A perusing of my archives will show the many, many postings I have about M3. My point throughout has been that Islam is not a religion like the others; the Jihadis and their M3 are followers of a totalitarian creed which far from being a "religion of peace" (the stupidest meme to come from the Bush administration) is a cult of death and slavery, of total submission. This is a "religion" that has undergone no enlightenment, and what reformation has taken place has pushed it closer to its 7th century origins in the Arabian peninsula. It treats women like garbage, has a uncompromising severe sexual code, has no compunction about killing anybody who transgresses that code especially women and gay men--although homosexual practices and pedophilia are rampant throughout the Muslim world--and sees Jews and Christians as prime targets for forced conversion, kidnapping, enslavement, other forms of subjugation, and murder. I should note that if Jews and Christians are not immediately available, M3 is willing to kill fellow Muslims, as we see, for example, right now in Syria and Iraq.
Tolerance is not a Muslim concept. Islam is the enemy of tolerance--not just the mythical "radical" Islam, but also straightforward everyday vanilla Islam is an enemy of tolerance.
If you go to a Muslim country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified; if Muslims come to your country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified. As I have said many times (here for example), try to build a church or a synagogue in Saudi Arabia, not possible; try to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in your home town, not possible.
This creed hates science and education; it hates and fears women; it wages war on freedom, joy and happiness. Islam seeks to make its subjects ignorant and brutish, and succeeds quite well at doing that--I admit, it does share that objective with modern progressivism. You see, Muslims and "liberals" do have something in common: the pursuit of ignorance.
For all its bravado, gunpowder, and chest-beating Islam is a cowardly and weak creed. It cannot stand debate; it fears having its tenets quoted back to it by non-believers; it invents its history because its real history is too horrible to contemplate; it can point to almost nothing but conquest, death and destruction as its achievements. M3 is a cowardly apparatus, feeding on the weak.
This Muslim Murder Machine is far from invincible, it can be defeated. I wrote long ago when discussing the SEALs' killing of Bin Ladin,
That brilliant raid should be a lesson for Muslims on the perils of following the path laid out by Jihadi murderers. It should also be a lesson for the West: we can defeat the Jihadis as long as we realize it is a long process, requiring patience, and sacrifice--and if we can continue to produce the men who carried out that raid.
Islamic civilization is a rotten house. Constant outside pressure either will collapse it, or force its miserable occupants to begin a serious effort at reforming and rebuilding it. Islam holds sway among some of the world's potentially richest and most advanced countries, but that, in fact, are among the poorest and most retrograde on the planet. Islam as practiced is a failed ideology: it leads to slavery, stupidity, and poverty on a mass scale. The greatest victims of Islam are the Muslims forced to live under its tyrannical, mind-numbing, and brutal rule.
Islamic civilization produces nothing. Yes, yes, what about algebra? Ok, Ok, it hasn't produced anything in modern times besides ignorance, death, despair, and poverty. It is the MSNBC of religious faiths, but, admittedly, with higher ratings.The horrible fact, however, is that now we are doing precisely the opposite of what we did that night in Abbottabad. Almost always when the intended victims of Islam band together, say "No, you will not win," and fight back, Islam retreats. Be it at the gates of Granada or Vienna, the waters off Lepanto, the streets of Jerusalem, the sands of the Sinai, the hills of Afghanistan, or in a filthy compound in Pakistan, when the non-Muslims fight, Islam loses. It poses as a great warrior class, but it cannot stand up to the West either on the battlefield or in the arena of ideas.
Islam can only defeat the West when the West first defeats itself. When Western leaders assume that our constitutions and legal codes are suicide notes, that Islam is just another religion, that 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, the West loses. When the West refuses to stand up and tell the Muslim world, "We are better than you are. You should learn from us, but meanwhile we are going to crush you like grapes every time you attack us," then we lose. When we have malevolent leadership such as that now in the White House, leadership that announces that the war with Islam is over, then the jihadis and their murder machine fuel up and go to work. That is what we have now, as I wrote long ago, "We are not at war, we are under attack,"
The problem is not one regime or another. The problem is not creating yet another Arab state in "Palestine." The problem is not our insensitivity. The problem is Arab Islam. The deep, deep pathologies of Arab Islamic societies are out for all to see . . . yet again. And our great, overpaid liberal mass media with all their highly "educated" anchors and pundits, what are they covering? They are attacking Governor Romney for daring to say that we should never apologize for our core beliefs. The media and many at State, including the increasingly unhinged Hillary Clinton, claim that the unrest we now see in the Arab world, unrest which takes the form of attacking US embassies and murdering our people, is due to some obscure video made in July by some obscure person who has yet to be fully identified. Perhaps, then, it was in anticipation of this film that Osama bin-Ladin had his crazies fly planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?The world is increasingly on fire, and the ignition and the fuel for those flames come from Washington DC.
I saw where ISIS captured a Chemical Weapons plant and the stored CW left over from the Saddam era. Fortunately these CWs are over a decade old and probably not viable anymore.
ReplyDeleteStill, the question remains....Saddam era WMD??? Still in existence? In Iraq?
So when does The Left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) apologize to GWB for calling him a liar about WMD in Iraq...and why was this kept secret (perhaps traceable back to certain Eurozone countries and that was a can of worms no one wanted opened).
I was asking the same "chemical weapons plant in Iraq?" question myself.
