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Muslim Brotherhood Project

1/01/07

Fitzgerald: The re-primitivization of the world

As Saddam was being hung, the voices of several of those present in the room were heard crying out. They didn't cry out "a bicameral legislature!" They didn't cry out "checks and balances, for god's sake let us have checks and balances." They didn't cry out "we want a government of limited powers." No, they cried out "Moqtada al-Sadr, Moqtada al-Sadr."

Amurath an Amurath succeeds.

And will, until it is realized that people suffused with the tenets and attitudes of Islam are not interested in Western parliamentary democracy. Nor are they interested in guarantees of the rights of minorities and especially of the individual, or in the Spirit of Liberty, which is defined by Learned Hand as the spirit that is "not quite sure that it is right." Try to imagine a Muslim Washington, a Muslim Jefferson, a Muslim Adams, a Muslim Madison, James Wilson, Clay or Webster or Calhoun or John Randolph of Roanoke, a Muslim Lincoln, or for that matter a Muslim John Marshall, a Muslim Louis Brandeis, a Muslim Oliver Wendell Holmes. You can't. And you know why.

And unless, and until, the Camp of Infidels understands that it must not only understand, but make its constant theme, the connection between those assorted amuraths and the politico-religio-legal system of Islam, that refuses to locate legitimacy in the will of mere mortals, all of them rightfully slaves of Allah, and that urges submission to the ruler, no matter how despotic, as long as he is declared to be a Muslim, you never will be able to imagine such creatures. They will continue to be chimerical as long as the connection between the inshallah-fatalism of Islam and the economic backwardness, despite the OPEC trillions, of Muslim lands (where the only real economies are found, in some form, in those countries where Islam has been constrained -- as in Turkey or Tunisia) continues to go unnoticed. And the connection between the social failures, the moral failures, the intellectual failures, of Muslim societies must be connected to the doctrines, the teachings, the attitudes, the atmospherics of Islam. The case for such a connection is overwhelming. It will not be easy to deny it, and at the very least, the world's Infidels will see that connection, and so will the most advanced people born into Islam. It will put Islam permanently on the defensive among its own adherents, who will indeed begin to wonder why their countries have a series of despots succeeded by other despots, why their countries are so naturally violent in their politics, why they are, despite such oil revenues, unable or unwilling to create advanced economies, why their societies, so hostile to non-Muslims and to women, will remain estranged from the rest of the world as that world passes them by, and why the habit of mental submission encouraged by Islam will always prevent them from the enterprise of science, or from all else that requires the encouragement, and not the punishment, of free and skeptical inquiry.

Mahdi this, and Mahdi that. "What do you want to do tonight, Mahdi?"

"I don't know, Angie, what do you want to do tonight?"

"Jeez, I don't know, Mahdi, what do you want to do tonight?”

God, it's going to be boring under the new dispensation.

The re-primitivization of the world proceeds, proceeds because the advanced peoples do not appreciate their own achieved advancement. The uncivilized are inheriting that civilization, because the civilized themselves are insufficiently grateful their own legacy, and indifferent or ignorant of the conditions that were necessary for its achievement over time. And the uncivilized, seizing control of that very civilization they had so little a hand in creating, will determinedly undo it. They already are.

En passant par la Lorraine... (old song)

En passant par l'Irak...and then leaving at long last, and while removing all the planes, all the helicopters, all the Humvees, all the Bradley fighting vehicles, all the trucks, all the tanks, all the everything -- now remember, boys, don't leave any war materiel behind, including computers, including absolutely everything, god knows American taxpayers have spent or committed nearly $500 billion to hideous Iraq and its largely hideous people, and nothing should be left behind.

Let Moqtada al-Sadr be forced to deal, without the Americans to do the fighting for the Shi'a, with those stout-hearted Sunni yeomen of Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit.

That will be fun. That will make it pleasant, and not disturbing, to get up in the morning, and read the latest dispatches from "Iraq."

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014640.php#more

12/31

2006 was a very chaotic year but it ends on the upnote of Saddam taking the big fall.

We face challenges ahead. The Islamists are nothing but a road sign warning that we have lost our way. Until the west decides it is worth saving, we will flounder in our our complacency and confusion.

Advice for the New Year: three things not to waste time thinking about

1) how many angels can dance on the head of a pin

2) which of the commies were good and decent people

3) which of the muslims are moderate

Go out and spread the word. If you love your life, whatever it is, if you enjoy your home, your family, your beer, your widescreen TV, whatever charities or debaucheries you engage in, you must join this fight today because 1400 years ago a book was written that means to take everything you cherish away from you. It doesn't matter if you are Democrat or Republican, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Jain, Shinto, Wiccan or atheist. Your freedom to choose how you want to live is what's at stake. Whether you know it or believe it, you are in the fight for your life.

This new year, choose life.

12/29

www.washingtontimes.com
A question for 2007
By Diana West

Taking a whack at prognostication at the end of 2005, it wasn't hard to imagine, as I did, that 2006 would be a rotten year for freedom of speech. Both inside the Islamic world and, more alarmingly, outside the Islamic world, Shariah laws prohibiting criticism of Islam were already working smoothly. When in 2005 we watched the death-penalty-seeking prosecution of editor Ali Mohaqeq Nasab for "blasphemy" in U.S.-liberated Afghanistan, we could see we were dealing with a Shariah state. When in 2005 we watched the early stages of what later became known as "Cartoon Rage" in Denmark, we could see we were dealing with a Shariah state of mind. It wasn't exactly going out on a limb to predict things would only get worse.
And, of course, in 2006, they did. Just ask Abdul Rahman if you can find him. The "apostate" fled Afghanistan for his life last spring. Or Robert Redeker, if you can find him. The teacher who published a critique of Islam in September still lives in hiding in France. Or maybe Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. The Bangladeshi journalist faces the death penalty when he goes on trial in January for "blasphemy" and treason for writing favorably about Israel and unfavorably about Islamic terrorism. Of course, such censorship is "Over There" and beyond, not in the United States of America, right? And it can't, as they say, happen here. Right? Please, right?
I called 2006 "The Year of Speaking Dangerously," and that was before anyone likely imagined seeing "Behead Those Who Insult Islam" placards on jihadist display outside the Danish Embassy in London. What kind of year will 2007 be? What I fear most is that it will turn out to be "The Year of Shutting Up." As in: Why speak dangerously when you can simply not speak at all?
In fact, the Year of Shutting Up probably began back in September when Pope Benedict famously argued that the practice of forced conversion — key to Islamic expansion over the centuries — is inimical to both faith and reason. The eruption of anger among Muslims at such criticism was instantaneous and severe. Just shut up, the umma exclaimed. Basically, the pope did exactly that.
At the time, Daniel Pipes explained why placating such anger with silence was dangerous for the West: "The Muslim uproar has a goal — to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians and thereby impose Shariah norms in the West. Should Westerners accept this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow. Retaining free speech about Islam, therefore, represents a critical defense against the imposition of an Islamic order."
Mr. Pipes' language — "shariah norms in the West," "the imposition of an Islamic order" — evokes a potential transformation of our culture that is nothing short of revolutionary. Our elites seem not to have the slightest clue how devastating such a change, which comes under the rubric of Islamization, would be to our Judeo-Christian-rooted civilization. Indeed, it is increasingly clear that they don't know the difference between "an Islamic order" and Judeo-Christian-rooted civilization — or even that there is a difference.
There are exceptions. In November, there was Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida Republican, who stood up for constituents' free speech under CAIR pressure. Now Rep. Virgil Goode, Virginia Republican, has become both the lone standard-bearer of free speech about Islam and the favorite whipping boy of the PC elites. In a letter to constituents about the decision of Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, to use a Koran at his swearing-in ceremony, Mr. Goode expressed what I take to be his recognition that the laws of Islam — which prohibit religious freedom, freedom of speech and conscience, equality before the law and women's rights — do not augment but rather contravene the founding principles of the United States.
He also wrote: "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America." It's difficult to argue with Mr. Goode's logic. Indeed, the test case of the age — Europe — demonstrates that Islamic immigration brings Islamic law, which is demonstrably at odds with American values and beliefs. Forgoing debate, however, Mr. Goode's critics have resorted to name-calling and platitudes about "tolerance," failing utterly to notice the gross intolerance of the Islamic tradition. Worst of all, their tactics seem designed to shut up Mr. Goode, and anyone else who might follow his bold example. Will they?
It's the question of 2007.

12/26

December 24, 2006
Why hasn't he been busted?

I was just checking up on Tom Hayden, the creepy Santa Monica Svengali who MADE Jane Fonda into a cannon-humpin', Viet-Cong lovin' raddled whore of the global far left. A congential useful idiot, Jane owes all she ever became to rat-faced Hayden.

What was fringe-left Hayden up to these days? Well, in late August, he wrote about his May 21 trip to Cuba, where he went to just hang around with his good friend Ricardo Alarcon, the impotent little sycophant of the castroite cabal.

Unlike you and me, who must obey laws, Tom seems to think he's above the law and can just jet over to Cuba any time he likes - defying an embargo that was put into place because of all the dead bodies the castro regime has managed to pile up.

For normal people, the travel embargo's understandable because killing people is an outrage. Not so for Tom Hayden, who's a fan of big piles of dead bodies. He defies the embargo not to go Varadero Beach like the eurotrash, but to kiss up to Ricardo Alarcon, a slimey castroite operative, who, for all we know, might've had something to do with the castroite torture of U.S. prisoners in Vietcong and North Vietnamese communist dungeons.

In his crummy article published on some blog called 'Truthdig' and on his self-titled Web site, Hayden conveyed Alarcon's "deep" thoughts about the future of Cuba. The late lead time between his kissing session with Ricardo and the August publication of his rubbish makes me wonder if he's just gotten a sudden note from the Treasury Department about his trip and quick, suddenly, had to justify it all by claiming he was, all along, a journalist. I don't buy it and neither should the Treasury Department.

Tom Hayden travelled to Cuba as an honored guest of the Marxist regime there, got the full wonder treatment from the castroites, and then shamelessly jetted back to the states as if nothing ever happened. The real reason Hayden went to see the castroites is because that's where his friends are.

