COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, April 23, 2007

No more Pax Americana -David Selbourne

This article in the Spectator stretches an analogy and comes to a conclusion that we will ultimately lose the war with Islam. Say it ain't so.


With both houses of the US Congress set to maintain their challenge to President Bush’s conduct of the conflict in Iraq — and being accused in turn of ‘meddling in military strategy’ and of wanting to ‘set a date for surrender’ — America’s problems in its so-called ‘war on terror’ are deepening. In the gathering disorder, the recent visit to Damascus of Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, a visit carried out against the President’s wishes but with the approval of the region’s jihadists, served only to undercut the US administration’s hostile position on Syria. Last week’s humiliation of Britain at Iran’s hands, with service personnel apologising to their captors after being taken hostage and bishops this week thanking Tehran for its mercies, also compounded the difficulties faced by the US in seeking to check the growing ambitions of its foes.

But America’s problems are of a familiar kind in the history of great empires and nations. Misjudgment of the enemy, incompetent leadership, and divisions over policy caused similar turmoil in Britain in the late-18th century. At that time its war with the Americans was being lost, as the Americans are now losing the larger-scale struggle against the world-force of Islam.

On 22 March 1775, four weeks before the first shot had been fired in anger in what was to be an eight-year war between the rebellious colonists and the redcoats, the great Whig parliamentarian Edmund Burke stood up in the House of Commons and accused the Tory government of Lord North of being ‘grossly ignorant of America’. Declaring that ‘a great empire and little minds’ — the minds, say, of a Bush, a Rice, a Cheney — ‘go ill together’, he condemned the ‘woeful variety of schemes’, the ‘doing and undoing’, and the ‘shiftings and changings and jumblings of all kinds’ which characterised British policy towards the emerging United States.

He might have been talking of today’s White House, Pentagon and State Department, of the blunders of judgment and strategy in Iraq, and — more perilous — of America’s larger failures in the teeth of Islam’s advance. Like America now, Britain was a great economic and military power. It wanted to keep things as they were under its imperium, protect its markets, and hold on to its sources of wealth in the New World and elsewhere, just as corporate America must hold on at all costs to its resources in the Middle East and beyond. Yet, on the eve of the war with America, the British monarch George III and his ministry are regarded by historians as having been ‘insufficiently astute’ for their task, ‘ill-advised’ and ‘misinformed’.

[...]

Now it is the turn of Islam to assert itself, for the third time in history, across large swaths of the globe. It is a bitter truth that the worst of Islamists, many of whose purposes are ugly and craven, should be crowing loudest over America’s travails. In the 18th century, the American colonists had outgrown the Brits; today, it is clear that Mohammed is unlikely ever to go on his knees to the American mountain. And in these travails, George the Second of America has proved no wiser than George the Third of Britain.


55 comments:

  1. I think he just wants to sell the book, which I understand he had trouble finding a publisher. The book and article aside, there are a lot of people that believe, including Mark Steyn, that the West will lose the war with Islam.The West, for all practical matters is the US.

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  2. If we stay the present course, that outcome is certain.

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  3. Sometimes, as with the walls in Iraq, the course diverges and there is a temporary turbulence in the eddies of conflicting policies, but the mainstream flow has been consistent since "the fall of Baghdad."

    Gradual Submission, couched in terms of War.
    Mr Chertoff, an articulate spokesman for this position, as is Secretary Rice.

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  4. What war with Islam?

    I listen and read with great attention to detail. No US leader claims there is a "War with Islam". In fact those that speak on the subject deny that any such "War" exists, so how could a nonexistent "War" possibly be won?

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  5. On a more serious note:
    Limbaugh is concerned what Ms Crow will do with the pile of excrement that is her brain under the one tissue rule.

    Could alway restrict herself to blowing her nose only while in the shower.
    To be extra safe, she could stick her fingers in her ears.
    By the time the tour is over, of course, she will be able to by tissue paper credits from Algore's Excrement Recycling Project, so she can coninue to wipe away as suits her pleasure.

