#2
The implications of the court decision, if true, will be far-reaching.
I consider this to be the equivalent of 'the lights going out in Europe' and it will be a long time before they come on again.
Regardless of the 'poor press' that the French have been receiving over the years ... it's only now, with this court decision, that I've come to see what whores and cowards they truly are.
God help them.
Posted by: Michael Sheehan ||
10/19/2006 14:28 Comments ||
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#3
France has realigned themselves with muslim nations. Beyond whore - perfidity.
#1
Interesting read. Thought this was flawed, though:
"Now, conscriptionlets call it the c-wordis almost as unthinkable politically as the g-word is morally. Our practical choice, however, following the loss of a city or two, would be between these two unthinkables, the g-word and the c-word, civilizational annihilation or civilizational makeover."
First of all, who would argue that the Middle East is "civilized", at least in the Western definition of the word?
Second of all, if there actually were to be a "super" battle in the Middle East and American forces were conscripted to fight it, doesn't he imagine that the losses to America would be large? From the point of view of a Westerner, why would large loss of American life, surely a given in such a future world war as it was in previous world wars, be preferable to gargantuan loss of ME life?
#2
I don't know : will the West (assuming here the USA, but others would join too) would be able to pull a genocide?
I can picture nukes being fired in anger in a "3-conjecture" fashion right after a city gets wiped out... but toward which objectives? If boots on the ground are needed to eliminate the threat, would you imagine western soldiers actually killing civilians in drove, on purpose?
I Don't. I could imagine a Boer war-like brutality (concentration camps for ennemy civilians) a and WWII cities/infrastructures killing campaign with high collateral deathtoll, but no genocide in the actual meaning of the word.
#5
Yes, but it took decisive victory, total submission through total defeat, something missing from modern warfare since the korean war IIUC.
It's true that the Cold war and its various "liberation struggles"/proxy wars put an hold on this type of total warfare, but I wonder if this could still be achieved, or if our societies have "evolved" beyond that?
It's not even asking if, say, modern french young men could endure WWI-like casualties without having society collapse, but if we would be even capable of inflicting similar casualties on others?... "Public opinion" as a tool of the "progressists" in their undermining of the West?
#7
In fact, the idea of a genocide being perpretated against the paleo is a recurring victimization meme (again : "paleos are WWII jews, joooooooos are nazis"), and this sin't new; there's an awful song by a leftist singer called renaud (whom I actually like, even though he's a despisable alcoholic, france-hating creep) written right after the Haysel (sp?) stadium tragedy, back in 85 IIRC, which is about Margaret Tatcher (all men are evil, wimen are not, except MT), with lyrics saying "palestinians and armenians can testify a genocide is masculine, like an SS or a toreador".
so, for the fashionable far left, already back in 1985, the paelos were being genocided by the joooooos.
#8
"it took decisive victory, total submission through total defeat, something missing from modern warfare since the korean war IIUC...I wonder if this could still be achieved, or if our societies have "evolved" beyond that? "
Yes. It depends on how badly we want to win. It depends on whether Westerners have the intelligence to see what the loss of our civilization would mean. It depends on remembering what we are fighting against.
Scenario 1-The ME suffers horrible losses, the West suffers fewer losses.
Scenario 2-The West suffers horrible losses, the ME suffers fewer losses. Hello, sharia and the caliphate.
Scenario 3-A third side emerges, opposing the West and the ME. Haven't thought this one through yet, but exactly what military forces would make up such a side?
Scenario 4-Both sides (maybe more than both-several sides) suffer horrible losses. Whose civilization would win the default?
Scenario 4-Neither side suffers horrible losses in a world war. (in terms of numbers, this seems about where we are-jaw jaw, stagnation, aggravation). Slow, seeping losses, year after year. Can't last forever-something will give, sooner or later.
Scenario 5?
Scenario 6?
#11
..Oh have no doubt, if someone gets a nuke in here - or even a dirty bomb - and gets it set off, we'll pull the trigger on someobdy.
I'm going to use the scenario I've give to others since 9/11 -
Imagine one where you don't have Aaron Brown on top of a building a mile away showing you the column of smoke, but instead a handicam from ten or fifteen miles away showing a mushroom cloud.
Imagine one where you don't have Fox running nonstop updates and commentary and that crawl at the bottom, but one where there is no sound, no video, just a card on the screen that says "STAY WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL THE ARMY GETS THERE."
Imagine one where the Usual Suspects aren't telling us to stay calm and think about the other side's motivations, but instead they themselves are dead or dying in that pit, and their surviving fellow travelers know that they too were targeted and all their words and efforts didn't matter, because the enemy still wanted them dead.
There will be no pause for reflection, no consideration of the Other's feelings, just a cold, rational response that will burn down the Caliphate once and for all.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/19/2006 11:31 Comments ||
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#12
Conscription is a terrible idea.
It's possibly the most direct and worst case of state slavery.
The death we will rain down form missles, and inflict up-close and personal will be terrible, but they wil lcome if we are pushed hard enough.
Pebbles, you're full of shit. The worst state slavery is the Caliphate. Conscription, if needed to generate the numbers to eradicate the threat to our freedom, is a proper response for a free state to take. Or are you stupid enough to beleive that our forebaers were slaves in WW2 and the defeat of socialism and fascism?
The context here is after a nuclear attack on a US city with casualties in the 6 or even 7 figure range.
Our only alternatives are to either glass the middle east and commit genocide via nukes, taking out al the major Islamic holy sites, and al the major cities in the region from Egypt through Pakistan, or...
building an army large enough to operate and crush that entire region with sheer force of numbers, toppling the governments, and destroying the entire civilization there - completely and utterly uprooting the tribalism and Islam and the intolerance and hatred indemic to that region, then policing it while we rebuild it into the right sort of nation states (c.f. Japan's God-Emporer and Germany-Master-Race in WW2).
#15
Conscription may someday be necessary, but genocide is not. I consider the women and children of Islam slaves, and as such, we would be freeing them. If WW2 Germany killed only the Jewish men, would that be genocide ?
It may or may not be necessary to kill all musslim men, but doing so would end the ruthless bombing and beheading of 'infidels'. That, after all is the signature of terrorism, and I firmly believe we must eliminate all terrorism to secure a peaceful and prosperous future around the world. Now, if we could get the muzzies to saparate into 2 groups, terrorists, and non-believers, that would do nicely.
#16
wxjames, that was the whole point: if we continue to back up, continue to leave our borders open, continue to negotiate with those who use negotiation as a ploy, continue to wage war as half measures instead of full victory, continue to ignore the cultural issues that need to be demolished in that region....
...then we are setting ourselves up for just such a decision. Given the anger that we as a peopel tend to have when struck, imagine the anger of 9/11 amplified by 100 times the casualties. Now imagine trying to withhold a nuclear response to obliterate the sources (religion, nation, andd tribes) of the megadeaths inflicted upon us.
Thats the terrible place that the Islamists have put us - and worse for them, either way you look at it, they ahve brought ruin on thier entire region, either from occupation and destruction of thier society, or the nuclear erasure of their religious, civilization and population centers.
Another warning is that given the isolationist bent of the modern Dems and their aversion to war... if they come to power, the only choices they will present the nation with are surrender or nuke, because they will not support a protracte, possibly decade-long land war in the middle east and SW Asia. And given that the Amrican peopel will not surrender, that leaves only one alternative for them: nuclear destruction of Islamism and its centers of power and population in those regions (and the implied threat of the same to Indonesia and other Islamic nations outside the region).
#17
an awful song by a leftist singer called renaud
[sigh] So I have to change My name now.
Anyway, I don't conscription is a good idea at any time, under any condition. We had hundreds of thousands of volunteers after Pearl Harbor. They were all sent back "wait for your draft notice." I'm too old to be drafted now, so I can take this position disinterestedly.
Volunteering for military service in wartime is sort of the ultimate in democratic public service.
#18
True - I beleive there woudl be no lack of volunteers - but conscription might be neccesary to ensure the orderly entry of a huge number of people into the armed forces and public service for a WW2-sized army of millions. And it does have the advantage (and disadvantages) of involving the entire breadth and depth of society. If it were to occur then there would need to be NO exepmtions - only alternative service based on limitations of the individual (border guards, etc)
Show me an instance of whre negotiating with Ismaic terrorists has EVVER borught anything other than more fighting if you refuse to surrender.
