http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20080228.aspx
'Remember Iraq? You know, the war we lost? The big failure we were wasting our lives and "treasure" on? Yeah, that one. Haven't heard much about it lately, right? That's because Iraq has disappeared off the international radar, and for good reasons. Enemy activity levels are at the lowest levels in years. The Iraqi Police and military is growing in leaps and bounds. Half of the country has been turned back over to Iraqi control and next month, Anbar Province will become the tenth province turned over.'
Without blush or apology, without recantation of previously held moronicisms and without the slightest indication of having been dead wrong for four years, the big media have dropped Iraq from their rundowns and front pages. Afghanistan now seems much more fruitful ground for bleating about quagmires and wasted young lives. For those of us who actually care whether young Americans and Britons and Australians and Poles died for something rather than nothing, this is bitter gall. The 'liberals' who couldn't stop ranting about the horrors of endless war six months ago seem to have amnesia. Perhaps all the mental energy they put into willing American defeat has rendered their huge brains incapable of any further activity. We can only hope.
But a very scary prospect is already on the horizon... what happens when the military assets previously needed in Iraq are freed up for use in Afghanistan? What happens when all the hard-learned lessons of Iraq are utilised by seasoned veterans in Afghanistan? What happens if we win in Afghanistan? The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC and all the others who want America to fail so that President George W Bush will be politically damaged will have no more quagmires to turn to. They will be faced with a terrible prospect. Not only will America be more secure, and many millions of Arabs and Afghans happier and freer and more prosperous, Al Qaeda will have two possibly three terrible defeats on its ledger, and the idea that all warfare and violence is evil and counter-productive will have been shown to be so much fart noise.
Indeed, for honest 'liberals' the bottom will fall out of their world view. Come the day, come the hour.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Who not to listen to
'Afghan and western forces in the country have been facing a resurgent Taleban over the past year.
Earlier the American Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told a US senate committee that the Taleban had regained control of 10% of Afghanistan, six years after they were ousted from power.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7268564.stm
Behind the recitation of various facts, two messages are delivered by this BBC 'report'. First, the Taleban are regaining ground in Afghanistan. Second, the Taleban is resurgent. Both of these are crap.
Look at a map of Afghanistan. The Pashto areas along the border of Pakistan comprise between a third and a quarter of Afghanistans area. At the beginning of the campaigns in Afghanistan, most of those Pashto areas were hostile to the NATO forces. So you could say at least 33% of Afghanistan was Taleban territory. Add to that wild lawless areas like Helmand and Kandahar provinces, and probably in excess of 40% of Afghanistan was Taleban controlled. If thats down to 10% it represents a massive win for NATO. Not only that, but with the more than doubling of NATO presence in Helmand, which up until now the British have tried to control with tiny forces, the prospects for the Taleban in the lowlands is very poor indeed. The US Marine Corps units coming to Helmand are veterans of Iraq, competent, heavily armed and very very bad news for the Taleban newbies. And newbies they are. The attrition rate of Taleban grunts is stupendous. Despite the frothy fountain of jihadis coming out of Pakistani madrassahs, they can't keep up with the terribly high attrition rate inflicted on them by NATO. Although the leaders of outfits are often veterans, many of the Taleban soldiery are first mission greenhorns. That means they are rubbish in a fight, and very likely to do stupid things that will get them (and their comrades) killed.
Indeed, it is getting harder and harder for the Taleban to recruit even in the border areas of Pakistan. Only the foolhardiest and stupidest volunteer. Despite the difficulties NATO has in covering such an enormous area, it is still highly capable of inflicting massive casualties on the enemy given even a small window of opportunity to do so. The only thing the jihadis can hope for is that NATO will get bored and go home. What keeps them in the game is money from Heroin, and the abysmal ignorance of the folks up in the mountains of the NWFP. The latter can be gauged from the comment of a recent failed suicide bomber, who said he was shocked when he walked over the border and an Afghan policemen said 'Allahu Akhbar' to him. He thought the Afghans were Christians! At that point, he unbuckled his suicide belt and handed it to the policemen (who was probably somewhat taken aback).
I do have to call into question somewhat the idea of taking every mountain and valley of the border areas. Not only are these places of no economic value, no government has ever bothered to try to govern them. They just make deals with them. You don't come down here and raid and plunder, and we don't come up there and blow up all your houses in the middle of winter. Many many of the tiny tribes in the high valleys will never accept rule from Kabul, be it ever so Islamic. So don't try. Just make it clear that the penalty for harbouring Arab or Uzbeck or Egyptian terrorists is Armaggeddon. You may need to demonstrate this in a few places pour encourager les autres, but once word gets around, it should work nicely. Saying that, even the current NATO strategy stands a very good chance of working in a country totally sick of war.
Earlier the American Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told a US senate committee that the Taleban had regained control of 10% of Afghanistan, six years after they were ousted from power.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7268564.stm
Behind the recitation of various facts, two messages are delivered by this BBC 'report'. First, the Taleban are regaining ground in Afghanistan. Second, the Taleban is resurgent. Both of these are crap.
