#2
In other not-necessarily-unrelated news, WAPO OPINION - THE END OF FREE TRADE; + DRUDGE [JWR] > GEORGE WILL - A RICHARD NIXON REVIVAL INFECTS BOTH PARTIES. Besdies Hillary, Obama, etc. WILL argues that HUCKABEE IS A PER SE ANTI-/COUNTER-REAGANIST???
PRAVDA > NEW YEAR 2008 MAY DESTROY THE US STRUGGLING ECONOMY + TOP FIVE WARNING SIGNS FOR THE US ECONOMY IN 2008. IOW, RUSSIA + PUTIN = RUSS EURASIA? will save the West, World, God and Western Capitalism/Free Enterprise.
Ajmal Masroor
Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism does not come as a surprise to anyone but I would have liked him to turn to Islam instead.
This could be because the author is a Muslim, but at least he tries to give a few reasons for his preference in a matter that's none of his damned business.
Blair has claimed on many occasions that he has read the Quran and has said he found its teachings "progressive".
I haven't read the Koran. I started reading it when I was a young fellow and laid it down because it was a hopeless hodgepodge with no internal consistency. I was assured that it made sense in Arabic. I believed that until I learned a bit more about linguistics and translation, to whit, that while the translation may lack the poetry of the original, even a minimally competent translation will in fact reflect whether or not the original idea made sense. I'm assuming Blair is being polite when he describes the Koran as "progressive."
He is right that the Quran is progressive and as a revealed book of God, it is the latest testament.
Only if you accept that it's a work that's revealed by God. My opinion is that if it was revealed by God it would have made sense, regardless of which language it was presented in.
Why would Blair turn to the older versions of God's testament when there is the Quran?
Probably because he regards it as authentic, or representative of the culture he grew up in, or worthwhile, or some combination of the three.
His conversion sounds rather regressive to me.
We've said similar things about Muslims here, regarding them as stuck some time in the 7th century A.D.
Different denominational churches within Christianity are part of the same house. If the Church of England was not providing our former prime minister with spiritual fulfilment changing to another denomination within the same house surely will not make substantial difference.
I'm not an expert on the Church of England. I leave that to Chris Johnson. I do know a little bit about Protestantism, having read some of Wesley's sermons and some Knox, and I know a bit about Catholicism, having read some of the usual authors, starting with the Baltimore Catechism. I suspect that's more than Ajmal Masroor has done. That's why all Christian denominations look alike to him. I can't speak for Blair, but I suspect that the Church of Rome, still giving regular consideration to matters of sin and redemption, defining good and evil, and the continuity and brotherhood of not only the world's largest Christian denomination, but of the mass, celebrated every day since the Acts of the Apostles, hold more for him than the diluted skim milk and incessant infighting offered by Archbishop Rowan's Anglicanism.
If he is looking for reform and spirituality, he should come to Islam.
If he came to Islam looking for reform he'd no doubt be welcomed with open arms until some takfiri chopped his head off. "Reform" implies innovation, which is a bad word to Salafists.
Blair has said the Quran strikes him as a reforming book "trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the Christian church centuries later". If he so admires the Quran for its reformist outlook, why turn to Christianity and particularly Catholic Church, which has been plagued with centuries of baggage?
The temporal church gave us Julian II and the first John XXIII, the sale of indulgences and the suppression of reform as heresy. The spiritual church somehow survived them all and gave us consideration of the elements (admission, contrition, and penance) necessary for the forgiveness of sin. Most importantly, Catholicism is a core of Christianity, the central premise of which is to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and to "love thy neighbor as theyself." Both of these ideas are missing from Islam.
In an article published by Foreign Affairs early this year, Blair spoke of the Quran as being inclusive.
So is Christianity. It's always accomodated both master and servant.
His new Church has been the most exclusive and in the name of its own version of Christianity has murdered and destroyed the lives and properties of many fellow Christians over the years.
That's that temporal versus spiritual church. I've occasionally used the Papal States an an example of what government shouldn't be. Islam adopts that model by preference, tossing the temporal and the spiritual into the same pot and assuming that holy men are going to be pure enough of heart to administer the state without dipping into the till, much less diving in head first. I'm too polite to point out that Muslims are shooting, booming, chopping, and otherwise bumping each other off both casually and in the name of Olde Tyme Religion each and every day.
In his role as a Middle East envoy he would have won the hearts and minds of the Muslim world if he had come to Islam.
He'd also have lost his existing consituency.
He might have found redemption for his crimes against Iraq and its innocent people.
Against the innocent Egyptians, Soddies, Syrians, Jordanians, and other riff raff who came swarming in to kill and maim Iraqis regardless of religious stripe, whether Sunni or Shia or Christian or Yezdi?
His conversion to Catholicism would no doubt remind the Muslim world, especially the Arab world of the history of the Crusades. The blood of millions of people still stain the cobblestones of the Holy Land from the cold-blooded murders committed in the name of Christianity and was blessed by the then Papacy in Rome.
The Crusades -- the Christian equivalent of holy war -- came about because the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem and the other holy sites were oppressing pilgrims. Given that the Christian world should have refrained from crusading, so also should the Muslim world have confined itself to Arabia, rather than destroying the ancient civilizations of Persia and Egypt and North Africa. Certainly no Moors had any business in Iberia, yet today's turbans make a point of mooning over lost al-Andaluz, where the natives kicked them out.