Why hasn't this bastard been busted? Where is the Treasury Department? Why isn't he paying fines or doing some jail time? None of this has gotten a scintilla of scrutiny. Hayden needs a good busting.

http://www.babalublog.com/

12/21

An Honest Confession by an American Coward
by Pat Conroy

The true things always ambush me on the road and take me by surprise when I am drifting down the light of placid days, careless about flanks and rearguard actions. I was not looking for a true thing to come upon me in the state of New Jersey. Nothing has ever happened to me in New Jersey. But came it did, and it came to stay.

In the past four years I have been interviewing my teammates on the 1966-67 basketball team at the Citadel for a book I'm writing. For the most part, this has been like buying back a part of my past that I had mislaid or shut out of my life. At first I thought I was writing about being young and frisky and able to run up and down a court all day long, but lately I realized I came to this book because I needed to come to grips with being middle-aged and having ripened into a
gray-haired man you could not trust to handle the ball on a fast break.

When I visited my old teammate Al Kroboth's house in New Jersey, I spent the first hours quizzing him about his memories of games and practices and the screams of coaches that had echoed in field houses more than 30 years before. Al had been a splendid forward-center for the Citadel; at 6 feet 5 inches and carrying 220 pounds, he played with indefatigable energy and enthusiasm. For most of his senior year, he led the nation in field-goal percentage, with UCLA center Lew Alcindor hot on his trail. Al was a battler and a brawler and a scrapper from the day he first stepped in as a Green Weenie as a sophomore to the day he graduated. After we talked basketball, we came to a subject I dreaded to bring up with Al, but which lay between us and would not lie still.

"Al, you know I was a draft dodger and antiwar demonstrator."

"That's what I heard, Conroy," Al said. "I have nothing against what you did, but I did what I thought was right."

"Tell me about Vietnam, big Al. Tell me what happened to you," I said.

On his seventh mission as a navigator in an A-6 for Major Leonard Robertson, Al was getting ready to deliver their payload when the fighter-bomber was hit by enemy fire. Though Al has no memory of it, he punched out somewhere in the middle of the ill-fated dive and lost consciousness. He doesn't know if he was unconscious for six hours or six days, nor does he know what happened to Major Robertson (whose name
is engraved on the Wall in Washington and on the MIA bracelet Al wears).

When Al awoke, he couldn't move. A Viet Cong soldier held an AK-47 to his head. His back and his neck were broken, and he had shattered his left scapula in the fall. When he was well enough to get to his feet (he still can't recall how much time had passed), two armed Viet Cong led Al from the jungles of South Vietnam to a prison in Hanoi. The journey took three months. Al Kroboth walked barefooted through the most impassable terrain in Vietnam, and he did it sometimes in the dead of night. He bathed when it rained, and he slept in bomb craters with his two Viet Cong captors. As they moved farther north, infections
began to erupt on his body, and his legs were covered with leeches picked up while crossing the rice paddies.

At the very time of Al's walk, I had a small role in organizing the only antiwar demonstration ever held in Beaufort, South Carolina, the home of Parris Island and the Marine Corps Air Station. In a Marine Corps town at that time, it was difficult to come up with a quorum of people who had even minor disagreements about the Vietnam War. But my small group managed to attract a crowd of about 150 to Beaufort's waterfront. With my mother and my wife on either side of me, we listened to the featured speaker, Dr. Howard Levy, suggest to the very few young enlisted Marines present that if they get sent to Vietnam, here's how they can help end this war: Roll a grenade under your officer's bunk when he's asleep in his tent. It's called fragging and is becoming more and more popular with the ground troops who know this war is bullshit. I was enraged by the suggestion. At that very moment my father, a Marine officer, was asleep in Vietnam. But in 1972, at the age of 27, I thought I was serving America's interests by pointing out what massive flaws and miscalculations and corruptions had led her to conduct a ground war in Southeast Asia.

In the meantime, Al and his captors had finally arrived in the North, and the Viet Cong traded him to North Vietnamese soldiers for the final leg of the trip to Hanoi. Many times when they stopped to rest for the night, the local villagers tried to kill him. His captors wired his hands behind his back at night, so he trained himself to sleep in the center of huts when the villagers began sticking knives and bayonets into the thin walls.

Following the U.S. air raids, old women would come into the huts to excrete on him and yank out hunks of his hair. After the nightmare journey of his walk north, Al was relieved when his guards finally delivered him to the POW camp in Hanoi and the cell door locked behind him.

It was at the camp that Al began to die. He threw up every meal he ate and before long was misidentified as the oldest American soldier in the prison because his appearance was so gaunt and skeletal. But the extraordinary camaraderie among fellow prisoners that sprang up in all the POW camps caught fire in Al, and did so in time to save his life.

When I was demonstrating in America against Nixon and the Christmas bombings in Hanoi, Al and his fellow prisoners were holding hands under the full fury of those bombings, singing "God Bless America." It was those bombs that convinced Hanoi they would do well to release the American POWs, including my college teammate. When he told me about the C-141 landing in Hanoi to pick up the prisoners, Al said he felt no emotion, none at all, until he saw the giant American flag painted on the plane's tail. I stopped writing as Al wept over the memory of that flag on that plane, on that morning, during that time in the life of America.

It was that same long night, after listening to Al's story, that I began to make judgments about how I had conducted myself during the Vietnam War.

In the darkness of the sleeping Kroboth household, lying in the third-floor guest bedroom, I began to assess my role as a citizen in the '60s, when my country called my name and I shot her the bird. Unlike the stupid boys who wrapped themselves in Viet Cong flags and burned the American one, I knew how to demonstrate against the war without flirting with treason or astonishingly bad taste. I had come directly from the warrior culture of this country and I knew how to act.

But in the 25 years that have passed since South Vietnam fell, I have immersed myself in the study of totalitarianism during the unspeakable century we just left behind. I have questioned survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, talked to Italians who told me tales of the Nazi occupation, French partisans who had counted German tanks in the forests of Normandy, and officers who survived the Bataan Death March. I quiz journalists returning from wars in Bosnia, the Sudan, the Congo, Angola, Indonesia, Guatemala, San Salvador, Chile, Northern Ireland, Algeria.

As I lay sleepless, I realized I'd done all this research to better understand my country. I now revere words like democracy, freedom, the right to vote, and the grandeur of the extraordinary vision of the founding fathers. Do I see America's flaws? Of course. But I now can honor her basic, incorruptible virtues, the ones that let me walk the streets screaming my ass off that my country had no idea what it was doing in South Vietnam. My country let me scream to my heart's content - the same country that produced both Al Kroboth and me.

Now, at this moment in New Jersey, I come to a conclusion about my actions as a young man when Vietnam was a dirty word to me. I wish I'd led a platoon of Marines in Vietnam. I would like to think I would have trained my troops well and that the Viet Cong would have had their hands full if they entered a firefight with us. From the day of my birth, I was programmed to enter the Marine Corps. I was the son of a Marine fighter pilot, and I had grown up on Marine bases where I had watched the men of the corps perform simulated war games in the forests of my childhood. That a novelist and poet bloomed darkly in the house of Santini strikes me as a remarkable irony. My mother and father had raised me to be an Al Kroboth, and during the Vietnam era they watched in horror as I metamorphosed into another breed of fanatic entirely. I understand now that I should have protested the war after my return from Vietnam, after I had done my duty for my country. I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew then in my bones but lacked the courage to act on: America is good enough to die for even when she is wrong.

I looked for some conclusion, a summation of this trip to my teammate's house. I wanted to come to the single right thing, a true thing that I may not like but that I could live with. After hearing Al Kroboth's story of his walk across Vietnam and his brutal imprisonment in the North, I found myself passing harrowing, remorseless judgment on myself. I had not turned out to be the man I had once envisioned myself to be. I thought I would be the kind of man that America could point to and say, "There. That's the guy. That's the one who got it right. The whole package. The one I can depend on."

It had never once occurred to me that I would find myself in the position I did on that night in Al Kroboth's house in Roselle, New Jersey: an American coward spending the night with an American hero.

Pat Conroy's novels include The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and Beach Music. He lives on Fripp Island, South Carolina. This essay is from his forthcoming book, My Losing Season.

12/10

Seeds of Intellectual Destruction
By J.R. Dunn

It's always amazed me how quickly the American left managed to twist the 9/11 attacks into a club with which to beat their own country. I recall watching the smoke from the towers late in the day, exhausted from stress and emotions I could scarcely identify, and thinking, "They'll never be able to defile this." It was the end of the postwar flirtation with apostasy, I thought, the end of political frivolity, the birth of a new kind of patriotism, one annealed by fire, one that would become part of framework of the country, one that would last.

Well - they proved me wrong. True, for a few days they kept quiet, scattering like roaches when caught in the public spotlight mouthing the old slogans. Michael Moore was forced to back up quickly after his first remarks, and there was that aide to Willie Brown ("What did you do, America?") never heard of before or since, and of course, Noam Chomsky, pleading that we "enter the minds" of Mohammed Atta and company, but apart from that, most of them kept their counsel. For a while, it really seemed that things had changed.

But after what in retrospect appears to be a pitifully short period, they were back, and in force, and they have never retreated since. Contrary to consensus belief, it didn't begin with Iraq. It began with Afghanistan, starting only a month after the attacks, and built up from there. Moore, the Dixie Chicks, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Durbin, Murtha... The list could go on for page after page, all of them speaking in identical terms, all repeating the same code words - Halliburton, blood for oil, Abu Ghraib - all tearing into their country in a fashion unseen even in the Vietnam era.

And where the trendsetters have led, the public has followed. If the polls can be trusted (a bit of a leap, it's true) something like over half the American people believe that the War on Terror, far from being a response to an unprovoked and atrocious attack, is a war of aggression fought on behalf on industrial capitalism in the form of George W's oil buddies.

This is not a natural response. Countries fighting legitimate defensive wars don't suffer this kind of erosion of public support in the midst of hostilities. Particularly as involves a war that began with an atrocity committed against fellow countrymen, an atrocity that could be (and eventually will be) repeated at any time. Such a reaction should not have occurred.

The reason it happened this time was the result of fifty years of conditioning that any and all American activities overseas, whether diplomatic, commercial, or military, are fundamentally illegitimate. American wars, no matter what their cause or nature, are viewed through the same prism, one created on the left for the purpose of undermining the country's commitment to the Cold War, but useful in any context. Call it the "Imperial" or "Hegemonist" doctrine. Simply put, it holds that no American war (and little in the way of any interaction on the international level) is ever justified. All such ventures are wars of imperialist aggression, commonly carried out against helpless innocents in defiance of the wishes of the American people (at least the true American people - that is, left-wing Democrats), on behalf of secretive, sinister interest groups.

