By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 4, 2006
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors to France and Britain, respectively, met in 1786 in London with the Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. These future American presidents were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty which would spare the United States the ravages of jihad piracymurder, enslavement (with ransoming for redemption), and expropriation of valuable commercial assetsemanating from the Barbary states (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, known collectively in Arabic as the Maghrib). During their discussions, they questioned Ambassador Adja as to the source of the unprovoked animus directed at the nascent United States republic. Jefferson and Adams, in their subsequent report to the Continental Congress, recorded the Tripolitan Ambassadors justification:
that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.
Thus as Joshua Londons Victory in Tripoli elaborates in lucid prose, an aggressive jihad was already being waged against the United States almost 200 years prior to America becoming a dominant international power in the Middle East. Moreover, these jihad depredations targeting America antedated the earliest vestiges of the Zionist movement by a century, and the formal creation of Israel by 162 yearsexploding the ahistorical canard that American support for the modern Jewish state is a prerequisite for jihadist attacks on the United States. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
05/04/2006 09:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
this was the pre creation phase of the Marines.
Posted by: bk ||
05/04/2006 11:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
USMC, originally the Continental Marines, was founded in 1775.
#6
6, yep, all's well for me - thanks for asking. Though it took me a while to get used to crazy drivers again. I had a good vacation last month and am looking forward to a fun summer w/the family. No place like home bro!
Tony Blair has had more near-death experiences in the last few years than Jack Bauer. Today he will grimace and grunt through another harrowing 24 hours when English voters go the polls in elections for local governments across the country. If things go really badly the men and women behind the character that has dominated the British political schedules for almost a decade may decide it's time to pull the plug.
Local elections used to be just that - local. But these days, the media's insatiable need to keep a permanent check on the pulse of the voter has turned Tip O'Neill's famous dictum on its head. So when people from Carlisle to Penwith go to the polls today to choose the representatives who will vote funds for street cleaning and grave-digging they will, in post-hoc interpretation if not in ante-hoc intent, be passing judgment on the prime minister, his government, the Iraq conflict, the disappearance of Norwegian glaciers and the future of western civilisation as we have known it.
Blair's Labour will fare badly; no-one doubts that. Governing parties always get mauled in these mid-terms. Turnout is risibly low - perhaps not more than one in four eligible voters will go to the polls today. Even in good times, government supporters are much less inclined to make the trip out to affirm their faith.
And these are not good times for Labour. Dissatisfaction with Blair and his government precisely mirrors sentiment in the US about President Bush and the Republicans; barely a third of the electorate approves of them.
Last week, his rapidly wasting asset of a Cabinet managed to devalue itself further in public esteem with some well-aimed kicks at its own nether regions. John Prescott, Blair's hefty deputy, was forced to confess to an affair with his 43-year old diary secretary ("Lardy and The Tramp", quipped one tabloid). Charles Clarke, the home secretary, was forced to confess that he didn't really know the whereabouts of 1000 or more foreigners who had been released from British jails into the community instead of being deported. Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, was forced to confess to a conference of angry nurses that she didn't really have any solutions to the mounting financial problems of Britain's national health service.
Meanwhile the government is trying to fend off an increasingly aggressive investigation into a pounds-for-peerages scandal - in which wealthy donors are alleged to have given money to Labour and its favourite projects in exchange for a seat in the House of Lords.
There you have it. The Four Horsemen of modern political mortality - Lust, Ineptitude, Indifference and Cupidity. Add in some lingering hostility to the Iraq war and a potent combination of boredom with and contempt for a prime minister who's been in office for nine years, and you have a pretty lethal mix. Unfortunately for him, it is at just this moment that Blair faces the voters over the garden fences of middle England.
Having promised in last year's general election campaign to step down before the next election, Blair has already limited his options. Since everyone knows he's going, the argument goes, why prolong it? His closest aides still think he can soldier on for another year or so before handing over to his designated and increasingly restive neighbour Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer. But the betting in Westminster is that if the results are bad enough tonight they could accelerate the prime minister's departure from Downing Street.
How bad do they have to be?
Labour could well finish third in the popular vote behind both the main opposition Conservatives and Labour's fellow lefties the Liberal Democrats. That has happened before in local elections and would not of itself necessarily be terminal. Blair may indeed be helped somewhat by the diffusion of anti-government votes. The Tories who, if the history of local elections is a guide, should be making massive gains, may not advance all that much from their position in the equivalent elections four years ago. The Liberal Democrats are still a local force rather than a plausible alternative government. Most intriguing will be the strength of other parties- the Greens, the anti-European UK Independence Party, the anti-war Respect party of Saddam Hussein's friend George Galloway and the rebarbative, neo-fascist, anti-immigration British National Party.
If they all advance at Labour's expense it will muddy the waters somewhat and make it easier for Blair to claim the elections were no more than a passing protest, with people depositing their votes in the nearest available receptacle, safe in the knowledge they wouldn't actually be choosing a government.
But come tomorrow morning this may sound like whistling past the graveyard. Thousands of Labour councilors will wake up out of their (part-time) jobs, their immediate political prospects in tatters.
If they and their friends on Labour's benches in the House of Commons decide Blair is the culprit, they will surely increase the tension up the line to their political leaders to do something about it.
What's more there is a growing mood, even among some of Gordon Brown's harshest critics that he should be given a chance to end the uncertainty of Blair's long farewell and get on with the task of governing and getting Labour into shape to win the next general election.
A day after these same local elections in 1990, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher shrugged off her Conservative party's disastrous performance at the polls. But the results were an indelible demonstration of the voters' impatience with an increasingly unpopular leader, and six months later her own party terminated her leadership.
There's no chance Labour will commit that kind of regicide. But a bad day at the polls today could end up having the same ultimate effect.
#1
And these are not good times for Labour. Dissatisfaction with Blair and his government precisely mirrors sentiment in the US about President Bush and the Republicans; barely a third of the electorate approves of them.
Actually - if it sentiment precisely mirrors sentiment for the party in power in the US, then Labour will retain and perhpas even increase their hold on power.
Hat tip No Pasaran. Link to a blog entry about that particular new scandal now hovering over the perfumed head of Dominique Galouzeau "de Villepin"... who is a man, might I recall you : hasn't he said he was going to rule France by daunting force, à la Napoléon, given that present France is a "woman lying on her back with open thighs", waiting for her master? He's a legend in his own mind, like shown at his UN speech.
The end of regime is really beginning to stink.
By David Forsmark Nothing new for RBers, here, but perhaps theses books could be offered to a stuck-on-the-fence relative?
While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
By Bruce Bawer
(Doubleday, $23.95, 247 pp.)
Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too
By Claire Berlinski
(Crown Forum, $25.95, 271 pp.)
In some of the most decadent liberal areas of Western Europe, where tolerance is considered the greatest (and often, alas, the only) virtue, non-Muslim women wear a hijab when they go out to avoid harassment by aggressive young Muslim men. In the suburbs of major cities of Old Europe that have large and expanding Muslim populations, such as Amsterdam and Paris, honor killings, forced marriages and spousal abuse are on the rise.
Such trends are at least a decade old. But for the European media and political elites, the symbol of dangerous cultural changes is not a crescent but Golden Arches. That's right -- McDonald's, although anything else that's quintessentially American will do.
In Europe's supremely politically correct climate, Christianity has all but disappeared, but it is still fashionable to bash practitioners, particularly fundamentalists. On the other hand, it is considered racist and culturally oppressive to negatively talk about anything that is even peripherally related to
Muslim immigration. Some countries, including the Netherlands and Norway, are even passing laws to restrict such speech.
Interestingly, two writers from vastly different backgrounds - Bruce Bawer, a conservative homosexual who moved to Europe to escape what he considered the stifling influence of fundamentalist Christianity in America, and Claire Berlinski, a secular Jewish female academic - come to the same conclusion in their strikingly similar books about Europe's decadence and failure to stand up for its historical culture.
In the introduction to The Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, Too, Berlinski baldly asserts that even though she is "a secular Jew who is delighted never to have faced The Inquisition," she believes the primary reason for Europe's "hopelessness and the void" is "the death of Christianity" on the western half of the continent.
This, she states, is why Europe has been susceptible to the dark appeals of everything from fascism and communism to anarchism and radical Islam in recent decades. This loss of faith, accelerated by World War I, was also one of the factors that made the slaughter of World War II possible, she writes.