Look at a map of Afghanistan. The Pashto areas along the border of Pakistan comprise between a third and a quarter of Afghanistans area. At the beginning of the campaigns in Afghanistan, most of those Pashto areas were hostile to the NATO forces. So you could say at least 33% of Afghanistan was Taleban territory. Add to that wild lawless areas like Helmand and Kandahar provinces, and probably in excess of 40% of Afghanistan was Taleban controlled. If thats down to 10% it represents a massive win for NATO. Not only that, but with the more than doubling of NATO presence in Helmand, which up until now the British have tried to control with tiny forces, the prospects for the Taleban in the lowlands is very poor indeed. The US Marine Corps units coming to Helmand are veterans of Iraq, competent, heavily armed and very very bad news for the Taleban newbies. And newbies they are. The attrition rate of Taleban grunts is stupendous. Despite the frothy fountain of jihadis coming out of Pakistani madrassahs, they can't keep up with the terribly high attrition rate inflicted on them by NATO. Although the leaders of outfits are often veterans, many of the Taleban soldiery are first mission greenhorns. That means they are rubbish in a fight, and very likely to do stupid things that will get them (and their comrades) killed.
Indeed, it is getting harder and harder for the Taleban to recruit even in the border areas of Pakistan. Only the foolhardiest and stupidest volunteer. Despite the difficulties NATO has in covering such an enormous area, it is still highly capable of inflicting massive casualties on the enemy given even a small window of opportunity to do so. The only thing the jihadis can hope for is that NATO will get bored and go home. What keeps them in the game is money from Heroin, and the abysmal ignorance of the folks up in the mountains of the NWFP. The latter can be gauged from the comment of a recent failed suicide bomber, who said he was shocked when he walked over the border and an Afghan policemen said 'Allahu Akhbar' to him. He thought the Afghans were Christians! At that point, he unbuckled his suicide belt and handed it to the policemen (who was probably somewhat taken aback).
I do have to call into question somewhat the idea of taking every mountain and valley of the border areas. Not only are these places of no economic value, no government has ever bothered to try to govern them. They just make deals with them. You don't come down here and raid and plunder, and we don't come up there and blow up all your houses in the middle of winter. Many many of the tiny tribes in the high valleys will never accept rule from Kabul, be it ever so Islamic. So don't try. Just make it clear that the penalty for harbouring Arab or Uzbeck or Egyptian terrorists is Armaggeddon. You may need to demonstrate this in a few places pour encourager les autres, but once word gets around, it should work nicely. Saying that, even the current NATO strategy stands a very good chance of working in a country totally sick of war.
Superb war reporting
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/magazine/24afghanistan-t.html?pagewanted=11&_r=2
(Hat tip: Abu Muqawama)
This is very high quality war reporting. Detailed, well-analysed, well written and balanced. If only 5% of war reporting was this good. Do you call in the airstrike you know will kill an insurgent knowing that the house has innocents in it as well? Do you fight in the hills with guys who know the hills 100% better than you do, or do you just send in the cluster bombs? Do you kill locals who you know sympathise with and materially support your enemies?
These are not theoretical moral dilemmas for Battle Company and other units from the Second Brigade of the 503rd Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. They are decisions you might have a few minutes to mull over because the C-130 gunship is running out of fuel. These guys are at the grisly spear-point. Say a prayer for them.
(Hat tip: Abu Muqawama)
This is very high quality war reporting. Detailed, well-analysed, well written and balanced. If only 5% of war reporting was this good. Do you call in the airstrike you know will kill an insurgent knowing that the house has innocents in it as well? Do you fight in the hills with guys who know the hills 100% better than you do, or do you just send in the cluster bombs? Do you kill locals who you know sympathise with and materially support your enemies?
These are not theoretical moral dilemmas for Battle Company and other units from the Second Brigade of the 503rd Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. They are decisions you might have a few minutes to mull over because the C-130 gunship is running out of fuel. These guys are at the grisly spear-point. Say a prayer for them.
Staging the news
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/WhatWouldYouDo/story?id=4339476&page=1 (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)
Try this on for size.
'Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?
Bystanders Turn Away When Muslim Actor Hired By 'Primetime' Encounters Hostility'
Missing from this headline: the fact that the 'hostility' came from a paid actor. Thats right, the victim was a paid actor, and the persecutor was, er, also a paid actor. This road-show is supposed to tell us what exactly?
I think most pertinently it points out an obvious lack of real examples of prejudicial behaviour, not to mention actual assaults or killings. Compare for example Yemeni behaviour with American behaviour. Recently,
'Seven Spanish tourists were killed in Yemen yesterday when an apparent suicide bomber linked to Al-Qaeda rammed a car packed with explosives into their convoy.
Witnesses said the road in the province of Marib was littered with body parts and charred vehicles from the huge blast, which was reportedly heard for miles. The explosion also killed their two Yemeni guides and left a further six Spanish tourists injured.' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2017836.ece
Thats innocent Spanish people murdered because they are White Christian Europeans. So, where are the equivalent incidents of American mass murders of innocent Swarthy Muslim Middle-easterners? There aren't any. Where are the incidents of Americans beating Swarthy Muslim Middle-easterners in the street simply for being what they are? There aren't any. So what exactly is ABC up to?
I have a suggestion. Could you ABC folks go to Yemen, take a white Christian woman into a convenience store (if Yemen has one of those) and get an actor dressed as a local to racially and religiously abuse her, and record the reactions of the genuine locals. If any of you get back alive with the tape, I'd be interested to watch that.
Try this on for size.
'Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?
Bystanders Turn Away When Muslim Actor Hired By 'Primetime' Encounters Hostility'
Missing from this headline: the fact that the 'hostility' came from a paid actor. Thats right, the victim was a paid actor, and the persecutor was, er, also a paid actor. This road-show is supposed to tell us what exactly?
I think most pertinently it points out an obvious lack of real examples of prejudicial behaviour, not to mention actual assaults or killings. Compare for example Yemeni behaviour with American behaviour. Recently,
'Seven Spanish tourists were killed in Yemen yesterday when an apparent suicide bomber linked to Al-Qaeda rammed a car packed with explosives into their convoy.