Thats the problem - they have the most intoleran outlook, and its their sincere core beleif that you will either convert, submit, or die.
Those are the ONLY choices they allow.
Given those, the only choice is to destory them and the culture that bred them. We are no engaged in Iraq to see if we can create that mytical beast: the non-violent moderate Islamc human, with a secular democratic republic.
So far, the left wants to run and hide until the wolf is not only at the door but in the house. Bush wants to try to tame the wolf.
Those of us in the military are doing what men have always done with wolves: kill them until they are no longer a threat.
If we allow them to spread, the only defense will be eradication.
Choose which form you want. And remember surrender and slavery is not an option.
#21
"...the only choices they will present the nation with are surrender or nuke, because they will not support a protracte[d], possibly decade-long land war in the middle east and SW Asia. And given that the Am[e]rican people will not surrender, that leaves only one alternative for them: nuclear destruction of Islamism and its centers of power and population in those regions (and the implied threat of the same to Indonesia and other Islamic nations outside the region)."
Brings me back to my original question, in the context of boots on the ground: "why would large loss of American life, surely a given in such a future world war as it was in previous world wars, be preferable to gargantuan loss of ME life"?
I guess I am quibbling with some about the definition of "genocide". I am not interested in the extermination of a race or a nationality; I am interested in snuffing out an extremist ideology that has violent designs on the whole world-Islam. Somewhere between obliteration of an entire people and buyoffs/negotiations lies the option of striking heavily and cleverly and letting the aftermath persuade those less committed to the death cult to reconsider.
BTW, my comments shouldn't be read as opposition to the draft, necessarily; a draft might prove unnecessary to a pissed off America.
#22
Pebbles, you're full of shit. The worst state slavery is the Caliphate.
She's British, and female. Adjust and calibrate accordingly.
Posted by: Charlie the Tuna ||
10/19/2006 16:46 Comments ||
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#23
I don't know. I suppsoe they woudl be OK with nuking them, as woudl those on the far right (Pat Buchannan).
But those conservatives who see things the way I do, unliek liberals,value all God's children, enough that if a few of us have to bleed to save a lot of them, then its worth it. Comes with being a soldier I guess.
But its usally best to make a LOT of the evildoers bleed and as few of our eople as possible.
I cannot say that nukes woudl bring about a lasting peac, nor that they woudlnt demoolish friends as well as eneomies inthe region. Our very core as a Judeao-Christian country compels us to fight for freedome at great cost, but to also be as humane as we can toward the innocent. A couple hundred years ago some old white guys put it pretty well...
... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security
... And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
#25
The next war will be far worse than we can imagine. I doubt nukes will be used nor genocide, but many will wish they had. The war will last much longer and be much more decentralized than we imagine. More like the Thirty Years and Seven Years Wars combined. The classic four horsemen of the apocalypse will range over much of the earth as they have not for centuries. No continent will be unvisited with even the United States receiving at least one of them in the homeland. At the end, Islam will be finished but at a terrible price. I should not be surprised to see Europe also unrecognizable, at least as a seat of liberal humanistic civilization.
I imagine this has been war gamed in the pentagon with some startling results but in so generalized a fashion that specific lessons cannot be drawn. Think Diplomacy meets Star Wars. America's dedication to its core Judaelo-Christian principles will be sorely tested and in retrospect found wanting. But that will have been what had to be done. And so we will emerge with a new greatest generation. But it will not need to be conscripted because the war will not be fought, at least by the U. S., with Napoleonic levee en masse armies but with high tech weapons systems in the traditional naval and air dimensions and also in space, economic and biological dimensions. And there will be no shortage of volunteers, only skills.
#26
I don't think that conscription will be very effective against a networked threat like the Islamists. So I tend agree with NS. If the Europeans especially are like the Levantine and Egyptian Rumi in the 630s and 640s, waiting for the return of the Byzantine Army, they are going to wait forever.
#27
Conscription is STUPID writ large in today's warfare. You do NOT want conscripts in the modern military, the equipment and skills used preclude a conscript military. What you will want is 24/7 production of light armoured vehicles like the Cougar and Stryker, many more of the MGS systems per battalion, light cheap UAVs, and the NATO standard assault caliber to be updated to the 6.8mm SPC.
Also, the Air Force Boneyard needs to be emptied of usable airframes so they can be rebuilt/upgraded for modern CAS missions, the A-10 needs to be put back into production, and even the A-1 Skyraider needs to be looked at as a weapon system for new production.
Remember before Clinton and the Demos gutted the military in the 1990s, we had TWICE as many men under arms as we do now. We can have the volunteers if we increase the defense budget, the main issue is training and equipment. You can train a man to an acceptable level in 6 months; tanks and APCs take years to build in acceptable numbers, primarily since we have shutdown those lines and no longer have the tooling or the long-lead items required.
One big improvement in the general lethality of the infantry could be done rather quickly by simply buying the 6.8mm SPC upper receivers that several firearms makers have for the M-16/M-4, and have all out 24/7 production of the ammo from all the private sector companies. The replacement uppers mate with the lower receivers and have the same sighting/furniture setups so weapons familiarity is not lost. Plus the M-16 magazines can be quickly and cheaply modified to accept the 6.8mm round, and new 6.8mm magazines can quickly be produced. The 6.8mm has effectively double the killing range of the 5.56mm round, and is much more lethal per hit, comparable to the 7.62mm NATO standard round, without the weight or recoil. And the penalty in ammo carriage is small - 25 rounds of 6.8mm weighs what 28 round of 5.56mm does.
#29
115AS - thats the thing: using current tactics by striking aginst thr pressure points, we require a precise, professional force like we have now.
But thats picking off the gators.
The networked threat will fail when you remove the medium in which the network operates: Islamic nations that support them and Islamic culture that hides them. Drain the swamp and the gators will die.
Remember the context here too: After a big strike we will have in a way guarnateed to work - and one that will work mocuh more quickly than precions actions that we are using now. The methods of WW2 come to mind: Complete obliteration of a culture throughout the region. That will require millions under arms, and a large logistical and military effort to invade, demolish, police and rebuild those nations and cultures the way we did Japan and Germany. And inthe process redraw the national lines into smaller ethnic areas for easier management.
So a conscripted army would be needed if for no other reasons than sheer mass numbers needed to quickly (less than a decade) and widely (the whole region) remove the threat to the US.
But I would want to maintain the volunteer force at current high quality standards, maybe by marking them like the old Soviet "Guards" units or the germans did their "Veteran" units - better personnel training and gear to serve as a unit in trouble spots and hard points that conscript units woudl be hard pressed to do well. Use the conscript divisions (which will still be higher quality than any opponent they face) for the constabulary and "blanket the area" fighting.
The current way of operating is insufficient to remake a region quickly enough under the threat of subsequent nuclear attacks, especially if we we have bailed out of Irag and have to restart the process.
Start with liberating Kurdistan as a base of operations and erasing the governments of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Venezuela [isolate Cuba] (must secure our hemisphere as well since Cuba and Venezueal are developign into terror backers here in cenrtal and latin america).
#31
The Indians would do a much better job of occupying the Middle east than we. I say outsource it and let them have a cut of the oil revenue so that they have the chance to compete with China at the same time they obliterate the culture of Islam. I'd settle for Indian culture there. for now.
The region will not be "remade" for decades. It will be subjected to a reconstruction after starvation and pestilence finish their work.
#32
One of the truly funny movies of the 80's was Top Gun. The thought of turning the F-14, a fleet defense platform with the ability to simultaneously shoot down multiple maneuvering supersonic targets at ranges over 100 miles, into a gun-toting dogfighter is emblematic of American civilian constraints on the military and is germane to this article.
If there were a nuclear attack against the US, our forces should not be restrained or constrained by political correctness. We have the weapons and the American people would DEMAND that they be used. Someone must be glassed. If there were multiple candidates, then all of them would be destroyed. Anyone who bitched would be told that they were either with us or against us and the bombers were in the air and can be retargeted. An American president who exercised restraint would find that his party would be swept from office and never trusted again. Just sending American boys and girls to arrest the bad guys would not be enough. An attack like that can only be answered with fire and blood.
I spent enough time as a B-52 crewdog to fully understand what it means to nuke someone. The pussies in the San Francisco wing of the Democrats might equivocate, but the Jacksonians of the heartland will demand the absolute destruction of our enemies and their allies. It will be Islam delenda est.