DeleteFunny about all that precursor stuff, too, the stuff people I know spent time rounding up and getting out of the country. Guess that was all a figment of the imagination, too!
DeleteWe sat on tons of yellow cake uranium in 2004 near Baghdad and that never made the news...
DeleteWith any luck, some of these chemical munitions will be viable enough that with some improper handling by ISIS fighters, they will go off and wipe out some of these goons.
DeleteMr D you are on fire!
ReplyDeleteReader129
Victory requires the West to (1) name the enemy, and (2) justify why they are the enemy. You have done so. You should be in charge.
ReplyDeleteNo political leader will ever name the enemy, thus there will be no victory. Only loss after loss. The West would rather surrender than fight, a la Europe.
Self loathing, apathy, and laziness have become defining Western ideals.
The enemy are "terror," "bigotry," "inequality," "privilege," and "Kochism." Maybe NSA and DHS can point the way to the redoubts of same.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"When I am Weaker Thn You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles." - Frank Herbert, Children of Dune (Dune Chronicles, #3)
ReplyDeleteIslam as a religion works best in primitive societies where the subjugation of women, for example, is already the norm. The stories of Amazons were fantasies of the Greeks and the depiction of women in period movies is ludicrous. In primitive cultures, women were powerless because force was the only effective tool. Islam arose among the Arabs who were a military tribal people. It has never progressed beyond this stage.
ReplyDeleteWhat we see in Iran and now Iraq is a primitive tribal culture doing what it does best; kill. The cultural life of Harun al Rashid's capital was created by the Greeks who had "converted" and, as with the Romans, had brought art and science with them. The Romans at least were good civil engineers. The Arabs had nothing. The "Arabic numerals" we use came from India.
Islam needs to be confined to its present pestilential tribal areas.
DeleteThe doctrine of shariah that mandates death for apostasy, blasphemy, innovation, idolatry, heresy, and their multiple metastasizations must be proscribed in every civilized country and any Muslim who advocates it or refuses to denounce the Koran and all schools of "Islamic jurisprudence" as false and evil for containing any words justifying it must be ejected forthwith from the civilized world or denied even temporary entry. Any imam, mullah, ulema, shaykh, mufti, qadi, or "holy" man in the world who issues a fatwa calling for the death of any non-Muslim is to have his name placed on a list of people outside the law. A $1,000,000 bounty is to be placed on the head of the issuer. A passport to any non-Muslim country chosen by the "winner" will be issued to him or her and immediate family.
For gosh sakes, instead of getting wrapped around the axle over whether Islam is a religion or not, we need to strike right at the heart of the matter: noxious, abhorrent behavior. We didn't consume valuable band width in the U.S. when we went after the communists. We didn't concern ourselves with the merits of dialectical materialism or whether the state would wither away upon the final triumph of communism. Who cares! We settled on proscribing communists' advocacy of the violent overthrow of the U.S.
For liberals, let me make it clearer: Advocating violent overthrow (involving treason and killing) = advocacy of death for apostates.
Then we can proceed to legislation on the order of the Foreign Missions Act, I think it was. Under that, if the Soviets confined U.S. diplomats in Moscow to a half-mile radius of our embassy, we did the same to them in the U.S. Muslims in Saudi forbid building of churches or Egyptians burn down a Christian church? Guess what?
It's nonsense that Islam is a giant entity called "a religion" and that we can't attack specific noxious practices. But our political class would have to have a spine and a brain implant before something simple like this will ever be tried.
Be that as it may, it's a strategy that can't fail because its targets are our enemies without question and they will squeal like stuck pigs when we get down to brass tacks and quit wrestling with the spheres.
Very, very true.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'll make a couple points of my own.
Any religion of over a billion people is going to be diverse. When I was in Guangzhou, I bought pizza crusts, bagels, and raisins from Uighur migrants who had a little colony behind the train station. They were very nice to us Westerners back in the early '90's, and even to the Taiwanese (of whom there were business people and whatnot back then). However, the place was a No Go zone for the local police. Chatting with these guys, I found that the chief lesson they had learned from the Soviet collapse was not that they were better off under a growing Chinese economy, but that Big Brother is mortal. I'm sure that Islam probably justified the murder of Han people and ambushes of police and military back in Xinjiang (or, as the Uighurs called it, Sherki Turkistan). However, judging from the parallel case of the Tibetans, even a Buddhist people might have been pushed to that kind of thing by a weakening dictatorship.
However, you're absolutely right about tolerance as a foreign concept in Islam. But, as a Christian myself (albeit with Jewish antecedents), for a lot of us "tolerance" is basically leaving the final judgment of sinners in God's hands and trusting in His timing, and hoping, praying, and preaching that those fellow sinners of ours around us might be converted.
As a history teacher, I often go beyond the [lousy] textbook when we have to study Islam. I point out things like the Pact of 'Umar, laws of Dhimmi status, jizya, and the squeezing of the Ahl-al-Kitab communities throughout 1400 years of Islamic rule.
As for Shrillary Shroooo blaming the 09/11/12 attacks on the Nakhoula video, my own take is that sleazebag that Nakhoula may have been in his financial dealings, a Copt, Assyrian, Maronite, Chaldean, Antiochian Christian or whatnot (or Mizrahi Jew, or Iranian Zoaorastrian) might know a few things about life as a Dhimmi that the rest of us ought to heed before making the incorporation of Sharia in Western law a litmus test of broad-mindedness.
