s appearance is appropriate. I think Dr. Krauthammer looks pretty darn good for someone paralyzed for so many years.
Fair enough. But the good Dr. K does have a long history of folding like a cheap card-table when one would least expect it. And the truth is that he did bite on the empty suit with the well-creased trousers. Totally drawn in by the optics, he was.
AFAIK (yes, I did check, and will be happy to retract if you can show me where), he still hasn’t apologized. He’s a vain arrogant bastard, over the hill and fair game.
The much anticipated clash of civilizations as predicted by the eminent Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis is underway. To ignore the obvious is to accept defeat and enslavement. It is an affront to intellect to listen to the moronic babblings of Obama and his minions and their explanation of the current crisis. Forget about ‘foreign policy stops at the water’s edge’; the American public must be made aware of the facts. The distorted and filtered view of the world as promulgated by the NY Times and the MSM is not based on reality. Their ‘vision’ is one of continued American decline. Alice, recently returned from Wonderland, and observing the behaviour of Obama, his administration and the press must be experiencing deja vue. Time is running out.
Reading such a concise framing of the issues that are the source of the profound alienation from modernity now being nurtured all over the ME(Remember those 1960s pictures of Cairo University with both genders are no veil in sight?) serves as a reminder that it is not just not wanting to have egg on their face that provoked last week’s and yesterday’s Liefests on the causes.
Much of what VDH describes as the earmarks of the 21st century that the ME needs to join us in, this Administration is actively seeking to circumvent. Much like the ME dictators this Administration is actively seeking to use education to eliminate the concept of individuality. The MB uses its radical views of Islam to bind it populations emotionally at the level of motivating values, attitudes, and beliefs.
This Administration is deliberately those same feelings and motivating values, attitudes, and beliefs with initiatives like ASCD’s Whole Child and the NEA’s Purple America using Transformational Outcomes Based Education practices again and systems thinking. When challenged recently on the implications of this initiative, a school super responded with a 1992 ASCD publication celebrating trying to get social systems, like people and economies, to behave with the compelling certainty of natural systems like blood circulation. Only when citizens become drones with programmed responses courtesy of the real Common Core.
The point is this Administration wants a postModern America with citizens groomed by education, K-12 and higher ed, to be subservient to the wishes of the nomenklatura who will decide all. They cannot push the 21st century vision that VDH rightly honors as the source of Western prosperity because it is anathema to them. Beyond the election they also want to believe the economy is a fixed pie. That someone having more means another having less. Maybe in Egypt where the economy is based on devt aid from abroad but that is not the West’s vision.
But it is the Obama Administration vision and the Brussels vision and the UN vision and the ME vision. So they scramble trying not to repudiate practices they wish to emulate and coming up with false explanations for tragic events they should have foreseen.
Thank you Dr Hansen!
You should be required reading for every American!
Obama claiming that with his inauguration a new day in Islamic/American relations had dawned was the very essence of self delution.
Obama somehow actually thinks that glorifying himself for killing Bin Laden and authorizing hundreds of drone strikes on Islamic terrorists will be eagerly approved by the Arab street because it was all done by someone named Barack Hussein Obama.
Obama needs to say bluntly that Americans have a constitution that provides its citizens with freedom of speech. Freedom of speech includes a guaranteed right to produce a movie, a book or a phamphlet that some might interpret as insulting to Islam.
He needs to highlight the fact that many Muslim nations daily publish complete falsehoods that denigrate Jews and their religion. That Christains are persecuted and killed by Islamists in many countries of the middle east. He needs to quit condeming Americans for exercising their rights and unequivically condemn the “protesters” that kill Americans and invade our embassies. Tell them that their barbarism has no rational excuse. “Feeling their pain” is a cop out much like refusing to hold minorities accountable for their actions because of long past injustices to their ancestors.
More truths from the Professor. But is the next strategy so simple. After all it is all about money, always about money.
Too many influential Westerners have come to depend on Islamic funds – many Americans. The list is endless, from Texas oilmen to disgraced Arkansas politicians to Boston Brahmans. Money, money, money. The problem is not the Attas and Morsis, but the Allaweeds and bin Abdulas and oh yes the bin Ladens. It is the Qatar World Cup, the “Race to Dubai,” the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. For goodness sake, let’s get serious. What are the lives of a couple of retired SEALs and a career State Department weenie worth. There is real money at stake here.
Lepanto is a telling example. So is the U.S. the Hapsburg Empire? The Europeans the venal and decrepit Venetians? The Chinese the wily English? Oh what a dismal future and not a Don Juan in sight.
If there is one element that can be accurately described as the mid-eastern mindset it is thus. I may abhor your convictions but if I sense that you lack the courage of your own then I will abhor you even more. Nothing is lower than the person who is willing to negotiate his own professed principles. I would have thought that Obama’s cultural up-bringing would have taught him this. Rest assured that the “Arab Street” sees Obama as an unworthy being and nothing more than an impotent and pliable jerk. Tragically that may translate into the view that they have of us all.
” Nothing is lower than the person who is willing to negotiate his own professed principles.’
These are my principles … … and if you don’t like them … … well … … I have others. – Groucho
“that may translate into the view that they have of us all.”
Tragic as that may be (and it is), the view that they have of us all is, tragically, true.
We did elect Obama, and we may now elect him again to make that view twice true.
It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing. (George S. Patton)
“Terry Jones is only as crude as Andres Serrano and his Piss Christ”,/i>
Terry Jones attacked an evil “religion” and Andres Serrano attacked a decent religion. That you think there is a moral equivalence is absolutely astounding.
I’ve never quite understood the Republican/conservative need to criticize the extreme elements within their group while criticizing Liberals/Democrats. You NEVER see liberals distancing themselves from their own leftist extremities in a criticism of “right wing radicalism”.
The problem is that liberals present one-side of a two-sided debate. Conservatives often offer a counter-argument before they’ve even finished making their point, in a naive sense of fair play. The upshot is that non-aligned parties glom on to the “evil” conservatives who can’t even argue without admitting their own misdeeds.
While I do not advocate emulating the deceit of liberals, it isn’t a moral failing to not hand your opponent a weapon to use against you.
Also, I’m behind Terry Jones. Maybe it’s better to offend now, so that everyone sees how “tolerant” Muslims are, before our country gets too convinced that they are a religion of peace, and we’re back to the gates of Vienna.
Like Button.
“In that regard, each time we castigate a Rushdie, a Danish cartoonist, a U.S. soldier, or a nut like Terry Jones, we simply play into the hands of the Islamists.’
You reach the verdict that Terry Jones is a nut. Well let me remind you, this is no sanity trial and you are no judge. And what is it with this “Islamists”? What the hell is that? It doesn’t even pass my spell checker. “Islamists” is a word used by people who want to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the followers, that would be Muslims, of Mohammad, the Monster Who Walked The Earth, just some fringe outlier “islamists”. This is out of touch with reality, so you seem more like a nut to me than Terry Jones.
“4. What Must Muslims Do?
It is not brain surgery to enter the modern world. Follow some South Koreans or Chileans around for a week with a video camera. Grow up and stop blaming those on whom you depend for everything from drilling bits to laptops. Adopt the now seemingly impossible: consensual government, a bill of rights, secular tolerance for religious diversity, gender equality, meritocracy, respect for science and empiricism, a free market, and a free press. In other words, join the 21st century.’
In other words renounce Allah, Mohammad, the Koran and Islam. Do you really think that’s a realistic expectation? What is your plan to accomplish this? Air drop pixie dust all over the Muslim world? Where am I? Oh no, this is Oz, isn’t it?
No, not pixie dust. Better some aging nukes. Pass it off as tough lvoe. No more mister nice guy.
Pig’s blood- cheap, plentiful, nonviolent, sprays well.
And please stop calling Jones a nut. All the right ist radio hosts do too.
OK, sounds good to me.
By staggering coincidence, this mindset in the Muslim world is an exact duplicate of the mindset of “postmodern” Western pseudo-intellectuals like The Self-Exalted One.
This tells you all you need to know about why Obama & Co. are so anxious to fawn over, kowtow to, and generally fantasize about a “union” with, Islam in its present, ultra-violent form.
We see dangerous primitivists seeking to destroy us to avoid admitting their own failures. Obama & Co. see enlightened mystics who share their vision of the evil West. And their desire to punish us for our sins against “other peoples”, Holy Mother Gaia, etc.
Islam’s war against civilization can cripple us if we don’t start fighting back. But until we cease letting our own “enlightened ones” make the decisions, we won’t be doing so. Nor will we be doing anything else to preserve our civilization for the future, because they are determined to erase us from the face of the Earth. So they can build their imagined Utopia on the ruins.
Until we realize this, and remove these idiots from power and not let them back in- ever, we will keep losing.
The war with Islam is only a sideshow compared to our “postmodern intellectuals’” war against the rest of us.
clear ether
eon
Precisely, eon.
Both emperors have no clothes… and both desperately need outside scapegoats, lest their own should turn on them, or abandon them in droves.
Leftists and Islamists, as you point out, come from the very same mindset. And historically, both of their ideologies hurt rather than help, destroy rather than build.
And if both are somehow left victorious, the Islamists will come after the leftists… with a cold fury and vengance.
But if their un-washed masses ever – ever – opened their eyes…
The problem is we, as a nation, are unwilling to admit to ourselves that the war is against islam itself.
Islam and free people are not compatible and never will be.
We are already practicing dhimmitude.
Stalin the bank robber led Azeri and Persian Muslim gangs back to Moscow.
I believe that Soviet subversion is sanitized dawa, ‘soft war’.
They just took the Allah bits out, as did Marx when he reworked Millenial Apocalypse storise from the US Millerite temperance movement. (The End was Nigh because of the plague of drunkenness as the poor Scots-Irish spread their secret art of hard liquor distillation.)
‘From the ashes of man’s sin, a new and perfect world will arise!’- for the Elect.
Excellent!
I hope Mitt Romney with limited time becomes a True Believer in USA , Babylon the Great m the world Empire of false religion as my old friends call her because of Her UNITING Great Power to bring Freedom in the midst of corupting undercurrents allowing the Chosen of God to be free to Find the True God and Let the Medes and the Persians , Cyrus The Great , come from USA in 2016 and not some other wacko nation
This is so simple to understand: Know who we are and why God approves of us still although our time maybe running out but no one knows the day our the hour except the Father
Waxy, did you steal that “missing” teleprompter?