Unlike most left-wing doctrines, this one is not a European import but fully home-grown. It was incubated in the universities, developing over several decades in response to U.S. efforts against the Soviet Union. Like any such doctrine it was the product of many hands over a considerable period. But for our purposes, two of the major figures, C. Wright Mills and William Appleman Williams, will serve as examples.

Williams was a revisionist historian based for many years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, one of the nation's premier radical campuses. His field was American diplomatic history. In works such as The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1958) and Roots of the Modern American Empire (1969) Williams depicted the U.S. as an imperial state basing its policies on relentless economic expansion and distracting the masses with a series of overseas military adventures. The Cold War, according to this view, was instigated by the U.S. to protect its markets, with the Soviets as much victims as perpetrators. It comes as no surprise to discover that Williams is Gore Vidal's favorite historian. (Ironically, Williams was eventually driven from Madison by the activities of the very New Leftists he'd done so much to influence.)

C. Wright Mills was a sociologist specializing in the study of elites. His major thesis was presented in a book titled The Power Elite (1956), in which he contended that the U.S. was run by a political, military, and corporate ruling class that shared the same concepts and goals and had converted the U.S. to a "permanent war economy". The mass of citizens, as described in an earlier work, White Collar (1951), were effectively mindless androids bullied and channeled by the bureaucracy. Mills later turned to the international arena in the book Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba (1960), one of the earliest works written in support of Castro.

Though by no means bestsellers, Williams' and Mills' books were widely read in the academic world, by both faculty and students (I recall as a young child seeing paperback editions floating around during the 60s). They were influential far beyond the number of copies printed - the kind of books that are talked about much more widely than they are read. They were further popularized by various acolytes such as Lloyd Gardner, Walter LaFeber, and Howard Zinn in the academic world, and Tom Hayden (who wrote the most recent biography of Mills) and George McGovern in the political sphere.

Their first vector of influence was the New Left. The Port Huron Statement of 1962, usually regarded as the movement's foundation document, is steeped in the ideas of Williams and Mills. From there the Students for a Democratic Society, which had branches and offshoots across the country, spread them throughout the higher educational system. In the hothouse atmosphere of the 60s, and with the impetus of the Vietnam War, the hegemonist doctrine became the standard model for evaluating U.S. policies. The New Left grew into The Movement, encompassing tens of thousands of students, academics, and hangers-on and dedicated to shutting down the war using whatever means came to hand. Hegemonism, holding that the United States was effectively a force of evil with nothing humane to be expected of it, comprised a basic tenet of the counterculture.

The potency of the doctrine rose not from any innate theoretical brilliance or predictive power, but from the fact that it embodied a number of impulses (usually involving petty resentments) as old as human nature itself. The notion that some vague "they" - usually identified with politicians and industrialists -- were running things for their own benefit. That "they" had it in for the little man. That wars were good for business. That such cynicism meant one was in the know, and couldn't be fooled. It was a doctrine that appealed to fundamental human failings - hatred, envy, smugness, and paranoia.

A doctrine based on such elements has a very strong foundation, and hegemonism did not fail the New Left. Incompetent execution along with a complete inability to articulate its aims left the Johnson Administration with no public support for the war effort. The New Left swept in to fill the vacuum.

By the late 60s, hegemonist doctrine was stripped of any academic or intellectual pretensions whatsoever, becoming little more than a set of slogans. But as Cardinal Newman once said, "Men will die for a slogan who will not stir for a conclusion." And while very few died, The Movement succeeded in infecting the middle class with its own mix of paranoia and defeatism, shutting down American participation in Southeast Asia just as the South Vietnamese were beginning to find their feet. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were thrown to the wolves, the Movement collected a pair of presidential scalps in the persons of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and then moved on toward broader horizons.

Hegemonism became institutionalized in the Democratic Party when the New Left effectively took over during the McGovern campaign of 1972. Politicians espousing the doctrine, among them Hayden, Ron Dellums, Frank Church, and culminating at last with Jimmy Carter, became the new face of the party. At the same time, the doctrine infiltrated a number of other institutions, including the news media, the entertainment industry, the unions, and much of the governmental bureaucracy. By the mid-70s it was the currency, having replaced the earlier consensus view of the United States as a unique nation standing aloof from the sleazy operations of older states while willing to lend a hand to emergent or established democracies. The thesis of the United States as predator, as an international outlaw state whose every action was suspect, had become the operating worldview of the educated American public.

But the doctrine failed in its primary aim, that of wrecking American efforts in the Cold War. By the time the 80s began, hegemonism was beginning to look a little ragged around the edges - it's hard to lend conviction to a theory that the U.S. is the source of all international evil when the world insists on rolling noisily down the road to Hell despite American hands being tied. The ascension of Ronald Reagan put a temporary quietus to the concept. Reagan's traditional view of the United States, his simple faith and confidence in its destiny, galvinized support from the vast and often ignored masses of middle America. His success in rolling back and at last cracking the facade of the Marxist tyrannies undercut the entire basis of the domestic left-wing program.

There seemed to be no point - and no future - for the hegemonic doctrine in the afterglow of 1989 and the prosperous, relatively quiet 1990s. It appeared to be as obsolete as brinksmanship, detente, Mutual Assured Destruction, and other concepts derived from the Cold War, for all that, a pair of true believers were running the White House for most of the decade.

But no ideological construct dies before its time. Hegemonism was kept alive by people like Noam Chomsky in his endless series of books and pamphlets, Howard Zinn, whose "People's History of the United States" is the standard classroom history, and Oliver Stone's paranoid cinematic fantasies. It remained a central concept of the entertainment world and the media, was encysted within the Democratic Party, and acted as the motivating force of the anarcho-syndicalist anti-globalism movement.

When the towers came down and the U.S. went on war footing, it emerged intact and complete in every detail, as if it had never lain dormant. It has set the terms of the argument since late 2001 - unspoken, unacknowledged, and undebated. The conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, with their faceless mass murderers manipulating a cooperative military and intelligence sector, are purely hegemonist. So is the entire effort to undermine the Iraq War, with the endless echoes of Blood for Oil, accusations against Halliburton, and attacks on "neocons" by people who have no idea what neoconservatism is or could name a single one of its tenets.

The Iraq War was a godsend for the American left, something they'd have had to invent if it hadn't happened on its own. It allowed the entire War on Terror to be chopped and fit into the already existing intellectual template, enabled all the old slogans to be revived, all the dusty concepts to be trotted out anew. It has turned the overall war, one of the most justified conflicts in this country's history, a belated defensive response against an ugly and murderous enemy, into the traditional shadow play of murderous military officers, bloody-handed CIA operatives, and cackling businessmen, all overseen by a bulging-browed Karl Rove, operating from some Goldfingeresque headquarters buried far beneath the Crawford ranch. The result is a nation slowly edging toward the same paralysis that afflicted it during the 1970s.

The U.S. remains the world's hyperpower. We have no blatant military weaknesses, our economy is sound, our political system more solid than any in the world. (As was proven last month, where a contentious wartime election overturned the status quo without a shot being fired or a jackboot being stamped. So much for the Bushitler thesis.) We are the foremost element in any contemporary nation-state's international calculations, friendly or hostile. We (and not the UN, God forbid) are the nation everyone turns to when things go wrong.

Our fatal flaw involves our national will, our apparent inability to take on any necessary task, however lengthy, dirty or unpromising, and finish it satisfactorily. Our enemies have noted this and target it as a matter of course. Our friends - to perhaps stretch a term - have learned to manipulate it to their advantage.

As we have seen, this is no natural turn of events. There is nothing inevitable or unavoidable about it. It is entirely synthetic, the byproduct of an effort by our intellectual elite to serve an ideology now long dead. Our belief in ourselves as a nation, in our role and mission on the international stage, has been undermined for fifty years and more. There is not a level of society, from day laborer to corporate CEO, who has not been touched by this dogma. Not a single institution (with the professional military perhaps excepted) has been unaffected.

There are politicians now serving in Congress, intelligence agents investigating overseas threats, diplomats working in embassies, bureaucrats handling the day-to-day business of the government, who fully believe that the country they serve is a criminal enterprise. And this is not even to mention the millions of students, professionals, housewives, officials, clergymen, and citizens of all types who labor under the idea that their country is an international tumor worthy only of defeat and punishment, because they have never heard it argued otherwise. The United States, the most powerful nation in the memory of man, is proving unable to correct a situation that led to the greatest crime ever committed against its citizens because of the doubts and anxieties engendered by this empty dogma.

And it is empty. The hegemonist thesis was worked out for one purpose. Not for reform -- no serious reform has ever been associated with it. Not for political guidance -- it leads nowhere. Not for enlightenment - it was designed to blind and confuse. It was intended solely to toss a wrench into American efforts against the Soviet Union. A short glance across the international landscape will reveal that no such entity now exists. The USSR is dead and gone and no one possessing a soul regrets that fact. Instead we are confronted by something else - something unforeseen and unimagined by the intellectuals who engendered the doctrine of the U.S. as monster state.

Hegemonist doctrine has no place in it for phenomena like Al-Quaeda and the Jihadists. There is no way to fit them into the theory, because to acknowledge that a tangible, undeniable threat exists is to negate every other element of the thesis. So they are ignored. No solution is offered, no suggestions are made. They are simply pushed aside as irrelevant. The doctrine that underlies all opposition to American policies in the War on Terror has absolutely nothing to say about the forces that triggered the war, forces that have already attacked two American cities and have promised to return.

It follows that hegemonist doctrine has no meaning in the 21st century - but on it goes, like a rogue missile that has missed its target and now traces an unguided trajectory, tearing a swath across the national psyche, derailing our sense of purpose by the very fact that it exists.

And that's yet another reason why it's going to be a long, long war.

J.R. Dunn is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/12/seeds_intellectual_destruction.html at December 10, 2006 - 10:06:33 AM EST

Carter Fallout
by Ken Stein

Adviser breaks with Carter over Mideast book.

Text of Ken Stein's note about resignation:

This note is to inform you that yesterday, I sent letters to President Jimmy Carter, Emory University President Jim Wagner, and Dr. John Hardman, Executive Director of the Carter Center resigning my position, effectively immediately, as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University. This ends my 23 year association with an institution that in some small way I helped shape and develop.