"Any religion of over a billion people is going to be diverse."
DeleteIndeed. Anybody who doubts this should go read Among the Believers and Beyond Belief -- though I would also add that--not to take anything away from Naipaul--but it's been 33 and 19 years, respectively, since the publication of those volumes, years of continual Saudi-funded Wahhabist ascendency and Iranian mullah entrenchment.
Hi, Kirk. I also read Naipaul's books.
DeleteHowever, my point about Islamic diversity was not to dissent from Dip's view of Islam as fundamentally destructive. Still, when I was in China, it was good to see Islamic grievance and mayhem wreaked on a Communist state--especially one that had so self-righteously sounded off about "colonialism" for so long. The Uighurs were throwing that old saw back in Beijing's face.
I certainly don't dissent from Dip's view of the big picture, either: but it's good to view the breadth of Islam for what it is, which is why I appreciated your remark and tossed my 2c worth in on the same point.
DeleteThese guys have emotional/psychological hang-ups with Playmate of the Month, Man's Best Friend and the Other White Meat, to name a few. An effective psyops campaign would be a good opening salvo to "unleash hell" on the M3 minions. (M4? Minions of the Muslim Murder Machine?). Western Civilization dominated/contained M3 since, oh about 1571, or so. But we're to crippled and infected with political correctness to do so at this moment in history.
ReplyDeleteHave to say Diplomad it's becoming increasingly difficult to come onto you site and find something to quibble with. With this post for instance I had to read to the very final few words - and even there, just piddling crumbs of what's hardly at all even a piddling quibble.
ReplyDelete" ... and the ignition and the fuel for those flames come from Washington DC."
What's worse is not being able to dissent in the least from "and the fuel" and even where the "ignition" is concerned I'm left with merely suggesting a feeble qualifier (aware though every last one of the fourteen or so regulars are just as aware as I am)
However as is my wont I think I'd inserted, "continuing and unnecessary ignition" but even I'm forced to admit my inserting the two words plus the and, seems superfluous. In the reading I mean. Clutter in other words.
Arkie
Arkie, my problem too. I can't quibble with a bit of it and am embarrassed I didn't think through parts of it on my own. Hell Arkie, I can't even find a quibble with you....
DeleteHell of a time we're living through ain't it whitewall?
DeleteWhen even you an' me can't at least agreeably disagree things are, very apparently going to Hell in a handbasket, and not so infrequently as it appears on every news-source aside from those in the US, American gifted to the Iraqi Army, American built Humvees.
Don't know whether whitewall you've seen any of the grainy film-spots of Iraqi Air Forces blowing up stuff on the ground and thinking, "Oh Hell, the Humvees are bad enough to put in reach of ISIL (ISIS to the US media) but there's Apaches too?!!!"
Not to worry though, those heloes are Russian - these specifically:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=156
Still. I haven't run down where Iraq is getting its handbaskets.
Arkie
Yeah it is. We thought history stopped and the future was clear when the Cold War ended and America went on a silly binge during the Clinton years. The war only paused for the Left to regroup and begin the final battle here at home. "This Muslim Murder Machine is far from invincible, it can be defeated". That is working around in my head. Seems they kill each other with relish as if they were fighting over interpretations of scripture like fractured Baptists. If they are contained in the Levant, more or less, Western nations will wise up soon enough about the Muslim problems each country has. Means and motives seem the same. The elitist PC crowd is the last to get it but the oh so "lower orders" in each country see it first and fight back first. I think this is dawning on much of Europe now. It's just nobody wants to be seen with "those people" so the Muslims are preferable in the short term. I don't believe in straight lines when it comes to the making of history. The greatest enemy the Islamist may have is his own ignorant self. The same with the surging Left. Eventually each turns on its own. Then it will be our time. I don't know about you but I descend from a very very long line of Anglo Saxon types who hold grudges for ever.
DeleteJust adding whitewall, it's not only me giving it to the post GHW period. Mind Sir, I've had and will likely continue to disagree with this blogger but - since its Navy War College ... well ... it's uhm, complicated I guess.
Deletehttp://20committee.com/2014/06/19/facing-americas-failure-in-iraq/
Arkie
Arkie, that's a sobering read. When I saw "War college" I initially thought it would be a piece by former instructor Thomas P.M. Barnett. Think I'll follow this link for a while. Thanks.
DeleteFukuyama trendily talked of the "End of History" when the cold war ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
DeleteHe was completely wrong.
History was put on hold for the duration of the cold war; the threat of global nuclear destruction held everyone in check. Proxies were held on a short leash. Now the cold war (WWIII) is over, history has recommenced with the original global war, now WWIV.
RoO...WWIV is just what it is.
DeleteFukuyama--I challenged his fantasy head on back in Grad School Poly Sci at the time and caught a lot of flak for it. But nothing I've seen has made me change my mind that he was not only wrong, but nearly delusionally so. It's amazing anybody bought his half-baked Hegelian thesis.
DeleteThe God of the Bible tells His adherents that He is fully capable of defending Himself and those who follow Him. Moreover, when he gave land to Israel, He instructed Moses that was the extent of His lands. If anyone wanted to have a relationship with Him, they had to come into Israel, and later into the church, to do so. Anyone who didn't like the deal was free to leave. Indeed, wanting to leave was not a crime.