According to Blair, Islam "extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition". I agree, but why has he embraced Catholicism with its history of hostility towards science and is embedded with superstition? If Jesus (may peace be on him) was to descend today and walk into a church he would not recognise anything that Christians are practising in his name. So why then convert to Catholicism?
If Christ were to walk into a mosque I doubt he'd be very happy at all. I believe he mentioned a time or two that it takes more than the mere forms of worship. For all the head banging and butt waving of Islam, there's precious little of that "love thy neighbor" to be found, and even when it's found, thy neighbor had better be a Muslim, otherwise his worldly goods are there to be despoiled.
Blair was very clear in his words when he said Islam "is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance".
Its time, on the other hand, was the 7th century. In the 7th century King Alfred hadn't yet had his cakes.
If Islam is a religion that values family and respects women why has he converted to a church that prohibits its priests from getting married, whose holy man are dogged by accusations of homosexuality and paedophilia?
The Roman church -- unlike the Orthodox -- adheres to priestly celibacy. Those indulging in homosexuality or pedophilia are violating their office, much as are Muslim holy men when they bugger their madrassah students. The difference is that the church doesn't threaten to murder those bringing the charges, as the ulema occasionally does.
Blair certainly admires Islam. He said "under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and culture." If I admired a faith so much I would convert to it.
Maybe he admires the accomplishments of his own society more? Islam ceased leading the world in discovery, art and culture. It was the West that picked up that ball as a byproduct of separating religion from government and commerce. Within a few years Islam had been left in the dust as the West discovered concepts like individual liberty that Islam still hasn't picked up on.
So I am baffled to know why he has converted to Catholicism and not embraced Islam. Islam certainly stands for tolerance and demonstrates this by giving a special status to the Christians and Jews calling them people of the Book - Ahl al-Kitab.
And by having olde sayings like "O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come and kill him."
Christianity does not do the same. Blair reminded us that "the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones". Yes, but why has Mr Blair converted to Catholicism? Surely he stands for tolerance, progress and good governance.
Prob'ly because it's not the early Middle Ages anymore, at least not in the West.
And finally I have one last question for Blair. Did you not say "the faith of Islam is very peaceful and a very beautiful faith"? Why have you not tried Islam?
Maybe because if you try it and discover you don't like it they kill you when you try to leave.
I do not want to dismiss your journey to spirituality, but it is not too late to try Islam - you may like it.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Apparantly the Muslim in question is unaware of white lies to avoid making offense. I'm particularly suprised since Islam is so easily offended you'd think they'd be onto the game by now. The author is a fool.
#3
Or maybe he didn't join islam because he realized all that he said about it was bullshit and he was just saying it to keep the average towel-head from overheating. Or maybe he still enjoys Christmas?
#7
""the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones"."
This ignores all the Convert-or-Die slaughter that went on by Muslims during their destruction of the Eastern Church and the desert Fathers. Thats the Push that inspired the Crusades.
Since the advent of the rule of the Mughals a millenium ago, central policy in India has discriminated against the Hindu majority within the country. The Mughals favored those of Turko-Iranian origin, followed by those who converted to Islam. The British, during two centuries of rule, implemented policies that deprived all except those of European origin of basic human rights.
Much has been made in Indian history texts of the cruelty of the 1857 mutineers against colonial rule, who killed around 300 individuals of European descent during a brief spasm of violence. But little mention is made of the retribution that followed, in which an estimated 65,000 natives were killed, some from the mouths of cannon. Several "rebel" villages were torched, usually together with their inhabitants.
Neither has there been much reflection on the manner in which British rule reduced India to poverty. From around one-fourth of global output at the start of the 19th century, the share of the subcontinent fell to one-tenth of that by the time the British flag was lowered in New Delhi in 1947.
Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had been educated from boyhood in Britain. He was so insecure after the British left that he requested the last viceroy of India, Louis Mounbatten, to remain as "free" India's first governor-general and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. British control over the Indian army helped to prevent the full takeover of Kashmir by India in 1948, creating in the process a sore that has festered ever since.
Nehru also relied on British economist Nicholas Kaldor to fashion tax policies that punished the very merchant class that had funded the Congress Party's decades-long struggle against the British. Ironically, the new government was as hostile to Indian entrepreneurship as the colonial power had been, and the country's economy was soon straitjacketed by a "socialist pattern of society."
While laws were passed that overrode Hindu customs ( including, it must be said, retrogressive ones such as caste), Nehru took care to exclude the Muslims and other minority groups from such legislation, thus retaining the separatist mindset which had resulted in the creation of the "Muslim" state of Pakistan out of "Hindu" India.
As a consequence of carrying forward policies that saw the Hindus as a threat and therefore sought to place them on a level below those of the minorities in India, while Hindu temples are subject to state control, churches, mosques and other minority houses of worship remain free. Several ancient temples are now administered by atheists or other non-Hindus in states across the country, and the donations that pour into them from Hindu devotees are sequestered by the state. In education, while Hindu managements face severe restrictions and controls, managements that are Christian or Muslim escape almost all such state-mandated limitations on their freedom.
Since Sonia Gandhi took over the governance of India in 2004 and appointed a prime minister from a minority faith, there has been an explicit bias in policy favoring minority groups at the expense of the Hindu majority, and a conscious effort to sideline officials seen as "practicing Hindus" -- those who regularly visit temples -- on the grounds that they are "Hindu fanatics."