Excellent article. The irony of O’s stupid Mid-East appeasement policy, particularly in not backing Mubarak and the Iranian demonstrators, is that it makes it far more likely that we will exploit our own oil and gas resources and divest ourselves of these losers. The other bit of collateral damage to O and his backers is that his policies there–among others–make it far more likely that Romney’s win in November will be a landslide.
What a tremendous expression of the problems embodied in those who cannot understand the basic principles of what America is, or at least should be, and their failures to understand that to the descendants of Bedouin culture, weakness is sin. Thank you, Professor Hanson. Would that all University professors were more like you.
“5. Whom to Fear?”
Your list is a clear violation of “The Principle of First and Second Things”.
Muslims will never defeat Americans in battle. Only traitors like Obama, Hillary, the MSM and the Joint Chiefs of Staff can do that, aided and abetted by a do nothing but roll over congress.
“If anything, the more we know about each other, the more we sense we are back to Lepanto and the siege of Vienna.”
Good point. But it is also, unfortunately, very revealing of the narrow Western mindset in its conflict/relationship with Islam. There were previous engagements with Islam.
No mention of the defense and loss of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, etc. All previously areas of Western culture. No mention of the resistance (and in many cases martyrdom) of the Orthodox Greeks and Slavs.
Deep down, most educated Muslims know they conquered/occupied these lands from what they themselves considered the “West”. Even if we, the “West”, have forgotten and do not.
Seems as if we Westerners have forgotten the resistance to the Islamic sieges put up for hundreds of years by Eastern Christendom. A resistance that had not existed when it did, would have meant no “West” in the sense we know it today.
Maybe we should begin thinking offensively again. Remind the Muslims that some of the territory in their possession wasn’t always culturally “theirs” to begin with. Apologizing to, and unleashing the Serbs would be a good start.
Bring it on. Oil up the guillotines and lets get this Crusade going!! To put it bluntly, KILL OR BE KILLED. This is about survival. All this agonizing over the morality of defeating evil is disgusting… and cowardly.
During Geert Wilders’ Islamic blasphemy trial, which the Dutch judiciary conducted as proxies of the umma (transnational Islam) — Wilders was acquitted, finally — Afshin Ellian, an Iranian-born, 46-year-old law professor, poet, columnist and professor of citizenship, social cohesion and multiculturalism at the University of Leiden, gave an interview to Metronieuws. The invaluable Gates of Vienna translated the 2010 interview with Ellian, which contains what I find to be one of the most striking observations of our time:
Ellian: “If you cannot say that the Islam is a backward religion and that Muhammad is a criminal, then you are living in an Islamic country, my friend, because there you also cannot say such things. I may say Christ was a f-ag and Mary was a w-hore, but apparently I should stay off of Muhammad.”
This came to mind when I saw Sunday’s Prince Talal Post headline (above):
“Feds question loon who set fire to Muslim world.”
Welcome to the umma.
“Remember the source of premodern Islamic anger. Why did the Zawahiri brothers, or the late bin Laden, or the Islamist of the week hate the West, and in particular the United States?”
The west, as well as America, has been hated for centuries. People tend to forget that Americans were hated by Muslims and Islamists even before we were a nation. Even while we were struggling for independence from Great Britain, American merchant ships were captured and their crews enslaved by Muslim Barbary Pirates off the coast of North Africa and in the Mediterranean Ocean. The pirates did this primarily to extort ransom from the United States, but they also did it because they hated Christians, especially the Europeans (and they probably saw Americans as being no different than Europeans).
These attacks enraged Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to refuse to pay the ransom and the subsequent “tribute” to the Barbary Pirates, calling it blackmail. But at that time, people like John Adams stated that we were too weak to do anything about it and that we didn’t even have a Navy to fight the pirates. The lesson wasn’t lost on Jefferson, who was certainly a man of principle and refused to accept the fact that we could be attacked and blackmailed and that the criminals could get away with it. To him, it was not only illegal but dishonorable as well.
When Jefferson became president in 1800, the Barbary Pirate situation had only gotten worse. The demands of the Barbary monarchs in what are now Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria only grew as the years went by. You see, they firgured we would never fight back and that unwillingness to defend ourselves only encouraged them to attack and seize more American ships, take more hostages, and ask for bigger ransoms and tribute (which was basically extortion money we paid on a regular basis so that the pirates wouldn’t attack us). Well, in 1800, Jefferson had had enough. He remembered the way we were treated before we won our independence by the Barbary Pirates and he wasn’t about to let it go on. Thomas Jefferson sent our small Navy to Africa to defeat the Barbary Pirates and, after an intense struggle that lasted several years, the Americans finally won.
So don’t let anybody kid you. The Islamists in that part of the world have hated Christians, as well as Americans, for centuries now. The only thing they respect is massive force and if we cannot prove that we are able to protect our own citizens in that part of the world, Americans are going to be placed at risk and may have to endure more killings and possibly some kidnappings, like we did in the 1980s in Lebanon (and ask Terry Anderson how well that worked out for us). We are entering a dangerous time now. The Islamists think we are leaving the Middle East and they are trying to step in to fill the political void that has been created. If we don’t protect our own citizens right now, more death and kidnappings are coming our way and this president is in no way prepared to deal with that.
But Americans need to grasp that Islams hatred for the United States goes way back, to when we weren’t even a nation yet. If you think all those years of hatred are simply going to go away because some president says he “loves you” and wants to be your friend, like Obama did in Cairo in 2009, you’re willfully delusional. The bulk of the Middle East is filled with bin Laden knockoffs and wannabes. And no amount of humoring them will change that. The only way to survive is to show them, in no uncertain terms, that if you harm an American the pain you will suffer will be so bad that you’ll think twice before doing it again. Thomas Jefferson learned that lesson over 200 years ago. Will Obama and the current administration have to learn it again? Apparently so.
This is why we should not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Iran to protect our perfect tiny Babylon on the Middle EAat as we did with the death cult in Japan and not risk one western life and when the Mullahs see we MEAN business they instantly change or else lose All their riches
Then we can move on to Pakistan and see how they Love to be under the GReat Power we have and tame their people so they can love democracy as we do , God Willing
Preparing the people is the 1st step before the next step
Victor Hanson for Secretary of State. To sum up the present administration’s four years in four letters … F … A … I … L.
Islam cannot win as long as Muslim nations lack strategic reach. The professor has stated many times, quite rightly, that oil-rich nations can purchase the tools of modernity, but they cannot produce them domestically. This is the key to keeping radical Islam contained. Our policy should be three-fold:
1. Eliminate the Iranian nuclear program.
2. Increase domestic oil and gas production. This measure would strike directly at the funding sources of Islamic terror. I’m talking specifically about Saudi Arabia and its Wahabist ideology.
3. We need to eliminate Islamic bridgeheads into the west through immigration. Putting aside the demographic trends, we need to recognize that every mosque established outside the Middle East is a potential incubator for Islamic terror.
The first 9/11 was an anomaly in terms of its scope and magnitude. It won’t be repeated if we can eliminate Islam’s strategic reach. We can absorb small scale attacks without endangering our national survival. Islam will then be forced to turn inward. Let the frenzy burn itself out internally. The Muslim world is beginning to disintegrate(Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran). Let nature take its course.
We have the great power to make Islam love us the way an Abused woman loves a powerful man who shows her who her enemies are and proceeds to destroy them
Containment? Michael Creighton wrote an epic about the hubris of containment -Jurassic Park. And, he didn’t portray those predators as suicidal. Through the magic of Speilberg’s CGI his creations are indistinguishable from the real thing. We face an analogous dilemma distinguishing “good muslims” from maniacal killers.
Containment is a foolish approach so long as Muslims are allowed to travel on any conveyance they didn’t build. All muslims are a threat to infidel travelers, across the planet.
Islam is a Plague on humankind. All Muslims are carriers, whether in jihad mode, or as a jihadi-in-waiting. Sudden jihad syndrome now threatens even our troops, here at home and everywhere abroad.
The only “good muslims” we keep hearing about are apostates; ie, no longer Muslims. Their are very few of them due the Islamic death decree for apostasy.
Our challenge is to transform Islam, before we must eradicate it.
QUARANTINE is the appropriate action, from internet access all the way to food supplies if necessary.
Drones are too expensive for the task at hand, unless we target the source of the disease – mullahs.
Did you know that mullahs are self-appointed? No formal schooling or seminary required; just memorization of a book written in Arabic. Since an enormous majority of the Muslims worldwide are illiterate and kept that way, and while 99% of Muslims don’t speak Arabic, the mullahs get to interpret/dictate what life’s about.
Let’s start formulating an actual solution. Quaratine Mecca for starters; no more hadj. Uprisings by the faithful prolongs their exclusion. Next publish the target list – the Top 10,000 anti-infidel mullahs due for elimination (no more secret list just for the One). Force them from their pulpits into hiding.
Probably need only to pop a few hundreds before the rest realize they need to get their scholars busy on Islam V.2. Make the congregations shun the mosques of those mullahs on the list, if only to preserve the buildings.
Get serious or submit to endless war on their terms. It’s not about curtailing religious freedom.
/rant
If, as you say, Islam is a pox upon humanity then perhaps a manner in which we treat cancer, irradiation, is the cure. The differences between Nazi Germany and Islam are minimal, but significant in the sense that when the Nazi regime was defeated, Germans became civilized people again. That does not seem like it will be the case with the cult of mohammed. Of course, if you kill off enough of the ‘Arab street’ their reptilian brains MIGHT get the message of behave or be obliterated.
There is no middle ground with these savages.
On the mark, as always Dr. Hanson. Thank you.
Our hesitancy confirms their accusations…suggests that we are also weak and without a sense of self
Well, of course it does!
Lepanto and the siege of Vienna, maybe even the crusades, went into hibernation but they never went away. This time around, Islamic fanatics smell weakness and the smart ones draw comfort and strength from linking 7th century savagery to low- to medium-tech weapons and modern media tools. The result: an asymmetric battleground where they can thrive in the face of our pompous, waffling elites, who are never forced to eat their own cooking. In the demi-monde of the wise and pampered, what are a few butchered marines and ambassadors — all easily airbrushed from the record by the pliant prostitutes in the MSM — set alongside the certainty that you can always walk away free and clear to a lucrative K-Street consultancy, and never see a Hillary or a Rice hanging by their ankles from the lamp-post?