ReplyDeleteCompare to Islam where that deity appears to not be able to defend itself. It acts like a god of a big black stone somewhere in the desert. Fat, dumb, silent, made with human hands, inspired by demons. It makes the ridiculous claim that once someone is coerced into saying the magic words, that person belongs to this diety forever. I cannot respect such a deity.
Spot on. Islam has not adapted to the modern world. Worse it's highly decentralized so it enables radical elements to preach hate and violence on a scale that no other religion has ever allowed.
ReplyDeleteThe global left has embraced Islam as a check to US power and influence - Obama has done everything to encourage Islam at great cost to the message for freedom of worship that should apply to all faiths - not freedom to slaughter Christians and Jews...with is a hallmark of radical Islam. Obama, Clinton, Dems and the left all have hands covered in blood.
Christianity isn't all that "centralized", either. In 451, churches outside the Roman Empire (those under the Persians, most notably the Armenians and Assyrians; also the Ethiopians, who had their own country) did not send delegates to the Council of Chalcedon; hence the existence of "non-Chalcedonian" churches. In 1054, there was the Great Schism of East and West. Since the Reformation, there are thousands of Christian denominations. Nor is there a central authority that all Jews--even the orthodox--would see as an umbrella authority determining all points of Halakha. As for Buddhism, not even all Lamaists recognize the unqualified leadership of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. Before the reforms of King Mongkut of Siam (known to Americans of my generation as the guy played by Yul Brynner), Thai Theravada Buddhism also was fairly decentralized.
DeleteAs for Islam, I believe that the violence being carried out in its name by some (not all) Muslims is an issue latent in its very theology--including Jihad as one of the pillars of Islamic faith.
Islam has been violent from its inception. The savagery of Muhammad is well documented. From raping women, his pre-pubescent wife, slaves to personally decapitating hundreds if not thousands of men, women and children to ordering a myriad of savage methods to murder countless others, the violence in islam is the root of islam. It is not latent in it's theology, it is the very seed of its theology.
DeleteBis Question for Diplomad: Is Obama a sympathizer with or even a convert to Islam? Not that he's such a prize himself, but maybe he's a Useful Idiot.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, I would bet on the Idiot half (at least).
Thanks once again, Dip, for your spot on insight. Could not agree more. God have mercy.
ReplyDeleteLibertyGrace'sGrandma
This war is spiritual in nature, between good and evil and will be with us until Jesus returns as He promised. We must not grow weary.
ReplyDeleteObama say, "All wars end." Well. The Mohammedan war to subjugate the world is 1500 years old and counting.
ReplyDeleteMany young Mohammedans want to fight to the death. There is no way to stop them. On the contrary, we should make it easy.
There are, I think, only three options.
(1) The British Imperial solution, done by us, the Russians, or even the Chinese: occupy the middle east by main force, put down any trouble by more ruthless force. Imprison any troublemakers. (If Russian or Chinese, may torture or kill rather than merely imprison.)
(2) The Ann Coulter solution: Invade their countries, kill their leaders, convert them to Christianity. Yes, convert by the sword, just as their ancestors were converted to Islam. In other words, annihilate the entire Mohammedan religion.
(3) Surrender and be annihilated.
I don't really think (1) is on the table. I like (2) better than (3).
I personally think that it would be sufficient to say: you can give up your religion and stay, or you keep your religion and go. Where? Not my problem. They say the south of France is nice. If you still want to come back, you're welcome to--in two thousand years.
OK, so here's really the *only* thing that's actually on the table: the U.S. will continue on its merry way to self-destruction as pointed out by Dip et al until we suffer another attack on the homeland, similar to or bigger than 9-11. Only then will the Stupid Voters provide the kind of political will to change the discussion in this country from politically correct Islamophilism into true, righteous rage which can be channeled into action. And that action will only be useful if there is a leader here with the vision to defeat Islam,head on, rather than do a GW Bush and play games. TS Alfabet
DeleteSo (3), then. By slow motion. Until, if ever, "action" resulting in ... (1), (2), or (3)?
Delete"It cannot stand debate; it fears having its tenets quoted back to it by non-believers; it invents its history because its real history is too horrible to contemplate; it can point to almost nothing but conquest, death and destruction as its achievements. M3 is a cowardly apparatus, feeding on the weak."
ReplyDeleteThis too is echoed by the left.
I've thought of Islam as an ideology which was cloaked as a religion because when it was founded that sold best. And socialism/Marxism/progressiveism is a religion which was cloaked as an ideology because when it was founded that sold best.
Excellent indeed and I plan to steal this and use it promiscuously. Part of the reason I come here.....so many writers who can set thoughts in print so well.
DeleteEupheuistic parallelism, not serious comparison.
DeleteLet me illustrate with a little story.
A secular Israeli I know believes kashrut to be medical prophylaxis discovered by an early genius, smuggled into the Torah as religion, because (as you would say) that sold best.
There is of course no evidence for this belief, but he is absolutely certain sure. That holy men, speaking of holiness, could actually be serious about what they say they are serious about, he rejects out of hand--of ancient holy men and modern.
End of story.
It is generally unwise to say, especially of one's adversaries, "They don't really mean that." I am thinking of Iran, land of Aryans, and their leaders' expressed desire to annihilate Israel and the Jews; but the inevitable Godwin-violating comparison leaps to mind.
Islam is the religion in which worship, in part, involves killing non-Mohammedans. Those who deny its legitimacy as a religion strike me as trying to preserve the holy name of religion.