By contrast, almost none of the numerous bomb explosions that have taken place in Congress-ruled cities across India -- such as Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad -- have been traced to the perpetrators, because of an informal prohibition against "stereotyping" that prevents the police from intensive investigations in the mainly Muslim localities where the perpetrators are believed to be sheltering.
Such "partial" secularism, in which only Hindus are expected to be secular while Muslims and other minorities remain free to practice exclusionary practices, has led to a Hindu backlash across India. This found its first major expression in the Dec. 23 verdict of the electorate of Gujarat state, who re-elected the state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, despite a well-funded rebellion within the ranks of his own party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as the enmity of almost the entire television and print media.
The media correctly see him as posing a possibly fatal challenge to the Nehruvian policies that were embraced by the first BJP prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was as deferential toward Sonia Gandhi's interests as members of her own Congress Party had been in the past. Modi thus challenges not only Sonia Gandhi but the Vajpayee cohort in his own party, who have for decades enjoyed a cozy and lucrative relationship with the Nehrus.
Despite occasional public posturing, in practice, the present crop of BJP leaders has been content to share in the spoils of the present Nehruvian state system. All, that is, except Narendra Modi, who defied his party leadership in making Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh -- both of whom, being Christian and Sikh respectively, belong to minority groups -- the target of his verbal barbs, despite strictures from the Sonia-friendly Election Commission.
Wresting Gujarat from this potent challenger was crucial to the continued salience of Nehruism, but the strength of the Hindu backlash against policies that penalize the majority community ensured a handsome win. The results have led to apprehension throughout the Nehruvian establishment, including almost the whole of the English-language media, that "Moditva" may spread to other states.
It may even within the next five years lead to a takeover of the central government by the Gujarat chief minister, who comes from near the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, but who has emerged as the favorite of tens of millions of Hindus irrespective of caste, who seek parity with the minorities in running their houses of worship or educational and other institutions.
As Malaysia has shown, the advent of globalization and the demonstrated ability of Hindus to compete with the rest of the world have led to a renewal of confidence in a community of 840 million that has been kept at the margins for more than a millennium. The message of Gujarat is that the cry for parity by the Hindu community in India has become a political wave that could upset the Nehruvian system of partial secularism that has prevailed in India since 1947. Dec. 23, 2007 is a genuine turning point in the politics of the world's largest democracy.
Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 15:05 ||
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#1
It is mystifying why Hindus haven't in recent years taken to suppressing the Muslim minority. The obvious drive to push them into Pakistan and Bangladesh could have long been an incentive based form of ethnic cleansing. Make it easy for them to leave.
But militant Hindus have long been unclear on their objectives, instead of focusing on their enemies, they put too much effort into elevating Hindus.
#2
From around one-fourth of global output at the start of the 19th century, the share of the subcontinent fell to one-tenth of that by the time the British flag was lowered in New Delhi in 1947.
I have to laugh at this statement. On the basis of what statistics are we to believe that India generated 1/4 of global output at the beginning of the 19th century? Are we to believe that a pre-British India without primary schooling, railroads, Industrial Age equipment and so on was more productive than the India after the British ran the place? I understand Indians (Hindus and Muslims alike) have this love for mythology. What Indians need to stop doing is substituting myths for facts when writing their history. It makes them look like parasites and congenital liars rather than potential allies of the West.
#3
"At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise."
- Strabo
""there is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of fifty million sesterces,"
"India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us. For what percentage of these imports is intended for sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead?"
-Pliny the Elder
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 21:58 Comments ||
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#4
he Nationalist Movement in India
by Jabez T. Sunderland
The Atlantic Monthly
October 1908
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/08oct/nationmo.htm
Another cause of India's impoverishment is the destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the British first
appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. The source of her wealth was largely her
splendid manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were famed not only all over
Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they are gone, destroyed.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 21:59 Comments ||
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Six hundred years ago, China and the area that is now India accounted for about 75 percent of global GDP. Europe was insignificant, and America still lay undiscovered beyond the Atlantic. Then, Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator led an effort to develop superior ships and nautical technology, enabling his captains to get around Africa and develop sea routes that would evade the Arab/Venetian-controlled overland
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 22:01 Comments ||
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#6
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 22:10 Comments ||
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#7
Based on such scholars as Bairroch, Parthsarathi, Gura and Pomeranz, Davis brings forth many facts that shore up his argument. 1) In 1800 India's share of the world manufactured product was four times that of Britain, and China's share was even higher. By 1900 India was fully under British control and the ration was 8-1 in England's favor. 2) In 1789 the living standards of China and Western Europe were roughly comparable and it appeared that China was making even better progress with its ecological problems. Naturally, a century later Europeans and Americans were much better off. 3) Despite all the many claims made on behalf of British rule in India, Indian per capita income stayed the same from 1759 to 1947. And contrary to the Malthusian argument, its population didn't grow very much. 4) Indian and Chinese rulers actually had before 1800 a good record of mitigating famines, and one British statistician suggested that whereas for the previous two millennia there was one major famine a century, under British rule there was one every four years.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 22:17 Comments ||
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#8
John, please spare me the contradictory material from Sunderland and Prestowitz, who have but one thing in common - both are American dilettantes in the field of economics. Sunderland, the economic socialist, asserts that countries lose wealth by exporting. Prestowitz, the economic mercantilist, asserts that countries lose wealth by importing*. In neither instance is there any statistical information about what India and China actually produced. We get these airy figures out of nowhere.