That Bawer comes to essentially the same conclusion is even more startling, and his path to writing While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, is nearly as interesting as his reporting.
Bawer had spent a decade decrying what he saw as the dominance of Christian fundamentalism in public discourse and wrote two books on the subject. He eventually moved to Amsterdam to "marry" his Norwegian partner.
Soon, however, Bawer found out that the famed Dutch "tolerance" (which Berlinski cleverly labels "Self-Extinguishing Tolerance") really means they tolerate anything -- including radical Islamism -- except Americans and capitalism. In fact, Dutch toleration includes the funding of radical mosques, forcing citizens to accept Islamic customs and condemning anyone who objects to the huge numbers of immigrants or dares to mention the Muslims' own intolerances.
As Bawer points out dryly, there is no comparison between Jerry Falwell "not wanting me to marry" and the fastest-growing - though increasingly politically favored - part of the population of a continent that thinks he should suffer death by stoning.
Bawer's experiences reminded me of Keith Richburg, a black American reporter who thought that when he was assigned to Africa it would be a spiritual reawakening of his roots but returned to write Out of America after finding out that he was not a hyphenated American after all. Richburg decided he was glad to be an American no matter how it came to be. Similarly, jazz great Wynton Marsallis tells black jazz musicians that if they think there is a better place to be a person of any color than America, they haven't been out much.
Bawer and Berlinski's books have a similarly personal writing style. Each is not merely an observer or a chronicler, but a participant who voices not only opinions but also feelings and experiences. Despite the fact that the books are stylistically and philosophically akin to one another, however, the authors attack the subject matter in very different ways.
While Berlinski travels the continent and writes in almost free form about things that interest her, Bawer takes a systematic look at Old Europe and radical Islam, breaking his book into three main sections: 1, "Before 9-11: Europe in Denial," 2, "9-11 and After: Blaming Americans and Jews, and 3, "Europe's Weimar Moment: Liberal Resistance and Its Prospects." Of the two books, Bawer's is by far the most complete.
Bawer's subtitle may summarize what readers can expect from the book, but his thesis actually goes deeper. In many ways, Old Europe is already culturally destroyed. After the trauma of two world wars, Western Europe decided that its culture is not worth saving, Bawer writes. Anti-Americanism is not a philosophy that fills the void. Islam fills the vacuum more completely.
The ways in which family unification rights are exploited in much of the European Union to bring whole clans of people from Muslim countries are detailed by Bawer, who also points out that the authorities, by allowing such a rule even in case of forced marriage, are in the name of "toleration" participating in the enslavement of another generation of Muslim women.
Berlinski, on the other hand, is less concerned about how the Continent's crisis came to be and far more interested in the cultural results. Readers of White Teeth, Zadie Smith's bestseller about life and love among immigrants in London, will be fascinated by the way in which Berlinsky compares the frothy novel to the darker truth of the characters it was based on (one of whom she was in love with). But the reaction of the uninitiated may be, "That's interesting, but is it really worth 50 pages?"
Similarly, Berlinski's point that anti-globalist activist Jose Bove is merely the latest in a long line of nihilistic anarchist cult figures who have enthralled large crowds of Europeans going back to a mad hermit who appeared in 560 A.D. is a provocative one, but she stretches her analogy over 36 pages and falls a little too in love with her thesis.
However, her examination of why the French port of Marseille works and how the police department and city administration have avoided the unrest and segregation that have plagued Paris and much of the rest of Old Europe is brilliant reporting and should be required reading for mayors and police chiefs throughout Europe.
Similarly, Berlinsky does a remarkable job of getting young people to open up to her about the secret negative reaction among white European youth to overwhelming Muslim immigration, and a music culture, particularly in Germany, that contains an all too familiar mix of nationalism and socialism.
There are certainly warnings for America in these books, but their net effect is to make one grateful that we have problems that are less poisonous than those that plague Europe. Illegals primarily from Mexico may not speak English but at least they speak the same cultural language that we do. Not so with the Muslims of Europe. And as Bawer points out, there are important differences between the Muslims who immigrate to America and those who immigrate to Europe. Because of proximity and right to enter laws, he says, Europe tends to get the type of immigrant who can't afford to come to America, while Muslims who enter the U.S. tend to be technologically astute and far more able to cope with modernity.
Furthermore, America's dynamic social structure is far more likely to encourage assimilation despite group attempts to discourage it and a group rights mentality among the left that rewards segregation. Despite all this, as Bawer points out, immigrants to the U.S. are encouraged to think of themselves as Americans, while few in the Netherlands or France would blanch at the idea of calling their recently arrived neighbors from North Africa Dutchmen or Frenchmen--even after several generations.
After painting a dark picture of inexorable cultural change and decay, and surrender in the face of the Madrid bombings - not to mention the assassination andextreme marginalization of public figures who dare to speak out such as Pim Fortuyn, Theo Van Gogh, and Oriana Fallici - both authors plead with Americans not to say, as Berlinsky puts it, "To Hell with Europe."
The authors point to small indications that there may be a silent majority in Europe who can be appealed to - Fortuyn, after all, probably would have been the Prime Minister of the Netherlands had he not been shot - but Bawer also shows the rigid class structures in Europe and the stranglehold the elites have on government.
In the end, both authors say the stakes are too high for Americans to say that Europe deserves whatever it gets and just let it happen. However, attempts to find rays of hope are the most tentative and least convincing pages in both books.
#1
The rage against the Muslims is there. All it will take is the first country letting it loose and then all hell will be raised against them. There will be the same kind of flood back into the Maghreb that there was out of it by Frenchmen in 1962. I expect to see Europe's cities running ankle-deep in Muslim blood before 2020.
Posted by: mac ||
05/04/2006 19:15 Comments ||
Top||
#2
My co worker told me she is reading this book and that it has really openend her eyes...
If the economy continues to percolate nicely, it will be due to increased drywall sales: Experts predict a continued increase in the number of Republican voters banging their heads into walls, trying to wake from this nightmare. It's not the president's poll numbers -- that could be fixed by impeachment. (Worked for Clinton.) It's not the staff shake-up -- new blood's fine, but nobody in Peoria is switching parties because Scott McClellan got the gentle boot. It's not even the Iraq war, the prospect of war with Iran, or the prospect of no war with Iran. It's Congress.
In short, the Republican base wants to know: Where's all this partisan extremism we were promised?
Nothing better exemplifies the world-turned-upside-down madness than the response to the gas "crisis." If the GOP was intent on educating the public, it would explain obscure concepts like "supply" and "demand" and how this big country called "Chi-na" has been sopping up more liquefied dinosaurs than usual. Also, we don't build enough refineries, and thanks to the greenies we can't drill anywhere Steven Spielberg might see the rig from his house. And he has houses everywhere. But who cares? Man up, ya crybabies! We're Americans. Let's go poke holes in Mother Nature's noggin and hoover up some light sweet crude so we don't have to rehash this drivel next year.
The actual GOP response? Hundred-dollar rebates. Cash money, friend, just for drivin'. We feel your pain: Here, have some money we borrowed from someone else. How's your Starbucks bill looking this week? Caramel mocha lattes add up, we know, and perhaps we can spot you a twenty (as long as you'll agree you're addicted to caffeine) and let Congress mandate 25 percent ethanol in your morning cup.
Rebates! If there's anything that exemplifies the nanny-state mentality, it's driving up the federal armored car and pitchforking sawbucks out the back. For a moment the nation braced for the Democratic response -- if it had been true to form, the rebates would have been twice the size, adjusted for income, paid for with a tax on those chrome fish emblems Christians like to stick on their cars, printed on recycled paper with soy ink and introduced at a press conference featuring a leading liberal strategic theorist like Susan Sarandon, who would use the opportunity to complain that Karl Rove has been giving her movies one star on Amazon.com review sites.
As it happens, the Democrats saw a nice issue left on the ground, picked it up and gave it a close look: hmm. Tax relief. Crazy, but it just might work. And so we had the Republicans throwing money at the problem, and the Democrats proposing a moratorium on gas taxes. You almost expected Bill Frist to propose alternate fuels based on embryo stem cells.