I think socialism/Marxism/progressivism is a political tendency favoring "social" (government) control of "the means of production" (everything).
Its followers often offer it total devotion more appropriate to a religion, and a complete abandonment of all competing values. (See, e.g., child-hero Pavel Morozov.)
But it is demonstrably not a religion: it does not use ceremonial candles.
I rather imagine the original Mohamad, if he existed, as a sort of maniachal David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, or Jim Johns
DeleteWell, it would be quite a stretch to say that Moe Hammad did not exist. Everything about him screams "Bipolar Affective Disorder!" So it was also with Vernon Howells/David Koresh. When in my misspent youth I worked in the loony bins, I'd see Bipolars come into the unit, and from across the day room we'd know their diagnosis. Howells/Koresh videos showed the same affect. Add that to the sexual voraciousness, and you have a reprise of Moe Hammad.
DeleteWell, there is a book devoted to that subject. "Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins" by Robert Spencer.
DeleteAn interesting read as is "The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis" by Robert R. Reilly.
I'd also like the thank the DiploMad for all his wonderful stories and insights which he shares with the world here. You sir, are a treasure.
Looking from outside America, one of the things that really need review is the freedom of religion thing. That has never been true throughout the history of western civilization, I believe the idea was introduced because many small protestant Christian sects had left England for America to escape the enforced uniformity of the Church of England. At the time, it is likely that the founders of the republic would have defined Islam, along with Buddhism etc. as primitive sects rather than religions. We know that the romans used stories of human sacrifice as their reason for wiping out druidism, Cortes felt justified in wiping out the Aztec religion because of their human sacrifice, and the British wiped out Thuggee the professional murderers and thieves who worshipped Kali in India in the 1830's. In each of these cases there is a religion which relies to some extent on killing. It seems to me that Islam is another religion that considers killing to be a moral act even if in limited circumstances and thus cannot be tolerated. Freedom of Religion is a principle that must be rejected.
ReplyDeleteHow you do, Mr. Australia? I don't think we've met.
DeleteYou make a nice point. It is not much to me how my neighbor worships his G-d; certainly no right of mine to coerce him through the federal government to modify his worship; unless, of course, the way he worships is to blow up the airplane my daughter is on. That makes everything different.
The Democrats, with their crime-fighting approach to terrorism, would say: by all means let us arrest the culprits (if they do not suicide in the act), give them (O.J.) trials, and if convicted put them in prison (parallel terms for multiple murders, time off for good behavior, out in maybe forty years for 9/11/2001).
(And that's assuming not traded for some subsequent hostage, or let off on some scam like the Central Park "wilding" culprits were.)
You can see how that might not quite work. Even if the criminals involved were not suicidal, and we caught them all, and subjected them all to capital punishment (at a pretty high price, thank you liberals), that's 19 of them dead to 2,977 of us dead. We can't really do business along those lines.
So: while we are fighting this war, perhaps we should also interdict the teaching of this death cult--in our prisons, military, and so on, if not in the country generally.
In any major war in the past, certainly the Civil War or either of the World Wars, had it fought Islam, the Supreme Court would have discovered the Second Amendment to be sufficiently elastic for this purpose--by regarding Islam as not a religion, or by some other ridiculous legal fiction of the sort the Supreme Court produces routinely and has always produced when necessary to save the Republic. But, I think, not now. So the Second Amendment would have to be itself amended, which is dangerous but may be necessary.
Good lord!, what was I thinking? First Amendment, of course, not Second.
Delete(Sigh). Brain flatulence.
a6z...what's a number among friends? :)
DeleteWhen we talk of American free exercise of religion, it is true that part of the reason for this was the desire of smaller Christian denominations to dissent from the Anglican form. However, Washington's letter to the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island is instructive. When the Jews asked if they would be tolerated in the new American republic, Washington's reply was that the Jews would not merely be "tolerated", but were seen as citizens. Hence, it is clear that the First Amendment was initially seen to include at least some non-Christians.
DeleteAs a Christian who has repented of the sexual revolution of the 1960's and '70's, and who believes firmly in the right of parents to establish private schools if that is what they wish (rank heresy in my shop, the public schools), I believe that the First Amendment free exercise clause is a very important one.
Further, I believe that the Supreme Court, and the wider Federal Bench, has turned into the most dangerous branch, precisely because it is able to manufacture numerous "legal fictions". Recent decisions against Christian photographers and caterers who do not wish to service homosexual weddings, or employers with strong religious convictions who do not wish to fund abortion or contraceptive, show how various "rights" which our judges find in the "penumbras" of the Constitution are destroying one which is spelled out in the clear light of its text.
Everything will change after the USA is attacked in a large way. And nothing will change until then. People could start forming small reprisal groups, like a corporation with 20 people chipping in, to launch limited paramilitary strikes on Islam. It may be that we can never rely on government weenies to do the dirty work. A small, determined group could arrange & drop ordinance on a Muslim city, kill half a million. Then there'd be reprisals by Islam, and Western governments would have to get involved. But just small groups of people using their life savings to kill as many of these animals as possible. Why not?
DeleteIf one accepts that Islam is at war with the rest of the world, and the choices are defeat or victory, then one can get a glimpse of the future.
ReplyDeleteWhen things finally get bad enough that we will face that war for what it is and join it with serious intent, the economic and social state of the West will not be pleasant, unified, or stable.