My joint academic position in Emory College in the History and Political Science Departments, and, as Director of the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel remains unchanged.

Many still believe that I have an active association with the Center and, act as an adviser to President Carter, neither is the case. President Carter has intermittently continued to come to the Arab-Israeli Conflict class I teach in Emory College. He gives undergraduate students a fine first hand recollection of the Begin-Sadat negotiations of the late 1970s. Since I left the Center physically thirteen years ago, the Middle East program of the Center has waned as has my status as a Carter Center Fellow. For the record, I had nothing to do with the research, preparation, writing, or review of President Carter's recent publication. Any material which he used from the book we did together in 1984, The Blood of Abraham, he used unilaterally. President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

The decade I spent at the Carter Center (1983-1993) as the first permanent Executive Director and as the first Fellow were intellectually enriching for Emory as an institution, the general public, the interns who learned with us, and for me professionally. Setting standards for rigorous interchange and careful analyses spilled out to the other programs that shaped the Center's early years. There was mutual respect for all views; we carefully avoided polemics or special pleading. This book does not hold to those standards. My continued association with the Center leaves the impression that I am sanctioning a series of egregious errors and polemical conclusions which appeared in President Carter's book. I can not allow that impression to stand.

Through Emory College, I have continued my professional commitment to inform students and the general public about the history and politics of Israel, the Middle East, and American policies toward the region. I have tried to remain true to a life-time devotion to scholarly excellence based upon unvarnished analyses and intellectual integrity. I hold fast to the notion that academic settings and those in positions of influence must teach and not preach. Through Emory College, in public lectures, and in OPED writings, I have adhered to the strong belief that history must be presented in context, and understood the way it was, not the way we wish it to be.

In closing, let me thank you for your friendship, past and continuing support for ISMI, and to Emory College. Let me also wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season, and a healthy and productive new year.

As ever,

Ken

http://www.aish.com/societyWork/arts/Carter_Fallout.asp

12/08

You may or may not have noticed we haven't been attending to this site properly in the last weeks. Because there's not much new to say. If this were a blog, random statements would evaporate into archives you couldn't really sift thru. Not so here. There are 1500+ pages, articles, books, pamphlets which you can find that will tell you the exact same thing over and over. Don't know what you're searching for? Here's the bottom line: Islam is a threat to your life and our civilization. Go spread the word.

Fitzgerald: The folly of the Iraq Study Group

The Iraq Study Group brings us nothing but another kind of folly. It states the obvious, that "we are losing in Iraq" by which it means that, given the Bush Administration's definition of "winning" (which apparently the Iraq Study Group is too unimaginative to question), then we, who are failing to achieve what would thereby constitute "winning," therefore "are losing." And this statement of the obvious is considered a great achievement. But the Iraq Study Group report is even worse than a mere statement of the obvious. For along with that statement of the obvious comes so much else that is even more stupid and potentially dangerous than what the Bush Administration it criticizes now offers, that one is left feeling colossally depressed.

There is, for example, the suggestion that Iraq and Syria be "talked to." On the face of it, who can object to "talking to" anyone? But in the Middle East, "talking to" lends legitimacy. It gives support to those regimes that one wishes to isolate or at least to cause to feel isolated. It is not as if there the views of these regimes are not fully known already. They are not hermetically sealed off, like the military regime in Burma. We already know what the regime in Syria wants: it wants as much protection from its enemies, as much power and money, as it can get. It wants to continue to dominate Lebanon. It wants to continue the Alawite dictatorship by doing the simultaneous bidding of both the Shi'a in Iran (who have declared the Alawites to be "true Muslims," which is not what the Sunnis think, and Sunni Muslims constitute 70% of the Syrian population) and the Sunnis, by allowing the latter free entry to leave Syria and go to fight (and, the Alawites hope, die) in Iraq.

As for "talking to Iran," the American government already knows perfectly well what Iran wants. It wants precisely to "talk, talk, talk" with everyone under the sun, in order to keep any attack from actually taking place that would stop its headlong rush toward obtaining nuclear weapons. Only a fool would think otherwise. And only fools would think that formal "talks" would add to the American store of knowledge, or would help the U.S. find out what "Iran really wants" when we know perfectly well what Iran really wants: it wants that weaponry, and the power and the threat that go with it. And the current regime, we have every reason to believe, is certainly prepared to use such weapons against Israel, in a final chiliastic frenzy. The suggestion that the American government "talk to" Syria and Iran sounds perfectly harmless, perfectly fine, unless one thinks clearly about what such "talks" would mean.

Of course, there are "talks" that could be brief, and could go something like this:

To the Syrian regime, the Americans could say: Alawites are not true Muslims. We know this, and the Sunnis know this, despite your attempts to hide behind that single fatwa from Iran claiming otherwise. The Saudis are prepared to use their money to broadcast through the Arab press, in the Middle East and in London, ably assisted by the Jordanians and the Egyptians, that the Alawites, those non-Muslims, must go. You think you can continue to rule, despite being 12% of the population. You think we will not support a Sunni Muslim effort to depose you. At this point, your behavior is such that we regard you as disposable. But it is not we who will do the disposing. It will be the Ikhwan within Syria. We will publicize your permitting Shi'a missionaries to come from Iran. We will have the Saudis and others display the pictures of Mary that hang in every Alawite village. Your Alawite generals will get more and more nervous. They do not all wish to be slaughtered -- which is what the real Muslims will do to you. You have a choice. Leave Lebanon alone. Stop helping Iran. Forget about the Golan Heights; you will never get it back. We will give you a free hand in Syria. But that is it. That is more than enough. That, or a Sunni uprising that will not end in a mere palace coup, but in the mass murder of Alawites everywhere. Your choice.

That would be the way to have "talks" with Syria.

And the "talks" with Iran? Something along the same friendly lines. Something like this: Fifty percent of your population is not Persian. There are Kurds. There are Azeris. There are Baluchis. There are Arabs in Khuzistan, where all your oil is located. We are prepared to arm, through Kurdistan, those Kurds. The mere existence of an independent and American-backed Kurdistan will inspire not only those Kurds, but also those Baluchis and those Arabs and, if we can make a deal with Azerbaijan, possibly even those Azeris as well. The Ottoman Empire dissolved after World War I. What remains of the Persian Empire -- that is, modern Iran -- can dissolve, or be shrunk still further. Could you put down simultaneous revolts among the Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, and Arabs? You don't think we dare do it? Why not? What do we have to lose? What could you do now that is still worse than what you are already doing? Let's be clear: we are not out to overturn the regime, but we can inflict such damage on your country that others, within, will overturn your regime. And kill the Mullahs in their luxurious homes. Do you want that? Do you want to lose the oil of Khuzistan to the Arabs? We wouldn't dare, you say? Why wouldn't we? Why should we care? We buy oil from wherever, and we pay the market price to you or to them. What reason do we have for keeping Iran together? Instability should worry us? Why? Why should it?

Something like that, to both Syria and Iran, would be the only kind of talks worth having.

As for the sinister business in the Iraq Study Group about Israel, it included all the cliches about a "two-state solution," courtesy no doubt of such operators as that virtual agent of the Arabs, Raymond Close (why has his participation, and his shadowy background, not been made the subject of discussion?). Also involved was Robert Malley, that full-time and tireless promoter of the "Palestinians," who was the behind-the-scenes organizer (the front man was Gareth Evans) of the International Crisis Group's little effort (one of those "signed by World Leaders" things) to demand renewed pressure for Israeli surrender. In that effort one of those
“World Leaders" was none other than Lee Hamilton, famously unsympathetic -- always has been, always will be -- to Israel, though not perhaps for the same reasons as Texas fixer and Saudi-connected ("Our friends in the Gulf") James Baker.

Oh, there's a good deal more to say about the Iraq Study Group, none of it good. The only good thing is that, along with much vicious nonsense, and of course without a hint of comprehension of the nature or scope or instruments of Jihad (these are all Yesterday's Men and Women, and far too famous and busy to have the time to learn, at this point, about Islam), it managed to state the obvious: that the Bush policy, on its own terms, is not "winning" in Iraq.

The more intelligent criticism, the one that requires examination of what should constitute "winning" for the United States in Iraq, was beyond that committee's capacity. After all, that would take real thought. That would take study, and reading, and time. That is not something to be asked of such busy busy people as James Baker and Lee Hamilton and all the rest. They had their "experts" -- such people as Raymond Close and Shibley Telhami. What did you expect?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014341.php#more

Why stop at Olmert? Make them all take the test.

Hugh Fitzgerald: A few questions for Ehud Olmert

One has a few questions for Olmert:

What do you know about Islamic teachings?

How seriously do you think Muslims take those teachings?

Do you have any reason to think that the way Muslims are suffused with the teachings of Islam, a system of Total Regulation and Complete Explanation of the Universe, is different from the way that either Judaism or Christianity impinges on, or organizes the life of, Jews and Christians?

What do you know of Muslim teachings regarding non-Muslims?

Have you ever read the Qur'an and at least a few hundred of the hadith, possibly directed by a scholar of Islam?

Are you acquainted with the life of Muhammad, as written and read by Muslims, and do you realize the role that Muhammad plays as the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil?

Do you know about the decapitation of the prisoners of the Banu Qurayza? The attack on the Khaybar Oasis? The murders of Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak for mocking Muhammad? The marriage to little Aisha?

Are you familiar with the agreement that Muhammad made with the Meccans in 628 A.D. when, feeling not yet strong enough to attack them directly, he made an agreement for a truce, a period of ten years, and then eighteen months later broke that truce on a pretext and, now with stronger forces, attacked the Meccans?

Are you aware that in the entire history of Islam, this behavior by Muhammad is hailed as being exceptionally clever, and has been taken as a model for all agreements and treaties made between Muslims and non-Muslims?

Are you aware, for example, that all of the Muslim commentators on the law of war and peace in Islam are in universal agreement that no permanent peace treaty can ever be made between Muslims and Infidels, only temporary agreements made necessary when the Muslim side is too weak?

Have you read, for example, or has anyone brought to your busy attention, Majid Khadduri's War and Peace in Islam, with its discussion of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya?

These questions, and your answers to them, will be published in the five leading newspapers of Israel.

Please, Mr. Prime Minister, think carefully before answering.

And come to think of it, why shouldn't this little quiz, which so clearly will elicit for us information about the comprehension of Infidel leaders everywhere, be given, in one form or another, all over the world, beginning with those in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid?