Witnesses said the road in the province of Marib was littered with body parts and charred vehicles from the huge blast, which was reportedly heard for miles. The explosion also killed their two Yemeni guides and left a further six Spanish tourists injured.' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2017836.ece
Thats innocent Spanish people murdered because they are White Christian Europeans. So, where are the equivalent incidents of American mass murders of innocent Swarthy Muslim Middle-easterners? There aren't any. Where are the incidents of Americans beating Swarthy Muslim Middle-easterners in the street simply for being what they are? There aren't any. So what exactly is ABC up to?
I have a suggestion. Could you ABC folks go to Yemen, take a white Christian woman into a convenience store (if Yemen has one of those) and get an actor dressed as a local to racially and religiously abuse her, and record the reactions of the genuine locals. If any of you get back alive with the tape, I'd be interested to watch that.
Monday, February 25, 2008
So what?
http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/02/gazas_culture_of_selfdestructi.php
'When children are raised on a steady diet of hatred, disrespect for human life, and violence, those children grow up to be violent and with no regard for the life, or well-being, of others. And not just for “those” others but for all others, including those within their own society. Parents in Gaza need to ask themselves, “What kind of person will my child grow up to be if I have taught him to celebrate the murder of a 73 year old woman by passing out candy and flowers?” as the children of Gaza did in large numbers recently when two suicide bombers managed to kill an old woman and put her even more elderly husband into intensive care.'
I don't know if I agree with this analysis. From my not-hugely-extensive knowledge of Arab history and culture, Palestinian violence is broadly in the mainstream of Arab traditions. Arabs were never good neighbors, to each other and to non-Arabs. Many Arab tribes subsisted by attacking and killing their neighbors and/or stealing from their trade caravans. The Ottoman empire, under whom millions of them lived for 500 years or so, maintained a harsh rule to suppress these cultural traditions. It also incorporated Arab fighters into its military to take advantage of this martial tradition. Add to this cultural tradition the instinctual attitude of superiority that Arab culture teaches to its men, and the extremely macho attitude to maleness, and you have a concoction that is very much prone to violence.
In the case of Israel, the victory of the Jews, not exactly reputed for their warlike nature, over the Arabs time after time is felt as a terrible blight on the manhood of every Arab, but especially the ones in Palestine. The fact that this very real humiliation is taught in Gaza schools should surprise no one. And I'm not sure that the conclusion of the author, that teaching kids to hate Jews will mean that Palestinian society will end up suffering more damage from this than Israel will, is justified. Arab society has always operated largely as the Gazans are doing right now- and there still seems to be an awful lot of them about.
Observing that Jew-hatred will eventually transmogrify into Arab-hatred is to miss the main point: Israel can't afford to weaken in its resolve to preserve its existence in the face of implacable Arab hatred, hatred based in traditional Arab cultural roots. Its hardly important if some of the Arab hatred ends up turning in on itself after Israel has been annihilated. What possible consolation would that be to the millions of dead Jews of Israel?
My guess is that only when the world turns its back on the Palestinian Arabs, and the latter are comprehensively and ostentatiously beaten on the battlefield, will Israel be relatively safe. While the Palestinian Arabs believe that they have billions of cheerleaders round the world, and they can pretend to be holding out against the Israeli military colossus, no young Palestinian Arab will quit the fight. Half of winning wars is persuading the enemy he is beaten. The Palestinian Arabs still have some valid reasons to keep them from that conclusion.
'When children are raised on a steady diet of hatred, disrespect for human life, and violence, those children grow up to be violent and with no regard for the life, or well-being, of others. And not just for “those” others but for all others, including those within their own society. Parents in Gaza need to ask themselves, “What kind of person will my child grow up to be if I have taught him to celebrate the murder of a 73 year old woman by passing out candy and flowers?” as the children of Gaza did in large numbers recently when two suicide bombers managed to kill an old woman and put her even more elderly husband into intensive care.'
I don't know if I agree with this analysis. From my not-hugely-extensive knowledge of Arab history and culture, Palestinian violence is broadly in the mainstream of Arab traditions. Arabs were never good neighbors, to each other and to non-Arabs. Many Arab tribes subsisted by attacking and killing their neighbors and/or stealing from their trade caravans. The Ottoman empire, under whom millions of them lived for 500 years or so, maintained a harsh rule to suppress these cultural traditions. It also incorporated Arab fighters into its military to take advantage of this martial tradition. Add to this cultural tradition the instinctual attitude of superiority that Arab culture teaches to its men, and the extremely macho attitude to maleness, and you have a concoction that is very much prone to violence.
In the case of Israel, the victory of the Jews, not exactly reputed for their warlike nature, over the Arabs time after time is felt as a terrible blight on the manhood of every Arab, but especially the ones in Palestine. The fact that this very real humiliation is taught in Gaza schools should surprise no one. And I'm not sure that the conclusion of the author, that teaching kids to hate Jews will mean that Palestinian society will end up suffering more damage from this than Israel will, is justified. Arab society has always operated largely as the Gazans are doing right now- and there still seems to be an awful lot of them about.
Observing that Jew-hatred will eventually transmogrify into Arab-hatred is to miss the main point: Israel can't afford to weaken in its resolve to preserve its existence in the face of implacable Arab hatred, hatred based in traditional Arab cultural roots. Its hardly important if some of the Arab hatred ends up turning in on itself after Israel has been annihilated. What possible consolation would that be to the millions of dead Jews of Israel?