It will, of course, continue until stopped. Romney is a better choice than Obama, but his focus groups will hedge in all directions, so don’t get your hopes up. The solution is not more chat. Don’t see a problem with ‘What Must Muslims Do?’ — VDHs ideas for an incremental policy — but it isn’t adequate in the face of American deaths and the destruction of American property. Who cares if we alienate a few moderates if we concentrate many murderous minds?
It’s past time to blow up something big. And to be very clear about the reasons for drone and special forces attacks. And to be public and clear about support for Israel. And to be unrelenting in our scorn for the third-word thugs at the UN.
Why is this so difficult?
My personal True believer response is we here must not appear begging but have the ability to convince poor girlie man Obama and his inner wounded child that his wolf smile and be turn into a lion heart so we have two in the next few months competing for Super power leader to save us from failure since the people are fickle and no one should ever consider overthrowing democracy unless God himself has come to the earth
sombf: I love your clear thinking and forceful expression. “The pliant prostitutes of the MSM” – brilliant phrase! You’re damn right, we need to get really serious about this, quit apologising for being alive, and recognize that the struggle between good and evil, it is nothing less, has resurfaced big-style.
It strikes me that Morsi is doing to Obama what Khomeni did to Carter, going into an election and making him swing in the wind. It appears that he is determined to prove to his real friends that this erstwhile “friend” is no friend at all, but rather one to be humiliated and destroyed. Yet, it does not discourage Carter. Nor, I am sure, will it discourage Obama. Curious.
jimmy Carter had the Soviet Union to contend with –Obama is FREE to have his inner wounded girlie man self be healed by pointing out the enemy converting him to become a True Believer the source of great power and direction with the right tools
Well said Dr. VDH. Obama isn’t inept but rather he is on track with his intentions. Now give us your enlightened speculations as to how the USA will look after another 4 years of Barack Hussein Obama. Perhaps this picture might wake the population and drive them to the polls before further damage is done.
I find fresh converts have great ZEAL for direction the old get worn out so perhaps both in the 3 debates will appear as new fresh converts , God Willing, for the focle people’s sake
You meant Jay Carney, not Tim. I imagine Tim Carney would not enjoy being confused with Jay…
Dr. Hanson,
I offer that your following thought explains a lot: “Islamists have convinced the Arab masses that their present mess . . . is not their own fault.”
The spectre of victimhood raises it’s ugly head. Perhaps this is one fo the fundamental reason that the left believes itself allied to the Islamic world—everybody is a victim. Couple that with the fact that both western liberalism and Islam are anti-capitalist and anti-Western civilization and you have a match made in Hell.
The two systems of thought are equally delusional. Muslims beleive they can return to a mythical past. Liberals believe in a mythical future. Islam will consume itself if left to its own devices. Liberalism will consume all of us if we don’t put a stop to it.
Another excellent synopsis of the current Obama-led morass.
I’ve always marveled that FDR got reelected THREE times, as the economy went to hell. Well, perhaps we’re going to get to choose to do much the same kind of stupid thing, and give Obama four more years to further ruin America.
As for the complete delusion of Obama and his acolytes, nothing could better illustrate his utter lack of imagination, AND lack of love of America, than his reaction to the ambassador’s horrendous death.
You see, if his killers could have had their druthers, it is OBAMA they’d have killed, raped, and drug through the streets, in ecstasy.
In Obama’s mind, he thinks he’s THEIR leader, and that he’s helping birth the New Realization of America, which is ONE with Muslims.
Same same with Hillary, and ALL the people in their bunker mentality. Yes, Obama et al don’t even know it— that’s for sure—but they are living out much the same kind of ending as Hitler and his faithful: I write metaphorically.
Who’d have ever believed America could go from a White House denigrated by Carter, restored by Reagan, held by Bush I, besmirched by Clinton, re-dignified by Bush II, only to be turned into the hellhole that’s bringing on deluded self-annihilation by the usurper, Obama?
Here comes our nineteenth nervous breakdown.
People forget that things can always get worse, and, indeed, if one is clear-minded, and can read accounting records, the future is pretty much guaranteed. We’re putting off the final reckoning, in the classic way—borrow long and lend short.
In other words, there’s a whole lot of pretending going on, as we use a cash flow accounting system, whereas a realistic double entry system that shows BOTH assets and liabilities, indicates there’s ALREADY a whole lot of bankrupt entities out there.
America—the zombie nation.
“Who’d have ever believed America could go from a White House denigrated by Carter, restored by Reagan, held by Bush I, besmirched by Clinton, re-dignified by Bush II, only to be turned into the hellhole that’s bringing on deluded self-annihilation by the usurper, Obama?
Here comes our nineteenth nervous breakdown.”
This is actually a very positive analysis. We have gone through somewhat extreme cycles in (historically) short periods of time that would well cause lesser societies to implode. Yet, here we are, in the midst of our “nineteenth nervous breakdown” with yet another recovery a real possibility.
With each passing month I am more and more in awe of the wisdom of the founding fathers.
A very good, very important point. USA’s chronic sub-optimal political efficiency is the very thing that produces the optimal –and forever surprising –resilience.
but one can bend and spring back only so many times before one breaks, and this could be that time.
True, but it is not the same generation being repeatedly bent to spring back. The depression and WW II was under FDR and it was my parents generation that sprung back. The Nixon/Carter malaise was my generation and we sprang back under Reagan. Now the 9/11 Geo W. Bush (unexpected terror attacks, unnecessary increase in govt spending) and Obama (all of the above from FDR forward) malaise is really the springing back of the next generation (and to some extent, my generation, too).
My generation will not be part of the next flexing and so metal fatigue will not set in because it’s a new generation almost every time. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the human experience that we must relearn the same lessons every couple of generations or so. We stumble forward, but at least we stumble FORWARD.
Churchill said it best (I paraphrease): Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
This will interest y’all –here’s as snip (bolding mine):
Buchar’s documentary presents testimony from former Czech secret police officials who say the events of the Velvet Revolution of 1989 were orchestrated on orders from Moscow. The body of testimony on this subject is large and credible, says Buchar. “Not just … [the] guys that are talking in my film; there are many other people I talked to that refused to talk on record about this … because they fear for their lives…. There are many documents – it is very well documented that it was a prepared plan … to change the regime and the Russians were working on it for decades….”
Buchar interviewed an officer of the secret police who staged a key event in the 89 revolution. “He was just a little piece in the big puzzle,” says Buchar. “He pretty much did what he was told to do…. He was in charge of creating the students’ organization. The objective was to penetrate dissident movements … and organize the demonstration on November 17, 89 which triggered … the revolution. And at the end of this demonstration he played a dead student … killed by riot police. Of course it was a fake.”
The Soviet Union and its satellites may have changed their economic system in a presentational sense, but most of the former Soviet economic space remains under indirect (if not direct) government control. This new form of control relies on financial intermediaries, agent networks and organized crime. Using crony capitalism, together with underworld money-laundering deals, the post-Soviet economic system is spreading everywhere. It may even be colonizing the West’s market system, contaminating the whole.
If the Cold War was a struggle between economic freedom and repression, how can anyone now say the Soviet side lost? “No,” says Buchar, “the West lost tremendously….” As anyone can see, the free market system is not consistently defended in the West. We assume the market is going to triumph, but we don’t have a plan. The other side definitely has a plan.
(end snip from JR Nyquist’s 08-27-12 column, rest of essay is @ link)
The emphasized paragraph describes something that sure looks familiar.
Absolutely. The Democrats are a soviet.
Their cross border Industry is focused on capturing the means of Force (governments) first;
all below – banks, corporations, pension pools, security apparatus, cartels, etc- become fat prizes to seize and use.
Drug money laundering underlays much of their operation, thats why they invented drug laws.
They don’t ‘get’ capitalism because takeover, not a better washing machine, is their model- just as Islam doesn’t ‘get’ freedom.
Excellent,superb column.
Two things stand out. The FACT that the Islamist world must move into the 20th century, and that means a capitalist economy and a constitutional democracy.
Their failure to do this, as their populations increased far, far beyond the carrying capacity of a single industry statist redistribution economy has led to massive unemployment and poverty. The lack of a middle class private sector small business economy, the hallmark of capitalism, has sunk the MENA into poverty and anger.
Then, the failure of the government to release their hold on total power via military dictatorships, and move into a free political system that empowers the people within a constitutional democracy, means that the effort to hold onto this power has resulted in more and more oppression. Oppression via theological fundamentalism, oppression via a military and police state.
Instead of dealing with these two problems, the economic and the political, powerless ideological groups have emerged, seeking the way out in the Imaginary World, the world of Utopia, where IF ONLY we all behaved, all together, in such and such a way (Islamist fundamentalism), THEN, everything would be perfect. Such a cult perspective, common to all utopian cults, won’t work in the hard reality of an economy that must support millions of people. But, the imaginary world is powerful, and you don’t have to work or change your lifestyle; you just have to throw bombs and rockets.
As for Obama, his failure, by abandoning the Bush Doctrine of encouraging and promoting modernization and democracy, and his turning to his own pathological narcissism which states that ‘all they have to do is listen to me talk and preach, and they’ll melt down in adulation and peace’ is also a failure of the progressives in our society who support him.
Obama is as dangerous to America as the Islamists.
Hi ETAB, wonderful to see your posts and especially here at VDH’s essays.
Obama is not merely as dangerous, he and the radical leftists are more dangerous to America.
The reason that the leftists and the Salafists blend so easily into each other’s messages, is that our indoctrinated and brainwashed speak the language of radical extremism with all the accoutrements of American guilt, American greed, American blame, to their indoctrinated and brainwashed who relish in trumping up phony “trespasses” in order both both groups to avoid self-reflection of their own weaknesses, frailties, transgressions and amoral behavior.
America as whipping boy is a matter of convenience for people with principles of convenience.
But, make no mistake. Obama and the brainwashed and indoctrinated fellow travelers of the homemade radical extremism are FAR more dangerous to American security, fiscal health and national welfare.
Only they can pass laws that shred our Constitution. Only they can seize our wealth, stifle our natural resources, destroy our checks and balances, make the DOJ a non-race neutral agency, fiscally waterboard our debt capacity, print money faster than a crazed Monopoly game lunatic, and control our media like an iron-fisted dictatorship.