Why shouldn't we all demand that those who presume to protect and instruct us (they go together: protection must be accompanied by instruction on what one is being protected against, and how, and why) take this test?

This is not a multiple-choice examination. It will not be graded by some computer, measuring the little lines who shaded in with a No. 2 pencil.

No, this test requires the ability to put a few sentences together. It does not supply the pre-fabricated answers.

And it will not be graded by a whirring machine in Princeton, New Jersey.

It will be graded, instead, by all of us. And we are in no mood, the publics of the Western world, to indulge or overlook in any way. Too much depends on the understanding of these matters.

Olmert, I'm afraid, has already failed with the surpassing idiocy of his every statement and move. Bush, in his messianic missing-the-point fervor -- he had an idea and now the idea has him -- to create a Light Unto the Musiim Nations instead of exploiting the situation to weaken the Camp of Islam -- has not done much better. Almost all of the known leaders of the Western world have similarly failed.

But there are others, waiting in the wings. They should all be asked to take the test above -- all those hoping to be the next Republican or Democratic candidate. We want to know, more than anything else, what they understand about Islam. We want to know if they are fooled, or foolable, or unwilling to state things, even if not with the full freedom that one has at this website, but slightly more obliquely (that may at first be necessary, and if undertaken only for tactical reasons, may in some cases be understood and forgiven).

But they need to take the test.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014235.php#more

11/23

Al Qaeda wants an "American Madrid"
By Walid Phares

The Washington Times. November 22, 3006

The latest audio by al Qaeda's Iraq commander -- posted 48 hours after the midterm elections -- sends a clear signal to the readers of the jihadi strategic mind: Al Qaeda and its advisers around the world want to provoke an "American Madrid." Portraying the United States as a bleeding bull in disarray, the war room projects its wish to see America's will crippled. The video attempts to do the following:

1. Convince the jihadists that the United States is now defeated in Iraq and beyond. While no reversal of the balance of power has taken place on the ground, the jihadi propaganda machine is linking the shift in domestic politics to a withdrawal from Iraq. It projects the change in Washington as a crumbling of the political process in Baghdad and America's foreign policy. Interestingly, others in the region are also "announcing" the upcoming defeat of America in the war on terror. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah declared: "The Americans are leaving, and their allies will pay the price."

2. Spread political chaos at home. Jihadists portray the Democratic takeover of Congress and the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (and maybe others) as signs of American weakening in the resolve to fight jihadism. The video had a potential to frustrate U.S. citizens if it is not accurately interpreted by experts. Americans may end up believing that the message reflects the situation in the Middle East and that it is a logical outcome of a faulty U.S. policy. If the Bush administration and the new congressional leaders do not respond adequately to the video, some "chaos" of this sort may ensue.

3. The terminology used in the videotape is a powerful indicator that al Qaeda's political network relies on Western-educated minds, familiar with political processes in the United States and serving as advisers to the jihadists. A regular al Qaeda emir does not use the term "lame duck." It is more likely that a U.S.-based cadre, who understands the impact of political jargon on domestic audiences, had suggested the use of this word. Abu Hamza al Muhajir's use of the term batta arjaaa (lame duck) is striking to any native speaker of Arabic. This term does not exist in Arab culture, let alone in jihadi rhetoric. Its use is yet another proof of the Americanization jihad has undergone. Thus, Iraq's al Qaeda is using the term as a weapon -- something most likely requested by the jihadi brains operating on the other side of the Atlantic.

So what do the speechwriters want to achieve with these kinds of tapes? They aim at sapping American public morale during a time when reorganization is taking place in the U.S. government. Reading from the jihadi wishful thinking, the audiotape of al Muhajir and the statements made by other radical Islamists send the following message: Americans are being thanked for removing Mr. Bush's party from the leadership of Congress, which the jihadists attribute to the war on terror rather than U.S. domestic problems. Al Qaeda's audio tells citizens in the United States that they were wise for having responded positively to the previous messages by Osama bin Laden. Al Masri's words aim at convincing the American public to pressure their newly elected legislators to pull U.S. forces hastily from Iraq.

In short, al Qaeda wants an American Madrid: it wishes that a change of power in January would be accompanied by a change of national determination, not just a change of course within Iraq. In the Salafis chat rooms, the commissaries explained to their audiences, that the Democratic Party victory in Congress means that America is now divided and al Qaeda can push to create more cracks in the system -- as it has successfully done in Spain. The masters of the forum, emulating al Masri's audiotape, said not only that "we got their soldiers on the run in Iraq," but "we got their citizens on the run on their own soil" referring to the November electoral outcome. They promised that with more killings in Iraq, they will break the will of Americans at home; and that the new Congress, seeking to fulfill one of its electoral promises will force the Bush administration to pack up and leave the Middle East.

In Washington, both the administration and the new congressional leaders failed to seriously respond to the al Qaeda message. Grave mistake; for ignoring the speech would help convincing the jihadists that America is divided and crumbling and would embolden them to strike further, not only in Iraq but also inside the United States. The silent treatment works in favor of the Salafi combatants: It only leads them to believe that they are right and that their strategy is working; just as Allah had crushed the Soviets in Afghanistan, he has divided the Americans. It is, therefore, imperative that Washington strikes back in a unified manner at every opportunity that arises. It must tell the dreamers of a terror caliphate that American democracy will not serve as a weapon to defeat freedom worldwide.

Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America."

Article http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061121-083639-1601r.htm
November 22, 2006 12:55 PM

11/15

ARABIAN NIGHTMARES

By RALPH PETERS

November 15, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, 80 terrorists in police uniforms raided an Iraqi research institute in Baghdad, rounded up 100-plus male students, loaded them into vehicles in broad daylight and drove away.

They couldn't have pulled it off without the complicity of key elements within the Iraqi security services and the government: "our guys."

The students probably will be executed and dumped somewhere. Partly for the crime of wanting to study and build a future, but primarily just to step up the level of terror yet again.

Apart from highlighting the type of regime of which both Shia and Sunni Arab extremists dream - a land of disciplined ignorance and slavish devotion - the mass kidnapping also highlights the feebleness of our attempts to overcome ruthless enemies with generosity and good manners.

With Iraqi society decomposing - or, at best, reverting to a medieval state with cell phones - the debate in Washington over whether to try to save the day by deploying more troops or withdrawing some is of secondary relevance.

What really matters is what our forces are ordered - and permitted - to do. With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order.

That means killing the bad guys. Not winning their hearts and minds, placating them or bringing them into the government. Killing them.

If you're not willing to lay down a rule that any Iraqi or foreign terrorist masquerading as a security official or military member will be shot, you can't win. And that's just one example of the type of sternness this sort of fight requires.

With the situation in Iraq deteriorating daily, sending more troops would simply offer our enemies more targets - unless we decided to use our soldiers and Marines for the primary purpose for which they exist: To fight.

Of course, we've made a decisive shift in our behavior difficult. After empowering a sectarian regime before imposing order in the streets, we would have to defy an elected government. Leading voices in the Baghdad regime - starting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - would demand that we halt any serious effort to defeat Shia militias and eliminate their death squads.

Killing Sunni Arabs would be fine, of course. The Maliki government's reason for being is to promote Shia power.

Reportedly, our CentCom commander, Gen. George Abizaid, just had a "come to Jesus meeting" (metaphor fully intended) with Maliki, warning him that our continued support is contingent on the government moving to impose public order and protect all of Iraq's people. The result is predictable: A few law-enforcement gestures by daylight, some reshuffled government appointments - and more sectarian killing.

From the Iraqi perspective, we're of less and less relevance. They're sure we'll leave. And every faction is determined to do as much damage as possible to the other before we go. Our troops have become human shields for our enemies.

To master Iraq now - if it could be done - we'd have to fight every faction except the Kurds. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to kill mass murderers and cold-blooded executioners on the spot?

If not, we can't win, no matter what else we do.

Arrest them? We've tried that. Iraq's judges are so partisan or so terrified (or both) that they release the worst thugs within weeks - sometimes within days.

How would you like to be one of Iraq's handful of relatively honest cops knowing that any terrorist or sectarian butcher you bust is going to be back on the block before your next payday? And yeah, they know where you live.

Our "humanity" is cowardice masquerading as morality. We're protecting self-appointed religious executioners with our emphasis on a "universal code of behavior" that only exists in our fantasies. By letting the thugs run the streets, we've abandoned the millions of Iraqis who really would prefer peaceful lives and a modicum of progress.

We're blind to the fundamental moral travesty in Iraq (and elsewhere): Spare the killers in the name of human rights, and you deprive the overwhelming majority of the population of their human rights. Instead of being proud of ourselves for our "moral superiority," we should be ashamed to the depths of our souls.

We're not really the enemy of the terrorists, militiamen and insurgents. We're their enablers. In the end, the future of Iraq will be determined by its people. The question is, which people?

Our naive version of wartime morality handed Iraq to the murderers. Will our excuse for a sectarian bloodbath be that we "behaved with restraint?"

Any code of ethics that squanders the lives of tens of thousands and the future of millions so we can "claim the moral high ground" is hypocrisy worthy of the Europeans who made excuses for the Holocaust.

If we want to give Iraq's silent - and terrified - majority a last chance, we would have to accept the world's condemnation for killing the killers. If we are unwilling to do that, Iraq's finished.

Ralph Peters' most recent book is "Never Quit the Fight."

www.nypost.com/seven/11152006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/arabian_nightmares_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

11/14

Moral Purification
Why intellectuals love defeat.

BY JOSH MANCHESTER
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

James Carroll, recently writing in the Boston Globe, wondered if America could finally accept defeat in Iraq, and be the better for it, comparing it to Vietnam:

But what about the moral question? For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

To be frank, no. In Mr. Carroll's fantasyland, the United States is deserving of defeat, and through some sort of mental gymnastics, that defeat is honorable, because it smacked of hubris to ever have fought in the first place.

I contend instead that the ultimate dishonor will be to leave hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Iraqis to violent deaths; and that this is far too large a price to pay for Mr. Carroll to feel better.