My guess is that only when the world turns its back on the Palestinian Arabs, and the latter are comprehensively and ostentatiously beaten on the battlefield, will Israel be relatively safe. While the Palestinian Arabs believe that they have billions of cheerleaders round the world, and they can pretend to be holding out against the Israeli military colossus, no young Palestinian Arab will quit the fight. Half of winning wars is persuading the enemy he is beaten. The Palestinian Arabs still have some valid reasons to keep them from that conclusion.
Friday, February 22, 2008
A Friday night thought
'Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.' Philippians 4:8
The surge isn't perfect, universal nor irreversible- see, WE TOLD YOU
'While nobody contests the US assertion that the security situation has improved a great deal, it is clearly neither perfect, universal nor irreversible.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7239931.stm
What is this editorialising doing in the middle of a BBC report about the surge? If we were in court, some lawyer would be saying right now 'Objection: calls for speculation, prediction rather than the statement of fact'. I presume that if peace and quiet are 'reversible' in Iraq, they are also reversible in Belgium, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh. Sadly, peace is reversible everywhere. Thats why we have armies and police forces. A favourite debating technique is to pretend that something normal is extraordinary.
Take for instance this:
'More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7258323.stm
This is another story on the BBC website today. Bombs go off in south-eastern Turkey all the time, indeed often in the capital Ankara as well, planted by desperate and angry Kurds. Does the BBC website then posit that the Turkish state is under threat, and the Turkish government incapable of doing anything about that violence? No it doesn't. For the good reason that neither is true. Voilence in Iraq is normal, at least to the extent that many areas still have bodies of men determined to cause trouble if they can do so without dying, and a state which is only becoming capable of policing all its territory right now, in these present days and weeks.
Structrual bias ruins the body politic. It does so by hiding the true state of the world from peoples eyes, day after day, story after story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7239931.stm
What is this editorialising doing in the middle of a BBC report about the surge? If we were in court, some lawyer would be saying right now 'Objection: calls for speculation, prediction rather than the statement of fact'. I presume that if peace and quiet are 'reversible' in Iraq, they are also reversible in Belgium, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh. Sadly, peace is reversible everywhere. Thats why we have armies and police forces. A favourite debating technique is to pretend that something normal is extraordinary.
Take for instance this:
'More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7258323.stm
This is another story on the BBC website today. Bombs go off in south-eastern Turkey all the time, indeed often in the capital Ankara as well, planted by desperate and angry Kurds. Does the BBC website then posit that the Turkish state is under threat, and the Turkish government incapable of doing anything about that violence? No it doesn't. For the good reason that neither is true. Voilence in Iraq is normal, at least to the extent that many areas still have bodies of men determined to cause trouble if they can do so without dying, and a state which is only becoming capable of policing all its territory right now, in these present days and weeks.
Structrual bias ruins the body politic. It does so by hiding the true state of the world from peoples eyes, day after day, story after story.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
When is sovereign territory not sovereign?
'These settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7256576.stm
The EU is nothing if not hypocritical. It is perfectly happy to take Serbia and carve it up, and rally around Kosovo by recognising its 'independence' a nanosecond or two after its 'government' declared it. But sixty years after Israel came into existence, and forty one years after Israel won the West Bank and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) in a defensive war, it still has no claim at all on that land. Note- the whole country of Tibet, all 965,000 square miles of it, was invaded by China in 1950, and I haven't heard more than a tiny squeak from the EU about that. There are no students chanting "Chinese are nazis", "Tibetan holocaust", "Chinese are baby murderers", "Chinas Tibet: the new apartheid" in front of the Chinese embassy. Israel puts up with this sort of abuse on an hourly basis.
So I guess when it comes down to it, soveriegnty is a moving target. If you are Jewish or Serbian, you never really know if you are the soveriegn owners of land; whereas if you have the Peoples Army and a billion factories, or if you are the Palestinian Arabs, you can always find people to go along with your extremely dubious claims to sovereignty.
So how does this sit with the EU claim to be all about International Law (when it comes to US actions round the world) and to be the beacon of all that is good and right? Not well.
I believe there are going to be two outcomes from these decisions- first, minority populations in virtually every country in the world will see it as a huge boost to their own campaigns to split away from the majority. Secondly, the Islamists who have insisted that every inch of soil that was ever part of the Umma must perforce be Islamic for all time will see this as a vindication of their head-hacking, rioting, murders and threats of violence. They will see Kosovo as another victory like their 'victory' in defeating the Soviet colossus, except this time it is the EU they have been victorious over. Forget the facts, this event fits perfectly into their fantasy world-view, and the propaganda which trumpets that world view across the internet into young mens bedrooms from Calgary to Kuala Lumpur.
They can't say they haven't been warned. The Russians have said repeatedly that cutting out the historical heart of Serbia would have repercussions for many other successionists the world over, many of whom the Europeans DON'T support. But I suspect that the decadent Europeans don't really care- they want their way and they don't really care what gets broken. They are spoiled brats with no sense of responsibility.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7256576.stm
The EU is nothing if not hypocritical. It is perfectly happy to take Serbia and carve it up, and rally around Kosovo by recognising its 'independence' a nanosecond or two after its 'government' declared it. But sixty years after Israel came into existence, and forty one years after Israel won the West Bank and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) in a defensive war, it still has no claim at all on that land. Note- the whole country of Tibet, all 965,000 square miles of it, was invaded by China in 1950, and I haven't heard more than a tiny squeak from the EU about that. There are no students chanting "Chinese are nazis", "Tibetan holocaust", "Chinese are baby murderers", "Chinas Tibet: the new apartheid" in front of the Chinese embassy. Israel puts up with this sort of abuse on an hourly basis.