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  6. Elijah said...
    Ash wrote...
    Should we start parading examples of 'odd' orthodox Jewish behavior so we can tar all Jews with that brush?

    Examples - I would appreciate it if you could compare the two for me, Islamic jihadists and orthodox jews, their 'odd' behavior as you write.

    Perhaps examples from different regions of the globe to give the discussion an international flavor"

    To follow your example of posting cross threads...

    Orthodox Jews 'odd' behavior range from Stringing miles of string to create symbolic walls (LA, Toronto, ect.)

    http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11518

    Large corporations selling off all their dough lest they be 'caught' holding leavened bread for passover

    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1031/belief.html

    To the New York Rabbi's Kahane's blatant racism and vigilantism and Berkowitz 'Son of Sam' rampage of murders are but a few examples of 'jews'. I could also go and find stuff about Orthodox Jews stoning people driving cars on the Sabaath and people as well for other sins but what is the point? Will you then be logically consistent and condemn all jews for the actions of some of them? Rail about Judaism being a flawed religion? Naw, because that would be silly condemning them all for the actions of an extremem fringe. Yah?

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  7. You must have missed my link to Mr. Chertoff:
    He said
    "make no mistake this is war."
    I'll check to see who he said we are at war with.

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  8. How did you become so warped in your view of Radical Islam, Ash.
    What evidence can you point to that radicals represent only an extreme fringe, when polls in England show sizeable numbers wanting a return to Sharia law?
    Same throughout much of the middle east, parts of Canada and the USA, not to mention France, and etc.

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  9. Make No Mistake: This Is War
    ---
    Michael Chertoff

    "A sensible strategy against al-Qaeda and others in its ideological terror network begins with recognizing the scope of the threat they pose. Al-Qaeda and its ilk have a world vision that is comparable to that of historical totalitarian ideologues but adapted to the 21st-century global network.

    Is this actually a war? Well, the short answer comes from our enemies. Osama bin Laden's fatwa of Feb. 23, 1998, was a declaration of war, a self-serving accusation that America had somehow declared war on Islam, followed by a "ruling" to "kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military . . . in any country where it is possible to do it."

    Since then, bin Laden and his allies have sought to carry out acts designed to strike at our global system of security, safety and economy. I am reminded of that every day when I see threat assessments and other evidence of a militarized and networked foe.

    Measured by intent, capability and consequence, fanatical Islamist ideologues have declared -- and are prosecuting -- what is, by any objective rendering, a real war.
    "

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  10. Chertoff says the "war" is against.

    "Today's extreme Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda "

    "The fanatics' intent, while grandiose, is not entirely fanciful. Islamist extremists such as those in al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated groups from North Africa to Iraq and South Asia"

    "Simply put, our foes have declared their intent to make war"

    "That radical Islamist fanatics"

    Just some criminal fanatics, that are trying to hijack a great and peaceful religion..

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  11. Our response Pales in comparison to threat he articulates, esp when consider sanctuaries for Core Al Queda in Pakistan/Warizistan, Al Queda Iraq w/scores of sanctuaries, Syria, Iran, London, France, Germany, and, as Emerson pointed out 13 years ago, in Mosques right here in the USA.

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  12. When that was said of Southerners, in the US Civil War, "Uncle Billy" would look at the speaker as if they were stupid.

    The enemy draws its' strength from its' people.
    Here, there, everywhere.

    Is the US at war in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria or Iran?
    If not, then there is no war, especially one against Islam

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  13. "Al-Qaeda and its ilk have a world vision that is comparable to that of historical totalitarian ideologues but adapted to the 21st-century global network"

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  14. Just a little peaceful reading for a lazy afternoon. jihad

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  15. Not sure what your point is Bobal:
    My wife was attacked outside a Synagogue just last week.
    You no how odd some of these religious folks are.

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  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  17. The bulk of the US combat force is tied down in what had been the most secular of Arab counties.

    We did not enter Iraq to fight the Mohammedans. That was never the mission, it still is not.