A minor film, largely ignored and unknown didn’t cause any uprising several thousand miles away to a populace that couldn’t understand the language, wouldn’t know where to find it and many don’t have the ability to witness it. The fact that this administration and Carney, Rice, Clinton and Obama WANT it so badly to not be a referendum on them…is not merely the blameshifting that Obama always does, because he is able to ever man up and take any responsibility…they need it because they do not wish to lose the bedfellow status of radical Islamists indoctrinated and brainwashed…because it threatens the narrative for our indoctrinated and brainwashed.
If THEIR true believers rise up against Obama and the radical extreme leftists, OUR true believers aren’t “pals” with the world…and the house of cards crumbles. Obama and the radical left may overlook wife beating, honor killings, brutalizing homosexuals…but they will not brook an attack on leftism and Obama himself. That’s where they draw the line.
And, Obama is willing to sacrifice all of America’s foreign policy protections in order to protect the narrative instead.
Exactly. The thing is, that both Islamism and leftism are very similar in ideology.
Both are collectivist; that is, they focus on the group and on everyone behaving in a homogeneous manner. It is this homogeneity, they feel, that is the strength of the society. Both reject individual freedom. Both reject reason, science and questions, in favour of ‘feelings’, emotions and submission.
Both are utopian, believing fervently in some future imagined world of perfection, that will emerge IF ONLY everyone behaves the same and doesn’t dissent, question or otherwise rock the boat.
Both are elitist and two class, in that it is assumed that there is a set of Wise Men who govern, and then, there’s the rest of the population Who Are Ruled.
This set up, by the way, is exactly like Plato’s totalitarian society, and his Rulers who were the ‘Philosopher-Kings’.
Both are intrusive into the society, censoring speech, thought, beliefs and behavior and insisting on a strict code of behavior. Insisting, for example on gay marriage is as intrusive of a federal government as is rejecting it. It’s up to the people.
Both rely heavily on propaganda, since they forbid independent questions, individual freedom of speech. That Cairo embassy memo denied freedom of speech, Hillary’s speech sidelined freedom of speech, Obama has refused to support this freedom. Obama’s alignment with the MSM is pure propaganda and the lies, misinformation and emotional manipulation is basic to his nature.
And as you say, the Obama gang are far more dangerous to American society because of their power. Notice Obama’s contempt for ‘the average American’, which is clearly shown by his contempt for their representatives in government, namely, Congress. Obama sneers at Congress, ignores their law, and bypasses their laws with his czars, his EPA, his executive fiat.
Obama and his gang are destroying the private business sector, the economic strength of America, with his regulations and taxes.
Obama’s foreign policy of essentially ignoring any and all who do not kneel in adulation before him, which means that he has alienated and insulted all former allies, and his turning his back on the MENA because they too have failed to worship him, is disastrous.
Furthermore, I consider that there is something psychologically pathological with Obama’s personal card-selecting of Who Shall My Drone Kill Today? That’s not the job of a commander in chief, and suggests to me, a very sick personality. Meanwhile, Obama has abandoned Iraq to adversarial tribal chieftains fighting for power, is doing the same in Afghanistan, has effectively enabled Iran to become a nuclear imperial power, has enabled Iran to move into Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Gaza – and has thus empowered it to control and MENA.
That’s his legacy. Internally, the destruction of the private sector economy in the US, massive debt, censorship and propaganda..and a violent dangerous Islamist world.
ETAB, we are two souls with one voice.
You are precisely correct and brilliantly articulate the landscape.
Let me make a couple addendums to your outline:
Both are elitist and two class, in that it is assumed that there is a set of Wise Men who govern, and then, there’s the rest of the population Who Are Ruled.
This set up, by the way, is exactly like Plato’s totalitarian society, and his Rulers who were the ‘Philosopher-Kings’.
I submit that there is a third class. “Enemies”, those who will not submit and be ruled. This sets up the eternal class warfare, racial warfare, ethnic warfare, gender warfare gambit.
And the Hippie Dictators who fashion themselves as Philosopher Kings are in constant protest, they are the Protest Society…eternally seeking “justice and retribution” from imagined oppressors. When in power, they can’t lead because you can’t protest yourself as an oppressive ruler. They need enemies as “foils” against whom the vigilance of protest is aimed and serves as the thin gruel upon which the parasitic platform feeds.
Without this third class of people…there is no energy to fuel attachment to the Protest Society. It withers and dies.
Ah yes, the Enemies. You are exactly right. And notice who are the enemies of the Obama Regime.
Anyone who questions or confronts him. Obama stops all questions with a snapping rebuttal of ‘no questions’, or ‘I’m the President’,
He set up the Democratic-GOP ‘debate’ over the Health Care with the rules that the GOP could ask ONE question of him, but no follow up to query or critique Obama’s fallacious answers! When criticized that his meandering misinforming replies were taking up all the time, his response was: I’m the President’.
Romney’s criticism of the Cairo Embassy’s apology was red herringed as an insult to Obama to sideline the FACT that the Embassy was denying the First Amendment.
Anyone who questions the Party Line of, for example, that there’s no such thing as terrorism (now called man-caused disasters), or states that the riots in the MENA were not due to the irrelevant video but were planned and were internal attempts by radicals to destabilize the weak new ‘democratic’ governments in these countries – that person is attacked as ignorant. Susan Rice knows better.
Oh, and you can’t ask the State Department because it’s under investigation and no questions allowed. Huh? This isn’t a police investigation. It’s a terrorist attack and the public has the right to know.
Who else is the enemy? Ah, anyone who makes money in the private sector. The Democrats are OK with the disgraceful salaries of unionized public service people, of their buddies in government roles, but the small businessman? Obama considers a small businessman, who files his taxes as an individual, and earns about 200,000 a year, to be a ‘millionaire’ who should be taxed more. That, of course, removes any profit that this same small businessman could have put back into expanding his business or hiring another worker.
So, the wealthy in the private sector are the enemy; they are defined as greedy and not paying their ‘fair share’. This is despite the fact that 10% of the population pay 71% of the federal revenue, and 47% pay zilch. How’s that for fair share?
Of course, Christians and Jews are also the enemy, because, ah, they oppose Islamic fascism. Then, there are the ethnic groups, who are set up as adversarial to each other, each fighting for a slice of the Obama funding pie.
And, anyone who doesn’t like Obama, heh, we all know that the real, real, real reason anyone could dislike the Dear Leader is due to an only to, their own racism.
There’s no great difference between a fundamentalist dictator and our own Obama. What is so very dangerous about him is that we believe that our democratic institutions will save us from such a person. So far, they haven’t.
Yes etab & cfbleachers,
The American Mind of the Founders believed a) There is one God above us all and b) There is one universal philosophy of the West (which says Natural Law & Rights come from God; liberty is mutual dedication to self-restraint; and all leaders are not angels and must be checked against self-dealing; hence this philosophy is uniquely self-correcting.
The Progressives believe c) There is no God above us all and d) the philosophy of the West must be kilt as dictated by Progressive whim (one day attack Natural Rights & Law, the next free speech, the next property rights, etc. the point is to be capricious and illogical and mind-raping, always mind-raping.) Political leaders must belong to this priesthood. This philosophy is NOT self-correcting. It cannot be.
The Extreme Muslims believe e) Allah is God and Mohammed is his prophet and f) Sharia law is universal philosophy that allows men to beat wives; kill dishonorable daughters; hang gays and riot in streets when offended by free thought. Political eaders are literally priesthood. This philosophy is not self-correcting. It cannot be.
So far, the Progs are winning. The extreme Muslims are rioting. And the Americans are asleep, for the most part.
But Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, lived the American Mind. So did Reagan. Who else?
Gentlemen, I agree with your evaluation which points to one inevitable conclusion: We are locked in a war to the death with radical Islam (which is the dominant motive force within Islam). As VDH points out, the various excuses they put forward for their rage are meaningless; at root there is only elemental hatred and implacable hostility towards our very existence as non-Muslims (who thrive despite our khufir nature).
We understand the cognitive trap that keeps the Islamic world mired in poverty, tyranny, misogyny and ignorance; and its affinities with the leftist worldview. We know why their rage must be kept directed at us, always, since the will to reform their belief system is lacking, and in any event, such a process would take decades, if not centuries. We also recognize that alone, radical Islam is a serious threat, but allied with western leftists, it becomes a mortal one, because leftists shackle us abroad, while at home, they open the gates to those who would kill us.
Best I can tell there is only one solution and that is to accelerate the process by discrediting their faith. And since it is a warrior creed, there is only one way to do that, and that is to defeat them utterly in war. This is the hard equation of the ancient tribal code. The obvious place to start is Iran. Destroying their nuclear capabilities, and then absorbing and neutralizing their military counter-attacks would reveal their weakness in the face of western power and will. It would also discredit the Khomenei-ists and hopefully precipitate a revolution there. However one of the problems in a war against Islam is that they perceive any successful terrorist attack against our civilian population as a victory. So should such strikes occur, we would have to disabuse them of their sense of victory with punishing counter-attacks of our own. They would have to “feel themselves subdued”, to use a Koranic turn of phrase. This cycle could well escalate, so we would have to be committed to final victory in order to weather the storm.
The same applies to the Arab world, which, thanks to Obama’s (in my view deliberate) policies, is now falling into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and it’s radical Sunni affiliates. We may find ourselves waging a broad war of destruction across much of North Africa and the Middle-East, in much the same way that Sherman chose to subdue the South. Occupying these areas is pointless, instead we may have to blow them back to the stone age, while simultaneously identifying and nurturing the true moderates (as opposed to those who practise Taqiyya) in their midst.
Of course all of this is moot if we fail to isolate and neutralize the leftists in our own camp. Or we fail to achieve energy independence. I doubt there is anyone in the Romney camp who sees it this way. The idea of an all out war to the knife against Islam is pretty unpalatable to most, myself included. I just can’t think of any alternatives.
Islam can be given the coup de grace quite simply–nuke Mecca, with the Grand Mosque, which houses the Kaaba, as Ground Zero. This is their essential shrine because the Kaaba, a black stone, is believed to have been dropped to earth by Allah. If Allah can’t shield his holy rock, holy mosque and holy city from being vaporized by the infidels, has he any power at all?
Would this make the Muslims furious? Compared to what? Or would it destroy their faith? I think the latter.
Historical factoid- Plato’ s works were only available in the Islamic world, while Aristotle was only available in Europe.
obama and his leftist allies see radical islam as an ally in tearing down western civilization.