Anything but drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, of course. Some GOP senators still balk at that. Look: The only possible reason for a Republican senator not voting to drill the heck out of ANWR is that he has been informed, in secret briefings, that the Earth will split and millions of armed Mole-Men bent on conquest and pillage will spill out. Make that liberal Mole-Men. Conservative Mole-Men could form a new base of support. But no: We can't drill anywhere, because some constituents at a tony fundraiser might make sad faces about the elk.
Rove, we're told, has a plan for '06: turnout. The base should choke it down and realize that a Democratic Congress would be anathema to conservatives: a big hard tax wedgie, cut and run from Iraq, Bush in the dock, no more judicial nominees, marriage licenses for gay ANWR elk, the full horror. So the strategery is simple: Turn out enough Republican voters to assure control of the House and Senate, but not too many -- wouldn't want them to get cocky. Give the Republicans another clear majority, and they may come up with some delightful plan to grant pre-amnesty and health insurance to unborn Mexicans, paid for with estate taxes and abortion-doctor license fees.
So now both parties are based on the notion that the other guys are worse. Wonderful. At least they agree on something.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/04/2006 10:56 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The base should choke it down and realize that a Democratic Congress would be anathema to conservatives: a big hard tax wedgie,
You mean as in 'big hard tax wedgie' in kind generated by later inflation caused by pork spending now?
cut and run from Iraq,
As opposed to cut and backoff as too many Reps are expressing second thoughts about the WOT that was approved by SJR 23 back in '01?
Bush in the dock
That's your problem for wanting to be loved rather than respected and using the full power of the law against traitors. Examples do influence people you know.
no more judicial nominees
Which are compromises anyway and you certainly showed your concern by not nuking Mr. Reid when you had the opportunity.
marriage licenses for gay ANWR elk
Since you have a majority in the Senate and you're not yelling at the American people today that we have the oil, but you don't want to drill anymore than the Dems - so what.
the full horror.
The Dems will have to invoke a Civil War by employing the Hugo Chavez model for 2008. Otherwise, I'm sitting this one out. Maybe, just maybe, when the Reps lose power they'll start playing to their natural voters and quit this crap about worrying what the Dems and their natural voters think about doing the right thing whether it is the WOT, immigration, spending, etc.
#2
The Repugs are gutless, sleazy whores and the Demoncrats are worse--much worse. If I had to go to the polls today I'd vote Repug but I'd have to hold my nose while voting and puke afterward. What the hell did we do as a nation to deserve such a sorry lot of bastards as the ones running our country now?
Posted by: mac ||
05/04/2006 19:22 Comments ||
Top||
#4
That is the problen isn't it, who in the hell can you vote for. Vote for Dem and we surrenfer to Jihadist, Vote For Repug we get Mexican invasion. hmmmmmmmmmmmm
IN OCTOBER of 1938, in the heat of the crisis over German intervention in Czechoslovakia, Winston Churchill appealed to the United States to help thwart the Nazi war machine. "Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance to aggression is unleashing war?" he asked. "I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace." The Allies were not prepared to resist German aggression at that crucial moment. The result was a policy of appeasement -- the infamous Munich Agreement -- which abandoned Czechoslovakia into Nazi hands and set the stage for Hitler's blitzkrieg in Europe.
In the current standoff with Iran, the West is approaching what can fairly be described as another Munich moment. Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that no resolution passed by the UN Security Council could make Iran give up its nuclear program. "The Iranian nation," he said, "won't give a damn about such useless resolutions." Here is an Islamo-fascist regime apparently determined to acquire nuclear weapons, destroy Israel, and extend its radical ideology.
What is the United Nations prepared to do? The Security Council is meeting to consider punitive action against the regime, but Russia and China oppose sanctions because of their extensive financial and strategic interests in Iran. The European Union negotiations involving Britain, France, Germany, and Iran -- all carrot and no stick -- have been a huge failure. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, meanwhile, remains a passive bystander.
What should the United States do to avoid another Munich? If the Security Council fails to confront the Iranian threat, America must form an international coalition to disarm the regime, enforcing a range of targeted political and economic sanctions. It must place the potential use of force squarely on the table.
As America's closest ally, and the only partner able to contribute extensively to military operations, Great Britain must forge a strategic alliance with Washington to check Iran's nuclear ambitions. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should hold crisis talks to discuss a range of options. Both the United States and UK should push for Israel's admission to NATO as a security guarantee against Iranian threats. Finally, the Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defense should discuss a potential Anglo-American military operation, sending a clear warning signal to the mullahs in Tehran.
Blair has already hinted at military action to halt Iran's nuclear development. In addition, British defense chiefs reportedly held secret talks last month with officials from Downing Street and the Foreign Office to discuss the implications of military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities
No one doubts that air raids against Iran would present serious political and military risks for both the United States and British governments. Bush and Blair have approval ratings at all-time lows. With growing disillusionment in the UK and the United States over the war in Iraq, a campaign against the largest power in the Middle East would face strong domestic opposition. For Blair, the issue could split his Cabinet and the ruling Labour Party and prompt a rebellion by left-wing backbenchers, who favor a policy of appeasement toward the mullahs.
Yet the British prime minister and his closest advisers are acutely aware of the strategic -- and moral -- threat posed by Iran. Through their experience with Security Council negotiations over Iraq, they also understand the limits of international diplomacy. They're likely to conclude that the risks to British national security of a nuclear-armed Iran outweigh the political drawbacks of military action.
When Britain and America faced a similar crisis -- a totalitarian menace and a feckless League of Nations -- they sought one another out. As Churchill implored his American audience: ''We need the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moral aggression; the resolute and sober acceptance of their duty by the English-speaking peoples and by all the nations, great and small, who wish to walk with them."
Britain will likely walk again with the United States if it is forced to confront Iran militarily.
Nile Gardiner is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former aide to Margaret Thatcher. Joseph Loconte is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and editor of "The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm."
#2
They still published it. I bet it has resulted in some heated discussions at the Globe, many of who's staff strongly believe in not publishing dissenting opinions.
#3
They still published it. I bet it has resulted in some heated discussions at the Globe, many of who's staff strongly believe in not publishing dissenting opinions.
They trot out Jeff Jacoby and Cathy Young (both great, BTW) for their token conservative and libertarian columns from time to time (although Jacoby's on a pretty short leash, IIRC).
When the Globe editors actually call for war with Iran, that will be big news.
#4
I'm sure The Globe will atone to their readership for this obvious mistake by devoting their Living Section entirely to stories spotlighting and championing gay lifestyles.
Oh, wait. They do that already...
#5
"staff strongly believe in not publishing dissenting opinions."
Most of Americas Mainstream Media routinely publish a range of voices on the "oped" page, thats what its for. If theyre biased, it cause of what the choose to highlight in the NEWS pages.
#7
Yeah, LH. I know that. Smart way to be if you don't want a building dropped on you.
Let's just say the Globe seems just a little too obsessed with how wonderful the lifestyle is, which is just one of the many reasons I very rarely read it anymore.
Almost everyone thinks Zacarias Moussaoui is mad except Zacarias Moussaoui, and now he will have a lifetime to ponder that curious fact. Those who believe he is insane got yet more evidence on Wednesday when he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 9/11 attacks, and reacted as if he had been acquitted. He clapped his hands and shouted, America, you lost. I won. After all, what sane person would react in such a way to being sentenced to life behind bars? As if to explain his bizarre behavior, CNN placed a video link immediately following its account of Moussaouis exclamation: Watch how Moussaoui grew up surrounded by pain -- 3:07).
Maybe Moussaoui did grow up surrounded by pain, and as an adult, driven insane by this pain, turned to jihad. His own lawyers, abetted by his sisters and some of his old friends, attempted to stave off the death penalty by mounting what has become known as the Officer Krupke defense: fans of West Side Story will recall how gang member Action explained his delinquency to Krupke: Hey, Im depraved on account Im deprived. If anyone was deprived, it was Moussaoui. According to his sister Jamilla, their father poisoned our lives. He left us completely destitute. ... He was a man who never should have had children. Moussaouis onetime friend Christophe Marguel testified that the future mujahid had a very hard time with racism in France. A clinical social worker, Jan Vogelsang, said that an upbringing like Moussaouis would place someone at risk to wind up in serious circumstances later in life.