#33
When the going gets rough, the Middle East will be cleared as necessary to prevent further attack and to control oil. There is no country in the Middle East that cannot be brought to its knees by a half dozen H-bombs. And we can deliver them same-day by submarine or ICBM without conscripting a single person. And we will have plenty of bombs to spare. Iran is playing a suicidal game and will lose. We're not playing games.
#34
#8 - Remember that the Dark Ages started after Rome fell and the civilization so dependent on transportation & other imperial assets to feed itself fell with it. People burned books to cook with. Our food today is made from oil and cooked with gas.
Scenario 5 - Iran, Israel & Pakistan cut loose with their nukes at each other, taking out a few of the major oil fields and the Suez Canal. The major nuclear powers are not involved. Up to a million die in the nuclear blasts, but wait. Oil production plummets 50%, for the next 15 years, then slowly climbs, but never returns to 2006 levels. Millions die worldwide (including in the US) for lack of food and other basics of life supported by modern oil-powered lifestyle, combined with severe worldwide economic depression lasting decades.
In this scenario, it matters not what the US does or doesn't do to the Muslim world, everyone will suffer greatly.
#35
#33 - Darrell - I don't believe the US is serious about this. Among other changes, one that would convince me to change my mind is really securing our southern border.
#36
We have oil, shale, and coal - it won't take 15 years here - we are the Magic Kingdom of 2 of the 3 - coal and shale, and we really don't know how much we have of the 3rd.
The environazis will deal w/it or die. We'll be burning, drilling and polluting (which will help w/GW).
#37
The real threat from Conscription, aka "the Draft", is what the PC, Waffle-luving Lefties, Governmentists, and OWG'ers, etc. will give back to ordinary Society + Amer People once "the Victory" is de facto "won". INCREASE BIG GOVERNMENT AT HOME, WEAKEN AMERICA OVERSEAS, SOCIALIST USA UNDER ANTI-SOVEREIGN OWG + ANTI-AMERICAN AMERICAN SOCIALISM [Washington-US NPE subservient to Global-OWG Authority]. THE LEFTIES DON'T HAVE TO GIVE ANYTHING BACK IFF FASCIST/NAZI = LIMITED COMMUNIST, AMERICA = AMERIKA, USA = USSA = USR, ......etc. doesn't win the WOT, now do they!? * OIL STORM > Russia-China still stays Russia-China - its only America that has to become the USR. O'REILLY > LADY UNITARIAN MINISTER = activist group complains about Dubya-GOP-led US "torture" BUT SIMUL REFUSES TO DESCRIBE HERS = HER GROUP'S DEFINITION OF SAID "TORTURE". IOW, LEFT > the USA is the only one that is demanded to follow the SACRED HEART + TEACHINGS of Christ, espec on MERCY + FORGIVENESS OF ENEMIES -Amer's enemies don't have to, NOR ARE DEMANDED TO.
#1
I'm going to stop reading rantburg. I've read enough to realize that we are headed for a bloody war. Lots of nice, good people will die. People just like you and me.
I suppose it's not worth blaming anyone. But I will do so anyway. I blame those who are too cowardly to face the threat and do the heavy lifting necessary now to prevent the coming disaster.
I blame those who pretend to care, but in reality are evil pretenders with ice in their veins. You know who I'm talking about. The people who choose not to see because it is inconvenient to do so.
Many people just aren't paying attention and the media leads them astray. I don't blame them. But there are those who are paying attention and choose to look away. They disgust me. These are the same people who looked away from Hitler, from Stalin, from Castro, from Chavez and now look away from Kim and Ahmadinejad Why? it's not because they are wise or stupid, but because they are cold. It is simply inconvient for their world view and so they choose to look away.
These people do not walk around with black hats. They do not drool. They smile, are charming and well meaning. But their hearts are cold. In the end, it is only themselves that they care about. As long as the alligator is not looking at them, the are content to enjoy their cocktail, their dinner and insist that the alligator is not so bad.
#2
Understood - and agree with the effect this has on the psyche. I, and I'm sure everyone else here, would like to talk you out of leaving. I can offer a good concrete reason to stay: to harden yourself, to build up the emotional callouses you'll need when it comes to our shores, again, to your neighborhood. Everyone you care about will need you: tough, knowledgeable, committed, and determined - in that strength you can protect them.
I've truly enjoyed reading your posts, too. So I'm selfish and don't want you to leave for that reason, heh. Plz reconsider. Maybe take an occasional sabbatical - many here do, but come back when you've caught your breath.
#3
thanks .com. I'm coming up short on words to credit you for your arrow to the heart assessment on what is happening. In the end, it is people like you and others here on rantburg that will stand against the tide. You will do it because it is right. You won't look away because you have the strength and courage not to.
Thanks again for your support - we are all going to need as much as we can get!
#4
:-) We are all in this together - and we need articulate and intelligent people, just like you, to explain, to cajole, to convince others. Many don't get it and many can be won over. You're being drafted, lol, but perhaps you'll volunteer - like we used to in the Army just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, lol.
You need to talk to lotp and Dave D and Fred and tw, and, and, and - they're all more clever and articulate and stuff. I'm just a slug, lol. But I meant what I said - the fact that you feel it is precisely why you should stay. Doncha just love circular logic that can't stand close examination? Lol.
You are so right - I think it will take an army that gets it, and arrived there independently - for us to defend this last true bastion of freedom.
#5
Yes, I fear it will come because they are clearly insisting.
And yes, it is an arrow to the heart to realize there are those who simply do not care, so long as they get theirs first.
Anon, step away if you must for a while. The heart does grow heavy and sick. But please - come back when you can and stay with us. We truly do need to support one another.
Good God... I can't even begin to imagine what it would take to make me stop reading Rantburg. I don't think I could do it. Even when the electricity goes out in a thunderstorm and life comes to a halt, I still go over to the computer every few minutes, stare at the blank screen and whimper, and click the mouse in desperate frustration because I can't read Rantburg.
I don't always comment, and I've gone through periods-- like right now-- when I have very little to say; but I always read.
These days it's the upcoming election that has me on pins and needles: our survival is at stake, Western civilization is in the all-time fight for its very life, and few seem to realize it or even care. They just go on, watching their sitcoms or their "reality" TV shows, oblivious. And when they think at all about what we face, it is only in the simple-minded, drivelistic libheaded terms drummed into their minds by the propagandists on CNNABCCBSNBCNYTetc.
"I've read enough to realize that we are headed for a bloody war. Lots of nice, good people will die. People just like you and me."
I hear you. And I concur. My suggestion: buy ammo. And practice a lot.
"I blame those who pretend to care, but in reality are evil pretenders with ice in their veins. You know who I'm talking about. The people who choose not to see because it is inconvenient to do so."
Over the last couple of months I've come to one conclusion that overshadows all others: that we have exactly zero chance of prevailing in the struggle to defend ourselves against totalitarian Islam-- or in defending ourselves against any other menace, for that matter-- so long as those "with ice in their veins" are allowed to continue undermining and negating our every effort. Zero chance.
Why does the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan keep bombing, sniping, kidnapping and beheading? Because they think they will win, that's why. How do they expect to win? By wearing us down, that's how; like bin Laden said, keep bleeding the Americans and sooner or later they absolutely, positively WILL give up and go home, just like they did in Mogadishu, and Beirut, and Vietnam. And why would they think we will give up this time-- with so much more at stake now-- like we did before? For one overwhelming reason: because one of our political parties is promising to do just that: give up, and run home with our tails between our legs. That they call it "responsible redeployment" makes no difference; to the enemy it still means only one thing: Allahu Akhbar!
This cannot continue. It simply cannot be allowed to continue, or it will be our ruin.
It must be stopped. No matter what it takes to stop it.
And frankly, right there is where my mind bogs down, on the "no matter what" part. And all I can do is shudder.
Don't quit Rantburg, anon; I appreciate your comments, they're always worth reading. We've got to stick together here.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/19/2006 7:08 Comments ||
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#7
"You need to talk to lotp and Dave D and Fred and tw, and, and, and - they're all more clever and articulate and stuff. I'm just a slug, lol."
Oh, bullshit. You're not a slug. You're a smartass, yes; but you're one of the most articulate smartasses we've got.
Keep posting.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/19/2006 7:10 Comments ||
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#8
Anon, chill out a little. Take in a pro-football game at the local stadium and come back next week.