Rush was nervous about saying it today, but after doing a lot more hemming and hawing than he usually does, he finally spit out that the most recent uprisings are events that obama is more than willing to exploit. I need to read the transcript because I don’t think he said that the administration had a hand in causing the trouble, but under the surface, you have to wonder what he really thinks.
Since I don’t have a multi-million listener radio show to protect, I don’t have to pull any punches. obama and his backers will do anything to retain power, including setting in motion events that could end with the death of Americans. It’s very curious that they have such a convenient scapegoat on hand as the nutty “film maker”.
At a glance, it doesn’t seem like recent activities in the ME would work to obama’s advantage, but Rush explained how they can. We have already seen part of it when the msm jumped on Romney. Rest assured, if Romney had stayed quiet as a church mouse, they would have jumped on him for that. One of the Alinskyite insights is that when chaos happens, no matter which way the wind blows, the radical can twist it to his advantage.
The murder of a US ambasador is the first October surprise. There will be more.
Yep –and the cover would be, Obama can’t be a jihadi, because if he were, those riots would not be happening –the rads would be trying conversely to make him seem to be the bringer of peace. The ‘new American man’ peacemaker.
“Of course,” says standard MSM analyst, “the recent upheaval puts to rest all those birther and Manchurian candidate speculations.”
Or maybe jihadis are just Always Chaotic Evil. There is no such thing as strategy to a jihadi, for any strategy is instantly negated by blood-lust the moment he catches sight of an infidel. Thus, even if they know it is in their best interest to assure Obama’s re-election, they won’t, because they cannot suppress their violent natures to allow it.
buddy – May be our riots are set for Nov 7?
Buddy,
Obama has held a “blame America” and radical extremist views toward our “bad motivations” and how “talking to” enemies will take away the stain of American “cowboy” transgressions.
The gloating Obama/Biden “cowboy act”, constantly spiking the Osama football doesn’t seem to be the sweet talk one might have envisioned. Unlike Obama’s Pocket Press, apparently rabid Islamists don’t seem to want to water down his hypocrisy.
Obama needed a scapegoat and use an obscure film.
But, his “no preconditions and no protections” was the “visual” Obama wanted to portray…using someone else’s safety, of course, and four people paid the price.
Obama at Columbia gave us an omen of what he would do…in an article he couldn’t keep hidden unlike the rest of his life’s tracks.
The twisted logic of these right-wing meanies who pushed for the deployment of missiles and implemented an arms buildup is widely credited with playing a role in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Obama was on the wrong side of history. Does Obama still hold to the views he expressed in his essay? If not, when did he change his opinion?
During his presidential bid, Obama seemed to echo some of the themes of the article. College student Obama believed war could be avoided through better understanding. Candidate Obama promised to restore America’s image in the world that supposedly suffered because of the Iraq War.
Both formulations disregard the threat posed by our country’s enemies — the Soviet Union when Obama was a Columbia undergraduate and radical Islam today. Anti-American sentiment does not turn on the nuances of foreign policy; it’s a function of fundamental moral differences between America and its detractors or enemies. Lots of nations and people hated us long before the Iraq War.
In any event, it remains to be seen if the “change” Obama has promised includes a sharp departure from the morally obtuse and simplistic left-wing views he espoused at Columbia 25 years ago.
http://www.humanevents.com/2009/01/09/young-obama-wrote-article-blaming-america-for-growing-threat-of-war/
Why just do one October surprise, if we’ll pay for 20, or a hundred?
“The Premodern Middle East and Postmodern West Don’t Mix, Mr. President”…..
….No, they certainly don’t, and compounding this lethal Muslim Problem of ours is the innate, inherent Culture Clash extant between Asia, all parts of Asia, and us Americans.
The likes of an Obama, a Susan Rice (who?) or a Hillary (who really should know at least a little bit better) are simply not qualified by background, training, or experience to deal with the sometimes excruciating subtleties of “Face” and religious culture…..compounded by these belligerent, murdering Muslims.
Transient political appointees are not effective, and make stunning blunders one on top of another.
We need a house cleaning at our State Department (very, very difficult with Civil Service Tenure) to rid us of our romantic old Arabists.
The least we can do is keep arrivistes like this Susan Rice (again, who?) and Obama/Hillary combination out of high positions where they can, and do, make our America vulnerable to the infinitely more experienced, capable Asian Civil and Muslim mullahs and imams who have centuries of taqiyya, evasion and smiling treachery behind them.
It’ll be decades before we Americans emerge from this nadir-morass of Obama-itis.
We are constantly told that radical Islamists are a tiny fraction of the followers of Islam and the vast majority are moderate … of course our lying eyes seem to find this fraction everytime we read a paper or turn on the news … maybe we are just see temporary radicals … moderate Muslims who become radical for a short time when offended …
I think I’ve found the formula for this temporary conversion of a moderate to a radical …
1) look at the Prophet sideways …
2) look at Allah sideways …
3) look at a Koran sideways …
4) proximity to Jews and access to weapons …
Does that about cover it ?
Crunch the numbers.
There are something like 2 billion Muslims worldwide (2,000,000,000). If only a small percentage are radical, say 1%, that means we’re still faced with 20 million (20,000,000) rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth radicals. BTW, that breaks down to an average of 400,000 per each of our 50 states, more if the percentage is above 1% (not that they’re all in this country, of course).
Isn’t it easier to just withdraw from the M.E.? Why complain about their culture and religion. And try to teach them things they have no interest in?
Then they can live happily in their “ignorance”. And we can live happily in our “enlightenment”. They run their corner of the planet and price their oil as they see fit. We economically evaluate the oil price and decide whether to pay or develop alternate sources. It is time to pull out of that region in all aspects, military and diplomatically. Time to let go.
Everyone is happy.
No, everyone is NOT happy. The Muslims won’t be happy until they’ve conquered the whole World. Of course, then they’ll start fighting each other but we’ll all be dead, dhimmi, or Muslim. If they taught any history anymore, Americans would know that what brought us to Bosnia was the continuation of the fights between the Balkan Christians and the Ottoman Empire after a cease fire of a few hundred years. Oh, and we were on the wrong side; we should have let them exterminate the Muslims. The Muslims will want to be getting on with restoring the old Ottoman possessions there, bringing Turkey firmly back into the Caliphate, and restoring Moorish Spain to Muslim control. Then they can take up where they left off when defeated by Christian Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any Martels or Don Juans left over there anymore.
Alas, Mr. Clinton had uses for the KLA. That’s the problem.
Dangerous men see Islam as an opportunity to be exploited.
M. Mir. This is the most rational Policy Plan I believe I have read, and I concur. Well said.
You say Obama’s policies have failed, but it’s only September. This may only be the setup for an October surprise where Islamists push Israel and the US to the brink and Obama then rides in to save the day in peace talks.
They don’t want Obama to lose this election, and I suspest they are going to soon be singing his praises.
A setup for an October peace deal doesn’t require an Obama administration conspiracy, but only a knowledge by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran that Obama will be anxious to give them a good deal at that time and that escalating tensions leading up to that will help.
The administration may have learned of this plan, and act as though they know something we don’t. It’s too hard to make sense of their bizarre actions and inactions otherwise.
“… the Obama Administration has seemed bewildered, petulant, and more or less shocked”
But now they’re doubling down on The Big Lie regarding the whole awful affair. The Obama Adminstration appear to either actually believe, or actually believe that they can make the American people actually believe, that last week was a foreign policy “win” for Obama (see, e.g., the most recent Charles Blow column); that he handled the whole thing note-perfectly, and oh-so-”presidentially”. And so we have Susan Rice going on national television and flatly contradicting herself within the space of a few seconds (the video protests were peaceful, then hijacked by a tiny handful of extremists; oh, but really the violence was all about the video, nothing else; um, which is it, Suze?), with no apparent shame.
Asking too many questions can be dangerous….http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/15/the-state-department-doesnt-have-to-answer-your-questions-either/
“Mr. President, do not obsess over the pretext of the day.”
Why shouldn’t he? He’s decided that pretext is useful to him, too.
Obama should be on TV the world over, shaking his Nobel Peace Prize at everybody.
Or, maybe we could go to Islamic confession:
“Bless me mullah, for I have sinned.”
“Bless you, son. For your penance say ‘Allahu Akbar’ three times and cut off your head”.
Moses worshipped God; the waters parted so that the Israelites could enter a new world, a new land of milk and honey.
Obama worshipped Obama; our world now faces many plagues, Muslim rage against their own cultural inferiority, projected upon the west being one of them.
One can only hope the Romney team is assiduously studying this article, the many insightful comments and the entirety of the VDH archives, here and elsewhere.
The Romney campaign had best start assiduously studying much sage advice. To be trailing in the polls to a blatantly reprobate and anti-American president is an embarrassment.
Perhaps I’m delusional, but I’ve decided to ignore poll results. Many of us, particularly in swing states, have been bombarded by pollsters since the beginning of the year.
No one I know is answering their calls. The polls and media are being subjected to a deliberate information blackout.
In short, we’ve decided to shut up now and show up on Nov 6.
Gallup yesterday admitted to AP that they are experiencing a 96% hang-up rate on their telephone polls. Not “we couldn’t get through”, or “we can’t call cellphones”; ninety-six out of a hundred people they call slam the receiver down on them.
Yet they maintain that the five percent who do answer them give them an accurate result that cannot possibly be wrong. Yes, they say five percent.
The last time I looked, 100- 96 = four, not five.
They are overestimating their sample by a fourth (25% of four). But never mind that. They can’t tell the difference between “four” and “five”.
I don’t have much confidence in a polling organization that apparently can’t even do basic, first-grade math.
(Well, it was first-grade math when I was in first grade, at least.)
clear ether
eon
“Golden,” the whitewashing of a Department of Justice crime spree
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/09/16/golden-the-whitewashing-of-a-department-of-justice-crime-spree/
OBAMA’S GAY AMBASSADOR TO BENGHAZI
Obama vilifies a video which mockingly tells the truth about the Prophet Mohammed because it’s deeply offensive to Moslem believers; but he sends a gay ambassador to a city of Moslem homophobes which is offensive to practically everyone living there. By doing this how did Obama show respect for Islam? Is this not emblematic of the incoherency and confusion of Obama’s Middle East Moslem outreach policies? Is it any wonder it’s going up in flames?
Click my name to read more.
I note your use of the word “reciprocity” in this essay.
That should be our paramount condition for engaging the Islamic world.
Let’s begin with the permission to build Houses of Worship, in the West and in the Islamic World.