The stuff about Britain spiriting wealth out of India is a myth. The Brits bought things from India and sold things to India. Unfortunately for India, its habit of projecting Indian habits (of screwing the other guy) meant that they believed the Brits were screwing them in some way via trade. This led to almost five decades of economic autarky combined with stagnation. It is only now, with it starting to export again, that India is regaining the economic vigor that it attained under the British. Note that economic vigor does not mean that the modern equivalent of Gandhi's hand-operated looms will not become extinct (in the manner of the buggy-whip industries mourned by Sunderland) - it means only that India is progressively becoming more and more open to the free competition that it never encountered prior to its opening by the British Raj.
* Prestowitz believed that Japanese mercantilism would lead it to the top of the economic heap, that Japan would overtake the US in terms of total GDP, never mind per capita GDP. We know that never happened.
#9
John, none of your quotations are based on statistics. In today's world, with computers, good roads, airplanes, etc, we can't get a good count of the Chinese or Indian populations. How do you get national output without a count of the population? Extrapolation of the value of exports to the general population is not a good way of counting national output. The highest value items produced by China are sold to the West. The value-added introduced by the Chinese is perhaps 10% of the cost of the item exported. But if we extrapolated the total value of those items to the Chinese population at large, we'd get a number several times that of annual US output. Please stop regurgitating those staples of Indian mythology here. Just because an American dilettante agrees with you doesn't mean it's correct.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 22:42 Comments ||
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#12
John, Angus Maddison is a socialist who came up with the graph in the article Capitalism and the rise of world poverty. If it were up to him, India would still be a closed economy today.
#13
I find particularly amusing this little snippet: Angus Maddison has been an advisor to the governments of Brazil, Ghana, Greece and Pakistan and has travelled widely in developing countries as part of his research interests. A socialist who pulls numbers out of the air hands out advice to governments around the world. My feeling is that they came away with a pretty good feel for how to make silly wild-assed guesses about the past, but little more.
The USA not only has much smaller unemployment, but has expanded employment faster than population.
This is not due to demographic differences - the American age structure is similar to the European. American policy is job creating. European policy inhibits the growth of employment.
The difference between the functioning of European and American capitalism can be seen by comparing real income and productivity outcomes in the two areas.
In many European countries, labour markets are highly regulated, with minimum wages, constraints on the freedom of enterprises to fire redundant workers, restrictions on working
hours and other regulations which are intended to prevent downsizing and protect those who already have jobs (see Siebert, 1997). In conditions of sustained labour slack they discourage
employers from hiring workers and discriminate against the unemployed. Practice in public enterprises mimics that in bureaucracy - with an aspiration for lifetime job security, long
vacations, status and perquisites. In some hopelessly uneconomic enterprises, jobs are protected by huge subsidies - e.g. German coalmines.
The European economy would have been sounder with more flexible labour
markets, less micro-meddling, and more expansionary macropolicy.
Certainly not your typical socialist rant....
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 23:27 Comments ||
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#15
Hmm...
Global Capitalism: The Solution to World Oppression and Poverty
By Andrew Bernstein
Regarding living standards, one expert, Angus Maddison, states that economic growth during the centuries 500-1500 was non-existent; and that per capita income rose by merely 0.1 percent per year in the years 1500-1700. In 1500, Maddison claims, the European per capita GDP was roughly $215 per year; in 1700, roughly $265. Contrast such economic stagnation with the capitalist epoch, the years 1820 to the present, in which Western Europe and the worlds other freest nations' total economic output increased sixty times, and per capita income grew to be 13 times what it had been previously. The European population roughly tripled during the 19th century while per capita living standards steadily rose. 13
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 23:47 Comments ||
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#16
JF: He is a socialist?
From the looks of the following passage, Maddison appears to be no socialist at the present moment:
Other European powers were losers in the British struggle for supremacy. By the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch had lost all their Asian territories except Indonesia. The French were reduced to a token colonial presence in Asia, and lost their major asset in the Caribbean. Shortly after the war, Brazil established its independence from Portugal. Spain lost its huge colonial empire in Latin America, retaining only Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Britain took over what the French and Dutch had lost in Asia and Africa, extended its control over India, and established a privileged commercial presence in Latin America.
Other losers included the former rulers of India, whose power and income were usurped in substantial part by the servants of the British East India Company. Under their rule, from 1757 to 1857, Indian per capita income fell, but British gains were substantial.
Between 1820 and 1913, British per capita income grew faster than at any time in the past - three times as fast as in 1 700-1820. The basic reason for improved performance was the acceleration of technical progress, accompanied by rapid growth of the physical capital stock and improvement in the education and skills of the labour force, but changes in commercial policy also made a substantial contribution. In 1846 protective duties on agricultural imports were removed and in 1849 the Navigation Acts were terminated. By 1860, all trade and tariff restrictions had been removed unilaterally. In 1860 there were reciprocal treaties for freer trade with France and other European countries. These had most-favoured nation clauses which meant that bilateral liberalisation applied equally to all countries.