#9
Everyone who shows up here and stays, whether an active poster or a quiet lurker, is a volunteer; we drafted ourselves by searching for the truth underneath the spin and propaganda. And however painful the light, eyes once opened cannot choose to stop seeing. We cover the range of religious and political beliefs here (atheists to literal Bible Christians, Jews, Muslims, and who knows what else; Democrats, Third Way-ers, homosexuals, parents, tea-totalers, libertarians, party animals, classic Conservative Republicans, neocons, all the branches of our Armed Forces, and correspondents from/in all over the world). But all unite in understanding that this is a war to the knife, and we all have to be involved in fighting it.
Take a break if you must, anon. Enjoy your family, your work, watch a sunset. Then when you are ready, bring back your particular expertise and help us figure out what's going on. This, too, is a battlefront in the War on Islamofascism. We snark for our own amusement, but the analysis and the education are serious.
.com, you flatter me by including me in the list -- you and they and those many others here taught me most of what I know. Except for the tea, that I learnt on my own. ;-)
#10
I haven't even read a5089's linked article, but can tell you anon (like all the others), you MUST stay. I used to be one of those "closet" conservatives, who just went about my daily life, taking advantage of this great (and one of the last few remaining, free) nation, without paying anything back. After 9/11, I woke up to the danger in our midst (I carpooled w/ 2 Muslims to work at the time, and looking back, I can see one of those 2 being-almost-willing to do the same thing). Then, one of my buddies sent me a link to Rantburg, and the rest it history. I used to surf all the conservative/libertarian websites (newsmax, worldnetdaily, boortz, hannity, malkin, etc.) each and every single day, but now I just check RB. You ALL have truly opened my eyes to the threat and real danger that awaits us both foreign (Islamo-fascists) and domestic (MSM and Donks). Yes, the Repubs have lost their way in many areas in my mind (especially against our domestic enemies), but again, I always think, what other (TRUE) option do we have against our Foreign enemies? Anon, I encourage you to take a break/sabbatical, and return when you feel right. I've done so in the past (more often, because I'm away on vacation and away from computers), and it is relaxing. But, I also long to come back each and every single time.
I'd also like to specifically thank many here, including .com, TW, Dave D, lotp and, of course, Fred and the mods! You all have strengthened and encouraged me that there are still others out there (no matter what our social/political/even religious views) who do the right thing JUST BECAUSE it's the right thing to do.
Posted by: BA ||
10/19/2006 9:20 Comments ||
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#11
Hello Anon!
I am your sister-at-arms, anon1 (the first differentiated anon!!)
Anyway, you do what is best for you, and what you think is right.
I love Rantburg because it keeps alive freedom of speech in the face of the PC crackdown we are being pinned under in the West.
I love it because we get to share stories we won't see in the mainstream media and interpret them in different ways, bounce ideas off each other and sometimes just blow off steam in a harmless way when we get really angry at what is going on in the world.
I've been hanging around here for years now.
Don't worry about going, just come back later when and if you feel like it! Rantburg will always be here (I hope very much as far as things can be permanent these days)
#12
Over the last couple of months I've come to one conclusion that overshadows all others: that we have exactly zero chance of prevailing in the struggle to defend ourselves against totalitarian Islam-- or in defending ourselves against any other menace, for that matter-- so long as those "with ice in their veins" are allowed to continue undermining and negating our every effort. Zero chance.
And this is exactly why I maintain that when the excrement hits the fan, before it is all over, we take that opportunity to cleanse idelogically this country of these people.
Even if it means they get shipped off to be re-educated, or to serve in labor camps. The socialists and their fellow travelers must be made to pay for their evil.
#13
"Even if it means they get shipped off to be re-educated, or to serve in labor camps. The socialists and their fellow travelers must be made to pay for their evil."
That's what I meant by, "right there is where my mind bogs down", because I think it's worth trying very, VERY hard to avoid coming to that conclusion; I don't want an America that looks like Argentina of the 1970's. I don't think any of us does.
But if the political climate keeps evolving in the same direction it's been going lately, that is indeed where we're headed-- perhaps in as little as a decade.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/19/2006 10:41 Comments ||
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#14
I think most of the native Moonbats are beyond re-education. I lean toward wireheading.
#15
No one wants to contemplate Argentina in the '70s, but we may have to make a choice. If the Cultural Marxists and the Tranzis continue to accumulate power, we will likely be the ones in the concentration/re-education camps.
#16
Another reason not to contemplate Argentina in the 70's - it was a complete failure. Look at where Argentina is now. What's the successful model of what's needed - Hadrian?
#22
OK Una... If we follow that adivce, we'll eat popcorn watching London burn wit hthe Islamic Riots, and the mushroom cloud blooming over Manchester.
Idiot. Its your sort that has sold out to willful ignorance, and your deaths will be no loss. But those of our allies and those who really understand freedom, its cost and its reqards and its responsabilities, those we woudl miss - so for their sake, those we defend with our actions.
Or would you have preferred to live in the German concnetration camps insted of the US pulling your asses out of the fire twice in the 20th?
#23
Una sounds like an American. So, a bitter DU agent trying to spy on the vast right wing (VRW).
Anon, I know how you feel. Sometimes you reach the last word. the last word you need to hear before you take action. I get that, and I've been there, but now I am in waiting. Will everybody see things my way ? Or am I blind ?
#24
There are those who sound the alarm such as Churchill in WW II and there are those who are worse than ostriches who just want to ignore our problems in hopes that they will just go away. Trouble is already here; our problems will never go away without effort. Try imagining living a life without freedom and liberty--is appeasement worth it? A person or country does not want to go down the path of appeasement--one compromise after another is made until there is no freedom or liberty. Appeasement is a lazy man's approach to tyranny. Living under tyranny is worse than death.
#26
anon, I'll just second what trailing wife so capably expressed. All of us, from all walks of life, must help each other by providing the insight, reasoning and other perceptional tools needed to begin changing the way people around us think.
You are right. There are some people who are content to watch our nation slide into the hands of those who would abandon it to communists or Islamic radicals. Just so long as they can still drive their SUVs and sip their lattes, they do not care where our nation is going.
The same applies to our politicians. We have cut-and-run Democrats and money obsessed Republicans who refuse to secure our borders if it means choking off the supply of cheap labor or easy votes. All of these people need to be identified and tarred with the brush of un-Americanism.
I thank goodness that Rantburg provided the logic and unspun information required to help me make a dent in those around me. To start eroding their complacency and force them to begin questioning what mainstream media pipes down their gullets with every evening's newscast.
For that, Fred and all the moderators here at Rantburg have my eternal gratitude.
So, hang in there, anon. Take a break if you need to, but don't give up the fight. Whenever my heart becomes heavy, I read some more articles here and they fire up my indignation all over again. Parts of me have taken a heavy toll. My humanity has taken a significant hit in that I no longer oppose deporting all Muslims from America and am beginning to support the notion of first use of nuclear weapons against our Islamic enemies. These have not been fun or enjoyable personal transitions to make, but they have cleared away a fog of unjustified compassion and unwarranted benefit of the doubt that are no longer deserved by those who seek to destroy us.
#27
Zen writes: Whenever my heart becomes heavy, I read some more articles here and they fire up my indignation all over again.
Interesting. Every time I come here I get enthused. I learn about issues, I pick up a witty (?) retort or two, and I realize that I'm not alone.
In contrast, every time I visit one of the progressive blogs (I do it so you don't have to!) I come away depressed, irritable, and feeling like I've just been .. slimed. I tool around there and realize all the angry, kooky, mal-adjusted people are gunning for power so they can put me under their thumbs. That's depressing.
Rantburg cheers me up; that's one reason why I'm happy to help shoulder the boulder.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2006 14:53 Comments ||
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#29
anon - what more could I say that already hasn't been said? Please come back from time to time. The torch of liberty shall never go out on our watch... the brothers and sisters of Rantburg will make sure...ammo up, provision up and hunker down
#30
Hey Anon, Be like me. I sit back and read and educate myself everyday. I don't have the professional pedigree that many of the other Rantburgers have. My life is spent rescuing and saving others as an engine company Lieutenant for a New England Fire Company. I read everyday but comment very little. Wise men listen well my friend.
#31
I don't have the professional pedigree that many of the other Rantburgers have.