So I guess when it comes down to it, soveriegnty is a moving target. If you are Jewish or Serbian, you never really know if you are the soveriegn owners of land; whereas if you have the Peoples Army and a billion factories, or if you are the Palestinian Arabs, you can always find people to go along with your extremely dubious claims to sovereignty.
So how does this sit with the EU claim to be all about International Law (when it comes to US actions round the world) and to be the beacon of all that is good and right? Not well.
I believe there are going to be two outcomes from these decisions- first, minority populations in virtually every country in the world will see it as a huge boost to their own campaigns to split away from the majority. Secondly, the Islamists who have insisted that every inch of soil that was ever part of the Umma must perforce be Islamic for all time will see this as a vindication of their head-hacking, rioting, murders and threats of violence. They will see Kosovo as another victory like their 'victory' in defeating the Soviet colossus, except this time it is the EU they have been victorious over. Forget the facts, this event fits perfectly into their fantasy world-view, and the propaganda which trumpets that world view across the internet into young mens bedrooms from Calgary to Kuala Lumpur.
They can't say they haven't been warned. The Russians have said repeatedly that cutting out the historical heart of Serbia would have repercussions for many other successionists the world over, many of whom the Europeans DON'T support. But I suspect that the decadent Europeans don't really care- they want their way and they don't really care what gets broken. They are spoiled brats with no sense of responsibility.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Iraqi reconciliation goes up a gear
'One underlying theme speaks volumes about the current state of affairs inside Iraq: without exception, participants feel much better about their country. They are breathing easier about security, they all denounced al Qaeda and other “regional parties” (privately they will tell you they put Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia in the front rank) who have conducted or sponsored the mass killing, they do not want “religious extremists” included in their Reconciliation, and they even believe that Iraq may set an example for the rest of the region.'
http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/michaelledeen/2008/02/19/church_and_state_in_iraq_the_c.php
Although the large media organisations have the odd piece about progress in Iraq, it is the Blogosphere that has the story in full. Pieces like this, written first hand by an attendee at a conference in Denmark, are the future of news. Just the facts, ma'am. Its very hard not to feel slightly smug about my prognostications for Iraq, but I will resist. My views WERE based on a close reading of many individual blogs and websites, but of course predicting the future is always inherently dodgy. I do feel overwhelmingly happy for the Iraqi people though, as I can tell that many of them now believe that a viable, possibly even excellent, future awaits them.
Patches of Iraq are still terrorised by AQiI but these areas are now islands in a sea controlled by Iraqi government/US forces. All around these patches are areas that have freed themselves of AQiI control by the simple expedient of switching sides, forming militias and handing over timely intel to the Iraqi/US forces. There can't be many local Emirs in Iraq who don't know the recipe by now. Even in Shia areas the locals are frequently deciding that the Mahdi army and the other political militias are abusive and more trouble than they're worth- and shopping them to the police/army. In Arab culture, there is very little stigma attached to changing sides and indeed taking up arms against people you were allied to yesterday. If you do it to live another day, nobody really holds it against you. Now that the government and army of Iraq look like they'll win, most local emirs are happy to jump the insurgent bandwagon and high-tail it. Good. Lessons will have been learned about who has the power, the mercy and the money.
On every front, military, social and political, Iraq is becoming more stable and more viable every day. How long before it can hold itself up as a paragon, a beacon to the enslaved Arab world?
http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/michaelledeen/2008/02/19/church_and_state_in_iraq_the_c.php
Although the large media organisations have the odd piece about progress in Iraq, it is the Blogosphere that has the story in full. Pieces like this, written first hand by an attendee at a conference in Denmark, are the future of news. Just the facts, ma'am. Its very hard not to feel slightly smug about my prognostications for Iraq, but I will resist. My views WERE based on a close reading of many individual blogs and websites, but of course predicting the future is always inherently dodgy. I do feel overwhelmingly happy for the Iraqi people though, as I can tell that many of them now believe that a viable, possibly even excellent, future awaits them.
Patches of Iraq are still terrorised by AQiI but these areas are now islands in a sea controlled by Iraqi government/US forces. All around these patches are areas that have freed themselves of AQiI control by the simple expedient of switching sides, forming militias and handing over timely intel to the Iraqi/US forces. There can't be many local Emirs in Iraq who don't know the recipe by now. Even in Shia areas the locals are frequently deciding that the Mahdi army and the other political militias are abusive and more trouble than they're worth- and shopping them to the police/army. In Arab culture, there is very little stigma attached to changing sides and indeed taking up arms against people you were allied to yesterday. If you do it to live another day, nobody really holds it against you. Now that the government and army of Iraq look like they'll win, most local emirs are happy to jump the insurgent bandwagon and high-tail it. Good. Lessons will have been learned about who has the power, the mercy and the money.
On every front, military, social and political, Iraq is becoming more stable and more viable every day. How long before it can hold itself up as a paragon, a beacon to the enslaved Arab world?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Time to tell the unfashionable stories?
http://www.israellycool.com/2008/02/18/arab-slums-much-worse-than-palarab-refugee-camps/
(Hat Tip: Instapundit)
'I must confess that when Hamas militants blasted holes into Egypt’s border to end an Israeli blockade on Gaza, my first thought was how lucky those Gazans were. Landlocked and living on less than $2 a day—their plight rarely elicits envy, I know. But there are Egyptian slums that swim in more sewage and are submerged in even greater poverty. In those slums, chronic diseases go unchecked and uncured, and children grow up next to the dead in tombs turned into makeshift-housing.Yet nobody rushes to blast holes into the imaginary border of poverty that suffocates those slums, nor are they sporting t-shirts urging us to sympathise. Why?