Moussaoui himself would have none of this, dismissing it as a lot of American B.S. Nevertheless, the strategy apparently worked: he was indeed spared the death penalty. And to be sure, Moussaouis own erratic behavior has contributed to the impression that he is more than a little unhinged. Not the least of his strange outbursts was his reaction to video and audio of the destruction of the World Trade Center and the cries of the victims. Burn in the U.S.A.! Moussaoui shouted. No pain, no gain! For years he has sent long-winded, rambling legal briefs to Judge Leonie Brinkema, whom he dubbed the death judge. Brinkema, however, was herself not convinced that Moussaoui was crazy, writing in 2002: Its very, very, very significant that the day-to-day observations of the people in the Alexandria jail consistently negate any question about there being any serious mental illness or disease in Mr. Moussaoui.
But if he isnt insane, then what could possibly account for his behavior? Any normal person faced with either execution or life imprisonment might rejoice at being granted the latter, but why would Moussaoui characterize this as a victory for himself and a defeat for America?
The answer can be found in the ideology that motivated Moussaoui to get involved with Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 plot. He told prosecutors that he felt no regret, no remorse for 9/11: We want pain in your country. I wish there would be more pain. Why? At his death penalty hearings, according to AP, Moussaoui told jurors that Islam requires Muslims to be the worlds superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Koran searching for verses to support his assertions. One he cited requires non-Muslim nations to pay a tribute to Muslim countries. It is likely that he cited Quran 9:29, which commands Muslims to make war against the People of the Book (i.e.. primarily Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya, a poll tax not collected from Muslims, and feel themselves subdued. An echo of this verse comes through in Moussaouis statement that we -- the Islamic world -- have to be the superpower. You have to be subdued. We have to be above you. Because Americans, you are the superpower, you want to eradicate us.
Moussaoui made himself very clear. He identified himself as an adherent of the jihad ideology that fuels Islamic movements around the globe today, who are fighting in part because of the conviction enunciated decades ago by the Pakistani jihad thinker and politician Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi: he declared that non-Muslims have absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of Allahs earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. If they do, the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.
From this perspective, why should Moussaoui feel any remorse for what he did? As he put it, There is no regret for justice. He sees 9/11 as the Muslims doing their utmost to dislodge the infidels from political power. He believes that when he inflicts pain upon those who are at war with Islam, he is doing what pleases Allah. He is working for justice in this world.
Why did he consider his evading the death penalty a victory? Some have suggested that executing Moussaoui would just make him a martyr in the Islamic world. In fact, however, this is unlikely. Strictly speaking, Paradise is promised only to those who slay and are slain for Allah (Quran 9:111), not to those who die an ignominious death at the hands of Infidel corrections officers. While there is little doubt that a dead Moussaoui would nevertheless be lionized in the Islamic world as another victim of Americas putative war on Islam, he is of more value to the global jihad alive than dead.
There are several reasons for this:
[1] The verdict will be seen in the Islamic world as another manifestation of American cowardice and failure of will, akin to Bill Clintons withdrawal from Somalia after the Black Hawk incident -- which convinced Osama bin Laden that America could be beaten. A man who believes that the Almighty commands him to be merciful to his fellow Muslims but ruthless to the unbelievers (Quran 48:29) does not readily understand acts of mercy or forbearance as anything other than weakness. In this view a strong America would execute Moussaoui; a weak America allows him to live on.
[2] Moussaouis trial has aggravated the fissures between the United States and Europe. France has offered Moussaoui, a French citizen, consular protection. A living Moussaoui will be able to continue to try to worsen the tensions between the emerging Eurabia, made up as it is of terrified governments desperate to placate their growing and restive Muslim populations, and a U.S. still pursuing the war on terror.
[3] A living Moussaoui could become the Leonard Peltier of the jihad movement. Moussaoui executed will cause outrage for a moment; Moussaoui imprisoned will provoke outrage for a lifetime. For the next fifty years Moussaoui could become a symbol of American injustice: a rallying point for protestors, a new occasion for the international Left and the global jihad to make common cause. He himself has a tendency to make extreme, inflammatory statements -- so he will fit right in with the Lefts current crop of overheated rhetoricians.
[4] Moussaoui himself could become a heroic figure, most especially in whatever prison in which he is ultimately incarcerated. He will provide a new impetus for prison conversions to Islam, and a rallying point for jihad recruitment in his prison. This may be the most important reason of all why Moussaoui declared victory on Wednesday: he can see himself training up the next generation of mujahedin who will see his great battle for Allah through to final victory over the American Great Satan.
Of course, none of these reasons are likely to have been considered by anyone connected with Moussaouis sentencing. They were, in contrast, preoccupied with questions of Moussaouis sanity. It is unfortunate that they apparently did not understand or attach much weight to Moussaouis statement that suicide bombings were not crazy but based on Islam. If they had, they might have realized that by sentencing him to life in prison, they were only helping his cause.
Posted by: ed ||
05/04/2006 08:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
One can only hope that, like Jeffrey Dahlmer, Moussaoui with have his hoe moment!
#7
I don't see anybody believing a bit about Jeffery repenting. His brief bio just shows this:
Jeffrey Dahmer (17) The founding father of Cannibals Anonymous. As a kid, Jeff liked to torture and kill little animals. As an adult he did the same with humans. This Milwaukee chocolate factory worker lured gay, black men to his apartment for sex and drugs and instead killed them and had them for dinner.
Once his victims were dead, Jeff came to life. He enjoyed sex with corpses and was conscientious enough to always wear a condom. Sex with live beings was not as good, he said, because they could get up and leave at any minute. He also enjoyed mutilation and experimented with different ways of disposing of his victims. He once tried to turn one of his victims into a zombie by performing a homemade lobotomy on the man by drilling into his brain and pouring acid into the holes.
When captured, police found three dissolving bodies in 55-gallon acid vats in his bedroom. They also found four severed heads, seven skulls, skeletons in his closet and a penis in a lobster pot. Curiously, he had no food in the fridge, only condiments. In the freezer he had a heart stashed "to eat later." Although he enjoyed munching his loved ones, at the time of his arrest he was rail thin. In jail authorities managed to fatten him up. Jeff met his end when he was viciously attacked by Christopher Scarver, a convicted killer on antispychotic medication, while mopping the bathroom floor in maximum security. The lethargic cannibal died with a mop handle sticking out of his eye socket. At his mother's request, his brain was preserved in formaldehyde for future study.
A year after his death his parents battled over the killer's preserved brain. On December 12, 1995, the absurdist saga over his preserved brain finally came to an end when a judge ruled in favor of his father who wanted to honor his son's request of being cremated. The latest chapter of the Dahmer postmortem involved his personal belongings. A lawyer representing the families of some of his victims planned to auction Dahmer's possesions to raise money for his clients. The city of Milwaukee was outraged by the idea. As of May 29, 1996, Thomas Jacobson, the lawyer representing eight of the 11 families announced that Jeff's estate would be going to the incinerator instead of the auction block after a civic group, fearing bad publicity for their fair city, pledged to pay $407,225 for the famed cannibal's household items.
Wall Street JournalEFL'd. Peggy nails it, as usual.
Excuse me, I'm sorry, and I beg your pardon, but the jury's decision on Moussaoui gives me a very bad feeling. What we witnessed here was not the higher compassion but a dizzy failure of nerve. . . . It is as if we've become sophisticated beyond our intelligence, savvy beyond wisdom. Some might say we are showing a great and careful generosity, as befits a great nation. But maybe we're just, or also, rolling in our high-mindedness like a puppy in the grass. Maybe we are losing some crude old grit. Maybe it's not good we lose it. . . .
This is what the jury announced yesterday. They did not doubt Moussaoui was guilty of conspiracy. They did not doubt his own testimony as to his guilt. They did not think he was incapable of telling right from wrong. They did not find him insane. They did believe, however, that he had had an unstable childhood, that his father was abusive and then abandoning, and that as a child, in his native France, he'd suffered the trauma of being exposed to racial slurs.
As I listened to the court officer read the jury's conclusions yesterday I thought: This isn't a decision, it's a non sequitur.
Of course he had a bad childhood; of course he was abused. You don't become a killer because you started out with love and sweetness. Of course he came from unhappiness. So, chances are, did the nice man sitting on the train the other day who rose to give you his seat. Life is hard and sometimes terrible, and that is a tragedy. It explains much, but it is not a free pass.