I suspect we're about half and half, Rightwing. It's just that we're all so darn clever. ;-) I, myself, acquired my MRS at university along with a good many credits toward several useless but amusing degrees, and subsequently enough variety of job experiences to be a novelist, had I the bent and the endurance. And my dear, when you do choose to comment, I pay attention.
#33
Hi all, this is puzzling most of the western world, what is the big beef between sunni's and shia's, why do they kill each other when they are all Muslims ? Why do humans kill each other at all when there is no other place to live in the local galactic area, in other words, we all live on one planet, wake up you blithering idiots. Stop killing each other, stop killing period. Everbody, stop killing, simple. Just stop it. Concerned.
#38
Take a breather anon - keep your powder dry, clear your head, and enjoy the autumn. come back when you are ready. We need all the help we can get now and later.
#1
This is rather OT, but while we're on the topic of ammo needs, IIRC France does not produce its 5,56N ammo itself anymore, and buy them from... Israel! This needs confirmation (JFM), but if true, and I think it might be, please, let's hope nobody tells the Youutths!
#2
It's kind of hard to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis when you are firing a quarter of a million bullets per day in their homeland, some of them winding up in random living rooms.
And there is the author's entire point in a nutshell.
Truth be told, this analysis has about exactly as much merit as Lancet's statistical analysis of Iraqi casualties - and about the same validity IMO.
The warning signs are everywhere, yet no one wishes to see them. Israel's foes are gearing up for war, and it's time that we opened our eyes to the danger that confronts us. The conflict may be just weeks or even months away, or perhaps a bit longer. How it will start is anyone's guess, but make no mistake, a major outbreak of hostilities is almost certainly around the corner. If this sounds like scare-mongering or even an advanced case of paranoia to you, just take a glance at the newspapers from the past few weeks. If you read them with a discerning eye, you will see exactly what I mean.
For whichever direction one chooses to look, be it north, south or east of us, trouble - major trouble - is brewing. In Lebanon, Hizbullah is busy rebuilding its expansive terrorist infrastructure after this summer's fighting with Israel. Under the protective shield of UN troops, the group has been welcoming large shipments of weapons from Iran and Syria, and fortifying its bunkers in advance of the next round of conflict. In a speech delivered last month in Beirut, on September 22, Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah asserted that his organization still has "more than 20,000 rockets" and that it had "recovered all its organizational and military capabilities."
Even if we allow for an element of boasting and exaggeration, there are clear signs that Nasrallah is steadily engaged in rebuilding his forces. Indeed, this past Sunday, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of the IDF intelligence directorate's research department, told the weekly Cabinet meeting that, "There is conclusive and decisive evidence" that Syria is rearming Hizbullah. "The weapons smuggling from Syria into Lebanon," Baidatz said, "is continuing with official Syrian involvement." He added that Damascus has kept its forces on a war footing, with their artillery and missiles deployed in forward battle positions.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
COMPROMISE = SURRENDER/PREPARE TO BE DESTROYED, don't ya know.
#5
Things get broken during war. People get hurt. Things get destroyed. Wars usually end when the price becomes too high, i.e. when too many people get hurt, too many things get broken and too many things get destroyed on one side or the other. Israel will have to get rid of its notions of following Queensbury rules such as during the last war in Lebanon. They may have to level Syria and Lebanon to save themselves. Screw islamic propaganda and world opinion. The world tends to favor the winner--not the whiner.
Pope Benedict XVI has drawn a collective response from the Muslim world, in the form of an open letter from 38 Islamic leaders regarding his September 12 address in Regensburg. "All the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories," according to a press release hailing the letter as "unique in the history of interfaith relations". [1] The pope provoked outrage by suggesting that Islam rejects reason: the open letter proves him right. They argue that there is no dichotomy in Islam between reason and faith, which turns out to mean that there is no role for reason.
Some of the issues raised in the Muslim response are bit abstract, but the practical implications are quite stark. Theology, as Benedict stated on September 12, is "inquiry into the rationality of faith". Its most important function is to reject purported revelation that cannot possibly be true, such that faith may acknowledge revelation that might be true. Christianity and Judaism have endured two centuries of withering criticism from scientific study of their sacred texts. To perform the same function in the case of the Koran puts a scholar's life at risk. I do not know whether the scholars who question the Koran's authenticity are correct - I am not a specialist in such matters - but I am quite sure that their conclusions are reasoned. If reason might demonstrate the founding premises of a religion to be false, it is nonsense to argue, as the clerics do, that reason itself can be subsumed into a system of religious belief.
Reason and faith need each other, the pope argued in Regensburg. At the same time, modern science requires philosophical, and even theological premises which it cannot itself provide. Kurt Goedel, the 20th century's greatest mathematician, proved that no mathematical system can prove its own axioms, which must be accepted as if it were a matter of faith. As Benedict said: "Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology."
But the pope added, "For Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality ... God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry." Conversion by force through jihad is the consequence of irrationality.
Here is the response of the 38 Muslim clerics in the open letter:
[T]he dichotomy between "reason" on one hand and "faith" on the other does not exist in precisely the same form in Islamic thought. Rather, Muslims have come to terms with the power and limits of human intelligence in their own way [emphasis added], acknowledging a hierarchy of knowledge of which reason is a crucial part ... [I]n their most mature and mainstream forms the intellectual explorations of Muslims through the ages have maintained a consonance between the truths of the Koranic revelation and the demands of human intelligence, without sacrificing one for the other. God says, We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves until it is clear to them that it is the truth (Fussilat 41:53). Reason itself is one of the many signs within us, which God invites us to contemplate, and to contemplate with, as a way of knowing the truth.
Reason, the Muslim clerics aver, is one more of the "signs in the horizon" that God sets before us to reveal His presence, like sunsets and rainbows. Now, I suppose that sunsets, rainbows, cellular mitosis and one's capacity to bisect an angle all might serve as inspiration. Reason in the West, though, is something quite different. Reason first of all is the capacity to doubt, to subject belief to the sort of merciless questioning that made Socrates so unpopular in Athens. Benedict drew a parallel between Socratic reasoning and Hebrew revelation to which I objected (Not what it was, but what it does, October 3, 2006). Socratic reasoning is ironic and destructive in Kierkegaard's reading, not affirmative of faith. [2] But that is a secondary matter here.
Reason, in the Muslim clerics' view, is a sign from God, an object that God has created and planted in our brains to show us God's presence. For example, if I say that as a reasoning fellow I don't believe in Allah, the answer must be, "Aha! You are using your reason to doubt the existence of Allah, and the fact that you have reason demonstrates the existence of Allah, because if you have reason, someone must have given it to you, and that only could be Allah."
To state that the dichotomy between faith and reason simply doesn't exist in Islam is another way of saying that Islam does not admit reason. The modern concept of reason, Benedict observed in his September 12 address, begins with Rene Descartes in the 17th century, who shifts the subject to the individual man away from God.
Descartes' most famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am," changes the subject from the Scholastic question, that is, the existence of God. Rather than ask, "How do I know whether God exists?", Descartes asks, "How do I know that I exist?" To which the simple answer is: if I don't exist, then who's asking the question? Following our 38 Muslim clerics, the Muslim reply must be: "Aha - you believe that you have thoughts, but those thoughts must come from somewhere, and where could those thoughts come from, except for Allah? It is not 'I think, therefore I am', but rather, 'I think, therefore Allah is'."
If God simply has planted reason in our brain the better to demonstrate to us His presence, then we have no thoughts that God does not send us. God as it were has placed a radio transmitter in our brain and is sending us signals.
The trouble is that not only Allah can plant a radio transmitter in our brain, but also Satan. Suppose I employ reason to conduct the most elementary sort of consistency check on the Koran. I will have trouble reconciling Sura 47:4 ("When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads," etc) with 50:45 ("We well know what the infidels say, but you are not to compel them"), and hundreds of other verses on other subjects. Reason shows only a contradiction; reconciliation of such statements requires recourse to a tradition of "abrogation" of supposedly early verses by later verses for which no empirical demonstration exists.
...
f the Pentateuch of the Old Testament was revealed to a handful of individuals, not just to Moses as tradition has it, Christians and Jews can absorb the damage. Not so Muslims if the Koran was revealed to (or redacted by) someone else than Mohammed. That is why some prominent text critics of the Koran publish under pseudonyms ("Christoph Luxenburg", "Ibn Warraq"), or not at all.