Islamic society is not capable of producing a military that can meet us on the field of battle, but once the war is acknowledged on our side they will feel justified in using every weapon they can muster, the most readily available and lethal of which will be germs and viruses spread by volunteers willing to die for their faith.
Now you can see the future.
Thworg
Good to meet you, Thworg. I don't think we have.
Delete"If one accepts," forsooth! If one accepts that the sea is wet, the sky blue, the sun rises in the east.
This bit of news http://www.gaypatriot.net/2014/06/18/the-democrats-totally-gay-foreign-policy/ makes me wonder how the Special Envoy within the State Department would be greeted in Islamic world.
ReplyDeleteWith the deepest sensitivity an Islamist can muster.
DeleteCome on, Diplomad. Tell us how you REALLY feel about Islam. :)
ReplyDelete"Islam can only defeat the West when the West first defeats itself"
ReplyDeleteIslam can only be defeated when the "neocon" Islamic Nation Builders/"Muslim Hearts and Minds"/COINsters are defeated here in America.
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DeleteIslam brings hope and comfort to millions of people in my country, and to more than a billion people worldwide. Ramadan is also an occasion to remember that Islam gave birth to a rich civilization of learning that has benefited mankind. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to people. It inspires them to lead lives based on honesty, and justice, and compassion. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon love, not hate. Mohammad's word has guided billions of believers across the centuries, and those believers built a culture of learning and literature and science. All the world continues to benefit from this faith and its achievements. The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace. George W. Bush !!!
ReplyDeleteJust from his It's a faith based upon love, not hate. and his All the world continues to benefit from this faith and its achievements. Bush should have been committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane..Obama could be his roomy.
Please, don't remind me of that craziness . . .
DeleteOr, was Mr. Bush considering GOOD relations which America had enjoyed with a number of Muslim-majority countries, and the honorable service which Americans of the Muslim faith have rendered their country over the years?
DeleteAs a Christian, I don't hold a candle; and as a student of comparative religion, I certainly do not agree that Islam is "a religion of peace". Indeed, I believe the Islamic doctrine of Jihad is a potential ticking time bomb that blows up every so often. But, there are Muslims and Muslims.
Further, I'm old enough to remember the invention of "Islamic fundamentalism" by a coterie of liberal media people, academics, and government officials back in 1979, during Khomeini's revolution. A lot of that terminology smacked of a way of making Evangelical Christians (then abandoning the Democratic Party their grandparents had supported in Jimmeh Cah-duh's hour of need) seem un-American, as if there was some secret alliance between dozens of small, denominational American colleges and thousands of Christian congregations with Qom and the Ithna'ashariyya Shi'ism of Iran. At that time, it became clear to me that a "fundamentalist" was a traditionally devout person whom a liberal reporter didn't like.
In my short and ignominious State career, I even saw some fallout from this sort of discourse. I recall the Malaysian Consul in Guangzhou saying, "Am I now an enemy because I keep halal, pray five times daily, and hope to make the Haj before I die?" This was someone who had studied in the USA (where he learned that a "fundamentalist" was a bad word for serious Christians, whom he actually respected), had gone on record for hoping that the Cold War coalition would hold together in the post-Cold War world, and would readily admit that Malaysia's "non-aligned" status actually leaned West (considering the Communist insurgency in his country). Now, maybe I was hearing the world of Islam saying, "We'll take up where we left off in 1683"; but, maybe, the rhetoric of our so-called Progressives may have also helped make enemies where enmity did not have to be.
Don't get me wrong. There is a large part of the Islamic world that wants to fight us, and that hates us for what we are more than for anything we've said or done. I don't mourn OBL or Awlaki. But American responses to the ferment in the Islamic world has been floundering for a good long time, and I am not sure our leadership has even begun the task of understanding it, much less dealing with it creatively.
Yes, Mr. Bush also floundered. Yes, Mr. Obama doesn't know friend from foe. But I think Mr. Bush wanted to let the world know that we weren't out to fight the whole Islamic world, and at this point at least, he was eminently sane.
The question is not whether we are "out to fight the whole Islamic world", but what is the position of Islam towards the rest of the world, the Dar al Harb.
DeleteCompare and contrast Jesus, who said "My kingdom is not of this earth", and went to the cross, with Muhammed who, having been rejected by most of Mecca, went to Yathrib (Medina, or Madinat al Nabi) whence he returned with an army to conquer Mecca and begin the subjugation of non-believers.
My point is not that the "Christian" West is, or has been, an enterprise of warm fuzzy pacifists, but that any claim to Christianity must eventually come up against the example of the man who went to the cross, while any claim of a Muslim (literally, one who submits) must be compared to a military conqueror who subjugated non-believers.
That is the core of the matter and the shape of the future.
Thworg
Thworg (and others): I certainly agree that the Christian West was never an enterprise of fuzzy pacifists--or, at least, pacifists in the Quaker or Mennonite sense. I'm very much an advocate of Augustine's Just War Theory (it allows me to keep the historical part of the Old Testament in my Bible, for instance). However, I believe that Christianity is a "pacifist" religion in some very important senses: (1) the New Testament urges us to pursue peace with all men, as much as it is up to us (Rom. 12:19); (2) Jesus' appointed means for advancing the Kingdom of God was preaching rather than warfare (this contradicts both Islam and the 1960's Jesus-was-a-Zealot meme); (3) Christians may or may not control the state; we can survive and prosper even in a posture of powerlessness, if that is how God has so placed us; (4) our Christian warfare is spiritual, against the demons and falsehoods, not against men. These points, of course, are in very great contrast to Islam's division of the world into the Dar-ul-Islam and the Dar-al-Harb (Housse of War), the latter being a legitimate target of Muslim aggression and predation.