I have the sense that many good people in our country, normal modest folk who used to be forced to endure being patronized and instructed by the elites of all spheres--the academy and law and the media--have sort of given up and cut to the chase. They don't wait to be instructed in the higher virtues by the professional class now. They immediately incorporate and reflect the correct wisdom before they're lectured.
I'm not sure this is progress. It feels not like the higher compassion but the lower evasion. It feels dainty in a way that speaks not of gentleness but fear. . . .
It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only be answered.
If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?
And if he didn't receive it, do we still have it?
I don't want to end with an air of hopelessness, so here's some hope, offered to the bureau of prisons. I hope he doesn't get cable TV in his cell. I hope he doesn't get to use his hour a day in general population getting buff and converting prisoners to jihad. I hope he isn't allowed visitors with whom he can do impolite things like plot against our country. I hope he isn't allowed anniversary interviews. I hope his jolly colleagues don't take captives whom they threaten to kill unless Moussaoui is released.
I hope he doesn't do any more damage. I hope this is the last we hear of him. But I'm not hopeful about my hopes.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/04/2006 06:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I don't want to end with an air of hopelessness, so here's some hope, offered to the bureau of prisons. I hope he doesn't get cable TV in his cell. I hope he doesn't get to use his hour a day in general population getting buff and converting prisoners to jihad. I hope he isn't allowed visitors with whom he can do impolite things like plot against our country. I hope he isn't allowed anniversary interviews. I hope his jolly colleagues don't take captives whom they threaten to kill unless Moussaoui is released.
I hope he doesn't do any more damage. I hope this is the last we hear of him.
From what I've heard, all of these hopes are substantiated enough that she doesn't have to worry (making this article possibly redundant) in the form of supermax...
#3
The political leadership hosed this one, as well as all terrorism cases within US borders by defining this as a criminal case. This is war in the most foul, to kill as civilians possible in the name of an Arabian moon god.
Posted by: ed ||
05/04/2006 9:27 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I agree that the result was unjust, but I think it was useful anyhow. We're at war, and at the moment some of our allies are at best rather wishy-washy. Blair may be solidly beside us, but what I read suggests that the meaning of the subway bombings hasn't fully set in for the electorate there; and the average Britain isn't with us in the war effort. {Of course that's filtered through the British media, so I could be wrong. HowardUK?}
For reasons I still don't fully understand, the death penalty really gets European panties in a knot. Moussaoui on death row would have caused a major row, making it harder for Europeans who understand the war to keep/win support. And that hurts our war effort.
So, a useful injustice. Could be worse.
Posted by: James ||
05/04/2006 9:47 Comments ||
Top||
#5
James, I do believe that "the meaning of the subway bombings hasn't fully set in for the electorate there; and the average Britain isn't with us in the war effort." If we don't want to have to deal with all of the world's problems ourselves, or really do need allies, then somebody's got to be around to deal with them for us or for us to ally with, and metaphorically shanking them for not hewing to your own ideology... doesn't that sound familiar?
To be honest, "a useful injustice. Could be worse," definitely applies, emphasis on the latter.
Honest to gosh, my message to certain people who might complain about that -- welcome to 21st century warfare. "Politicized, mediacized, PR-icized" is the new "crude grit."
Some radical feminists and anti-war liberals have very short memories. It's just three years after Saddam Hussein's ouster and some would have us believe the tyrant was in fact a protector of women's rights in Iraq. That Iraq under Saddam actually had progressive, pro-women policies that are now being "rolled back" thanks to the Bush administration.
A recent report by "Global Exchange" and "Code Pink" entitled "Iraqi Women Under Siege" concluded that "the occupation of Iraq has not resulted in greater equality and freedom for women" than they had under Saddam Hussein. Published by two radical feminist anti-war groups whose primary activities include protesting military recruiting stations, organizing anti-WTO protests and sympathizing with the regimes in North Korea and Cuba, this report echoes a long line of blatant pronouncements. Hillary Clinton who once said that after liberation there were "pullbacks in the rights that [women] were given under Saddam Hussein" and Howard Dean's infamous remark that "Iraqi women were better off under Saddam Hussein."
Anti-war revisionist liberals and radical feminists alike are trying their best to come up with comparisons of the Saddamist and post-Saddamist eras in Iraq with the aim of discrediting the historic liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein in 2003. With Iraqi women they think they have found a seemingly incontrovertible argument since Saddam, according to his apologists, was a "secular" ruler who gave liberal rights to women.
In a complex society like Iraq's, with its labyrinthine political and social development over the past 40 years, it is foolhardy to make simplistic comparisons based on a mere three years of post-Saddam liberation. Still, it is worth setting the record straight on how women really fared under the rule of this allegedly "benign" dictatorship. Revisionist history-writing must not prevail.
Much of the anti-war propagandists' defense of Saddam as a champion of women's rights rests on his willingness to allow women to vote (for him), drive cars, own property, get an education and work. What they choose to ignore, however, is the systematic rapes, torture, beheadings, honor killings, forced fertility programs, and declining literacy rates that also characterized Saddam's regime. A few examples can only begin to illustrate the cruelty and suffering endured by thousands of Iraqi women.
One torture technique favored by Saddam's henchman and his sons involved raping a detainee's mother or sister in front of him until he talked. In Saddam's torture chambers women, when not tortured and raped, spent years in dark jails. If lucky, their suckling children were allowed to be with them. In most cases, however, these children were considered a nuisance to be disposed of; mass graves currently being uncovered contain many corpses of children buried alive with their mothers.
During Saddam's war with Iran, nearly an entire generation of Iraqi men were killed, injured or captured, leaving a dearth of men of military age in Iraqi society. As a result, Saddam launched "fertility campaigns" that forcibly administered fertility drugs to school girls as young as 10 in an effort to drive up the population rate.
After the Gulf War--particularly after crushing the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings of 1991--Saddam reverted to tribal and "Islamic" traditions as a means to consolidate power. Iraqi women paid the heaviest price for his new-found piety. Many women were removed from government jobs and were not allowed to travel without the permission of a male relative. Men were exempted from punishment for "honor" killings--killings carried out on female relatives who had supposedly "shamed" their family. An estimated 4,000 women died from honor killings in the ensuing years. By 2000, Iraqi women, once considered the most highly educated in the Middle East, had literacy levels of only 23%.
Under the pretext of fighting prostitution in 2000, Saddam's Fedayeen forces beheaded 200 women "dissidents" and dumped their head on their families doorsteps for public display. These women obviously lost whatever "rights" granted to them once they got in Saddam's way.
Saddam Hussein was an equal opportunity killer who tortured, raped and gassed men, women and children alike. From Dujail in the South (the murder of hundreds of villagers for which he is on trial now) to the chemical obliteration of Halabja in the North, all Iraqis bore the brunt of the tyrant's wrath.
The revisionist history offered by those opposed to the Bush administration--whether it comes from bad judgment, a lack of information or a desire for political advantage--has grave consequences. A brutal dictator who tortures his own people cannot be a champion of women's rights. To pretend otherwise is to dishonor the memory of the thousands of innocent Iraqi women who died in a senseless brutal reign of terror. It also does a grave disservice to the men and women of this country who died or were injured to liberate Iraq.
The political participation of Iraqi women is a critical component in building a stable democracy in Iraq that respects human rights. So here, at the Independent Women's Forum, we've launched the Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative which trained over 150 pro-democracy women from every region, ethnicity and religion in Iraq in areas such as good governance, rule of law, civil society and the pillars of democracy. We had the privilege of working with many extraordinary women who went on to become members of parliament, ministers, local officials and key leaders in civil society organizations. We're also building the capacity of women-led non-governmental organizations in South Central and Southern Iraq through a small grant program, technical assistance and skills training. Hopefully, the brave Iraqi women who once suffered under Saddam can now freely promote change within their own society.
When we think about the women who lived under Saddam Hussein, we should recall the nameless young mother cradling her baby's lifeless body in the killing fields of Halabja. Iraqi women will never forget what life under Saddam was like. And the American forces who ousted Saddam deserve to be remembered for their heroic efforts and to go down in history as liberators. Ms. Rassam is director of international policy for the Independent Women's Forum.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2006 00:07 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Because the Dems see the possibility of gaining some House seats this election, and are praying for a couple of Senate seats. So, now they start beating the drums to rouse the faithful/special interest groups for money and votes. Also, trying to test memes for viability in 2008 -- to paint the Republicans as "anti-woman". The border issue is gaining traction and running more towards the Republicans who are more likely to support fences and the like. The Dems need a counterbalance issue.