In the Western tradition, Descartes' man - rather than God-centered metaphysics - led first to a revolt against faith. But science, as Benedict argued on September 12, had to learn its own limitations. Creation ex nihilo, once derided as the most unreasonable of Biblical doctrines, does not seem so unreasonable now that the physicists concede that all the laws of nature cease to have meaning prior to the origin of the universe in the Big Bang. Mathematics, thanks to Kurt Goedel, now must admit its axioms depend on faith rather than proof. Modern reason began as the antagonist of faith, but in its best manifestation has been housebroken into its proper role as the Accusing Angel in the heavenly court.
The core of the issue is human freedom.
...
Interesting piece on the practical applications of Reason and Faith. It explains to some degree the stark disconnect on the concepts of "Reason" between the Western and Islamic worlds.
I think the reverb from the "38"'s letter of reply is going to have far-reaching consequences.
#3
Perhaps in parts, but is isn't just any obfuscation; the open letter is a formal reply by Muslim scholars to an address given by the head of the Catholic Church. This isn't just an academic froth-fest or a panel discussion between academics. On one hand, the Pope is the leader of over 1 billion Christians (a point made explicit in the letter) and his address in Regensburg included serious critiques in regards to Islam - points senior Islamic representives from diverse Islamic schools felt compelled to answer.
When "All the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories", the issue escalates to a higher level than we've ever seen before. Whether or not we in the West find their letter "reasonable", there isn't much doubt that the stakes involved are very, very big.
#4
The theological grounds for the coming world war are being set today : the Pope and Western religious leaders are trying to explain the concept of "Faith seeking Reason" to the Muslim "Submission or death" crowd. The Muslims will, of course, reject any form of rationalism or reformation, which will lead to the world war in the next 5-10 years. And a great deal of that war will be fought on the streets of the West since we are already heavily infiltrated by the Muslim horde. I have no doubt that we in the West will start seeing belt bombers on our streets on a regular basis within the next 5 years.
#5
I think we will see IED's much more than we will see suicide bombers in the US. IED's have already been seized (not used) along our southern borders.
#6
As wid the USA via 9-11/WOT, then Israel, and now Benedict, where the West's enemies are concerned the burden is on the West to save and justify {Radical] Islam, etal. before the West either surrenders to same, andor is destroyed by same.
#1
Benedict has recently begun, with typical German thoroughnessone could even say administrative brutalitytrimming the fat in the governing body of the Catholic Church, the Curia, and placing hand-picked troops in his front line. This is a pope gearing up for battle. Benedict is preparing to wage war with any who would challenge his word on dogma, on liturgy, and on any of his initiatives at promoting a great religious revival within Romes collective global congregation of over 1 billion souls.
The author seems to think that a "bug." I think it's more like a "feature."
Posted by: Mike ||
10/19/2006 6:34 Comments ||
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#2
The author seems to think that a "bug." I think it's more like a "feature."
I didn't bother to go through the entire website, but even with a simple browsing, this is clearly a religious website with an agenda (cf. the name of the magazine)... but like yesterday's "Briton sickness" from where I branched, or the other article above, it has some interesting ideas.
#3
The whole thing reads like a hit piece on Rumsfeld. Replace Rumsfeld with Pope, Cheney with Tietmeyer, Halliburton and Germany. Typical conspiracy meme.
#4
They're probably right that Benedict is moving quietly and firmly towards better control of the Curia and the Vatican bureaucracy. Those who were afraid of his election to the Papacy had in mind the fact that he actually has firm, traditional beliefs and is rather consistent in them.
That said, the group that produces this magazine is a fringe sect that believes that they have the sole key to unlocking literal prophecy in the Bible. Given their positions, it's pretty likely they also believe that the Roman church is the anti-Christ.
#5
Ok, my bad. I read that from the links in the article I posted yesterday, and while I did note the religious tone of the piece (and the Jehova's witnesses like title), I thought it was interesting.
So, next, I'll post Larouche or Icke, still haven't made up my mind.
#1
What a JACKASS. He writes under the assumption that the Pope didn't REALLY mean what he said in his University Speech, spinning the essence of the speech while hoping that nobody who reads his article has actually READ the speech, and while implying that the pope has a secret agenda, fervently hopes that no reader yells, "BACK AT 'CHA!" and demands why he, the reader, shouldn't ALSO assume that the writer does NOT have a secret agenda as well.
The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
By Robert Spencer (Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95)
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." -- James Joyce
If you want to spend a depressing afternoon, try flipping through Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad. It's not a long read, but when you're through you'll have an idea of the monumental task awaiting the West.
Unlike the founders of other religions, whose lives are often shrouded in legend and mystery, Muhammad's rise took place -- as 19th century French scholar Ernest Renan put it -- "in the full light of history." Muhammad himself dictated the Koran. There are numerous other accounts of his life, both from people who knew him personally and from the hadith, a collection of "sayings of the prophet" that scholars collected shortly after his death. There is no great mystery about who Muhammad was or what he stood for. The only mystery is why the West has so much difficulty in recognizing it.
Muhammad was a warlord, pure and simple. He roused a disorganized group of nomadic tribes into a ruthless, fearless army. During his lifetime, he conquered the Arabian Peninsula and his followers eventually extended those conquests from Spain to India. By all rights, he should take his place in history among of Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn, and Tamerlane the Great as early history's great military leaders.
The difference is that Muhammad was also a prophet -- or maybe just a bit of a psychopath. Probably illiterate, he was nevertheless extremely familiar with Jewish and Christian doctrines that prevailed throughout the Middle East. Realizing that people would not be won over unless they abandoned their religion, Muhammad reinterpreted these faiths, styling them all as forerunners and himself as the "Last Prophet," come to replace both.
Beginning in middle age, Muhammad heard the voice of god -- Allah -- almost daily. His followers took notes and these transcriptions were eventually compiled into the Koran. As Spencer points out, Allah's dictates often went into strange detail and had an uncanny way of aligning themselves with The Prophet's desires. When Muhammad decided to take his own son's young bride for his wife, for example, Allah expressed approval. When several of Muhammad's wives ganged up on him because of his philandering, Allah gave him permission to divorce them -- a Koranic passage that still governs divorce in Muslim societies today.
But it's worse than that. Where Allah and Muhammad occasionally disagreed, Allah was actually more harsh -- a kind of Freudian superego regurgitating the grim fantasies of early childhood. In several instances, Muhammad was ready to forgive his rivals and enemies but Allah wouldn't let him. Instead, they had to be beheaded.
What has survived from Muhammad's eventful life, then, is not just a record of his conquests but a philosophy, a religion, a set of personal attitudes that prevails among more than a billion people of the world today. Those attitudes are not very friendly. Briefly, they prescribe that might makes right, that forgiveness is a sign of weakness, and that no fate is too vile for those who reject the wisdom of The Prophet. Jihadists beheading their captives still quote Koranic scripture -- accurately -- today.
More than anything, Spencer's detailed analysis is a remarkable endorsement of Thomas Carlyle's idea that "History is the elongated shadow of great men." Say what you will about social and economic circumstances, about natural resources and geography, or even -- if you are to believe Jared Diamond's bizarre ramblings -- that climate is the determining factor of history, the fact remains that the ethos of every civilization can be traced to the historical actions of a few individuals.
Confucius was a hermetic scholar who set China on a path of family loyalty, submission to authority, and respect for learning. The authors of The Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita were Brahmin scholars who preached supreme detachment and caste divisions. Buddha was the Indian Prince Siddhartha who rebelled against the Hindu caste system but taught extreme patience and withdrawal from the world. Moses was a lawgiver who led his people out of bondage. Jesus was a prophet who taught personal responsibility and the forgiveness of sins. Muhammad was a warrior who led armies into battle and taught that the sword was a proper instrument for converting the unbelievers.
Granted, each of these founders often contradicted himself and the message of each has not always survived in its original purity. But each of these prophets set the tone of a civilization that still reverberates today. The tone of Islam, from its very beginnings, has been intolerance, conflict, and conquest. As a result, Islam now finds itself at war, not just with the West, but with every civilization on its borders. Of course this is everyone else's fault. Muslims are like the boy fighting with everyone in school whose mother comes to the principal's office wanting to know why everyone in the school is fighting with him!