Free trade was imposed in India and other British colonies, and the same was true in Britain's informal empire. China, Persia, Thailand and the Ottoman Empire were not colonies, but were obliged to maintain low tariffs by treaties which reduced their sovereignty in commercial matters, and granted extraterritorial rights to foreigners. This regime of free trade imperialism favoured British exports, but was less damaging to the interests of the colonies than in the eighteenth century, when Jamaica could only trade with Britain and its colonies, Guadeloupe only with France.
The British policy of free trade and its willingness to import a large part of its food had positive effects on the world economy. They reinforced and diffused the impact of technical progress. The favourable impact was biggest in North America, the southern cone of Latin America and Australasia which had rich natural resources and received a substantial inflow of capital, but there was also some positive effect in India which was the biggest and poorest part of the Empire.
Innovations in communications played a major part in linking national capital markets and facilitating international capital movements. The United Kingdom already had an important role in international finance, thanks to the soundness of its public credit and monetary system, the size of its capital market and public debt, and the maintenance of a gold standard. The existence of the empire created a system of property rights which appeared to be as securely protected as those available to investors in British securities. It was a wealthy country operating close to the frontiers of technology, so its rentiers were attracted to foreign investment even when the extra margin of profit was small.
From the 1870s onward, there was a massive outflow of British capital for overseas investment. The United Kingdom directed half its savings abroad. French, German and Dutch investment was also substantial.
At the same time, it has to be said that this doesn't make his wild guesses any more accurate. How can native Indian industries that are so easily displaced by foreign imports be said to be somehow part of a more productive economy? It would seem that India's closed pre-British rule economy was productive in the same way that Soviet factories were productive prior to the Soviet collapse at the end of the Cold War, that is to say, it wasn't very productive at all. The interesting aspect of this passage by Maddison is that it states that India was the poorest part of the Empire, while being the biggest, due to its massive population (estimated at 255m at the beginning of the 19th century). It may well be that India's population had expanded to the Malthusian limits of its time. China's population reached those levels in a much bigger land mass, and the Taiping Rebellion was the result.
Sometime within the next six months or so, al Qaeda or Saddamist terrorists will attempt a Tet offensive.
No, Middle Eastern mass murderers don't celebrate the Vietnamese festival of Tet, but trust that America's enemies everywhere do celebrate and systematically seek to emulate the strategic political effects North Vietnam's 1968 attack obtained.
This spring marks the 40th anniversary of Hanoi's offensive (yes, 40 years, two generations). It will also mark the umpteenth time American enemies have attempted to win in the psychological and political clash of an American election what they cannot win on the battlefield.
In the course of Tet 1968, North Vietnamese, American and South Vietnamese forces all suffered tactical defeat and achieved tactical victories; that's usually the case in every military campaign. At the operational level, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) suffered a terrible defeat. As NVA regiments emerged from jungle-covered enclaves and massed for attack, they exposed themselves to the firepower of U.S. aircraft and artillery. The NVA units temporarily seized many cities at the cost of extremely heavy casualties.
However, Tet achieved the grand political ends North Vietnam sought. Tet was a strategic psychological attack launched in a presidential election year during a primary season featuring media-savvy "peace" candidates. "Peace" in this context must be italicized with determined irony; in the historical lens it requires an insistent blindness steeled by Stalinist mendacity to confuse the results of U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam (e.g., Cambodia's genocide) with any honest interpretation of peace.
Reflecting on Tet in a 1989 interview with CBS News' Morley Safer, NVA commander General Vo Nguyen Giap said: "The war was fought on many fronts. At that time the most important one was American public opinion." He added: "Military power is not the decisive factor in war. Human beings! Human beings are the decisive factor." (See Howard Langer's "The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations.")
Giap knew attacking U.S. public opinion was a classic anti-U.S. ploy. In 1864, politically shattering Abraham Lincoln was a key Confederate goal. The Confederates launched limited offensives (Early's attack on Washington) and bitterly resisted Union attacks, particularly in Virginia where Ulysses S. Grant's limited success was achieved at an enormous cost in casualties. The Confederates' political message: "We remain militarily powerful. The Abolitionist Party will never defeat us. Lincoln is a mad man, a dictator, a gangling fool from hinterland Illinois whose war aims are delusional." That message dovetailed (pun intended) with the campaign message of Copperhead Democrats like Ohio's Clement Vallandigham. (The Copperheads were the "peace wing" of the Democratic Party.) In reality the Confederacy was an impoverished wreck split by Union armies. Its only hope was the psychological erosion of Union will.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his ilk, arguably our era's Vallandighams, have already declared Iraq lost. Last week Reid hedged his defeatist rhetoric. However, al Qaeda and Saddamist plotters are betting a deadly spasm of bombs and subsequent media magnification will give Reid a reason "to clip his hedge."
Their "ultimate Iraqi Tet" would feature simultaneous terror strikes in every major Iraqi city. These simultaneous strikes would inflict hideous civilian casualties with the goal of discrediting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's and General David Petraeus' assessments that Iraqi internal security has improved. The terrorists would reduce Iraqi government buildings to rubble. Striking the Green Zone would be the media coup de grace, intentionally echoing North Vietnam's assault on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. Al Qaeda terrorists would also attack Shia shrines. Kidnapping or assassinating of senior Iraqi leaders would be another objective.
Actually executing a genuine Giap Tet-type offensive in Iraq, however, borders on fantasy. On a daily basis Iraq's assorted terrorist organizations and militia gangs want to cause such system-shaking, simultaneous carnage, but they don't because, well, they can't. A Giap Tet requires a level of coordination the terrorists have never exhibited because they simply don't have it. It requires internal Iraqi political support that the terror cadres and militias lack; fear is not a political program.