    In Afghanistan the War was to take down Osama. If the Taliban had given him up, the invasion would have never occurred. Or so Mr Bush told US, on 20 Sep 2001.

    He wouuldn't have lied, would he?

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  18. Good point on the most secular of countries:
    Women in Baghdad will be forever grateful to our great leader W. for bringing Sharia back their city on the Euphrates.

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  19. "The U.S. military is now committing more than 2,000 additional soldiers to Diyala to fend off this growing insurgency.

    "There are serious problems here, much bigger than I think anyone wanted to admit," Prisock said.

    The soldiers fighting in Diyala have faced insurgents who communicate with radios and sometimes watch the Americans with night-vision goggles. Marksmen bore holes in the parapets of rooftops, stand back a few feet and fire through the openings to disguise the muzzle blast. Some shoot with tracer rounds to guide their bullets. When Americans come under attack, they often find themselves taking fire from several directions.

    "I've been all over this country," Hanner said. "This is by far the worst place I've ever been in my life. This is what you think war is going to be."

    In March, the day after reinforcements from a Stryker battalion arrived in the provincial capital of Baqubah, the unit encountered what appeared to be 27 roadside bombs, known as IEDs, in a one-mile stretch of road that runs in front of the Buhriz government center, on the southern edge of the city.

    "For each real one, they had put three or four false IEDs. They had intentionally put in crushed wires, pressure plates, different IED techniques that we would recognize," said Capt. Ben Richards...
    "

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  20. PHOENIX (Associated Press) -- A Border Patrol agent was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the shooting of an illegal immigrant at the border in January.

    An investigation found that Agent Nicholas Corbett's killing of Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, of Puebla, Mexico, was not legally justified, said Cochise County prosecutor Ed Rheinheimer.

    Corbett is also charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide.

    Corbett's attorney, Daniel Santander, didn't immediately return a message left Monday afternoon by The Associated Press.

    The shooting, which drew condemnation from the Mexican government, occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Dominguez-Rivera and three others who were trying to enter the country illegally.

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  21. Rheinheimer's office viewed the original blurry digital video on compact disc but was hoping to see an enhanced version before deciding whether to press charges against Corbett, who shot and killed 22-year-old Francisco Javier Dominguez-Rivera, of Puebla, Mexico, on Jan. 12 about 150 yards north of the border between Bisbee and Douglas.
    ...
    The shooting occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Dominguez-Rivera and three others who were trying to enter the country illegally. In the days that followed the incident, the Border Patrol said a scuffle had led to the shooting and the agent "feared for his life."

    More than 300 pages of documents released last month by the Cochise County Attorney's Office revealed that Corbett's account of what led him to shoot and kill the unarmed Dominguez-Rivera didn't match witness testimony or forensic evidence.

    Corbett told colleagues he shot at a man at the back of his vehicle who looked like he was going to throw a rock.

    But three witnesses who were being apprehended along with Dominguez-Rivera - his two brothers and a sister-in-law - told investigators Corbett fired while pushing Dominguez-Rivera to the ground.

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  22. Corbett has declined to be interviewed by investigators but told other agents that he came around the front of his SUV, saw a man with a rock in his hand close to the rear of the vehicle and fired when the man moved to throw it.

    The witnesses said the agent came from behind the victim, and the video appears to support that version.

    One clip shows Corbett's Border Patrol vehicle driving up to a small group of people and circling around them. The agent then opens the door and emerges from behind his SUV, running toward the group, bunched near his rear bumper.

    He then appears to have contact with one person.

    Within seconds, Corbett apparently pushed one of the immigrants, Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, toward the ground and shot him, authorities said.

    The video, taken from a camera mounted on a tower about two miles away, lacks the clarity to distinguish details, including the shooting.

    The FBI is trying to enhance the tape. County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer said he is awaiting results of the FBI's investigation before deciding whether to charge Corbett.

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  23. No point to it Doug other than to point out the daily litany of outrages, but then everybody here knows that.