Spencer uses one example after another to bring home the point. In a story from the 9th century hadith of Muhammad Ibn Ismail al-Bukahari, for example, Muhammad confronted a group of Jews about to punish a couple that had committed adultery. Asked to expound their own law, one of the rabbis then began to read from the Torah, but skipped a verse mandating stoning, covering it with his hand. Abdullah bin Salam, a rabbi who had converted to Islam, saw the trick.
"Lift your hand!" Abdullah cried, and the verse duly read, Muhammad exclaimed, "Woe to you Jews! What has induced you to abandon the judgment of God which you hold in your hand?" And he asserted: "I am the first to revive the order of God and His Book and to practice it."
Muhammad ordered the couple to be stoned to death; another Muslim remembered, "I saw the man leaning over the woman to shelter her from the stones."
Compare this to Jesus' prescription in an almost identical situation: "Ye who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."
Muhammad's story belongs to a period when, to quote Mark Twain, "History was one damned battle after another." Most of the world has left this era behind. The rise of civilization has been the history of people learning to live in peace and cooperate with each other on a wider and wider scale. All this requires that people forgive and forget, letting old grudges eventually recede into the past. Islam not only nurtures old grudges, it celebrates them. The Sunni and the Shi'ia are still fighting over the death of Hussein, Muhammad's grandson, at the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.
The fruit of Jesus' teaching of tolerance and forgiveness is that Western Civilization has been able to prosper while Islam remains locked in an era of primordial combat. Certainly we have had our wars and religious conflicts, but the overall trend has been toward cooperation and civilization -- especially in America, a land where much of history is virtually forgotten. Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the great Eastern religions are also proving that they can prepare people for the modern world.
So why can't we make it clear to Muslims that it is time to forget the desert morality of the 7th century? For one thing, the people defending Western Civilization don't seem very familiar with its accomplishments. Last week the New York Times recounted how the Dutch government is introducing Muslim immigrants to Western values by showing them a DVD of "topless women and two men kissing" ("Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center," October 11). What would you think of a country that introduced itself by flaunting its pornography? Does the word "decadent" come to mind?
Robert Spencer has outlined the situation very clearly:
The words and deeds of Muhammad have been moving Muslims to commit acts of violence for fourteen hundred years now. They are not going to disappear in our lifetimes; nor can they be negotiated away.
Islam is just as violent and conquest-oriented as the jihadists say it is. The question is not whether Islamic values are incompatible with ours. The question is whether we are going to assert our own values -- or let decadence and submission lead the way.
William Tucker is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.
#1
The fruit of Jesus' teaching of tolerance and forgiveness is that Western Civilization has been able to prosper while Islam remains locked in an era of primordial combat.
Ah, come on, lets be honest here. It took nearly a thousand years to start to turn the boat around from the collapse of the Roman Empire to get things really rolling again. During that time, far too many in power used the name of Jesus to kill, burn, and destroy those they considered non-believers, heretics, witches, etc. It took a Protestant revolution with a very bloody Counter-Reformation to exhaust enough of the key players and weaken Church influence to finally settle down to environment which allowed the maturing of the primary Western religion. Europe didnt advance much beyond China till the late 17th Century and then it was because of technology developed not in Rome but in those areas which permitted examination into areas deemed off limits by the Church. Had Zheng He or any follow on Chinese Admirals made European contact before the European Age of Discovery, I seriously doubt the world would look so Western as it does today. However, the cultural arrogance and anti-mercantile attitude of the Chinese system insured that it was the West and not the East which would form the world we know today.
#2
Ah, come on, lets be honest here. It took nearly a thousand years to start to turn the boat around from the collapse of the Roman Empire to get things really rolling again
Wrong in fact the Middle Ages was LESS violent than the pre-AD era despite the assimilation of the very violent heritage from Berbaric Gertman tribes.
During that time, far too many in power used the name of Jesus to kill, burn, and destroy those they considered non-believers, heretics, witches, etc.
Wrong again. Contraily to popular belief it was not so easy to get burned by the Church: Mediaval Inquisition offered more gurantees to the accused as regulat criminal courts. Its founders also warn,ed strongly against the use of torture, who was commonly used in regular courts (probably a heritage from the germanic practice of the ordeal).
Europe didnt advance much beyond China till the late 17th Century
Really, if the Chinese were so advanced why is that they didn't invent printing? Why is that theuir vessels were unable to trans-ocean travel? Why is that the productivity of their peasants was so inferior to Europe's? Why is that half a dozen Portugeuise vessels were able to blmow away entire Chinese fleets? All of this takes place in the XVth or XVIth and mostly with technology developped in the "Church age". Also did you notice that despite having much more peole and thus much more people for inventing things China had been unable to outpace Europe technologically even during the Middle Age? Could be that the Chinese civilization was unefficient?
Had Zheng He or any follow on Chinese Admirals made European contact before the European Age of Discovery,
He didn't to begin with. Oh and if Zhen He had doiscovered America he would have ended with his heart torn apart on an Aztec altar.
Now ebetween the things theChurch did and you don't acnledge for it: ending slavery (replaced by serfdom but serfs have rights while the Romanb slave was a mere thing, notice that the post-Colombian slave is worse tha the serf but still has a minimum of rights unavailable to the Roman slave), the idea of separation between Church and state (even if at time Popes struggled for power Church never got the same involvement in staet matters than in say Islam, in part because the Christic words 'Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God), destruction of the extended family by forbdding marriages betwen people even very slightly releted (to the 6th or 7th degree): this meant that it led to a society of individuals and the prerequisite for Democracy and rule of law is that you are voted, vote, do business or are judged according to your merits instead of ebacuse the other guy belongs to the same tribe than the judge.
BTW that is why I have ever been sceptical about democratizing Arab societies. They could get elections abut until they don't learn to vote as individuals basing on a politician's ideeas instead of for the guy of their tribe (meaning that the guy with the most numerous tribe ever gets elected) they will be unable to get real democracy.
#3
Contraily to popular belief it was not so easy to get burned by the Church:
As an example in her trial for heresy and witchcracy Joan of Arc was NOT sentenced to be burned. Much to the chagrin of the English she was only sentenced to a life of reclusion and penance. That was the law. The death penalty was handled later for being "relaps" (don't know the English word) ie for reinciding a second time in her "errors" (ie pretending again whe was receiving divine orders to fight the English). Had she not reincided she would have died of old age.
By the way the much feared Spanish inquisition had on average 35 persons executed per year for the whole of Spain (12,000 persons divided by 350 years of existence). Most of the accused got away with minotr sentences. For example St Theresas' grand father was sentenced to walk across the city wearing an infamy garment for a dozen consecutive sundays.
Per Mark Steyn, 150 years of the Spanish Inquisition resulted in the deaths of less people than does one year of the current muzzie jihad.
On it's worst day Western Civ is superior to anything the muzzies have concocted in the past 1350 years.
Deal with it.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
10/19/2006 12:08 Comments ||
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#6
Thank You JFM, for doing such a thorough job of debunking the myth of the big bad Christian faith and it's historical evils. Saved me the time and trouble.
Oh, BTW, Procopius2k, you took exception with the statement "The fruit of Jesus' teaching of tolerance and forgiveness is that Western Civilization has been able to prosper while Islam remains locked in an era of primordial combat." That statement is absolutely true. If I practice Christianity to the hilt, it will make me a more living, kind, generous, faithful, honorable and decent human being. The abuses of the Inquisition and other times occurred precisely because men FAILED to practice their religious ideals, not because they practiced them more vehemently.
Contrast that with Islam. Practice it to the hilt, and you produce Bin Laden and his ilk. They're not distorting a 'great religion'. They're simply practicing it accurately and faithfully. If you can't see the difference, perhaps you should read the texts and review your history.
#7
Yes to what JFM said. By the 1200's, Christendom was ahead of the rest of the world in metallurgy, agriculture, waterpower, naval architecture and navigation, literature, etc. The visual arts were still a bit crude, but also ready to overtake the rest in a few generations. I'm so tired of the "dumb Europeans got lucky" revisionism.
#8
Amazon link for Mr. Spencer's book. I've ordered one.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2006 14:55 Comments ||
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#9
Let's not forget the incredible engineering achievemnt who was the gothic cathedral: 100 m tall and slim, elegant and with large windows (ie they could afford the luxury to have parts who didn't contribute to support the building). There is no equivalent in Islamic or Chinese architecture.