In his book "The Culture of Defeat," the German scholar Wolfgang Schivelbusch described the stages of defeat through which nations pass upon losing a large war. He examined the South's loss of the Confederacy, the French loss in the Franco-Prussian War, and the German loss in World War I. He saw similar patterns in how their national cultures dealt with defeat: a "dreamland"-like state; then an awakening to the magnitude of the loss; then a call that the winning side used "unsoldierly" techniques or equipment; and next the stage of seeing the nation as being a loser in battle, but a winner in spirit. Schivelbusch expanded upon this last as such:

To see victory as a curse and defeat as moral purification and salvation is to combine the ancient idea of hubris with the Christian virtue of humility, catharsis with apocalypse. That such a concept should have its greatest resonance among the intelligentsia can be explained in part by the intellectual's classical training but also by his inherently ambivalent stance toward power.

Who knows whether Mr. Carroll has had classical training, but should Schivelbusch meet him today, would he not recognize this idea of defeat as moral purification?

The only problem for those such as Mr. Carroll is that we have not yet lost. It is difficult not to conclude that there is a class of well-intentioned individuals in the United States like him who don't merely feel as they do upon witnessing a defeat, but instead think this way all the time. Like it or not, this mentality of permanent defeat plays a large part in the Democratic Party. It is now up to President Bush and the new Democratic congressional leadership to see that it does not become dominant.

How to do so? A charm offensive is not quite what is necessary. Instead, perhaps a combination of sobering events that will impress upon Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid the gravity of our current situation would do the trick. Why not invite both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to the White House every morning until the new Congress is sworn in--and ask them to listen with the president to his Presidential Daily Brief, describing what al Qaeda has cooked up of late? Or, why not invite them along with the president to one of his private sessions with the families of those who have paid the ultimate price overseas? Speaking of those overseas whose lives hang upon American policy, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid could be participants in the next conference call that President Bush has with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

The point of all of this would be to create a true bipartisan consensus on Iraq that does not leave the Iraqis and U.S. credibility to disaster. The Iraqi blogger "Sooni," who describes himself as a "free man" living in Baghdad, recently was asked what would happen if the U.S. partitioned Iraq. "Just imagine it this way [sic] partitioning Iraq will create a small Iran in the south of Iraq and a small Afghanistan in the middle of it!"

Leaving Iraq will be worse than leaving Vietnam, not necessarily in terms of bloodshed, though that will be no comfort to those who will be slaughtered, but because the jihadist threat today is more dangerous than the Soviet threat then. Despite lacking--so far--in similar capabilities to the Communists, our enemies more than make up for it with an insatiable bloodthirsty ruthlessness. The honor that Mr. Carroll sees in defeat will soon be forgotten should al Qaeda establish a caliphate in Anbar Province and begin a healthy trade in the export of mayhem throughout the West. The Furies that will visit us from such a redoubt will engender much more than a little longing that we had stayed.

Josh Manchester is a TCSDaily contributing writer. His blog is The Adventures of Chester.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009241

11/3

Dear John,
A letter to Senator Kerry.
by Noemie Emery
11/01/2006 8:45:00 AM

Dear Senator Kerry,

We have not yet met, but I feel moved now to write you, in view of the latest assault on your honor, and the cruel blows being dealt you by fate. Your life has been hell since the last election, when those hanging chads in Ohio tricked all those people into voting for Buchanan, or Nader; and the fact that you lost the rest of the country by 3 million votes proved that the fraud had been everywhere. And before that were those baseless attacks by those 200-some veterans, paid off by Karl Rove in l970, on the chance that 34 years later he'd be running George W. Bush for president and needed to soften you up. Everyone knows they had no case whatsoever (beyond the fact you were calling them rapists and killers), just as everyone knows how tasteless it is to mock your lifestyle. Everyone knows how hard you work for your money, how much you deserve it, and how hard to must be to find not one, but two women with quite so much dough. (If you were only a woman, people would see your story as the fairy tale it is.)

Even worse, it is mean, false, and mendacious to say that you were trying to call our brave men in Iraq and in uniform mentally challenged, when it was clear as day that you meant this to apply to the president, who ran rings around you when you last met in electoral combat; and whose grades in college were higher than yours.

With this in mind, it's no surprise you went postal. Who in your position wouldn't have? Anyone would have called the president's spokesman "pathetic" and referred to the "right-wing nut-jobs," as you did in the formal statement you put out to the press.

What was especially moving was this emotional note in your statement: "I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq."

How right you are to realize that attacking a disabled person or one who has suffered a serious illness is the worst thing that can be done by a civilized person, so dire that, of course, you feel free to insult Rush Limbaugh, a radio performer who has carried on uncomplainingly in spite of his deafness, and Tony Snow, who has recently suffered a bout with serious cancer.

I am deeply moved, too, by the following statement, obviously regarding the wartime service of President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard: "It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have." Well said, as the only ones permitted to lie and distort about anything are valiant warriors such as Howard Dean and Bill Clinton, whose heroic exploits at Oxford and on the ski slopes of Aspen we all remember so well.

The only thing that consoles me in light of your troubles is that you are never without consolations, such as an $8,000 bike, or a $l00,000 motorboat, or a Lear jet, or the five mansions owned by your wife. Get away to one of them, or all of them, and go skiing; or sailing; and feel the wind in your face, or your hair. Speaking of hair, go to Christophe, and get a new rinse or hairdo; this always makes me feel better. Get a manicure, or a facial, or a fresh shot of Botox. Before it gets cold, go windsurfing off of your place in Nantucket. Those flowered shorts sure were cute.

"Life is unfair," as the first JFK put it, and nothing is less fair than the fact that the war-hero gambit worked for him but not for you. Of course, JFK didn't come home and call his old buddies war criminals. And none of the people who knew, or knew of, him ever called him a pompous and self-seeking blowhard who was making things up. Nonetheless, I want to congratulate you again for standing up to those decorated war veterans, deaf men, and cancer survivors who so meanly attacked you, and please keep on doing it. Keep on talking, just as you have, up to and right through November 7, or at least until the polls close in most districts. Come to think of it, don't stop even then.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/888glctv.asp

10/24

Unveiling the Truth

BY DANIEL JOHNSON
October 19, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/41808

As usual, Shakespeare said it first and best: "The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on." At long last, there are signs that the people of Britain are refusing to capitulate to the Islamicization of large enclaves of our cities.

The backlash began a fortnight ago, when the Labor Party floorleader and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke out against the practice of Muslim women covering themselves from head to toe, revealing only the eyes. His argument was that such veiling made integration and even communication difficult or impossible. At first he received little support from his fellow ministers, but overwhelming support from the public. Given Mr. Straw's hitherto craven posture towards radical Islam, this act of defiance was — well, a straw in the wind.

Another minister, Phil Woolas, gave vocal support to a school which suspended a Muslim teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil during lessons. As it happened, the school in question is in Dewsbury, a Yorkshire town that has become a hotbed of Islamist agitation and from which several terrorists came.

This week Tony Blair himself spoke up on the issue. He said of the veil, "It is a sign of separation and that is why it makes other people from outside the [Muslim] community uncomfortable."

Needless to say, there has been a chorus of condemnation of these tentative moves to speak openly about the spread of this and other "signs of separation." But Mr. Blair has evidently decided that he cannot leave office without at least raising these issues. He sees the danger of allowing a Muslim state within a state, living formally or informally under Shariah law, to emerge.

One of the most sensitive aspects of this radical rejection of Western norms of behaviour is the absolute refusal of a single one of the official representatives of the Muslim community in Britain to recognize the central importance of the Holocaust. This is symbolized by the Muslim Council of Britain's boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, the ceremony to mark the liberation of Auschwitz, which over the past few years has become one of the most significant dates in the British public calendar.

Last week, a minister for the first time publicly criticized this boycott. Ruth Kelly, whose department is responsible for relations with ethnic and religious minorities, said "I can't help wondering why those in leadership positions who say they want to achieve religious tolerance and a cohesive society would choose to boycott an event which marks, above all, our common humanity and respect for each other," she said.

Even more to the point, Ms. Kelly hinted that taxpayers' money, which the government doles out liberally to organizations like the Muslim Council, would no longer be given away to those who could not bring themselves to commemorate the Holocaust on the spurious ground that it ignored victims of other genocides. The government, she implied, would switch its support to more moderate groups instead.

The furious response from the Islamist camp was predictable: the government was stoking up "Islamophobia." Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council, threatened to withdraw co-operation, "If the Government is planning to merely seek out those organizations who will be less critical or parrot its policies, then this is not a strategy that will succeed. If that happens, the Government will lose credibility with the Muslim community."

After years when the media dared not publish stories about Muslim intolerance, reports suddenly began to appear of shocking incidents. One Muslim taxi driver was sued for refusing to allow a blind woman with a guide dog into his cab. Then there was the case of the wounded soldier in a hospital who was told to take off his uniform, or the four officers who were driven out of town by violence, threats, and intimidation.

Among the liberal commentators, confusion reigned. One Sunday Times columnist, India Knight, denounced such criticism in a manner that revealed her own prejudices. Declaring "Muslims are the new Jews," she tried to draw a parallel between the Muslim veil and the traditional dress of Hassidic Jews. Recalling a visit to a house in an Orthodox district of north London, she wrote, "I noticed a group of Hassidim were walking around us in a peculiar way. ‘They're avoiding our shadows,' the estate agent said, ‘because we're unclean.'"

Having lived for years among the Hassidim of Stamford Hill, I find this story as incredible as it is offensive. Orthodox Jews do not regard gentiles as "unclean," nor do they have superstitious beliefs about shadows. To attribute such attitudes to this notably law-abiding and peaceable community sounds like anti-Semitism to me.

More importantly, Ms. Knight clearly does not grasp the different significance of distinctive forms of dress in the two religions. In Britain, Hassidim do not seek to impose Mosaic law or their own customs on anybody else.Their costume may strike others as old-fashioned (or, as Ms. Knight tactfully puts it, "weird"), but it does not pose a threat to anybody. Muslims who wear the veil — or, generally, even the headscarf — are signalling that they are Islamists and that they wish to replace secular with Shariah law. This does pose a direct threat to others, backed by the implicit threat of terrorism. Islamists are demanding toleration for their own intolerance, which a liberal society only grants at its peril.

Having been so long in denial, Britain is stumbling towards recognition of its plight, but even those supposed to be in charge are still desperately confused. A case in point was the sensational outburst last week by General Sir Richard Dannatt, who as chief of the defense staff is Britain's most senior soldier. Against the advice of his political superiors, he gave an interview to the Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper which, though socially conservative, wants British troops to come home from Iraq. The headline read: "WE MUST QUIT IRAQ SAYS NEW HEAD OF THE ARMY." And Gen. Dannatt did indeed say, "we should get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems." Trying to explain himself on the BBC later, he warned that staying in Iraq too long could even "break" the army.