Still, the terrorists will attempt a series of terror spectaculars, and kill several hundred civilians in the process, because -- in the quadrennial turmoil of an American presidential contest -- sensational carnage that even momentarily seeds the perception of defeat is their only chance of victory.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 15:43 ||
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#1
I have the utmost respect for Col. Bay, but both AQI and it's parent AQ have been trying this very thing for years, the last attempt around Ramadan, and have thus far failed miserably. I believe that David Petraeus knows the sorry history of Vietnam and is quite aware of the obvious.
Information to the American public is no longer strictly controlled by the media. So the MSM won't be able to get away with the outright lies and fabrications like Cronkite and company enjoyed.
Bloggers and the like will call their bullshit for what it is - just ask Dan Rather. Between fabricated photos to fabricated missle attacks on ambulances to fabricated civilian casualties.
#3
This time our Generals and our Commander in Chief had better be working to circumvent this "Tet Offensive" before it happens. And have everyone that will be impacted in Iraq and the public in America versed on this possibility, if the terrorists are able to pull it off.
#5
This is why Bloggers, and their 'reporters' need to be invited to and attend press briefings and conferences. Particularly white house press conferences - if the Press Corps doesn't like it hold separate conferences elsewhere (with real journalist and bloggers) where you give the meat-and-potatoes version of the briefings and give the press corps the baby-food version - since that is about what they are anymore.
CHRISTIANS who face persecution, torture and death in some parts of the world are martyrs for their faith, the Pope says.
In a message to pilgrims on the day after Christmas - the feast day of St Stephen, considered the first Christian martyr - the Pope said Christians who die for their faith pray for forgiveness for their killers. "We should always note that this is a distinctive characteristic of the Christian martyr - it is exclusively an act of love, towards God and towards men, including the persecutors," Pope Benedict told crowds in a rainy St. Peter's Square. "Christian martyrdom reminds us of the victory of love over hatred and death," he said.
St Stephen was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem at a time when Christianity was first starting to spread. The Pope said such martyrdoms continued to this day. "It is not rare even today that we receive news from various parts of the world of missionaries, priests, bishops, monks, nuns and lay people persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, deprived of their liberty or prevented from exercising it because they are disciples of Christ and apostles of the Gospel," he said.
The Pope did not give any examples, but it is less than two weeks since an Italian Catholic priest was stabbed in his church in Turkey, the latest in a spate of attacks on Christians in the predominantly Muslim country.
Another Italian priest in Turkey was shot dead in his church by a teenager in February, and in April three Christians had their throats cut at a Bible publishing house there.
Today, Hindu hardliners in India burned and damaged 12 churches, killing at least one person, in an outbreak of violence sparked by the reported injuring of a local Hindu leader by a Christian group.
#2
Freakin' Hindus are killin' Christians too, if I'm reading Worldwide dispatches from RB correctly this day. And having spent the last 72 hours w/ my in-laws I'm in no mood to turn the other cheek.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
12/26/2007 16:12 Comments ||
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#3
WND > POPE BENEDICT - HUMANITY IS "TOO PREOCCUPIED" WITH ITSELF. Vanity of Vanities.
And now you know, Virginia = Moriarity, why the true seriousness/consequences of otherwise seemingly MINOR/BENIGN/SUBTLE ASTEROID SPACE + EARTH EVENTS won't be realized or understood by PCorrect Earth Perts until too late. The good news for humanity and future OWG-SWO is that MOTHER MARY ISN'T GABRIEL.
O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, though it may be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest ye swerve, and if ye distort justice or decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that ye do. (Quran 4:135)
In a Dec. 7 Op-Ed in The New York Times, Ayaan Hirsi Ali asked where the moderate Muslims were, and concluded that the very notion of a moderate Muslim majority was wishful thinking.
Some of us had come to the very same conclusion.
Alis claims are echoed by many prominent commentators on the American right, and judging by the comments left on The New York Times website, by many average Americans as well. But the popular idea that mainstream Muslims either do nothing to condemn (or worse, secretly applaud) the outrages perpetrated in the name of our religion is not only reductive and misinformed it is dangerously wrong as well.
The vast majority of the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims are indeed moderate, peace-loving people who reject violent extremism and terror.
And we'd appreciate it if they'd get their crazy cousins under control. It would make life a lot easier for all of us.
Moderate Muslims are all around us, from the attorney and husband of the rape victim from Saudi Arabia; to the delegation of British Muslims who traveled to Sudan and worked with Sudanese member of parliment Ghazi Suleiman to secure the teddy bear teachers release (and prove that the entire controversy was more about distracting international attention from Darfur than it was about Islam); ...
... which illustrates how easily Islam can be used by radicals and crazed killers to divert the attention of, oh, a billion and a half moderates ...
... to the literally hundreds of thousands of Muslim individuals and organizations in the United States and around the world that expressed shock and disgust at the events which Ali cites.
And then send money to the Widows Ammunition Fund, since we all know that the most pressing charitable need for the families back in the old country is for more ammunition. The issue here is the disconnect between what the moderates say in public versus what they say in private, and do with their wallets, and with their children ...
Ali conveniently omits these facts from her narrative just as she plucks a single verse from the Quran, devoid of any context in order to create a black-and-white fantasy world of Muslim radicals versus civilized Westerners.