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  24. Just like Iraq:
    F..... ROE's.
    Shoot on sight would eliminate most of the problem overnight, with fewer deaths and massive crime reduction.

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  25. I beg to differ, Bobal:
    Ash considers it an extreme fringe minority causing the small problems we face.
    That and the pesky Jew, Christian, and Bahai Terrorists.

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  26. Doug said...
    How did you become so warped in your view of Radical Islam, Ash.
    What evidence can you point to that radicals represent only an extreme fringe, when polls in England show sizeable numbers wanting a return to Sharia law?


    Well, 'sizable' is an interesting term. If you want, talk ratios - a billion musilms give or take a hundred million or two and these dudes in england you refer to are what percentage of that billion? And then compare law based on religion (Sharia) to our errrr Christian roots. Were you for the Ten Commandments statue in front of the Court of Law or against it?

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  27. "Torture" Works

    "The incident described in this article is one more indicator of how the U.S. military needs to rethink how it approaches low intensity conflict. Instead of an American war in Iraq, this should have been an Iraqi war, with some American advisors assisting Iraqi allies. The deployment of American armored and mechanized infantry brigades is not sustainable in Iraq and will be a non-starter for the next low-intensity conflict the U.S. finds itself in. Conventional American ground combat formations have been culturally unsuited for the task they face in Iraq. And the legal, ethical, and moral constraints on American tactics, techniques, and procedures have resulted in the war dragging on one inconclusive month after another.

    By contrast, the Shi’ite battalion from Amara, along with its companions elsewhere in Baghdad and beyond, knows how to do its job in an Iraqi context. And had there been only a relative handful of Americans advisors to help, rather than 150,000 or so in conventional formations, this so-called “dirty work” could have been done years ago, quickly, and largely out of sight of the world’s media. Instead of being the most pressing issue in American domestic politics, the “war” would hardly be known, just part of the vague background hum mixed in with the rest of the world’s scattered chaos.

    The next U.S. president needs to quickly and quietly implement a new doctrine for low intensity conflict, a doctrine that will be usable and sustainable after the American experience in Iraq."
    Westhawk

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  28. Doug said...
    "Torture" Works


    So....should we let local law enforcement use it as a standard method of interrogation? If not, why not?

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  29. We're not at war with criminals.
    If we were, well then...

    But then again "torture" is a relative term. The troops of the Iraqi Bn that beat the insurgent did not consider what they did torture, but a beating.
    Which for many years was SOP in police stations across America. Rubber hoses were often used.

    In the US, today, being forced to listen to rap music is often considered torture.
    Getting fat on Gitmo chow has been described as torture, by some.

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  30. i am starting to see the light;
    but am having trouble finding the jewish terrorist groups analogous to this international taste i will provide u (educate us all where their faith based beliefs come from?)

    Let's see
    Afghanistan - Ulema Union

    Algeria - Saafi Group for
    Proselytism and Combat
    Bang

    Bangladesh - Al-Jihad

    Canada - Groupe Roubaix

    Egypt - al-Gama's al-Islamiyya

    India (Kashmir) - Partisans Movement

    Indonesia - Jemaah Islamiyah

    Jordan- Bayt al-Imam

    Lebanon - Asbat al Ansar

    Lybia - Libyan Islamic Group

    Pakistan - Al-Badar, Al-Hadith, Lashkar -Toiba

    Phillipines - Abu Sayyaf

    Uzbekistan - Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

    Yemen - Al Jihad Group

    Now please, be so kind and repay me the favor of providing that Jewish international list.

    ..................................
    Did the Vatican put out a fatwah on "DaVinci Code" author Dan Brown? The last holy war committed in the name of Christianity was over 800 years ago. If Hindus behead hostages, I’ve somehow managed to miss it.

    "A few mischievous Muslims" makes kidnapping, torture, beheadings, bomb plots, mass murder and death threats sound like schoolboy pranks. It’s September 11, 2001, and some high-spirited Muslim merrymakers just crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, slaughtering 3,000 innocents. What a lark!