It was generally agreed that, by

contradicting government policy on

Iraq, Gen. Dannatt had broken the unwritten British constitution. However,

rather than fire the general, the prime minister decided to agree with him. I am sure that Mr. Blair does agree with the passages in which the general warned that "we need to face up to the Islamist threat," which might fill "the moral and spiritual vacuum in this country." Or when the general declared, "It is said that we live in a post-Christian society. I think that is a great shame. The Judaic-Christian tradition has underpinned British society. It underpins the British Army."

The great advantage of an unwritten constitution is that it is infinitely flexible. In 1951, President Truman had no choice but to relieve General MacArthur of his command in the Far East. That is not the case here. Mr. Blair needs Gen. Dannatt to help him win the culture war at home.What a pity that this decent but politically inept soldier cannot see that if the Islamists win in Iraq, there is a real danger of an intifada on the streets of Britain.

10/22

A vote for civil war

By Diana West
October 20, 2006

The worst thing about the upcoming elections is, when it comes to war and peace, they turn on a deficient choice. Stay the course vs. cut and run. Keep up your dukes vs. cry "uncle."
For anyone who wants to fight to win, the choice is clear enough, if also non-compelling. Sticking to offense is intuitively better than giving up, but it doesn't inspire stirring campaign slogans. As in: "Vote Republican — at least terrorists' overseas phone calls will continue to be intercepted." Then again, intercepting terrorists' overseas phone calls is considerably better than not.
But, to what end? Here's where the deficiency shows up. What if "the course" is wrong? And what if its destination is a) unreachable or, worse, b) wholly imaginary?
As an Air Force pilot noted in an e-mail to me, he doesn't recall hearing the president define "victory" for Iraq or Afghanistan. Me neither. Terms like "security" and "stabilization" just aren't substitutes. Guided by the false god of democracy, blind to the zealotry of Islamic culture, we have locked onto a course with no rational endpoint.
Even as we pursue "security," "stabilizing" the Shi'ite-dominated, Shariah-guided Iraqi government—and, thus, creating a natural Iranian (Shi'ite) ally — makes zero strategic sense. But, see here, say supporters of the president's Iraq policy: If we don't secure and stabilize the Shi'ite-dominated, Shariah-guided government in Iraq, that same government falls, America suffers defeat in jihadist eyes, and Shi'ite-Sunni war breaks out in full force.
Well, which scenario is better for the U.S. of A? I vote for civil war. It seems obvious when Shi'ite and Sunni jihadis — and their Islamic world sponsors — are busy slaughtering one another, they have much less time to plan their next attack on Americans, in the region or stateside. This isn't to say there's no role for American forces in the Middle East. But that role may be, as a Marine captain home from Afghanistan and Iraq put it to me, far from booby-trapped Iraqi cities, perhaps in Kurdistan, where they can keep a lid on Iraq while preparing for the next stage of the war on jihad, against Iran and Syria — assuming there is a next stage.
Such a redeployment is no defeat. But it would represent a drastic change in war aims and in the Bush belief in the magical properties of Western-style liberty for truly all. The fact is, democratizing Islamic cultures into secular wonders of ecumenical productivity just ain't going to happen. The sooner we acknowledge this, the better for us. And above all, this war should be, as they say in our therapeutic culture, all about us.
What would a war policy "about us" look like? First, as a matter of national security, it would call for energy independence. It also would be designed to keep jihad out of the West, and emphatically not to bring democracy to lands of jihad. Such a mission would necessarily engage the military in the Middle East, destroying or neutralizing myriad Islamic threats, from Iran to al Qaeda, from Syria to Hezbollah. Maybe what I envision darkly doesn't sound like the kind of "limited war" the West has exclusively waged for a half century. But it doesn't sound like the kind of "limited war" the West has fought without definable end for half a century, either. And here I'm thinking back to Korea, the very first "limited war" fought to stalemate, not victory, by the last total warrior, Gen. Douglas MacArthur — at least until President Truman fired him for the general's not wanting to fight to stalemate.
Since I began reading William Manchester's biography of Gen. MacArthur, I've been wondering what the famed general would say about today's plight. In a 1951 newspaper interview, Gen. MacArthur described his multinational (mainly American, of course) forces in Korea as being "circumscribed by a web of artificial conditions...in a war without a definite objective....The situation would be ludicrous if men's lives were not involved."
It all sounds alarmingly familiar. And what was achieved in this limited war? Roughly 54,000 American servicemen dead for stalemate. Fifty-odd years later, we still have stalemate, and we still have American troops in South Korea (incredible) arrayed against Kim Jong-il, son of North Korean war leader, Kim il-Sung. Now we have NoKo nukes there, as well. Which should make us think hard: What will a limited, ill-defined war on terror look like...in 50 years?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061019-090446-6660r.htm

10/20

There we go

This is an editorial written by an
American citizen, published in a
Tampa, FL Newspaper. He did quite a job; didn't he? Read on, please!

IMMIGRANTS,
NOT AMERICANS,
MUST ADAPT.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we
are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11,
we have experienced a surge
in patriotism by the majority
of Americans. However...... the dust from the attacks had
barely settled when the "politically correct! " crowd began complaining about
the possibility that our patriotism was offending others.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to America.
Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants.
However, there
are a few things that those
who have recently come to
our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.
This idea of America being a
multicultural community
has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans......
we have our own culture, our
own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language.
Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

"In God We Trust" is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan.. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women.......on Christian principles.............
founded this nation..... and this is clearly documented.
It is certainly appropriate to display it
on the walls of our schools.
If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as
your new home.........because
God is part of our culture.

If Stars and Stripes offend you, or
you don't like Uncle Sam, then you
should seriously consider a move
to another part of this planet.
We
are happy with our culture and have
no desire to change, and we really
don't care how you did things where
you came from.
This is
OUR COUNTRY,
our land, and our lifestyle.
Our First Amendment gives every citizen the
right to express his opinion and we
will allow you every opportunity to do so!
But once you are done complaining....... whining..... and griping....... about our flag.......
our pledge...... our national motto........or our
way of life...I highly encourage you to
take advantage of one other Great American Freedom.......

THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

It is Time for America to Speak up
If you agree -- pass this along;
if you don't agree -- delete it - You are in the WRONG Country!

AMEN

10/17

I couldn't say it better

ENABLING TERROR - What I Hate Most About the Democrats and Their Leftist Base

A little while back in a comment thread that I had to shut down because of the uncivilized behavior of some determined trolls sent via The Daou Report, a commenter asked me, "Don't you ever get tired of bashing the left?"

"No," I responded, "I see it as my calling in life. But thank you for asking."

I would like to expand on my brief response, because the commenter brings up a very important issue about why I focus so much on the left and their political wing, the Democratic Party.

I am primarily (but not exclusively) concerned in my blog with Islamofascism and the war on terror. September 11th was the defining moment that mobilized me and woke me from a long-time disinterest in things political. Contrary to what most of the trolls who come here assume, I have never been a registered Republican; nor have I ever been a registered Democrat. I am still not.

Many of the posts on this blog deal with what I consider the essential "side-issues" of the war on terror; such as the obstructionist behavior of Democrats with regard to that war; the bias of the mainstream media; the deterioration of academic institutions and postmodern thought; the political left and the remnants of communism and socialism; and modern-day feminists (part of the political left,sadly, but destructive enough in their own right); as well as a variety of other topics as the whim moves me.

Most of these topics are relevant to the rise of Islamofascism and the prosecution of the war on terror.

Since I am a psychiatrist, I try to look at the big picture. In my practice, not only must I address the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of my patients; but I would be professionally remiss if I did not also address those psychosocial issues that I think are important factors enabling, supporting, or facilitating the psychological problems of my patients.

It is my contention that the Democrats, the MSM, the Left (including feminists, communists and socialist dead-enders) and various other assorted groups I choose to comment on do exactly that: wittingly or unwittingly, they enable, support, or facilitate terror and terrorists.

Prior to 9/11, I had mostly ignored these groups because of my libertarian orientation. I never cared one way or the other what such idiots thought as long as they left me and mine alone.

However, in their current toxic iteration; and because they seem to have taken over the previously tolerable Democratic Party, I can no longer ignore them. Their unbelievable behavior over the past 5+ years has consistently provided aid and comfort to an enemy that is simply the greatest threat to civilization in my lifetime. Whether their behavior is conscious or not, I really don't care. The results are the same.

And, if you don't think that their enabling behavior has caused considerable death, destruction and other serious consequences to our country and our military, then you are not looking at the big picture of what is going on in the world today. If you do not understand that all their activity and bluster; all their slogans and hysteria are designed to make the United States lose this war, then you are extremely naiive. Take a look at what they are doing. They have attempted to obstruct the prosecution of this war on every front. They have deliberately and with malice aforethought managed to create the impression that our military forces are composed of brutal thugs; while at the same time they coddle the real brutal thugs we are fighting. Rather than being the "loyal" opposition, they have descended at times, I believe, to actual treasonous behavior. The Democrats, in particular, have shown repeatedly that they hate George Bush and Dick Cheney more than they love this country. The Republicans, as I have said many times are bad enough with their slippery and opportunistic behavior patterns, but the Democrats are completely despicable.

As one commenter put it: the Republicans suck like Hoover vacuum cleaners, but the Democrats are a veritable bleeding black hole of corruption, opportunism, and malignant narcissism.

Just as it is not enough for a psychiatrist to focus on just the drinking of an alcoholic, a good therapist must also deal with the environment of the alcoholic and people in that environment(the psychosocial supports) that enable that alcoholic--i.e., who buy him the alcohol, who encourage him to drink it etc. If you and the patient fail to address these issues, then the intervention is usually in vain.

We are in a war! The Democrats, the left, and the MSM would have you believe that it is all a figment of GWB's imagination. That he created it in order to consolidate power and institute a Christian theocracy, fascist state [insert suitable leftist slogan here]. Bush=Hitler; Iraq=Vietnam; Listening to terrorist communications=violation of our fundamental free speech rights; Making terrorists uncomfortable=torture; and so on, ad infinitum.

I'm fed up with such insane moral equivalence.

I have a patient who comes in depressed and feeling victimized because her "ex-boyfried" won't stay "ex". It turns out that she regularly phones him, picks him up from work,lets him come to her apartment, buys him things and so on--but she simply can't understand why he would think that she still wants to be with him. Why, indeed.