Unless there is equivalent permission to build Churches in ALL Muslim countries, ALL MOSQUE BUILDING IN THE US AND CHRISTIAN WEST SHOULD CEASE.
This was evident at the RIO 20 conference.
Don’t forget, Obama has signed into law 900+ Executive Orders, all designed to strip away from every American their Constitutional Rights. Every Amendment and Article in USA’s Constitution is under attack by this administration.
This travesty of justice for this filmmaker is but one example…another more recent is Mr. Zimmerman in Florida. Not to mention State’s Rights. Even the 2010 Census was gerrymandered from the Commerce Department to the Executive Branch of government (Mr. Rahm Emmanuel, in charge).
We The People are now under a tyranny that hasn’t any viable plan for America or American’s:
Morsi (winner of Egypt’s first ever ‘democratic elections’) moves Islam ever closer to its dream of a Caliphate and Ahmadinajahd, while attending RIO20, was elated as well.
The raging internal argument (among Islamist’s) is if a Caliphate’s seat will be located in either of two geographical areas: 1) WTC-World Trade Center, or 2) Jerusalem.
Muslim Brotherhood, with CAIR, are actively having this debate behind closed doors. Mosque proliferations across Every state in the USA will continue as planned.
Islamists, united with Athiest’s and minor sects, are successfully driving wedges between US community religions having Judeo-Christian fundaments and US Constitutional Law.
Redefining separation of State and Religion has its main premise based upon: 1) religion and, 2) an amorphous redefinition of STATE(ACLU is undertaking this task).
This argument, by ACLU, will manifest itself more and more…forcing ALL Judeo-Christians further and further to “cower in the shadows.” Another instance of this happened in a European nation during the 1920′s and 1930′s with disasterous results. God Bless America. Amen.
So, if an American has a Judeo-Christian heritage, under this new redefinition of separation of religion and state, any identified “Judeo-Christian” must now “cower in the shadows” and never profess their religious convictions subject to a lawsuit by ACLU alleging infringement of a new, redefinition of an “amorphous STATE.”
THIS is the true nature of Radical Islamists…and they’re all around us, right HERE IN THE USA. Wake-up, America!!!
Mr. Obama has not honored his Oath of Office, “Defend and Protect the United States and its Constitution.”
Vote,Vote,Vote for Gods sake!!!
Please be careful. ‘National Security’ is also becoming a State religion, who’s dogma is not to be questioned.
The NS Industry has also made some 8 trillion dollars since 9/11, by the way.
(Not counting the missing 2 trillion announced by Rumsfeild on 9/10/01, that somehow magically appeared in the offshore ‘hedge funds’ invented by Clinton/GoldSachs)
Great essay by Dr. Hanson. I recall something Netanyahu said after 9/11: (paraphrasing), the West has the means to destroy terrorists, but not the will. The terrorists have the will but not yet the means.
Someone posted earlier a suggestion that we just withdraw from the middle east and let them stew in their own juices. Even if we were to do that, it wouldn’t solve the problem — enough of them want us dead and are going to keep trying, such that we have to strike back at them. No more aid, for starters.
As Norman Rockwell once stated, next to air and water,the need to feel important is a basic human necessity. For a misogynistic, male-dominated society, this probably holds even more true. The Muslims see the West and are envious and seethe in what they see as betterment by those that in their minds, given a need to feel important and superior, must be inferior. Yet they will never be able to achieve this betterment or enjoyment of life because of the taboos of their society culminating from their religious leaders and placed on them with such authority that to question such could mean death. So they are stuck in this conundrum of seeing “others” that they believe inferior doing much better and enjoying life much more while knowing they will never achieve this due to the constraints of their society. So, they lash out and direct their anger at those inferiors and place the blame on them for their situation. To not do so would be an admission that they are inferior and that they cannot accept.
Islam ” The Religion of Peace “, Sharia Law for everybody. Freedom Not Included.
Jimmy Carter’s Iran policy worked so well that Obama is implementing it all over the middle east and north Africa.
Long story short…I will NOT vote for Obama, tough choice considering Romney is not really any different. However I want a president who will stand up and speak up for his country and people…not just some people of a certain background, but all people. A president who is a patriot and who will not bend over backwards for enemies , a president who will fight if necessary or collaborate if necessary. Good article btw!
smokey,
Just realize that if R & R actually declared what they intend (if they do), like really fixing things, they would enrage the Left. For example, if they declared before the election, before winning a filibuster-proof Senate and the Executve and holding the House, that they intend to de-unionize all aspects of Federal employment and expected the Governors of 40+ states to follow suit, we’d have massive thuggury at the polls.
Or if they declared they would immediately clean house at Justice and State and EPA and NOAA, et al, the wailing would drown out any free speech.
We can only hope they are up the hardball necessary, after they’re elected. Demeaning our only hope beforehand is counter-productive.
You just had to equate that wonderful ‘shocked’ scene from Casablanca with Obama and forever tainted the movie for me. Unfortuantely Obama is too PC to call the situation in the middle east as he should. The lies coming out of the administration is amazing all because Obama;s ego can’t allow him to admit he has a failed foreign policy, if you can call it a foreign policy.
I have been under the impression that GWB spun the roulette wheel and gambled that democracy would thrive in ME states, once dictators like Saddam were removed, or at least that was his position once no WMD’s were found. So now, Saddam, Khadaffi, and Mubarak are gone and surprise, democracy brings in even crazier Shiites. I respected to some degree, the fact that GWB was taking a gamble, but I always feared that the post-dictatorship world would be worse, at least in the short term. I suspect that VDH was to some degree complicit in the GWB gambit, but you would never know that from today’s article. But, hey, when in doubt, blame Obama.
“But, hey, when in doubt, blame Obama.”
D-White, are you really that Manchurianed? Who is the President… Now? Is your 3rd grade teacher still spanking you?
The Pick It Fence But has a knack for showing just what confusion looks like. Maybe you should date Ms. Rice and the two of you could debate whether radical Islam exists of not. Or better yet, you could co-author the next Modern Liberal volume on why reality might, just maybe, sorta, exist.
The Red Pencil Neck would be in full flower. Just think, all those powerful interests aligning with the Pick It Fence But Post Hole. The Moon, Aquarius, Solar Energy, Chevy Volts, new $100 bills, and maybe even waffles. Wow!
“I suspect that…”
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius! Aquarius!
Apologies to the 5th Dimension, which did exist.
Don’t let your mind loaf, D-White.
Substance, my good man, substance, please.
Ok D-White, that should be soy meat loaf.
Bush and Obama have conclusively proven one thing, though-
Ain’t no gettin’ along with ‘em, no body can.
since even the esteemed Mr. Hanson is unwilling to say it, I will.
The problem with the Muslim world is Islam.
It is a totalitarian world-view, and a world-view that insists that all who don’t accept it’s archaic, barbaric precepts must be killed. That creates a bit of a problem in dealing with the people who believe it; and there are a billion of them.
What could possibly be more clear?
Unfortunately, weo… you’re quite right.
Taken fundamentally, it most certainly is a totalitarian world-view.
But it appears that for the time being that most of America, including much of the world, is willing to give “moderate” Muslims a “wait and see”. But that there are only a handful of Muslim voices willing to rise up against Islamist terrorism is extremely troubling and not a good sign.
And that “can-we-just-get-along appeasement” seems now to be our primary foreign policy is not just equally troubling, but even more dangerous for our national security.
This is also another reason that more and more Americans are ready to send Barack Obama, our Muslim sympathizer-in-chief, back to where he came from.
Amen. Obozo is showing up as a weak jerk to the rest of the world. Doing so just emboldens the psychopaths that attack like packs of mad dogs.
“Follow some South Koreans or Chileans around for a week with a video camera.”
I followed a Korean around with a video camera. She called the cops.
Seriously wonderful essay. Too bad those most in need of it will ignore it.
We are adopting the same mentality that led victims in their millions almost without struggle to their deaths in the gas chambers.
This Obama Libyan farce is getting better by the day.
If Neville Obama and Hillary were shocked last week to discover that the Libyans they delivered from Gaddafi would murder/rape our Ambassador/personnel, then imagine their vexation today to see the Libyan President, El-Magarif, revealing Amb. Susan Rice and Team Neville O to be abject lying fools by claiming that the attacks on our Consulate and murder of our Personal in Benghazi were not the result of a YT video “protest”, but were a preplanned terrorist attack.
Apparently El-Magarif understands that in his country, protesters don’t just show up at a demonstration with RPGs, mortars, and an anti-aircraft cannon, even if Barry/Hillary do, and then tell us not to believe our lying eyes. Pure delusion. This is a cover-up and it will bring them all down. Media reports from Libya now claim that there was no protest prior to the violent attacks.
Stick around, this farce is going to get better,… but not for Team Socialist Appeaser before his Shellacking – cuz it’s now “the Economy and the Failed Foreign Policy Going Up In Flames,… Stupid!”
Another great article, Dr. VDH.
Excellent analysis, as usual, Dr. Hanson. Thank you.
As long as our overall policy remains bascially, “We’re infidel perverts, and we’re here to help you,” we’ll get more of the same.
Is not this a prime example of the reasons for separation of church and state? It is constantly surprising how perceptive and pre imminent our forefathers were in matters politic. Religion is the impetus of nearly all wars and Islam is the dominant political policy of the Middle East. Oil and water seems a perfect metaphor…no one has a detergent in hand.
Thanks Dr Hanson, I hope your article is read also by those in charge. But I doubt it will be. If so, I wonder if they will believe you in time.
Anyway:
This is my conclusion about Islam. (originally posted in 2006)
Four years ago I thought that Islam was just another religion.
After much study and research, I now think Islam is a terrible Cult, the most terrible cult ever placed on this world.
Remember the Borg? The Borg have a singular goal, namely the consumption of technology. Islam has a singular goal also.
The consumption of all cultures, all religions all of mankind.
Islam can not be “moderated”, changed, revised or adapted.
It must be destroyed.
In total.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Posted by: Papa Ray [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 20, 2006 08:19 PM
In comparison to these Muslim savages the Borg were actually pleasant.
Intrestingly, the presidents 1/2 brother George said the same thing about S. Korea and Taiwan concerning Africas poverty and always blameing Western Colonialism for their plight.
As for the Muslim Arab condition, I recomend “What Went Wrong” by Bernard Lewis. It breaks down in detail what Mr. Hansen outlines here.