Because Israel cannot be blamed.' [From a former Reuters employee, Mona Eltahawy]
We could be seeing a watershed event. Has it finally got through to the more reasonable media droids that the Palestinians, who get about $2 billion a year in subsidies (free money), are not in fact the story? Most of the 'facts' put out about the Palestinians are wrong. But thats not really the most important thing. What is more important by far is all the unregarded facts about the Arab world, about poverty, about political oppression, about why the world is as it is. Because the Palestinians have their own UN agency, and a huge megafone to blast their 'plight' around the world, their story has recieved vast amounts of attention. As the above quote shows, that has led to the annihilation of many other equally pressing stories in the public mind.
Not only is that wrong, it has been a political project of the left in both Britain and America to sustain this gross disproportion, to its great discredit. Isn't the left about solidarity with the poor, the dispossesed, the powerless? All over the world there are people like that not because of nature but because of man. Because of politics, in particular. Why can't or won't the left say anything about that? I know it doesn't fit into America/Britain/Israel-bashing, but then perhaps there are more evils out there than just ours...
(Hat Tip: Instapundit)
'I must confess that when Hamas militants blasted holes into Egypt’s border to end an Israeli blockade on Gaza, my first thought was how lucky those Gazans were. Landlocked and living on less than $2 a day—their plight rarely elicits envy, I know. But there are Egyptian slums that swim in more sewage and are submerged in even greater poverty. In those slums, chronic diseases go unchecked and uncured, and children grow up next to the dead in tombs turned into makeshift-housing.Yet nobody rushes to blast holes into the imaginary border of poverty that suffocates those slums, nor are they sporting t-shirts urging us to sympathise. Why?
Because Israel cannot be blamed.' [From a former Reuters employee, Mona Eltahawy]
We could be seeing a watershed event. Has it finally got through to the more reasonable media droids that the Palestinians, who get about $2 billion a year in subsidies (free money), are not in fact the story? Most of the 'facts' put out about the Palestinians are wrong. But thats not really the most important thing. What is more important by far is all the unregarded facts about the Arab world, about poverty, about political oppression, about why the world is as it is. Because the Palestinians have their own UN agency, and a huge megafone to blast their 'plight' around the world, their story has recieved vast amounts of attention. As the above quote shows, that has led to the annihilation of many other equally pressing stories in the public mind.
Not only is that wrong, it has been a political project of the left in both Britain and America to sustain this gross disproportion, to its great discredit. Isn't the left about solidarity with the poor, the dispossesed, the powerless? All over the world there are people like that not because of nature but because of man. Because of politics, in particular. Why can't or won't the left say anything about that? I know it doesn't fit into America/Britain/Israel-bashing, but then perhaps there are more evils out there than just ours...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Obamania cult
Everywhere I go on the blogosphere and news websites there is discussion of Obamania. It strikes me forcibly that lefties are completely desperate for a magical, messianic figure, a superman, a giant daddy, a god. Obama is a decent human being, and very moderate(ly talented) politician. He has been elevated by his own supporters far far beyond those modest gifts. I suspect that with the rejection of Christianity by the left, the need for a saviour has been replaced by the covert desire for a dictator, albeit benign. There is a real smell in the ludicrously overwrought emotionalism from the Obamaniacs of Cult of Personality. Although not enormously different from the normal boosterism inherent in a run for President, it comes from a different fount.
I think that outside the growing cult, this smell will put people off.
I think that outside the growing cult, this smell will put people off.
Friday, February 15, 2008
What has Obama got?
The most important question about Barack Obama: if he wasn't half-black, if he was white, and his name was Arnold Richardson, would Obama have got anywhere near the Democrat nomination for the Presidency?
If you watch his speeches and public appearances, you would have to say this is a very ordinary man. Not exciting, not knowledgeable, not impressive. If he was white, we would all probably be saying, Good Grief, that Arnold Richardson is one dull candidate. So if the only thing you really have going for you is an identity-politics one, are you going to stay the course? Are you going to be able to front up to a real deal guy like Mr McCain and persuade everybody you have the right stuff?
If you watch his speeches and public appearances, you would have to say this is a very ordinary man. Not exciting, not knowledgeable, not impressive. If he was white, we would all probably be saying, Good Grief, that Arnold Richardson is one dull candidate. So if the only thing you really have going for you is an identity-politics one, are you going to stay the course? Are you going to be able to front up to a real deal guy like Mr McCain and persuade everybody you have the right stuff?
A watershed for the dinosaur media organisations
http://www.julescrittenden.com/2008/02/15/the-dopiness-of-hope/
(Hat Tip: Instapundit)
'...at a recent Obamathon, ”There was even cheering from the roped-off press area, where some media members had crossed an unwritten line and brought family.”'
Is there a sea-change in America? The enormous dinosaur news and TV organisations, dominated by Democrats from top to bottom, will not impose on themselves any longer the pretence of objectivity. Meanwhile, an alternative world has come to exist on the web, based on the best principles from the past: objectivity, logical argumentation, civil discourse, a weighing of evidence before judgement and a willingness to admit error. If you vote Democrat, you might not have noticed the bias in the mainstream news organisations. Its only human nature. But everybody else has noticed. This election may prove to be a watershed.
After all, this is a Rubicon. Once you leave behind even-handedness and objectivity you can never go back.
(Hat Tip: Instapundit)
'...at a recent Obamathon, ”There was even cheering from the roped-off press area, where some media members had crossed an unwritten line and brought family.”'