How does one deal with a situation like the above? Well, you try to get the patient to look within and take responsibility for their own behavior; and to recognize that their behavior has consequences.

And, make no mistake, the irresponsible and frequently hysterical behavior of today's Democrats and their lunatic left base; combined with the provocative and hostile journalism of the MSM--all have serious consequences that the parties refuse to even acknowledge.

They already carry the responsibility for enabling the deaths of many by giving the barbarians a cheerleading/apologist section on the world stage.

As a result of their continued thoughtless and malevolent facilitation of terror and terrorists, many, many more will ultimately die.

And, as long as the Democrats and the left continue to engage in enabling behavior for terrorists, I will continue to unreservedly and unabashedly bash them.

http://www.drsanity.blogspot.com/

10/11

Islam

{written by Alice Vugler of New Zealand, 1949-50}

When Prince Karem, on October 19th was enthroned as the new Aga Khan, he became head of at least 320 million Moslems scattered all over the world.

Wildly excited throngs surrounded him at Wares-Salaam, -- when a golden turban was placed on his head, as he sat on a flower-decked dais, and the ancient traditional Moslem Ceremonies were performed.

This young leader has an English mother and has been educated mostly in England, but the founder of his faith, Mahomet, was born an Arab, at Mecca, in Northern Africa nearly 600 years after Christ was born.

From Mecca, Islam, the name given to this faith founded by Mahomet, has extended its boundaries through Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Arabia to Egypt, and through Iraq and Iran, Jordania, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of India. It has pushed through Malaya and down through Indonesia which now has a predominately Moslem population of 93%. So Islam is definitely on the march.

Although the followers of Islam consisted at first entirely of Arabs, these Arabs soon conquered many other tribes and races, and forced their faith upon them, throughout the hundreds of years when they dominated many countries in Asia and Africa, and at the present day, 2/5 th of the population of Africa are Moslem in religion.. It is computed that every seventh child born in the world is born into the Moslem faith. With some African tribes it has taken some queer forms, and is often intermixed with their native rites.

In the great Moslem block of North Africa the only break is made by Ethiopia, which belongs to the Coptic Christian faith.

Islam is not passive in Africa but continues to work inwards towards the centre of the Continent where it competes with the missionaries of Christian churches for the 70 to 80 million negroes who remain pagans.

Among Moslems at first there was no centralised organised spreading of their religion but it was done through individuals, as every Moslem is ordered and expected to spread his faith. But in recent times, regular training and sending forth of Moslem missionaries has begun in Egypt and in Pakistan.

It is a new development, whose results remain to be seen.

Though Moslems belong to many countries and races, Arabic has always been the language of Islam, and most Moslems, though speaking the language of their own country, make it their duty to learn to write and read Arabic, as their sacred book, the Koran, is in Arabic. Indeed, Arabic has come down through 13 centuries without any alterations, which is unique among languages. It has become a world language.

The Islamic faith makes no distinction between the religions and secular life of its members. It recognises only two divisions among people. -- First, “The Faithful” – those who bow to the teachings of Mahomet, and secondly, “Infidels”, who include all those not of their faith. Their religion claims to govern every field of human life. Moslems believe that the whole of the law was revealed to the prophet by God, who sent the angel Gabriel down to earth to whisper in his ear all their commands. Every rule or custom must be traced back in some way to Mahomet. These laws were written in the Koran, and they claim it as their sacred book. The Koran, however, did not give answers to all the questions, so an endeavour was made to fill the gaps by recalling the sayings and acts of the Prophet, and these were applied sometimes in odd and obscure ways to questions of law. In time, through the centuries this collection of traditional sayings were formed into a book called ‘Sunna’ or “The Tradition” and is the second source of Islamic Law, the first of course, the Koran. From these books the Constitution of Islam has been adjusted and adapted as times changed, and a great body of doctrines has been accumulated by the Caliphs who are head rulers of Moslems in each large community. They hold great influence, and to them is entrusted the carrying on of “The Holy War”. The Prophet held that Moslems should fight for their faith wherever and whenever it was feasible. He held that - theoretically, they are permanently at war with the rest of the world. But actually, the Holy war, has passed more into a defensive than offensive state, and Moslems in reality, live fairly peaceably with either Christians or pagans, but the removal of alien or infidel rule in Islamic countries, remains a fundamental duty of Moslems – hence the trouble in Kashmir which has a predominately Moslem population, but is ruled at present by a Hindu. They claim that on account of the Moslem majority, Kashmiri should be ruled by Pakistan, a wholly Moslem state, but Nehru, the Indian leader, has no intention of letting this happen if he can prevent it. Many of the inhabitants want a Republic, and until something is finally decided, Kashmir will always remain a bone of contention.

Has Islam any relation at all to Christianity? The chief point on which Islam and Christianity agree is in the worship of one God, or Monotheism. Their central theme is the unit or one-ness of God, but that is only the first part of their creed. The second is the mission of Mahomet – “There is no God but God” they say – “And Mahomet is his apostle”. All Moslems accept these two dogmas and recite them from the cradle to the grave on all possible occasions.

Islam recognises the old Testament {or parts of it which are incorporated in the Koran in mutilated form.} They venerate Abraham and Moses but they will not recognise Jesus as being anyone but a prophet who was born and lived to benefit his particular country and age, but who, they claim was completely superseded by Mahomet 600 years later. They claim that Jesus did not die on the cross, but that he was mistaken for another man, and really lived on earth for many years after. They will not allow that Jesus Christ was the son of God, any more than was Abraham or Moses. They reject the theory that He came as a saviour to mankind to die willingly for the redemption of mankind as foretold by the prophet. They claim that Mahomet was the one to whom the prophets referred -- not Jesus – and say that the Jews took his name out of the scriptures. This we know to be a complete fabrication made by them to strengthen the case for Islam.

What were some of these rules and laws supposedly whispered in Mahomet’s ear by the angel Gabriel? --

Polygamy was one. A man was allowed to take four wives if, as the Koran says, “he can deal justly, by each of them”. Mahomet himself, had nine wives, but his followers excuse this by saying that “he acquired them before the law was promulgated. Women were mere chattels of their husbands. – no more important than his tents or camels, and their only use was to minister to his comfort and pleasure. The Islamic heaven to which all believers who kept the law were to go at their death, was a place of sensual pleasures.

Modern Moslems are not so much in favour of polygamy but their divorce laws make it very easy indeed for a man to get rid of a wife who no longer pleases him. After divorce, he takes no further responsibility for his wife and very soon replaces her with another, this being on the whole, cheaper than keeping a harem. So the Moslem women, though, no longer often one of many wives, still have uncertainty, and lack of security in their lives, though they are emerging from their ancient customs of purdah {wearing of the veil} and have achieved a good deal more independence than in former days.

Child marriages were countenanced by Islam law. - indeed, were customary from the age of 9, though this horrible custom is gradually, through Western Christian influence being altered, and many Moslems now consider 16 a suitable age for marriage of both sexes.

Moslems were commanded by Mahomet to pray to Allah five times daily, at certain hours of the day with their face turned towards Mecca. Only at these stated times were prayers considered to be really effective.

Times for fasting were set and times for feasting. These are observed meticulously.

All followers were enjoined to make at least one visit to Mecca, their Holy city and birthplace of the prophet.

One good rule which Mahomet gave to his followers was abstinence from all forms of strong drink. This rule is observed by most Islamic countries, in some more rigidly than others. In Saudi Arabia today it is a capital offence for a man to be found in possession of a bottle of spirits.

The Moslem does not look upon God in the light of a Heavenly father. He is not concerned with our Christian belief of God as a God of Love, and is only concerned to fulfil the outward forms of his faith. If he performs all these meticulously, he is sure of his heaven after death, and is equally sure that no infidel will be admitted there.

Moslem faith has such a close relation to everyday life and citizenship, that Christian missionaries have almost insuperable difficulties in even starting missionary work, because it would alter and disrupt completely their whole way of life.

A Moslem turned Christian, and still living among Moslems has to face almost overwhelming opposition, and only the bravest, armed with the new faith in the love and saving power of Jesus Christ could face this.

With few exceptions the converts to Christianity in Malaya and Indonesia have been in the Chinese and Hindu communities, in spite of the population being mostly Moslems. While the Dutch held Indonesia, missionaries were not even allowed in Java. But since they have left, permission has been given for Christian missionaries to enter the Sudanese country. – it will be a difficult mission for them, and may even be dangerous, as many of the tribes are fanatically Moslem.

What has the Christian Faith to offer in place of Mahomet’s laws?

Chiefly, the conception of God as a God of Love. – of Jesus Christ as his Son.

A belief that Jesus willingly died for the sins of the world, and so became the saviour of the world, and the fulfilment of the old Testament prophesies. – That he rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. That in His death and resurrection, is our hope of life eternal.

What a great challenge to our missionaries to teach the Moslems to believe these wonderful truths.

Thanks to Lynda Vugler, her granddaughter

10/10

Hugh Fitzgerald: 95 things that fuel Muslim extremism

“The American presence in Iraq fuels Muslim extremism.”
-- a conclusion concluded from the National Intelligence Estimate by many concluders in solemn conclusory conclave assembled.

Ninety-Five Other Things That Also Fuel Muslim Extremism:

1. Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.”
2. The British government’s protection of Salman Rushdie.
3. The American coup against Mossadegh in 1953, cited by some Iranians as the direct cause of the takeover of Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini more than 25 years later.
4. The remarks of Pim Fortuyn about Muslim attitudes toward liberal Dutch mores.
5. The movie by Theo van Gogh about the subjection of women in Islam.
6. The election of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the Dutch Parliament.
7. Hindus passing by mosques as Friday Prayers end.
8. The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Sunni insurgents.
9. The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Shi’a militias.
10. The failure of Americans in Iraq to sufficiently subdue the Kurdish desire for independence.
11. The failure of Americans in Iraq to give Baghdad an instant makeover so that it resembles the most prosperous and advanced American city.
12. The failure of Americans to solve every economic problem in Iraq, to make Sunnis and Shi’a friends, to get the oilfields pumping at full capacity, and to make donations even beyond the many tens of billions spent directly on reconstruction in Iraq.
13. The failure of the Americans, in obtaining debt relief from all Infidel creditors for Iraq (but not from any of the Muslim Arab states), to persuade those same Infid