    Here are some recent examples of Muslim high-jinks:

    - In Iraq, Father Paulis Iskander, a Syrian-Orthodox priest, was kidnapped by a few Muslim pranksters. After good-naturedly torturing him, they beheaded the priest. This was in retaliation for Pope Benedict XVI’s quote of a 14th century Byzantine emperor. Jihadists apparently missed the Catholic-Orthodox schism (1054 AD) -- or maybe all Crusaders look the same to them.

    - There are 1 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq – but not for long. They’ve been targeted by every side in the civil war. On September 24th, two bombs exploded in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Baghdad. Earlier, a church was bombed in Basra.

    - Muslims celebrated their holy month of Ramadan by racking up an impressive body count -- more than 1,600 dead in 280 separate terror attacks in 17 countries.

    - In a recent column, former New York Mayor Ed Koch reports on a meeting he had with Pope John Paul II in the early 1990s. Forthright fellow that he is, Koch asked the Pope why the Vatican didn’t recognize Israel (it did a few years later), Koch says John Paul II replied: "It will happen someday, but it can’t happen now. I have a responsibility to the Catholics who live in Koranic lands and who would be in danger if we recognized Israel." This wasn’t paranoia. John Paul knew exactly what happens when Muslims get testy.

    - In Germany, the government is starting to crack down on an estimated 5,000 Islamist websites that are "spreading hatred" and "hawking terror." I see, those few mischievous Muslims must all be web-site designers and computer geeks.

    - Then again, perhaps they’re all involved in mass communications. The American-Muslim TV network, broadcasting in six states to a potential audience of two million, says its mission is "to improve the image of Muslims in the United States." Recent programming included the broadcast of an anti-Semitic/anti-Christian sermon, with the supplication: "May God destroy them."

    - In Atlanta, Ethiopian immigrant Khalid Adem was on trial for circumcising his then-two-year-old daughter. Female genital mutilation is all the rage among African Muslims.

    - Islamic funsters tend to be particularly hard on the ladies. There are as many as 300,000 runaway girls in happenin’ Iran, some as young as 9. In Prophet-land, rape is shameful –for the victim.

    - Islam’s rhetorical war against the hated Zionist entity continues. In Karachi, Pakistan, a few mischievous Muslims – well, 6,000 to be exact – marched through the streets shouting "Death to Israel! Death America." That’s how Muslim merrymakers celebrate Al-Qods Day (or Jerusalem Day).

    - His Naziness Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (president of 68 million waggish Iranians) continues to assure us that Israel will be "wiped from the map," the Holocaust is a "myth," and any nation that sides with the Jewish state will face the "boiling wrath" of adherents to the religion of peace.

    - On October 24, the Taliban announced it was planning attacks on civilian targets in Europe, in revenge for the invasion of Afghanistan that resulted in toppling its regime. A Taliban commander observed on Sky News television: "It’s acceptable to kill ordinary people in Europe because these are the people who have voted in the government…. We will kill them and laugh over them."

    - In Ethiopia, in July, a mischievous Muslim mob attacked a group of Christians in the city of Henno. The victims included two prominent Christians who had converted from Islam. The Muslim scamps used knives, stones and metal bars to reinforce the point that – like the Syndicate – there’s only one way out of this organization.

    - The Afghans who kidnapped Italian journalist Gabriele Torsello have offered to exchange him for Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert forced to flee the country. His own family wants Rahman dead. Bring back Rahman so we may instruct him in the finer points of Sharia, the abductors of Torsello plead.

    - The 2005 London transit bombings (52 commuters dead) or the foiled August plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound jetliners (with a potential death toll exceeding 9/11)

    - Across the Channel, Robert Redeker (a French high-school philosophy teacher) is a marked man, since the publication of his September 19 piece in Le Figaro, wherein he called the Koran "a book of extraordinary violence" and observed that Mohammed was "a pitiless warlord, pillager , massacrer of Jews and polygamist" –in other words, a 7th century Arabian rascal. E-mail death threats started pouring in the day the article ran. One naughty website published a map showing the exact location of his home, along with photos of Redeker and his workplace.