#11
An no less an authority than Victor Davis Hanson has stated, in Carnage and Culture, that a culture truly serious about implementing Christianity becomes a culture incapable of fighting effectively, if it ever chooses to fight at all.
By the way, Michael Crichton's latest book, Timeline, documents, in novel form, and in his unique fashion, the new understanding that historians are gaining about the world and culture of the Middle Ages in Europe: Most of the hype about it being the "dark ages" apparently were from Renaissance boosters doing "Liberal/lawyer crap-speak" to put down the previous age to make themselves look better.
#12
Wrong in fact the Middle Ages was LESS violent than the pre-AD era despite the assimilation of the very violent heritage from Berbaric Gertman tribes.
I dont see where I stipulated just violence. Im stipulating knowledge, commerce, etc. When you give up Roman sanitation, the environment for the Plague becomes all the more possible. A quarter of the entire European population is a damn heavy pile of bodies in anyones book. And that sanitation would elude Europe as late as the Great Plague of London in 1666.
Contraily to popular belief it was not so easy to get burned by the Church
My goodness the long list of stuff we bury. While the good Christian Crusaders were taking back Jerusalem, they were also engaged in their own conversion by the sword in the Baltic against Prussians, Lithuanians, and Rus. The conquest of Prussia was accomplished with much bloodshed over more than 50 years, during which native Prussians who remained unbaptised were subjugated, killed, or exiled. We sort of skip over things like that dont we. Or when the Plague hits you get things like this: Christian mobs attacked Jewish settlements across Europe; by 1351, sixty major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed, and more than 350 separate massacres had occurred.
Im sure we could continue to build the list all week with examples. The point is that it has only been a few hundred years that Christianity has turned away from institutions which were tolerated to spread or reinforce the faith by force.
Really, if the Chinese were so advanced why is that they didn't invent printing? Why is that theuir vessels were unable to trans-ocean travel?
They did invent printing. They didnt invent movable type. Didnt have a need. You forget the first book done by Gutenberg was the Bible. There was no such icon so salient to the culture that required such a device in China. Simple postings and proclamations didnt require an elaborate mechanism. The next series of printings were of rare classical publications, but China never suffered the lose of its classics as Europe did with the fall of Rome. So, again the need to distribute the information wasn't a motivator.
If you clicked on the link provided in the original posting youd seen that the Admiral made it as far as Madagascar. That is certainly ocean going travel in my book.
Could be that the Chinese civilization was unefficient?
What I said was the cultural arrogance and anti-mercantile attitude of the Chinese system insured that it was the West and not the East which would form the world. How much of the great inventions in Europe were achieved by men of privilege, rulers, and religious authorities? How much was achieved by what wed referred to as middle class, mercantile, entrepreneurs? The Chinese bureaucracy tolerated their merchant class. Initiative was frowned upon. The culture told the peasant that life was tough endure it, because struggling only made it worse. Sounds like some Medieval Christian perspective as well. However, the Europeans obviously didnt accept that. That class in Europe become the engine for change which China would not see except in short bursts before the bureaucracy would shut it down.
Now ebetween the things theChurch did and you don't acnledge for it:
That was not my issue. My issue is to accredit solely Christianity for affording the West the basis for its advancement that other cultures and civilization seem to have been unable to achieve.
By the 1200's, Christendom was ahead of the rest of the world in metallurgy, agriculture, waterpower, naval architecture and navigation, literature, etc.
Must be reading different books. In the 1200s the superpower on the Eurasian continent was the Mongol/Yuan Empire. It was capable of projecting force unmatched till the 20th Century to include kicking butt of the European armies assembled in Poland, Bohemia, and Hungry. They were employing impressed Muslim and Chinese engineers to take down walls and shooting rockets into both cities and armies in the field. Gun powder in the form of rockets in the 1200-1300's. So backward.
Yeah lead the world - how about a Yuan Grand Canal During the Yuan, Ming (1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, the Grand Canal served as the main artery between northern and southern China and was essential for the transport of grain to Beijing. Although it was mainly used for shipping grain, the waterway also transported other commodities. The area around the Grand Canal eventually developed into an important business belt. Records show that every year more than 8,000 boats transported 4 to 6 million dan (200,000 to 300,000 tonnes) of grain to Beijing*. The convenience of transport also enabled the rulers to lead inspection tours to southern China. In the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong made 12 trips to southern China, on all occasions but one reaching the south terminus in Hangzhou.
Where was constuction like this in Europe at the time?
[*And so much for those inefficient Chinese farmers.]
#14
Back to topic. The review William Tucker is a freaking parrot. Muhammad never heard shit from any god. He was a con artist through and through. His hordes were funded by stolen goods and promises of young boys and virgin girls for sex. A pedophile for profit if you will.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/19/2006 22:01 Comments ||
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#16
I need to hit the sack, but I'll mention that the Crusades started about 1099, and were unprecedented, and repeated, long distance projections of power in and of themselves. Most of the problems the crusaders encountered were obviously traceable to intelligence failures due to language barriers, and IIRC, a Byzantine city was sacked when the Venitians misdirected one of the later Crusades. The more things change...
However, keep in mind that there were repeated provocations from Muslims long before 1099, starting less than 100 years after Mohammed's death with the invasion and overrunning of Spain. Charles Martel turned back the Muslims at Tours, France in the 8th century. Rome was sacked by Muslim navies in the 9th (IIRC).
I don't think there is any doubts about Chinese technological prowess: When the Chinese navy stopped at Madagascar, the size of the Junks exceeded those of the West that arrived several years later by a factor of three or four. Again, however, its not as much the technology you have as how willing you are to use it, as the Israelis recently re-learned WRT Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Oh, and Procopius, the Chinese COULDN'T invent moveable type because their entire language was ICONIC, not composed of words drawn from a fixed alphabet that allows phonetic reconstruction. Readin' and Writin' was vastly easier in the West, creating the demand that the printing press fed. Your complaint about the Bible being the first book printed is pure sour grapes, diverting attention from the very real fact that the Renaissance emerged from a patently Christian Milleu.
#17
While the good Christian Crusaders were taking back Jerusalem, they were also engaged in their own conversion by the sword in the Baltic against Prussians, Lithuanians, and Rus.
Ah yes. "Peregrino expectavit pedes meus in cymbales" and all that. (Apologies if I messed up the Latin, no time to go look it up and Latin's not one of my languages. Barbarian, I am.)
And perhaps the Teutonic knights did expect to return triumphantly. St. Alexander Nevsky foiled those expectations on the winter ice, however, to the great joy of latter Orthodox christians.
#18
#12 Procopius2K - I really don't give a flying f*ck who did what to whom 1,000 years ago. That was then - this is right now.
What I do care about is what the islamonazis and their fellow-travelers the lefties and the Dems (but I repeat myself) are trying to do now to the life we in the West have. And they're following Mo's playbook.
Fuck them and the camels they rode in on. I will not give up, I will not give in, and I will not be a burkha-wearing dhimmi. Before that happens, I'll be dead - and so will quite a few of them.
Pfui.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/19/2006 23:17 Comments ||
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Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/19/2006 23:26 Comments ||
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#20
A canal dug by slave labor is not comparable to water powered trip hammer in a German principate hammering out sheet metal for armor. That you don't seem to understand that one is an example of oppression, inefficient use of human capital, and low productivity while the other is an example of relative freedom, capital deepening and increasing productivity says volumes about you and your world view. You remind me of the socialists in the 30's who when pressed would admit that Stalin was a rat bastard, but that he needed to be one to build the Moscow Metro and the Volga canal and develop the Donbass and weren't those great things?
You also cite the Mongols as an example of power projection. Yet the Mongols could never adapt their tactics to the European woodlands and within two generations their khanates were disssolving. 200 years after the Mongols, the Europeans were successfully adapting their tactics to steppe, jungle, deserts, mountain highlands, i.e. everywhere in the world. And their empires lasted centuries.
You seem like the type who is attracted to big men, ideas and events. My advice to you is look at the little men, little things and little events. Find the places where the narrative breaks down and the premises are unsupported. If you apply those tests, you will find that the "those backwards Europeans lucked into it" hypothesis is false. A foundation was being laid centuries before the age of conquest and colonization. How it was laid is not as exciting as a water power empire building a grand canal, but it is the basis of our civilization. As we become ever more forgetful of how the foundation was laid and the people who built it, we are in ever increasing danger of losing our civilization.
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