Seems to be a lot of that going around, usually in the finer madrassas in Wazoo, the Frontier, Saoodi-controlled Arabia, Yemen and Hamastan.
Yes Ms. Ali, verse 24:2 of the Quran sets out a harsh punishment for adultery but verse 24:4 requires four eyewitnesses (an almost impossible standard to meet) and, more importantly, verse 24:5 states that the punishment should not be applied to those who sincerely repent. (So much for your argument that the Quran orders believers to show no compassion).
And so much for convicting a rapist, which some would argue was Mo's point.
Ali may make headlines by writing polemics condemning Islam as a backward religion and the new fascism, but in the meantime Muslim organizations like the one I am a member of, Muslims for Progressive Values, will continue to quietly but effectively do what we can to counteract the hateful nonsense that regretfully is being taught as Islam in far too many places.
If "Muslims for Progressive Values" can persuade moderate muslims to wake up and sit on their crazy cousins, fine and dandy, but I get the sense that it's just another group engaged in a little taqiyya.
Moderate and even progressive Muslim organizations can be found all over the world, but we are too busy working within our communities to promote a message of reform and tolerance to do as Ali asks and rise up in horror every time some lunatic commits a crime in the name of our faith.
Isn't rising up to condemn atrocities one way to promote tolerance?
Nor should we be expected to do so.
Why not? We asked Americans of Irish ancestry not to send money to NORAID.
It seems that Ali would like me and my co-religionists to go about our lives constantly marching around the streets apologizing for the acts of zealots but I will not do so, for I bear no more responsibility for these acts than she does.
You don't have to march in the street following every atrocity. You do have to make abundantly clear that you stand against these atrocities.
Moderate and progressive Muslims are everywhere, but we are ignored and marginalized by the media and by commentators like Ali.
Isn't it your job then to speak loudly enough that the MSM and commentators won't ignore you? Seems to me that every advocacy group has that problem.
It seems that in our modern age of sound bites and one-liners, strident if uninformed criticism will always outperform calm and reasoned debate. If Ali is serious about supporting tolerance among Muslims, perhaps she should spend less time penning distracting and misleading screeds against Islam and more time reaching out to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims for Progressive Values, Al-Fatiha, and Sisters in Islam.
If you're grouping yourself with CAIR, then I know what I need to know about you.
The only way to prevent the clash of civilizations from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy is to build bridges between our communities.
Which is as much your responsibility as hers, or ours. You can be a Muslim, but you also have to be an American. And it's your responsibility to ensure that the two mesh, not mine.
Promoting a black-and-white caricature of reality serves no one least of all the tolerant Muslims Ali cant seem to find anywhere she looks.
This article starring:
Muslims for Progressive Values
Muslims for Progressive Values
Posted by: Fred ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
A moderate Muslim is one who has not openly picked a side yet. Waiting to determine which is the strong horse. Spineless cowards.
#4
Muslim bookstores are full of "sahaba" literature, which glorifies the plunder and murders committed by Muhammed and his "companions." The Western media refuse to learn anything of Muslim "sunna" or emulation of the pedophile "prophet." He participated in 59 acts of aggression against innocents and rivals. His first slaughters were against traders, who fell victim to his plunder. Muslims have a low regard for "disbeliever" (kaffir) life. They mix in Western Civilization like oil mixes with water.
#5
Since 95+% of the acts of terrorism in the world today are committed by Muslims, Muslims have a much greater responsibility to condemn and demonstrate against these atrocities than non-Muslims - and they have utterly failed to demonstrate in substantial numbers after any of the major terrorist attacks against non-Muslims in the last decade.
#7
Islamic pluralism means there are Muslims who will slice your throat for being infidels and Muslims who will write an op-ed afterward saying that Islam is the ROP. Both can pray together.
#8
Speaking of overcounting, Kareem Elbayar is a proud propagandist of the 8 million muslim meme. Gotta outnumber those Jew monkeys. Also 911 was really about poverty. Cause the $300 million dollar man and his 15 fellow Saudi oil teat piglets were oppressed by poverty. Only massive American jizya will make the muslims like us. Oh, and make the Jews give into the Paleos.
Some in the ummah fight the kuffar with the sword, others with the pen.
Posted by: ed ||
12/26/2007 8:58 Comments ||
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#9
Yet another "moderate" declaring the extremists are somebody else's problem.
And lining up alongside CAIR.
When Muslim communities in the US expose their members who are holding slaves, rather than come to their defense or ignore them, then we can talk.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/26/2007 12:27 Comments ||
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#10
the number of meaningfully "moderate" muslims is certainly much smaller than the above article states, as several here have noted. The problem is, there are really four categories -AQ and similar believers in an imminent caliphate, folks with little interest in the caliphate but whose politics are far too radical to be called moderate (like the Khomenist Shia, and folks who use terror for "local" issues like Hamas), fence sitters (as mentioned above) and genuine moderates. The genuine moderates are probably 10% or less of the total. Its not surprising that they have difficulty admitting the problematic nature of the fence sitters. OTOH its still not in our interest to confuse the fence sitters with the actual radicals.
#11
OTOH its still not in our interest to confuse the fence sitters with the actual radicals.
This fellow recommends we talk to CAIR. He's neither a moderate nor a fence sitter.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/26/2007 13:43 Comments ||
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#12
How in the hell do you become a moderate Muslim and follow the terrorist teachings of Muhammad? Do you moderately beat your wife, moderately behead non-muslims?