The debate in the U.S. over how to contend with Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons goes like this:
Many conservatives worry that the Bush administration - stung by the backlash over Iraq and the president's sinking poll numbers - has sworn off the military option. They argue that endless discussion and attempts at diplomacy have only emboldened the Iranian theocracy.
Liberals counter that Iran's weapons program is over-hyped in the manner of Saddam Hussein's phantom nuclear arsenals. They worry we will soon stage another preemptive attack - if for no other reason than to wag the dog and shore up the president's approval ratings. And even if Iran gets the bomb, they argue, so what? Don't we already live with a nuclear Islamic Pakistan?
Most Americans, though, probably understand the current U.S. position. We are resigned to the fact that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is both unhinged and eager to get his own nukes - and that we must somehow stop him at the 11th hour.
For Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling mullahs, there is little downside to pursuing and perhaps eventually obtaining a nuclear weapon. The issue helps divert attention from the country's domestic problems, humiliates Western diplomats and threatens rival Gulf oil producers. Plus, Ahmadinejad can brag that Iran is now the Islamic state that most worries Israel while blackmailing European capitals soon in missile range.
Meanwhile, the United States, for a variety of understandable reasons, is not eager to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. A current parlor game imagines the nightmares of such a preemptive strike: It would be hard to know whether we eliminated all the centrifuges. Oil prices would get even worse. Some Shiites in Iraq might turn on our troops. Terrorists could be unleashed with dirty bombs in Western cities.
So, in the lull before the storm, the U.S. should pause, and allow its critics a chance to offer some utopian third-party or multilateral solution.
The solutions bandied about so far? Let the "seasoned pros" in Europe play the good, diplomatic cop to the "unpredictable, eager-for-a-fight" American bad cop. Or involve Russia and China in more diplomacy in hopes they will value regional stability over their own economic interests. Then there's the U.N. option - could the international body redeem itself after the oil-for-food scandal with sanctions and embargoes?
But given recent history, and how hell-bent Iran's leaders are on pursuing its nuclear program - for weapons, not, as they so often profess, merely for energy - it is hard to imagine that, on their own, these proposed solutions will amount to much.
The good news is that Iran, like all ossified societies in the current era of globalized communications, is unstable. The eighth-century theocrats in charge there could find their own citizens questioning whether a bomb is worth international ostracism and the threat of military strikes.
At the same time, what's happening now in Iraq must be of great concern to the Iranian leadership. Jawad al-Maliki, the new Iraqi prime minister, for example, is a nationalist. He, like other Iraqi Shiites, has shown he is not willing to be an Iranian pawn. As Ahmadinejad promotes death, how will Iranians react to images from Iraq of life-affirming free citizens in a new democracy?
In other words, will Iraq's new liberality prove more destabilizing to Iran than Ahmadinejad's agents can to Iraq? As Iraq's 300,000-strong army emerges as a well-trained and equipped force, one suspects the answer is yes.
Notice: George Bush has been relatively silent during the crisis; Ahmadinejad is the one losing his composure on center stage. Nearly daily he shouts to the cameras about wiping Israel off the map or unleashing his Islamic terrorists throughout the globe.
In the brief present window between Iran's enrichment and its final step to weapons-grade production, we must keep calm and give Ahmadinejad even more rope to hang himself. As his present hysteria grows, exasperated Europeans or jittery neighbors in the region may even prod the U.S. to take action - indeed, to be a little more unilateral and preemptive in letting the Iranians know that their acquisition of a nuclear weapon will never happen.
For now, our best peaceful weapon in the little time that we have left is, oddly, our own quiet and hope that a democratizing Iraq stabilizes, and in turn destabilizes undemocratic Iran. So let the loud Ahmadinejad continue to make our case why such a psychopath cannot be allowed to become nuclear. Meanwhile, give confident multilateral internationalists their long-awaited chance at diplomacy, and prepare for the worst.
#1
In general I agree.
But there seem to be MANY who don't hear the threats and belligerency, and apologize and advocate for this madman, much as they defend and apologize for the Pals, ignoring the blowed up jews.
Immigrants must learn English or country will suffer in long run
American, El Salvadorian and Mexican flags filled the air as hundreds of immigrants gathered in Washington on Monday to protest U.S. immigration policy.
Published: Thursday, May 04, 2006
NEW YORK - If there's one thing the United States should have learned from Canada's official bilingualism, it's that inserting two languages into the fabric of the national identity is a mistake.
While there were strong historical imperatives for putting French on an equal footing with English federally, most pure laine French-speakers still don't consider themselves Canadian.
In the United States, a similar division will become entrenched if Washington continues to allow the growth of regions or economic sectors where Hispanic immigrants can thrive in Spanish only.
So George W. Bush, the U.S. President, was on the right track last week when he insisted the U.S. national anthem should be sung in English only.
As is often the case with Mr. Bush, he didn't explain himself properly. And so his critics are gleefully pointing out he sang The Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish at stops at Hispanic festivals during his presidential campaign.
Others have shown that the lyrics, penned by Francis Scott Key as a poem in 1814, have been translated into several other tongues, including German, Latin and Yiddish. Even the U.S. State Department carries a Spanish translation on its Web site.
But in a week when the 40 million-strong Hispanic community demonstrated its economic and political power through huge marches, Mr. Bush rightly could not be seen giving any endorsement to redefining such a central national symbol.
Since the United States established itself as an English-speaking country, never has an immigrant group so threatened the "melting pot" concept.
In his book Empires of the Word, Nicholas Ostler argues English became the dominant language of the United States in large part because English-speaking colonists were far more likely to arrive in families than colonists from other parts of Europe.
Consequently, their numbers grew more rapidly than, say, those of the French, whose fur-trading coureurs de bois typified the single men who spread into new lands, but couldn't consolidate them.
Not only have Hispanics arrived with large families, they are immigrating at a time when the political correctness of the far left is succeeding in redefining the U.S.'s traditional nation-building principles.
It was once an accepted norm that immigration should satisfy the needs of the host country, whether they be to replenish an overall shortage of numbers or fill jobs in certain fields.
In the U.S. melting pot, immigrants were expected to assimilate. An essential part of this involved learning English so they could participate fully in the American Dream. Maintaining traditions was welcome, but not, as President Woodrow Wilson told new citizens in 1915, by "seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave behind."
But today the pressures of political correctness are so powerful anyone who speaks out against establishment norms is given legitimacy.
In the current immigration debate, the marches showed rights to redirect the United States should be extended not only to those who entered the country legally, but also to the estimated 12 million who arrived illegally.
#1
Amazing how millions of Slavs and Chinese were able to integrate into the American culture without bi-lingualism or multi-culturalism. Guess the leaders of the Hispanic interest groups are admitting to far lesser abilities among their population.
#2
Interestingly enough, Hispanics oppose bilingual education by higher margins than the general population. Think Jose Sixpck might know something his self-appointed "leaders" don't?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/04/2006 14:43 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I've always thought that an amendment making English the national language should be added to this (illegal) immigration "reform" program. Let's see how much these folks really want to assimilate and be part of America.
Think it'll happen?
#5
Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN
Are we "SLOW LEARNERS" or what?
Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
#6
PC allows not for a "Melting Pot" but for a "Salad Bowl". Reality is that a certain degree of colonization is being effected here on the border. Everybody in power down in these parts (Arizona) is studiously looking the other way while the Mexicanization of the culture takes place in a not so glacial manner. I see nothing to stop this trend given that evening questioning the issue labels one a racist.
#7
The danger facing the U.S. comes not from the imigrants (who in general are pursuing the American Dream). It comes from LLL "trustafarians" who hate everything America stands for. If you look at pictures of the marches, the anti US slogans were carried by American leftists who (unfortunately) are American citizens.