Is there a sea-change in America? The enormous dinosaur news and TV organisations, dominated by Democrats from top to bottom, will not impose on themselves any longer the pretence of objectivity. Meanwhile, an alternative world has come to exist on the web, based on the best principles from the past: objectivity, logical argumentation, civil discourse, a weighing of evidence before judgement and a willingness to admit error. If you vote Democrat, you might not have noticed the bias in the mainstream news organisations. Its only human nature. But everybody else has noticed. This election may prove to be a watershed.
After all, this is a Rubicon. Once you leave behind even-handedness and objectivity you can never go back.
Obama and Assad
http://www.nysun.com/article/71373 (Hat tip:Instapundit)
Why does Zbigniew Brzezinski remind me of hippy beads and love-ins? Oh yeah, thats right, its because he last had an original thought in the 60's.
'Mr. Brzezinski himself issued a statement to the Baathist controlled press in Damascus, where he was quoted by the official Sana News Agency as saying that the "talks dealt with recent regional developments, affirming that both sides have a common desire to achieve stability in the region, which would benefit both its people and the United States."' [Italics Mine]
Stability is not just a word- it is a whole philosophy for a vast number of foreign policy folk in Britain and America. Stability means never having to intervene, never having to take a moral view, never having to front up to bad people and tell them they're bad and taking them on. It means descretely looking away while whole tribes are murdered, whole regions destroyed and whole nations put under the tyrants heel. Why? Because we are intrinsically evil, and if we intervene, the only possible outcome is that our evilness will bring about untold disaster and sin. So its best to be realistic (Stability and Realism are conjoined twins) and just let the evil get on with their evilness. After all, who are we to judge?
Stability and Realism derive from the dreary world of post-modernism and anti-colonialism. Think Jimmy Carter. Think Douglas Hurd. Think Barack Obama. It is the place people go to when they have no belief in our goodness, our rightness, our genuine love of Freedom. That other peoples way of doing things is just as good as ours, even if they do put critics and other folk into meat grinders and plastic packing machines and vats of acid. We have no MORAL AUTHORITY to say anything.
Remember, Nancy Pelosi has already been to see the Dictator of Syria to apologize for being American, for America's existence and for Bushitlers crimes. Hillary Clinton wouldn't be seen dead in Damascus, but then it won't be her in the White House. I predict that if Barack Obama wins the general election, he will be off to gladhand Assad within a year of taking office. Combine Obamas naivety with his belief that everybody in the world means well apart from the Republicans, and America can kiss its current strong position in the world goodbye.
It will be Jimmy Carter X 1000. But then I don't think a majority Americans are dumb enough to vote in a greenhorn with nothing but platitudes to offer.
Why does Zbigniew Brzezinski remind me of hippy beads and love-ins? Oh yeah, thats right, its because he last had an original thought in the 60's.
'Mr. Brzezinski himself issued a statement to the Baathist controlled press in Damascus, where he was quoted by the official Sana News Agency as saying that the "talks dealt with recent regional developments, affirming that both sides have a common desire to achieve stability in the region, which would benefit both its people and the United States."' [Italics Mine]
Stability is not just a word- it is a whole philosophy for a vast number of foreign policy folk in Britain and America. Stability means never having to intervene, never having to take a moral view, never having to front up to bad people and tell them they're bad and taking them on. It means descretely looking away while whole tribes are murdered, whole regions destroyed and whole nations put under the tyrants heel. Why? Because we are intrinsically evil, and if we intervene, the only possible outcome is that our evilness will bring about untold disaster and sin. So its best to be realistic (Stability and Realism are conjoined twins) and just let the evil get on with their evilness. After all, who are we to judge?
Stability and Realism derive from the dreary world of post-modernism and anti-colonialism. Think Jimmy Carter. Think Douglas Hurd. Think Barack Obama. It is the place people go to when they have no belief in our goodness, our rightness, our genuine love of Freedom. That other peoples way of doing things is just as good as ours, even if they do put critics and other folk into meat grinders and plastic packing machines and vats of acid. We have no MORAL AUTHORITY to say anything.
Remember, Nancy Pelosi has already been to see the Dictator of Syria to apologize for being American, for America's existence and for Bushitlers crimes. Hillary Clinton wouldn't be seen dead in Damascus, but then it won't be her in the White House. I predict that if Barack Obama wins the general election, he will be off to gladhand Assad within a year of taking office. Combine Obamas naivety with his belief that everybody in the world means well apart from the Republicans, and America can kiss its current strong position in the world goodbye.
It will be Jimmy Carter X 1000. But then I don't think a majority Americans are dumb enough to vote in a greenhorn with nothing but platitudes to offer.
Free speech the Arab way
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7241723.stm
Hmmmm. Where have I heard arguments like these before?
'The document calls on stations "not to offend the leaders or national and religious symbols" of Arab countries, news agency AFP reports.
They should not "damage social harmony, national unity, public order or traditional values," the charter says.
Signatory countries may "withdraw, freeze or not renew the work permits of media which break the regulations".
The charter also calls on broadcasters to avoid erotic content, or content which promotes smoking or the consumption of alcohol, and to "protect Arab identity from the harmful effects of globalisation".'
Sounds like Gordon Brown... and other believers in Free Speech Modified So Muslims aren't Offended.
One of the best ways of judging our current legislation is to see which governments around the world are passing similar laws. If Egypt passes a similar law, you've made a grievous mistake.
Hmmmm. Where have I heard arguments like these before?
'The document calls on stations "not to offend the leaders or national and religious symbols" of Arab countries, news agency AFP reports.
They should not "damage social harmony, national unity, public order or traditional values," the charter says.
Signatory countries may "withdraw, freeze or not renew the work permits of media which break the regulations".