    - All it took was one guy named Mohammed to murder Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, for making a movie about the treatment of women in the wacky world of Islam. Van Gogh was shot, stabbed and had his throat slashed. A note by the killer, pinned to his body, read, "I did what I did purely out of my beliefs."

    - A spokesman for a French police union says Muslim youths are waging a "civil war" against the gendarmes. The Gallic intifada that started last November never really stopped. At one point last year, disaffected "youth," as the French press discretely calls them, were torching 1,300 cars a night, to cries of "Allahu Akbar." Rioting spread to 300 French cities and spilled over into Belgium and Germany. Now, whenever French cops go to housing projects they are assaulted with everything from stones to guns to Molotov cocktails. Nearly 2,500 officers have been injured this year.

    In a 2005 survey by The Daily Telegraph (hat tip to Doug), one quarter of British Muslims said they had at least some sympathy with their coreligionists who murdered 52 random Brits in the July commuter bombings. One-quarter of a million is more than "a few."

    Add to this number the minions of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jihad-this, and Army of God-that, the mobs in Tehran, Karachi and Dar es Saalam etc., the ayatollahs, imams, sheiks, mullahs, their blind followers and rabid supporters – not to mention the Saudis funding radical mosques and madrassahs from Queens to Calcutta and beyond. It all adds up to a whole lot of Muslim mischief-making.

    And let’s not forget the millions (tens of millions? hundreds of millions?) of Muslims who aren’t actually killing anyone, or condoning the killing of anyone (except Jews, of course), who nevertheless think it would be swell if the whole world lived under Islamic law – with honor-killings and genital-mutilation for all.

    Now, here’s the really scary part: As Mark Steyn points out in his book America Alone: The End of The World As We Know It, between 1970 and 2000, while the share of the world’s population represented by industrialized nations fell from just under 30% to just over 20%, the mischievous nations (whose principal manufactured products are jihad and general theological nuttiness) went from 15% to around 20%.

    I have written about population dynamics before on this site.

    Should we "consider all Muslims evil"? Of course not. Should we consider Islam as something bad? That’s an entirely different question – one which you tend to avoid when not babbling some version of the "religion of peace."

    ..............................
    Finally, as stated to DR once before, my memory is fairly unique and you did not answer questions previously posed.

    Namely...
    "Tijani refuted his arguments from a theological perspective."

    1) how was he spot on with regards to taqiyah; and i did not write the 3 articles provided which directly demonstrated that he was peddling in untruths.

    1

    2

    3

    2) Also, do you agree that
    - To die in the way of Allah is our greatest wish (it would be the prayer of...ANY DEVOUT MUSLIM"

    This is the theological perspective you were touting -
    and seems to contradict your previous writings on this site (and today)that Islam is no more violent than other religions.

    So which is it?

    Thank you for the opportunity to engage, it is always a pleasure.

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  31. Elijah,

    So? There are a bunch but does that equal all? Of course not otherwise you must accept the corollary on the Jewish side. The group 'muslim' contains many subsets but some of the subsets does not equal the whole. Similarily there are some odious subsets in the Jewish faith but the whole does not equal the sum of the odious subsets.

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  32. Ash,
    You should ask for a guest post at BC.
    The enlightened intellectuals there debated the horrors for weeks.

    ...and Wretch said he'd watch his city/family go up in a Nuclear Fireball before he'd stoop so low.

    Different Strokes for different folks.
    Wonder what friends and family would say if informed 15 seconds before detonation?
    (you did WHAT???)

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  33. i have far to go and much to learn; teach me

    One more time...

    1) with regards to taqiyyah (and i did not write the 3 articles) are the Islamic scholars cited incorrect or is your friend and his perspective?

    Which is it?