Reminds me of the moderate Nazis we hear some much about...
You may not like it but there are verses in the Bible, both NT and OT, which could be used (and have been used) to justify violence. Its true that they are far fewer than in the Koran and its also true that Christian and Jewish authorities have interpreted these verses to be either no longer applicable or to refer to very narrow circumstances or similarly to make them inoperative while there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of imans and mullahs who teach that the koran justifies violence.
#14
On Saturday night I, a American Christian of English extraction, attended an Eid party with my family. I was one of about eight men socializing in the living room. Most were professionals in their 30s; all except me were of Pakistani origin and Muslim faith. The main subjects of conversation were the housing and mortgage markets, soccer, and politics -- especially the upcoming Pakistani and U.S. elections. Just for the record, they were all hospitable and friendly. And just for the record, they have the same issues with Pakistani and American candidates that I do: the candidates are shallow, self-serving, and are not pursuing the good of the people. Their biggest problem with George Bush is that Bush did not quickly and forcefully condemn Musharif's sacking of the supreme court. They feel the weight of U.S. policy on Pakistan and they want U.S. influence to be positive. They want democracy, not judges swearing allegiance to a dictator. You cannot convince me that these Muslim men are a threat to us. I've felt more threatened by some of my own Christian politically-liberal relatives.
"How in the hell do you become a moderate Muslim and follow the terrorist teachings of Muhammad?"
Good question. And what about moderate Christians who fail to follow the teachings of Jesus? Who here will throw the first stone?
CAIR is a bunch of pansy apologists for folks like Hamas. I got no problem with TALKING to CAIR, just as long as we dont treat CAIR as true moderates, or appoint theyre folks as chaplains, and all that.
#16
Good question. And what about moderate Christians who fail to follow the teachings of Jesus? Who here will throw the first stone?
Christ didn't order the beheading of all the men in a tribe and the enslavement and rape of its women.
You can fail to follow Christ's example and still live a peaceful life, treating people well and being a force for good. The only way you can treat people well and live in peace is to ignore Mohammed's example.
It's an unpleasant truth, but a truth none-the-less.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/26/2007 15:46 Comments ||
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#17
CAIR is a bunch of pansy apologists for folks like Hamas. I got no problem with TALKING to CAIR, just as long as we dont treat CAIR as true moderates, or appoint theyre folks as chaplains, and all that.
Except, of course, we do. And TALKING to them legitimizes them. Ignore them, focus on finding true moderates, and strengthen the voices of the moderates.
CAIR deserves every criminal prosecution they can get; that the press doesn't remind their audience of the long history of terrorist ties with them is disgraceful.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/26/2007 15:55 Comments ||
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#18
Irshad Manji had an interesting cab ride yesterday,
"... a Sudanese Muslim cab driver went out of his way to show me hospitality [taking a fare after his shift in a rainstorm]. At the same time, however, he proclaimed the genocide in Darfur a Western lie, then endorsed the thrashing of a British teacher involved in the Mohammad teddy bear case,"
#19
Irshad Manji had an interesting cab ride yesterday,
"... a Sudanese Muslim cab driver went out of his way to show me hospitality [taking a fare after his shift in a rainstorm]. At the same time, however, he proclaimed the genocide in Darfur a Western lie, then endorsed the thrashing of a British teacher involved in the Mohammad teddy bear case,"
#1
The Qurans Isa is not an historical figure. His identity and role as a prophet of Islam is based solely on supposed revelations to Muhammad over half a millennium after the Jesus of history lived and died.
Basically Mo made the whole pIslam storyline up. Good straight read.
#2
IMB/IMHO, my interpretation or reading of NOSTRADAMUS' "ISA", etc. other quatrain surnames, as within the narrow or specific scope of a presumed coming Muslim-Islamic "Prophet" or "Messiah", WILL WRITE A BOOK OF REVELATIONS BESIDES ALSO REVEALING THE PAST WORD/BOOKS OF GOD. NOSTRY quatrains > so-called "ISA" is a JANISSARY?, by historical Janis definition a CHRISTIAN WARRIOR IN THE SERVICE OF ISLAM = CHRISTIAN [SPIRITUAL/MORAL]CONVERT TO ISLAM, i.e. NOT A FORCED CONVERT??? Nostry also indics that ISA may be a descendant andor skilled in the covert arts of the CULT OF THE ASSASSINS/
MAMELUKES??? "Reddish complexion" fits very well as it implies an ideo and genetic bridge between AFRICAN-MEDITERR versus EURO-NORDIC [African-ME /"Dark" Islam + Euro-Roman/"White" Christianity]??? Lastly, NOSTRY > describes a "PERSE" - besides PERSIA = IRAN, also denotes "THE RED ONE".
#3
Forgot to add that NOSTRADAMUS quatrains also denotes or infers a future worldwide WAR OF THE MESSIAHS/SAVIORS = WAR BETWEEN THE MESSIAHS/SAVIORS. * BOOK OF REVELATION > the "Queen/Whore of Babylon" suppos sits at the head of the Table-Council of Nations = World Leaders [Children/Heirs?]???
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.
CHRISTIANS who face persecution, torture and death in some parts of the world are martyrs for their faith, the Pope says.
Kareem Elbayar, Arab News