In fact, I would trade the folks from ANSWER for a like number of Mexican immigrants.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/04/2006 16:30 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Hispanics are also learning English at least as quickly as any other immigrant group
Yep, that's why I see four or more channels on Dish or Direct TV that are purely Spanish. Like I see just as many other ethnic channels, right? Just like when I walk into Walmart or Sears and hear the commericals or read the signs in multiple other languages. Oh wait, maybe just one other. Do they do the same, but in French in their stores up near the Canadian frontier with Quebec? Last time I saw those tourist from Canada they did a darn good version of English this side of the border.
#9
Mexicans vary tremendously depending on where they settle down in the US. In LA they are often ghetto-ized, with resultant problems more related to poverty than integration.
In Phoenix, they heavily integrate and are absorbed with great speed, quickly becoming middle class.
In the majority-Mexican county in Arkansas where everyone works for Tyson, it is like little Mexico, with no integration at all.
#10
Mr. Wife's father was taught completely in Polish until the sixth grade. His was the last year, though (born in 1936). His four younger brothers were taught exclusively in English. A bit of culture shock within the family, it was.
All immigrant groups huddle together for cultural and linguistic familiarity. It's generally the children that learn to speak English well. The true stereotype is of the child translating for Mama at the grocery store and the bank.
#13
3dc, I actually heard some stat on Boortz that a good proportion of third gen Mexicans were on welfare because they knew the system, had no fear of deportation & no ambition to work in contrast to their grand parents. I can't remember the exact number but it was over 40%.
Grab your black armbands kids, UCLA is mourning Israeli independence
Israels independence coincides with expulsion of thousands of Palestinians who still feel the effects
How can anyone protest a birthday? A day of joy, of happiness, of picnics, parties, barbecues and in this case Israeli flags fluttering in the wind. Surely nothing in this picture, to the average Bruin, should merit such protest. And all who participate in such an act of protest are merely anti-Semites who wish for Israel's death. It's a bit harsh, yet this simple and inaccurate analysis is one that prevails this time of year after the annual celebration of Israeli Independence Day. As one who has participated in these protests yearly, I hope to clear some misinterpretations.
Yearly, members of the Muslim Student Association and other groups protest Israeli Independence Day celebrations, but in reality, they are more sad than angry. While others commemorate Israel's establishment, those protesting against Israel's independence day mourn the day Israel expelled more than 700,000 indigenous Palestinians from their homes through coercion, massacres and the destruction of homes and property. Before 1948, the land now known as Israel belonged to the Palestinians. Somehow, those who realize this just can't seem to wear a smile this time of year, let alone a party hat.
Frederick Douglass once said in a famous address, "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?" He answered, "A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim." This is the same with the Palestinians, because not only do Israeli independence celebrations remind them of that horrible day, but they also remind them of the tremendous cruelty they are now inflicting suffering.
There is nothing like Israeli Independence Day to manifest Israel's current total disregard of the Palestinians. It is celebrated as a supposedly peaceful, apolitical and patriotic event that no one should think of as disturbing. At UCLA it is filled with flags, Israeli songs, food and other cultural establishments, all of which serve the political purpose of creating the false facade of normalcy erasing from history what that day did to the Palestinians, as if Israel is just like any other nation.
But Israel is not like any other nation. It continues to maintain a cruel military occupation of what little there is left of Palestine. It continues its construction of an eight-meter-high concrete wall that seizes Palestinian homes, farmland and water resources. It continues to violate international law by illegally establishing and expanding numerous civilian settlements in the occupied territories, forcing the Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas as over 400,000 Israelis crowd the settlements. And thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are killed, often for no reason at all. According to the American Educational Trust's Web site, rememberthesechildren.org, Ra'ed Ahmed Al-Batash, an innocent 11-year-old bystander, was shot and killed with his brother by an Israeli missile blast during a "targeted" assassination last March. In the same month, Akaber 'Abdul Rahman 'Ezzat Zayed, only 8 years old, was killed by a live bullet to the head during an Israeli incursion.
When a nation that commits the crimes Israel has celebrates without any question, it is lying, creating a false reality. There is no longer an outrage, just people singing and dancing. The silent protest on Israeli independence has a clear objective. It is a protest against the repeated use of such celebrations to erase what happened on the day Israel became a nation by never mentioning it and pretending that Israel is currently not committing any atrocities.
Israel's state holiday is also the day of Palestine's largest tragedy. If those celebrating Israel's independence also recognize what Arab reaction to Israel's independence did to the Palestinian people and if they recognize that Palestinian deprogramming independence and dignity is just as important and critical to a long-lasting peace perhaps there would be less of a reason to protest.
I don't know where to start with this one. So many historical inaccuracies and such clumsy writing aimed at undermining American interests and paid for by American taxpayers too. Another proud moment for academia.
#6
Lena Khan, a UCLA student and member of the Muslim Student Association, stated that the goal of the week was to have people see the Palestinians as people, because the media and all the sources you have about the conflict dehumanizes it and most people have no idea whats going on. Khan expressed her distress over the fact that any Jew around the world may easily return to the Land of Israel and become a citizen, whereas the Palestinian Arabs cannot. When asked why the surrounding Arab countries persistently refuse to provide refuge to their Palestinian brethren, Khan disregarded the question and replied, they are far too explosive.....nationalities are made up of entities the point is that they [the Palestinians] were living therethat was their land.
#9
I see the Palestenians as "people". Stupid people who keep voting to let themselves be led by violent terrorists, then are shocked that they have to pay consequences for their criminal barbaric behaviors.
Come get me for empathy once they wise up. Until then, they are no more worthy of empathic consideration than were the segement of the German population that brought and kept Hitler in power.
To be an American citizen is very much like being the child of a wealthy and unscrupulous criminal 'Godfather,' who appears to be kind and generous to his own children at home, but is unflinchingly treacherous and murderous in conducting his family business, which is based on coercion, domination, exploitation, and violence. The average US citizen enjoys prosperity and relative freedom, but US prosperity derives in large part from the criminal exploitation of, and frequently the outright murder of, millions of innocent people in developing countries throughout the world. Most US citizens choose to remain in a perpetual state of denial regarding the criminal activities of their government, because they lack the courage and the character to learn and face the truth. An unquestioning acceptance of the values, motives, and goals of the US government by the majority of US citizens allows those citizens to be easily fooled and manipulated by the propaganda presented to them by the US government and by the US government-controlled 'Mainstream Media.'
From early childhood, US citizens are raised on a steady diet of pro-US government propaganda that is fed to them at school and at home through the media of television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and popular music. The propaganda presents the US government as an ethically superior exemplar of justice for the entire world, as an exceptionally generous contributor to global economic development, and as a benevolent arbiter of world affairs. Furthermore, a great deal of crucial information about US political history, particularly regarding events of the past half-century, is not taught in US schools and is never allowed to appear in the Mainstream Media outlets.
According to the US Census report of 1998, 12.7% of the US population lives in poverty, 15.7% lack health insurance, and at least 38% of the wealth in the USA is owned by just one percent of the US population.
The personal wealth of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates exceeds that of the total combined wealth of the poorest 45% of US households, which amounts to at least 133 million people. The USA has the highest concentration of individual wealth in all of the industrialized nations, and about three times that of the second-placed nation for concentrated wealth, which is Germany. The USA also leads the world in the number of its citizens who are incarcerated in prisons: one out of seventy-five US males are in prison, of whom 68% belong to racial or ethnic minorities. As of 2003, 12% of the USA's black males in their twenties were living in prison, compared to 3.7% of the USA's Hispanic males and 1.6% of the USA's white males. Balance of this communist drivel at the link.
Any chance we can do a comparison with Russia on those numbers?
#3
I nevah wanted this for you, GW. I thought it'd be "Governor Bush"..."Senator Bush".
But, Don Poppy, I made it to "President Bush".
Oh, yeah. So I guess we did all right. Hand me my Flit gun, willya? The tomatoes ain't lookin so good.
WHEN pop bestsellers tell you something's bound to happen, bet on the opposite result. Now globalization is supposed make our values and tastes converge: Nascar Americans and Islamist terrorists will come to their senses and give each other a hug.
Don't believe it for an instant. What we're really witnessing, from Europe through the Middle East and Africa to Latin America, is the reassertion of local identities and beliefs.
The tribes are back.
On a recent trip through West Africa, I saw how native religions persist - to the identical frustration of Christian evangelists and Islamist missionaries. In Indonesia a few years earlier, I met "Muslims" clinging to beliefs whose roots pre-dated Islam. From Sulawesi to Sonora, "Christian" practices aren't always Vatican-approved.