Another of your classic essays, professor. I was transfixed by it (in a good way).
My only quibble has to do with your implicit premise: that Obama, et al. are necessarily discomfited by recent developments in the Middle East. Could you not conceive the possibility that Obama and his minions may indeed be pleased by these putative abominations?
Useful idiots indeed!
Re: “Instead, the wrath of the Muslim Street is elemental and existential (read The Al Qaeda Reader to fathom all the twenty or so excuses given by bin Laden for his hatred of the U.S.). It can be explained in terms something like this: Islamists have convinced the Arab masses that their present mess (so easily fathomed in a globalized world in second-by-second, instantaneous comparisons with other cultures — via cell phones, the Internet, DVDs, and cable television) is not their own fault.”
Dr. Hanson, you are seldom mistaken, but the column from which the above extract comes contains at least two fundamental misreadings of the happenings in the Middle East and Muslim world generally.
The hostility and aggression evident in the protesters and directed against the west and the USA is, as you note, partly one of resentment and humiliation at living in a failed civilization, one which provides poorly if at all for the most basic needs. However, there is a much more fundamental reason than our success that we are hated: we are infidels, and according to the Koran, we must be subjugated, killed or converted to Islam.
A second error is assuming that Obama and his comrades are somehow upset or otherwise alarmed by the developments in the Middle East, for he and they are not. Obama is the Muslim Brotherhood’s man in the White House; de facto if not de jure. Developments, from the perspective of the Ikhwan, are going rather well, wouldn’t you say?
Have to agree with you. Dr. Hanson’s analysis is spot on, but there should be no illusion that Obama is trying to figure out how to make things better for US interests. Obama is trying to distract attention until there is no way that we can recover.
Re: “Is not this a prime example of the reasons for separation of church and state?” Carol Ann, you have hit upon the key aspect of the dilemma we as Americans face, albeit perhaps not in the manner you intended. There is no separation of church (mosque) and state within Islam; they are one and the same. When most westerners, including Americans, see a mosque, they see a simple house of worship, not unlike a church or synagogue. While well-intentioned, this is a fundamental misreading of reality. Why? Because within Islam a mosque is far more than simply a house of worship; it is also a barracks, a fortress and a tiny piece of Dar al-Islam within the land of the infidels. You see, Islam is not merely a religion; it is more akin to a authoritarian or totalitarian political system disguised as a religion.
The “separation of church and state” to which you refer is blasphemous to a devout Muslim, because it places under secular authority that which belongs to Allah. Faced with a choice between adhering to the constitution and the Koran and sharia law, the Muslim must choose the Koran and sharia – or be considered an apostate (traitor) to Islam. Therefore, one or the other must give way – and you can bet that if the Muslim Brothers and their kind have their way, it won’t be the Koran or sharia which is pushed aside.
Look, people do not have any idea as to what Islam is or what they want, or what we are facing. One simple book titled, ‘THE COMING: A TRUE STORY OF HORROR’ at amazon.com will tell you everything you need to know
Wow all that self grandiose writing and negative blame analysis WITH NOT ONE suggestion or recommendation on how to make things better. Fascinating. Shall we hold a pitty party instead?
After you, Timmy.
World overpopulated
Muslims doing the overbreeding.
They just volunteered for the Solution!
(Hey dont get sniffy, they invented the Final Solution and sold it to Himmler in return for the promise of 400,000 soldiers and the oil of Iraq. Lets just sell their idea back to ‘em, ok?)
Ok, sorry, practical is easy.
Ridicule, scorn, mockery, constant exposure.
War they think they can handle- ridicule and exposure they cannot.
Oil independence – US Energy Information Agency announced today we already have enough to blow their (our) infrastructure-
Quarantine and deportation
And spray pigs blood- lots and lots of pigs blood
Or just kick their ass and TAKE the gas, invite Russia China EU to the party
cripes- I forgot nuke Mecca
And purge the criminals in our system;
Whole other column there
what’s wrong, and why, before you go fix something
I lived among these people for a number of years back in the ’90′s and have a very low opinion of their martial prowess. And while I think that we could handily send these savages back into the Dark Ages where they belong, the one element we are missing is THE BALLS TO DO IT.
And I curse the Left for that.
For a number of unimportant reasons I have not been reading Victor’s essays recently. I understand from this essay just what I have been missing. Superb, articulate and true – all of it. Cast these idiots adrift in economic, academic, and political terms, and punch back twice as hard when they affront our sensibilities. Pre-modern? Pre-medieval would be better. Thank you Victor for the harsh and unforgiving light you shine on just another totalitarianism. We’ve seen them before, and we have survived and triumphed. We shall do so again, notwithstanding the pusillanimous leaders we, for some reason, choose to take us forward into the future
aka punitive expedtions
I assume by the “human frenzy of 2008″ you are referring to the collapse of the global financial system, the 2 wars that were unpaid for, and the tax cuts which set the stage for the greatest recession that the U.S. has ever had. And, actually, by most economic analysis, the stimulus certainly did work. Just check the graphs of job loss rates in December 2008 through July 2012. It’s a very interesting picture. Oh, and also check the chart of the S&P 500 from January 20, 2009 to today. Free marketers would say that is the best measure of how business views the economy.
Turning the S&P 500 into a money laundry recycling Democrat Reelection dollars
all on our credit card, youre welcome
Yes, Obama inherited a mess –in exactly the same way the Menendez brothers inherited a mess.
“And, actually, by most economic analysis, the stimulus certainly did work”
Oh, clearly. By “most economic analysis” — whatever the hell that means. Now off you go! Watch the screen door.
The real reason for the White House WIMP’s and his Regime and sycophantic Lame Stream EneMedia’s frantic overpowering OBSESSION with pinning ALL the blame for the antics of Mohammedan RAGE BOYS on an obscure hardly watched video and and on that video ONLY. Is because if they have to face reality and accept the TRUTH that Mohammedans worldwide really DO hate America then they will also have to own up to the USURPERS pathetic apologetic FAILURE.
The ‘Annointed One’s’ NARCISSISTIC pronouncements in Cairo in 2009 and his bowing and scraping to Sordid Saudi Sheiks ‘apology tour’ of the world where supposed to have made the whole Islamic wave love HIM and by association and default the USA too. The NARCISSIST in Chief is simply unable to make that connection so therefore, as with EVERYTHING else to do with him , ITS SOMEONE ELSES FAULT.
His REGIME and the pathetic Lame Stream EneMedia immediately locks step to PROTECT him of course.
Dear Dr. Hanson, You lament the castigation of innocent people but then castigate Terry Jones by calling him a nut (“nut like Terry Jones”). Why the knee-jerk conformity when describing Mr. Jones? What Mr. Jones has done over the past year, more than anyone else, is help to reveal the sadistic intolerance of Islam for all the world to see. Additionally, he has starkly revealed the cowardice and complicity of the left, especially within the Obama administration. The man has provided a public service in that we have all been warned. “Nut,” I think not.
This is all straight forward common sense, obvious even to those of us not so well thought as VDH. But the ninnies we have placed in charge of our fate are immune to common sense. Why have we placed them there? We must change it.
I love listening/reading to people try to explain why this usurper does what he does regarding the Middle East and what he needs to do to fix it. We continue to make the assumption that this guy is an american who has the USAs best interest at heart. Not only was he not likely born here and is clearly not eligible to be President because he is not a natural born citizen, I seriously doubt he is even a citizen of any other country then Indonesia. I also have serious doubts about his entire lifes timeline and identity. Why is he using a SSN that does not match him. Why is his selective service registration a forgery like his BC. Why wont he show his college applications. Maybe its because he claimed to be from Kenya or somewhere to get aid. Fraud and prison are all we need to know about this person whoever he is.
He is doing exactly what someone who is an anti american would do to destroy our country. Hes a terrorist that is blindly followed by about half the country because they hate rich white people. The group who put this bloodless coup together should be studied as to how to destroy a country. Pure brilliance and we continue to just ignore it and wonder why Mubarak and Khadafi were taken out.
Once you accept the fact we have been usurped by a foreigner then you will understand what needs to be done to fix it. Until then its like trying to explain a foreign language to someone who only speaks English.
Well said. Well consternated.
Dr Hanson: Great logical brain, down to earth, eyes that see reality. You should be President. There’s no other candidate comes close, but still Romney is our “Forlorn Hope”. Leland Sprague
No one here (….unless I missed it….) has mentioned quarantining Central/West Asia.
Quickly, I rush in here to say that quarantining these belligerent Muslim countries is not to imply any “isolation” on our part. Isolationism was popular during the 1930′s when we were in our Depression and later on many would argue that (was it the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?) commercial isolationism only made our Depression worse. It took time for that to be observed, but it’s now a lesson to apply here in our War against these Muslim infiltrators.
The only commercial product any Muslim nation has that we need is oil; it’s been mentioned above that we get to work exploiting our already known reserves. This can be done more safely with our new technology, but the “environmentalists” can’t seen to be made aware that they are indeed furthering the welfare of our Muslim enemies. They willfully block this awareness.
Remember always that the smiling Saudi’s and the glowering Iranians desperately need our Green cash (…double-pun alert, sorry it’s uncontrollable…)in order for them to continue their air-conditioned high-rise life and their Mercedes limo’s, so we do indeed retain considerable leverage.
Now, to those who remind us that Central/West Asia is a huge landmass I say that so also was the Soviet Empire along with Mainland China. For how many years did we manage that? And, the Soviet Russians had a large arsenal of up to date nuclear weapons and functioning intercontinental ballistic missiles targeted at American cities…….none of which the Iranians have, yet, and the Saudi’s seem fearful of the Iranians getting them, so irony of all flexible ironies, the Saudi’s may be hoping that the Israelis attack soon.
Remember that “containment” was successfully applied to the Soviet and Chinese vast landmass.
The rest of the world continued to trade…look at the huge successes of the recovering Japanese during those tense years.
I was in our USAF in Japan during the late 1950′s, and worked as a civilian in S.E Asia in the 1960′s, so I’m old enough to find some perspective……but our very major problem right now seems to be that the much, much younger Obama-ites and their ilk have no such perspective and are too smug and self-contained to seek it out.
I wish us luck.
Mr. Hanson, it is shameful that a professor of your intelligence can not see eleven years after the events, that 911 was a Mossad-operation (together with the Zionist elements in the US government. So your allusions to Bin Laden and Atta as prototypical terrorists are simply wrong. I am as critical as anybody towards the influx of foreign people in oue countries but one should honor the truth.