    2) Our aim [target/that-upon-which-we-always-focus] is Allah
    We want to reach [be-in-unity/always-act-in-accordance] with [the purposes/wishes of] Allah
    [In all this] The Prophet is the leader
    Everything [all the time] we do [make efforts in] is in accordance with the Qur'an
    Our way is struggle in the way of Allah [jihad]
    TO DIE IN THE WAY of ALLAH IS OUR GREATEST WISH
    Allah is the greatest

    "I'm not quite sure what you find so very controversial about this - as it would be the prayer of...
    ANY DEVOUT MUSLIM"

    This is the theological perspective you were touting -

    and contradicts your previous writings on this site (and today) that Islam is no more violent than other religions.

    So which is it?

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  34. I think all mosque muslims are subversive of the constitution, and should be deprived of their citizenship, and deported, but I've said that before. That's my take.

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  35. Now here's a fellow that has some Issues

    Less issues today, than yesterday.

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  36. The local authorities here have released the young man that was breathing threats against the college. Wonder what will happen next.

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  37. Elijah,

    I have no desire to defend radical Islam, Orthodox Judaism, nor Evangelical Christianity. Actually, I have virtualy no desire to try to defend organized religion as a whole other then to grant them the desire to worship as they choose. It is when their theology infringes upon my rights that I object. It is when their actions are imoral, when they kill ect. that I object. It is their actions that I find troublesome. Similarly Cho had his justifications for what he did...well screw him and his justifications, his actions are what at issue not his delusions. The same applies to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Heck, the Sikh and Buddists can be lumped in there as well. Hey, lets toss all humanity in to round out the set.

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  38. bobl,

    You reconginize the conundrum for prosecuting the chap for uttering threats at the school but you don't for Mosque muslims. What gives? How are the two different in kind?

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  39. That fellow doesn't have a recognizable ideology that he and his kind have followed for centuries. He's confused, they aren't.

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  40. "I fully agree that there is many stooopid and ugly things done by fundamentalist muslims. I have a revulsion for all fundamentalist religious folks wishing to cram their ideology down the throats of others. So, what's your point?"
    - Fri Mar 09, 08:52:00 PM EST

    "I have no desire to defend radical Islam"
    - from above

    The point - with your writing there is no doubt that you are doing just that (defending radical Islam)...simply by equating the other peoples and their religion with Islam - Orthodox Jews, Evangelical Christians, Sikhs, and Buddists.

    Otherwise, you should be able to pick one of the religions (you choose) and list the global terror organizations commiting violence based on the particular religious belief (that you choose).

    Analogous to the one already provided:
    Afghanistan - Ulema Union

    Algeria - Saafi Group for
    Proselytism and Combat
    Bang

    Bangladesh - Al-Jihad

    Canada - Groupe Roubaix

    Egypt - al-Gama's al-Islamiyya

    India (Kashmir) - Partisans Movement

    Indonesia - Jemaah Islamiyah

    Jordan- Bayt al-Imam

    Lebanon - Asbat al Ansar

    Lybia - Libyan Islamic Group

    Pakistan - Al-Badar, Al-Hadith, Lashkar -Toiba

    Phillipines - Abu Sayyaf

    Uzbekistan - Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

    Yemen - Al Jihad Group

    Otherwise, your perspective is fairly difficult to follow.

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  41. "No more Pax Americana - David Selbourne"

    One could just as easily argue no more Pax Islamia...

    "the Arab goal was to wage war against Europe and America and to ensure that henceforth there would be no peace for the West."

    "the Arabs would advance step by step, millimeter by millimeter, year after year, decade after decade, determined, stubborn and patient. This is our strategy; a strategy that we shall expand throughout the whole planet."
    - George Habash

    “The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is a human message, and it will move forward. Have no doubt ... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”
    - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

    Goodnight

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  42. “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.” — The Koran, 8.12

    ...

    In Politics, Aristotle, too, was critical of the democratic system. He described the various models of ruling thus:

    “Of forms of government in which one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, monarchy; that in which more than one, but not many, rule, aristocracy (and it is so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens). But when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called a polity.

    ...