In every case, the tenacity of local traditions defeated global models.
Even in Europe - the continent that supposedly was marching at the double-quick toward complete homogenization - recent votes, protests and legislation reinforced national identities (and for Basques, Welsh and Piedmontese, an even narrower one).
Rather than making the masses feel connected (on the Internet or otherwise), the tempest of forces we lump together as "globalization" leave men and women around the world feeling threatened and disoriented. In consequence, they turn to what they trust: exclusive identities, local beliefs and fundamentalist religion.
The heralds of "ice-cream-sundae globalization" - the notion that trade, connectivity and converging tastes will lead the world to realize humanity's common interests - aren't at the cutting edge of thought. They're 30 years behind the times.
The golden age of globalization theory passed in the late 1960s and 1970s, when campus commissars insisted that tribes didn't exist and nationality was an artificial construct, that such "assigned identities" were imperial Europe's inventions, that humanity's true beacons of hope shone in Third-World dictatorships.
The intellectual porn of left-wing fantasies foresaw the defeat of capitalism and the rise of the new, liberated, post-national man. All that's left are Che Guevara t-shirts and the dead of Srebrenica, Cambodia, Rwanda and dozens of other tributes to human solidarity.
Yet the pop prophets are still calling this one wrong. Why? The answer's straightforward: When they travel the world, they interview their own kind, other journalists or academics, government officials and successful businessmen who can afford a plasma TV, a Mercedes-Benz and Johnny Walker Blue.
What the globalist prophets are witnessing isn't the convergence of the masses for a chorus of "We are the world," but the rise of a new, globe-spanning aristocracy. Their books describe the golden crust on the half-baked human loaf.
What's stunning is how old patterns refuse to disappear. You see it not only in the stubborn persistence of Flemish or Baluchi identity, but also in the retreat of the new aristocrats behind their castle walls, from guarded compounds in Bangalore to ranches in Jackson Hole.
Just as yesteryear's aristos did, today's nobility of wealth and culture see themselves as above nationality. Patriotism is fodder for the peasants (unless it can be exploited for profit). They have far more in common with business partners across the globe than with the guy who fixes their plumbing. They intermarry across borders and forge alliances based on their own interests - as the Tudors, Valois and Medici did before them.
This new aristocracy is less attached to a passport than to a lifestyle. As for those who can't afford the price of admission, let 'em eat cake.
There is, indeed, a globalizing class. But the emergence of that super-class doesn't portend the globalization of humanity. For the masses, the flight from flags isn't toward a new borderless meta-identity, but back into old, enduring associations: tribe, faith, family - and bigotry.
As for those tribes that the professors insisted didn't really exist, go to Africa (or Iraq) and ask people who they are. Nineteen times out of 20, they'll respond with the name of their tribe: Kikuyu, Asante, Fulani, Igbo, rather than Kenyan, Ghanaian, Senegalese or Nigerian. Elsewhere, people no longer want to be Spaniards or British or Turks, but Catalans, Scots and Kurds.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, in Pakistan and Burma/Myanmar, in Sudan, Congo and Bolivia, old, deeply rooted identities trump those assigned by European boundary commissions. Owning a laptop or satellite dish won't make an ethnic or religious zealot a benign citizen of the world.
Globalization as we know it has not encouraged a sense of common humanity among the masses - only a sense of common interests among the new aristocracy (with no sense of noblesse oblige). For the billions left outside the gated communities, globalization has excited fear and revived old hatreds: It's revelry for the rich, rivalry for the poor.
Even in our own society - the best-positioned in the world to profit from globalization - there's a worrisome divide between the multinational executive who retires with a $400 million farewell smooch (and who naturally supports globalizing trade), and the worker maxing out a credit card to pay for a tank of gas - to whom globalization means a threatened job, even if it also means cheaper underwear.
Perhaps "the poor will always be with us." But globalization rubs their faces in it. That's hardly a prescription for peace in our time.
The point isn't that globalization is good or bad - it's both - but that it's vastly oversold when it comes to reforming human character and weakening group identities. Along with commercial integration, we get social fragmentation. In Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the sense of "who I am" now more closely resembles that of the 15th century than the 20th century.
As for those bestsellers promising that the Dow's about to soar to 36,000, or that we've seen the "end of history," or that the world is flat and becoming benign - well, if the authors put their money down on red, put yours on black.
#1
This opion piece mushes a lot of things together and prefers polemic to analysis. I'll leave the economic aspects alone and comment on the social aspect of the global information village. The article tries to impose a physical location model on what is essentially a locationless phenomena. When it comes to geopolitics I have more in common with a resident of the Burg than I do with my next door neighbor, but when it comes to the local school and the traffic problems caused by the 3:30 pickup, I obviously have more in common with my neighbor.
The reality is that the internet and other information technologies reinforce all kinds of communities, from crofters in the Shetland isles worrying whether there will be enough seaweed to feed their sheep to geeks who want to scan for transmissions from alien civilizations.
The dichotomy presented is false. It's not either globalization or local identity, both can flourish. The risks from globalization lie elsewhere.
#2
The point isn't that globalization is good or bad - it's both - but that it's vastly oversold when it comes to reforming human character and weakening group identities. Along with commercial integration, we get social fragmentation. In Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the sense of "who I am" now more closely resembles that of the 15th century than the 20th century.
He's got some good points. In the U. S. we're much more factionalized than we were in the 20th century. In large part this is due to changes in communications. In the 20th century media were newspaper, radio, and television. All of these are capital intense, one way, top down communications that were easily controlled by the elite. In the 21st the emerging media are the internet and talk radio, two way, interactive, many to many communications. This allows many dissenting, minority opinions to be spoken and heard.
Both the Rantburg community and the local traffic community are smaller, more intimate, more 15th century communities than the mass movements of the 20th century that buried such fine distinctions.
#3
I dislike how he tries to muddle any non-internationalist identity into tribalism. And yes, as a reaction to greater levels of internationalism, we do see the re-emergence of some tribalism; but we also see the re-emergence of pagan religions and nationalism.
Then there is the difference between world-wide internationalism, and "continentalism" or "bloc-ism", such as the EU or NAFTA. In part these lesser organizations are moving in the direction of world internationalism; but on their own, they represent barriers to a world organization.
To boil it all down: all politics is local; the greatest impact organizations have on people is in their home towns. Progressively greater levels of organization affect people less and less, and as such, they are less and less desireable.
Nations, for the most part, evolve into the largest possible natural organization of a people. Beyond nations organizations are contrivances--conveniences of governments and businesses, not peoples. That is why there will never be a grand European army, any more than a NAFTA fighting force--there is no natural cohesion.
#4
As for those tribes that the professors insisted didn't really exist, go to Africa (or Iraq) and ask people who they are. Nineteen times out of 20, they'll respond with the name of their tribe: Kikuyu, Asante, Fulani, Igbo, rather than Kenyan, Ghanaian, Senegalese or Nigerian. Elsewhere, people no longer want to be Spaniards or British or Turks, but Catalans, Scots and Kurds.
I'm from Texas, what country you from? Sorry, Ralph has written better than this. Too long in Africa I suspect.
#5
...go to Africa (or Iraq) and ask people who they are. Nineteen times out of 20, they'll respond with the name of their tribe...
When I lived in Australia people would ask me where I was from. When I told them I was an American, they said, "I know that, but from where?" (And that was always difficult to answer. Last place I'd lived was California, but I didn't want to try to pass myself off as a Californian. I grew up in Missouri, but nobody had heard of that.)
Similarly, if you're an American in the US and people ask you where you're from, they don't want to hear, "I'm an American." That would be crazy. They want to know what state or town you're from. Maybe this is the same phenomena, on a larger scale.
#6
The title is a bit of a misnomer. The tribes aren't back, since they never went anywhere. Not much of the world has progressed to an understanding of a "nation". If anything, the "tribes" cited haven't moved anywhere for millenia, if ever.
Just as Europe lead in civilizing much of the world, these areas need civilizing as well. Referring to "globalization" may just be a fancy way of labelling barbarians with the ability to acquire advanced weaponery and rudimentary training.
The blog Atlas Shrugs has the text of Hirsi Ali's presentation to the New York Public Library as part of PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature. Ms. Ali understands.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