DeleteAnd your point about Jesus going to the cross is well taken--although I would add that I see Jesus as God incarnate as well as fully human (John 1); and note that Jesus' mission was to give his life a ransom for many and heal us by his stripes (Kk. 10:45; Is. 53; I Pt. 2:24).
However, not all Muslims choose to live by predation against us Kufr, and that is an extremely important point for foreign policy to take into account, and to use for both the interests of the USA and a very broad spectrum of the rest of the world (including portions of the Muslim world). This is why I think that Dubya Bush's wording, while unfortunate and poorly considered, at least showed that his heart was in the right place.
I worry much more about the O declaring "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam". Being someone who believes firmly that the giving of divine revelation ended when John the Apostle put the "Amen" at the end of his Apocalypse, I simply cannot see Muhammad as a prophet of God. According to Muslims, this would make me such a slanderer.
Kepha, I must admit I admire your religious training. If you don't mind me saying, reading your posts is an added benefit for me when I come to check out Diplomad's blog. I do ok on the Communism-Capitalism stuff but the comparative religion matters, well, I ain't got it.
DeleteI'm taking from the last parts of your above post that there is a way to tell the "good Muslims" from the crazies?
Unfortunately, whitewall, "By their fruits ye shall know them".
DeleteThis is why vigilance isn't optional.
Don't mess with Texas! (A hat tip to your state from a non-Texan)
ReplyDeleteIn the end, only by adopting the medieval Spanish policy of convert, leave or die, will we save ourselves from Islam.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kepha! As has been ably pointed out here Islam's ideological makeup and driving force represents an existential threat to the West. Also expressed in so many words is the result of the West's would be campaign of inclusiveness, understanding, and multiculturalism, which is the discarding of all alternatives of response to Islam but one, nukes.
ReplyDeleteJames the Lesser
Sir Dip, reading your excellent posts reminds me-- perhaps intentional on your part?-- of our long struggle against the Soviet Empire. It, too, evinced a failed, rotten, totalitarian ideology that could not hope to compete with the West (or at least the then-non-socialist U.S.). Only when U.S. liberals gave in or sold out to the Soviets could they make headway in their fight against us. All it took, in the end, was one very tough president, Magnus Ronaldus, to fatally crack them apart. Bush was simply there to catch the falling pieces. On the bright side, we can hope that Islam, too, will quickly splinter and implode if the U.S. can manage to elect anyone up to the challenge. On the not so bright side, *unlike* the Soviets, Islamists don't have anything like a rational side that would hesitate to explode a dirty bomb or EMP on the U.S. if given half a chance. This makes the Islamists far more dangerous--- mortally dangerous-- to the U.S. than the Soviets ever were in reality. The clock is ticking. Who will win? Anyone inclined to hedge their bets would do well to find a defensible bit of land with a water source and capacity to be self-sustaining in a pre-industrial world.
ReplyDeletelove your blog. always learn something. keep up the work, it really is necessary!
ReplyDeleteMartha B
"I think Mr. Bush wanted to let the world know that we weren't out to fight the whole Islamic world, and at this point at least, he was eminently sane."
ReplyDeleteI agree to some extent. But Bush was naive about some people. The Islam we see these days, and have since 1979, is an Arab phenomenon. Kilcullen's book, "The Accidental Guerrilla" pointed out how young Arabic speaking men were coming into East Timor. From my review of the book--"It opens with a Prologue describing his time in Java, in 1996, when he first encountered young men who were opposed to the government and who were accompanied by other young men who did not speak the local language well and who began to question him about Palestine. He believes that these were Arabs already infiltrating local groups with the intent of engaging them in transnational Muslim radicalism, what he calls global takfiri insurgency."
This is an Arab insurgency against civilization. Peaceful Muslims exist but they are not Arabs.
"This is an Arab insurgency against civilization."
DeleteI think, Michael K, that could be further refined as "This is a Wahhabist insurgency" ... of course distilling to a particular School as that would explicit some "uncomfortables" requiring some further, "would prefer to remain ... unacknowledged at least "officially."
Arkie
Another quite profound column by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club.
ReplyDelete"For the barbarian the only reality is appearances. Cargo cultists, for instance, believe that function comes from form. If they build something which resembles an airport then gift giving airplanes will arrive there to bring goodies. The 21st century barbarian completely lacks the attitude of Roger Bacon, who lived in the 13th century. "
These people, the Obama people, are part of a cargo cult.
Clicking through Michael K, your "stuff on the net" Sir leaves me wondering.
DeleteYour comment at 6/23 19:42 above and then, this most recent at 21:51 has me asking, was your "For the barbarian" directed toward me Arkie or toward perhaps Robert of Ottawa?
I ask simply due to how you've numbered "These people, the Obama People."
I'm somewhat familiar with what, appears to be your credentials. Not implying of course that any who would conflate the anthropological/sociological term "cargo cult" further into a diagnostic without realizing, a "thin ice conclusion."
Would you Michael K, if you're addressing me Arkie - speak that to a Court? Schedule the OR for a hysterectomy?