And what have you done to prevent the universities to become insane propaganda-institutions of self-hate? You were shilling for those Zionist Element (Frankfurter Schule anyone?) who planned this soul destroying!
Bitte nehmen Sie sich Truther Wahnvorstellungen anderswo. Die Erwachsenen arbeiten hier.
Und Sie erhalten eine bessere Übersetzung Programm.
Danke.
klare ether
eon
To circumvene the censorship I will post an slightly modified anwer:
Your German isn’t so hot either.
And to the topic:
Please read the book of Christopher Bollyn. It becomes more than clear that 911 was a false flag.
“http://www.bollyn.com/solving-9-11-the-book”
And if you want to inform yourself about the destructive progams of the Frankfurter Schule (Frankfurt school) and other Jewish dominated intellectual movements which are responsible of the self-hate of Westerners Mr. Hanson rihgly lament read the book of professor Kevin McDonald “The culture of critique”.
“http://www.prometheism.net/library/CultureOfCritique.pdf”
No one is as blind as someone who doesn’t want to see.
Yes, I’m aware of the Frankfurt School. Blaming it on Jews is a cop-out. It was a political movement spawned primarily from the primitivist German Romantic movement, which was about as anti-semitic as it gets.
Remember, Frankfurt predated Marx, who while nominally Jewish was mainly an atheist.
Re your Truther delusions- sorry, the scientific evidence calls you out wrong, to say nothing of all the warning signs (going back a decade) that the Clinton Administration just couldn’t be bothered to take note of. (This is what happens when you have the White House being run like a frat party for eight years.)
Generally, when I scratch a Truther, I expect to find either an anti-Israel ideologue and/or somebody desperate to avoid acknowledging just how badly Billy Jeff & Co. dropped the ball. QED.
As for my German, I use Google Translate. The difference is, I admit it.
Thanks for playing.
clear ether
eon
No, you are wrong, I don’t use Google-translate, nor a dictionary. My English is not very good and I am sloppy on top of that (defying all national sterotypes).
Again to the topic: You are wrong as well that the Jewish identities of the protagonists of the Frankfurt school are irrelevant or accidental. Please read the book of professor MacDonald and you will see that this movement is only one of many Jewish dominated intellectual movements who are hostile to the gentile host culture and follow a tight strategy in order to dominate and even humilitate their host. You could even read the quite similar book of Cuddity “The ordeal of Civity” written some decades before “The Culture of Critique” to see that MacDonald has a point here (I could even mention older German literature, but since you don’t speak German that would be useless),.
Even Pat Buchanan has in his “The Death of the West” a chapter about Jewish culture wreckers although he doesn’t idedentify them as Jews but characterizes them as “Lefties”. But you have to give Buchanan some credit: This chapter which deals with the roots of the cultural revolution which left our nations stranded is really very good. Buchanan is more couragious than Mr. Hanson who – as far as I can see – only laments the symptoms but never mentions the root cause of our disease: Jewish hostitlity and the Will to Power. If you compare Hanson to his really outspoken collegue Revilo Oliver a distinguished classics professor as well (one of my favorite American writers) then you will see how superficial and timid his thoughts are although he lives in a much darker age than Oliver so the Jewish problem should be much easier to spot. The Jews are really the elephant in the living room at this point of history, very hard to overlook.
Your condescending remarks to me suggesting superior knowledge fire all backwarts because they clearly know that you have only a superficial knowledge of German cuture and the Frankfurt school which belongs to the Jewish culture although there has been some form of “acculturation”. The “Institut für Sozialforschung” in Frankfurt was no official institut but a private institution financed by rich Jews who were as hostile to their host culture as their sponsored “scientists”. When Hitler came to power he had no need for these culture wreckers for obvious reasons. So these Jews emigrated to America where they continued their job culture wrecking in the new environment. They showed no sign of gratefulness to their American host because they felt that all White people are aliens who must be intellectually intimidated with mumbo-jumbo social “science”. MacDonald mentions the very interesting fact about one of the main works of the Frankfurt school, Adornos’s “The authoritan personality” in which he tries to show that all traditional Western virtues (not only German virtues!) are politically dangerous and should be abolished (and boy, abolish they really did!) should at first be titeled “The anti-semitic personality”. That clearly shows their identiy and their strategy. So it’s is no surprise that they use the Holocaust-story against the American people although they fought a stupid war for Jewish interests against Germany. That is really audacity or if you prefer “chutzpah”. And that it payed off so handsomely shows that Whites have clearly some deficits (I am not sure wether these deficits are intellectual or moral deficits). Btw: Since it is so easy to culturally intimidate White one shouldn’t overestimate the role of the Frankfurt school. Since Jews were very powerful when Adorno and Horkheimer arrived (dominance in finance, media and pop culture, very strong position in academia) I have no doubt that some homgrown Jews could have done the job nearly as good.
Your assertion that the Frankfurt school stand in the tradition of German romanticism is really laughable! They are anti-German and anti-romanitc to the core. Adorno was an ardent fan of the awful music of the disgusting Jew Schönberg, who made a big anti-romantic splash with his ugly muscic (many Jews following his steps thats why art is in its pityable state today), ending a wonderful tradition (although he claimed otherwise). Marx was no romantic either.I admit that he was on the ouside strongly influenced by Hegel. But one has to see that he only borrowed the jargon of Hegel and turned the essence of his philosophy on the head. In my view the whole point of Marxism is weakening the host culture in sicking the different classes onto another. This was so successful because Jews were throug their domination of the finance the hidden ruler of the industry and were instrumental that middle class and working class grew apart to some extend. As his correspondence with proto-Zionist Moses Hess makes clear Marx probably knew what he was doing. He was a proud Jew (stemming from a long line of rabbis) and so played an evil role in our downfall. Sure he wasen’t religious as you point out but Judaism isn’t a religion as you suggest but a racial political movement under the smokescrenn of a religion. Otherwise you couldn’t understand that the “Jewish state” has no problems granting atheist Jews citizenship. All what counts is the maternal bloodline. Read the “law of return”.
So I conclude that you were clearly wrong with all your assertions and suggestions!
Your snide farewell (“thanks for playing”) was rather classless. I will leave you with the best wishes.
Ok, I was to sloppy even to my low standards. At least the titles of the books should be right:
Cuddihy’s work has the title “The ordeal of Civility”.
“http://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-Civility-Levi-Strauss-Struggle-Modernity/dp/0807036099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348152437&sr=8-1&keywords=ordeal+of+civility”"
Adorno’s book has the title “The Authoritarian Personality”.
“http://www.amazon.com/The-Authoritarian-Personality-T-Adorno/dp/B000GWTKNU/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348153617&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=horkheimer+autorithy+personality”
I am sorry. I am always a bit in a rush.
Anyone can cherry-pick any identifiable grouping and then sort back through history gleaning examples of why that group is guilty of this or that transgression against these or those others. The farther back into history their story goes, and the more accomplished is the scapegoated group, the more collective guilt can be assigned by anyone with a pencil (and a reader), and the longer the prophasis (to borrow a word from #88).
Let’s honor VDH and indict the Swedes next! But not the Danes/Norwegians –THAT would piss me off.
The libyan gov has just stated that they beleive the attack was premeditated, and was orchestrated by a group friendly to el quaida. They also said they tried to warn our embassy that trouble was coming, and bengazzi was particularly bad, and they had inadequate forces to protect anybody there, but their warning was ignored.
Its pretty sad when the gov of Libya is more sensible and beleivable than our own.
Twelve seconds of the Secretary of State, speaking of …well, something or other.
While I appreciate Dr Hanson’s advice, historical knowledge, writings and books, of which I have read several, I guess in the larger scheme of things – the future of America in particular and the West in general – so what?
It seems to me that we are nearer than we know to the end of The Gathering Storm. Is America to be sacrificed because we have an enemy in the White House and a military unwilling to do its only Constitutional duty – defend the Constitution (Rule of Law) agains domestic enemies (Obama)? Reading Adina Kutnicki’s blog and OpEds one senses an even stronger current of appeasement is felt in Israel than here. Is this only because they are closer to the action, and can be overthrown more easily? It is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the warnings from those who pay the most attention; and it is harder and harder to believe anything coming from our own government. What is a Republic when the government lies, the people pretend it doesn’t matter, the media covers it up.. and enemies attack globally? Is it a dying democracy or a looming despotism? Or both?
We have lots of good pundits here writing on the dangers to America of Obama. But no one is DOING anything about it. Do we tell History – sorry, we lacked the guts to save our nation, a nation for which generations of Americans have killed and died? Do those of us with kids say, “Sorry!”
Today the polls show Obama up by a couple – within the margin of error. But do people really believe he will not lie, cheat, steal and use fraudulent voting to stay in power – and to continue (complete?) his transformation – destruction – of America?
When do we – How do we – Where do we fight for our nation, Dr Hanson? DHS/SS/NWS have bought over a billion rounds of ammo. This year. Obama clearly stated we “need a civilian security force at least as large and well funded as our military” in Denver in 2008…
Connect dots: Recession -> FDR -> Keynes’ economic destruction -> Enormous centralization of power -> 1937 Depression within the Depression -> “We’re spending more that we’ve ever spent and nothing is working” -> WW2…
Substitute Obama for FDR, QE3 for Morgenthau, the Arab winter for the BEGINNING of WW2… and an anti-American in the Oval Office with a billion rounds of ammo… How do we fight WW3 when the enemy is the CINC and the military has chosen to become the Palace Guard?
I have said for years the most important race in history is: Will the 1968 anti-American Baby Boomer Left die before they overthrow America? Intelligent people across the West understand what is happening. How do we STOP IT?
My following blog post contains numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that reveal the disastrous results of: 1) the Islamic and Communist infiltration inside our government and our military, to include the President’s secret link to Hamas and Communists; 2) the President’s connection to George Soros; and 3) the shared agendas of George Soros and the President:
The Vetting: ‘Obama, Radical Islam and the Soros Connection’! (Part 4):
http://wethepeopleusa.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-vetting-obama-radical-islam-and-the-soros-connection-part-3-1
“Food For Thought”
Semper Fi!
Jake
Just out of curiosity.
Is there anyone in this Administration or the news media that comprehends the difference between prophasis and aitia?
An excellent article thanks for the details as well as excellent go through.