    Lee Harris, the author of The Suicide of Reason, wonders what were the necessary conditions for the growth of modern reason. This was the question taken up by Johann Herder:

    “What kind of culture was necessary in order to produce a critical thinker like Immanuel Kant himself? When Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, methodically demolished all the traditional proofs for the existence of God, why wasn’t he torn limb from limb in the streets of Königsburg by outraged believers?”


    Islam Compatible with Democracy? Part I

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  43. The president is in general agreement with ash. It is an active, radical minority of an otherwise unbothersome global population that threatens us. The problem is not Islam, but the corruption of Islam by a relative few that would seek to subsume, to tyrannize and terrorize, the whole.

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  44. Evil men from both major sects of Islam wantonly murder Iraqi civilians, their evil deeds publicized by the global media....the U.S. and Great Britain get blamed for 100% of the chaos and carnage...drawing more jihadis to Iraq to fight the coalition, which, as we know, is most effectively done by killing civilians in horrific and spectacular ways for the consumption of the global media.

    Yes, we have entered the looking glass. I fear much blood will be shed on a fairly massive scale in the near future, a huge number of deaths on a scale not seen since the last great war. If only our leaders (in the broadest sense) had a moral compass and a backbone.

    I leave in 2 weeks for a 4 week trip to Turkey with my wife and 2 year old. A cousin in the air guard says that we are evacuating dependents from the big air base in Turkey...I feel like we might be heading into harm's way. Any thoughts?

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  45. One of my friends, Lord Acton, has a daughter that is married to an Air Force guy that was based in Turkey. She said she felt safe enough there, and they traveled about a bit for the sights. But certainly take care.

    Why are they evacuating the dependants, do you think? If things were to heat up, you probably ought to get out fast.

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  46. "Any thoughts?"

    State Dept notices and both DoD community and incountry expat websites (Google is your friend).

    Happy traveling, acton.

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  47. And there seems to be nothing unusual going on at Incirlik.

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  48. And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
    And what did you hear, my darling young one?
    I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
    Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
    Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
    Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
    Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
    Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
    Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
    And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
    And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

    Bob Dylan

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  49. WE CAN ALL REST EASY WITH LEADERS LIKE THESE FOLKS


    "I don't believe that assault rifles ought to be sold in America." ~Senator John Kerry

    "Assault weapons in the hands of civilians exist for no reason but to inspire fear and wreak deadly havoc on our streets" ~President Bill Clinton, 1997

    "You want an assault rifle? Join the Army!"
    ~Rep. Carolyn McCarthy

    "Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."
    ~Senator Diane Feinstein, 1993

    "We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!"
    ~Senator Charles Schumer, 1993

    "Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected." ~ACLU policy statement #47, 1986

    "If someone is so fearful that they are going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have weapons at all."
    ~Rep. Henry Waxman

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  50. ONCE WE HAD REAL LEADERS WHO UNDERSTOOD TYRANNY

    "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." ~Thomas Jefferson, 1776

    "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe."
    ~Noah Webster, 1787

    "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

    "What is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
    ~George Mason, 1788

    "The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." ~Samuel Adams, 1788

    "The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed."
    ~Patrick Henry

    "Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves."
    ~William Pitt, 1783

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  51. Who knows. This whole exercise in defining violence down to include shock-jock taunts and outsourcing would normally be mere intellectual slovenliness.

    Doing so in the shadow of the murder of 32 innocents still unburied is tasteless, bordering on the sacrilegious.

    Perhaps in the spirit of Obama's much-heralded post-ideological politics we can agree to observe a decent interval of respectful silence before turning ineffable evil and unfathomable grief into political fodder.


    Moment of Silence

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  52. 9 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq as Suicide Bomber Hits Base
    BAGHDAD, Tuesday, April 24 — A devastating suicide car bombing on Monday killed nine American soldiers near a patrol base in Diyala Province, the military announced early Tuesday morning.

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  53. It was the single deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah.

    Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on Jan. 20.

    The military said it might have been shot down, but the investigation is still ongoing.


    9 GI's

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