Very curious I find just personally, "The 21st century barbarian completely lacks the attitude of Roger Bacon, who lived in the 13th century."
But then, Arkie is definitely no Psychiatrist. Or even a Psychologist.
I'm afraid I don't understand your comment. I believe that the political left has aspects of a Cargo Cult in that they use magical thinking to assure themselves that what they wish for will come to pass. As far as "Wahhabist insurgency," my understanding is that the Wahhabists were the crucial (sorry for the metaphor) factor in allowing the House of Saud to control Arabia. The result has been that the Arabs have allowed the Wahhabi wing of Islam to grow and become the dominant force in the Arab version of Islam. Are there non-Wahabbi versions of Islam active among the Arab population ?
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit confusing to see comments by "Anonymous" and not know who is talking.
"I'm somewhat familiar with what, appears to be your credentials. Not implying of course that any who would conflate the anthropological/sociological term "cargo cult" further into a diagnostic without realizing, a "thin ice conclusion."
I seem to have offended you and am not sure why. I realize my "credentials" may be inferior to yours but am not sure why that is a controlling issue. Should these comments be restricted to present and former FSOs ? If so, just let me know.
I am a regular reader of this blog and of the comments it engenders. Arkie is a regular and generally knowledgeable commenter, however, Arkie's convoluted grammar and syntax make it very difficult at times to discern what his point is. His response to your comment is, to me, unintelligible.
DeleteAndy K.
Respectful Apologies Michael K, as I've not revisited since our host put the newest post up. You've Sir, not offended me.
Delete"Should these comments be restricted to ... ?" No. That's the one thing I believe our host makes his most explicit point (of course how can I know original intent?) against. All of us, in one form or another have skin in this game.
To get past the Wahhabist Insurgency + Saudi most expeditiously (hopefully) Sir, the comment June 23, 2014 at 7:42 PM I, Arkie (generally 'sign' on the time-stamped comment which, in this instance) June 23, 2014 at 8:46 PM, "This is a Wahhabist insurgency" ... of course distilling to a particular School as that would explicit some "uncomfortables"
My intent was, tho' your review featured Timor and Java - and as you placed "unfamiliarity with the language" - I shorthanding unfortunately as is my habit - considered "a gimme" Wahhabism was distinctly since 9/11 recognized as Saudi originating.
The "uncomfortables" meant as not just a throwaway, It's Obama's fault rather "the Obama lineage" doesn't have the History in the region "another lineage" does. Kenyans generally speaking, don't much influence fuel prices as some other Geographically speaking, "other lineages" do.
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Perhaps Michael K you missed this comment, Your comment at 6/23 19:42 above and then, this most recent at 21:51 has me asking, was your "For the barbarian" directed toward me Arkie or toward perhaps Robert of Ottawa?
I Honor Michael K, your confusion.
And your's Andy K.
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Cargo Cult:
"Cargo cultists, for instance, believe that function comes from form. If they build something which resembles an airport then gift giving airplanes will arrive there to bring goodies. ... These people, the Obama people, are part of a cargo cult."
___
Earlier today (6/27) I was over visiting D&N - Dip's sidebar when came in:
http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2014/06/more-melancholia-on-events-over-there.html
Then, amongst the comments there was [dunno if same Whitewall]
"... that is the model--import poverty and ignorance and keep them indebted to you. The same plantation model Dems have used for the Black vote for decades. ... Bit by bit, his alien ideology is being exposed and upended. Even the dullest of Democrats can see the obvious."
At which I (Arkie) directed - from the recent Mississippi GOP Establishment's apparent version of, Cargo Cult
"Let’s be blunt: It is awfully hard to draw cosmic conclusions about the Mississippi Senate race when the six-term incumbent lost by a little in the first primary and won by a little in the second primary. It’s enough to almost certainly make him a seven-term senator, though he must be shocked that he only squeaked back into his seat after serving 36 years in the Senate and providing more pork for Mississippi than exists on all the hog farms in Iowa combined. The process isn’t pretty, but party leaders will do what they have to do to win — and arguably, they know the process, the geography, and the levers of power better than any other faction."
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/republicans-thank-god-for-mississippi/
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Which (maybe/hopefully) ends - maybe only aims toward - An Arkieianism - Wahhabism = exporting the means while, the GOP Establishment = importing the means.
Hope that helped ...
Arkie
Unless I have missed something that appeared this morning, since I come to Dip first or second, Mississippi is not over. The skullduggery now coming to light could just conceivably bring down Cochran yet. They fight hard. They fight dirty, even enlisting (Shudder, retch) Democrats in their army. A write-in campaign might even work. The State Republican executive committee might possibly be shamed into turning on one of their own, maybe? Probably not.
Delete"Mississippi is not over."
DeleteAgreed Michael, wholeheartedly (as I allow myself these days) agreed.
What's worse (for Cochran ... probably) is there'll be no way to judge from such means as "the pros" are generally speaking, becomed accustomed to in these latter days, ie "the polls" ... until the only polls that truly matter - the ones that all close on a specific date and time come November, to truly judge "the progress" the cough, cough ... excuse me, cough cough hack, spit,
pardon me. The Honorable Senator Cochran won't be able to assess how well his adopting such a progressive strategy truly works for him until it's ... too late.
Arkie
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/thad-cochran-mississippi-election-2014-black-vote-108411.html
ReplyDelete