The charter also calls on broadcasters to avoid erotic content, or content which promotes smoking or the consumption of alcohol, and to "protect Arab identity from the harmful effects of globalisation".'
Sounds like Gordon Brown... and other believers in Free Speech Modified So Muslims aren't Offended.
One of the best ways of judging our current legislation is to see which governments around the world are passing similar laws. If Egypt passes a similar law, you've made a grievous mistake.
The one group who nobody ever mentions
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/2008198091324
'There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.
His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field.'
Important in the 2008 American election, important in the next British elections too.
'There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.
His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field.'
Important in the 2008 American election, important in the next British elections too.
The Anglican Church in 2008
'MS [Mark Steyn]: Well, the only person who has the power to fire him is the Queen. There’s no separation of Church and state in Britain. And one of the reasons I’m in favor of separation of Church and state is because the Church, or Christianity, has thrived in a free market in the United States. The established Church in England, in part because it’s fallen into the hands of buffoons like Rowan Williams, who is basically this sort of weird, Welsh druid who’s been promoted way beyond his abilities, that the established Church in the United Kingdom and in Continental Europe has fallen, because there is no free market in Churches. And I think if there is going to be a future for Christianity in Britain at all, it will come, it will not come from an established Church like this.'
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=c3da016e-0628-4e0e-81c9-d14cdfb115b1
I love Mark Steyn; in fact, he's like a father to me. But I don't agree with him in his analysis of the Church of England and why Christianity has declined in Britain. There is a 'free market' for religion in Britain. Every denomination that exists in America exists in Britain if it wants to. In fact, evangelical Christian churches are booming in Britain. The creeping death taking hold of the Anglican church in England and Wales has nothing to do with its competitors or lack thereof. It has to do with the dominance of socialists and communists in that institution which dates back to the first 25 years of the 20th century. Even when I was a child, the Anglican bishop who didn't believe in the literal Christ, the resurrection and the transfiguration were already stock figures of fun. What kind of ordinary, faithful Christian wants to belong to a church whose leaders are ironic secular intellectuals who despise the common folk and hate the popular manifestations of Christianity like Christmas?
The dynamic, cheeful and faithful long ago left the Anglican church for its more bouyant rivals. Thats not much of a problem unless you still value the Anglican churhc as an institution. As an Englishman, I do. I am hardheaded enough though to know when sickness has taken hold to the point where death is inevitable. Twenty years ago, the 'liberal' (read communist) strain of Anglicanism was still counterweighted by the 'conservative' (read Christian) strain, but that is no longer the case. The Anglican church is no longer one thing- it will soon break up into a number of constituent parts. Poor St Augustine.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=c3da016e-0628-4e0e-81c9-d14cdfb115b1
I love Mark Steyn; in fact, he's like a father to me. But I don't agree with him in his analysis of the Church of England and why Christianity has declined in Britain. There is a 'free market' for religion in Britain. Every denomination that exists in America exists in Britain if it wants to. In fact, evangelical Christian churches are booming in Britain. The creeping death taking hold of the Anglican church in England and Wales has nothing to do with its competitors or lack thereof. It has to do with the dominance of socialists and communists in that institution which dates back to the first 25 years of the 20th century. Even when I was a child, the Anglican bishop who didn't believe in the literal Christ, the resurrection and the transfiguration were already stock figures of fun. What kind of ordinary, faithful Christian wants to belong to a church whose leaders are ironic secular intellectuals who despise the common folk and hate the popular manifestations of Christianity like Christmas?
The dynamic, cheeful and faithful long ago left the Anglican church for its more bouyant rivals. Thats not much of a problem unless you still value the Anglican churhc as an institution. As an Englishman, I do. I am hardheaded enough though to know when sickness has taken hold to the point where death is inevitable. Twenty years ago, the 'liberal' (read communist) strain of Anglicanism was still counterweighted by the 'conservative' (read Christian) strain, but that is no longer the case. The Anglican church is no longer one thing- it will soon break up into a number of constituent parts. Poor St Augustine.
A New Gaza For Europe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7246505.stm
'Kosovo may declare independence this weekend, and the US and most EU states are expected to recognise it quickly.'
...because of course you want to piss off the Russians at the precise moment you really need their help against Iran, and they're in a tetchy and unreasonable mood anyway. It just makes sense. After all, creating a new Gaza strip in the middle of eastern Europe makes sense in the way that clubbing yourself on the head with a mallet makes sense. And if the US and Britain think that they will get credit from the foaming-mouthed muslim hordes for giving the Kosovo muslims their own little country, I give you the example of Spain. What credit have they got for removing their crap little army from Iraq? Nil point.
They recently rounded up a gang who were going for a repeat of the Atocha spectacular, but in Barcelona.
I get the distinct impression that the whole western world is giving itself a group hug over this Kosovo 'independence' because it pushes all the right buttons of the internationalist/fantasist mainstream press. It gets governments who have been buffeted for years for being decisive in Iraq and Afghanistan some kind and plauditry headlines. It makes absolutely no sense from a geo-strategic point of view, and it opens the door for 50,000 minority groups to claim that they should have their own countries, but it does mean that western politicians get to feel good about themselves for a few minutes.
Yay.
'Kosovo may declare independence this weekend, and the US and most EU states are expected to recognise it quickly.'
...because of course you want to piss off the Russians at the precise moment you really need their help against Iran, and they're in a tetchy and unreasonable mood anyway. It just makes sense. After all, creating a new Gaza strip in the middle of eastern Europe makes sense in the way that clubbing yourself on the head with a mallet makes sense. And if the US and Britain think that they will get credit from the foaming-mouthed muslim hordes for giving the Kosovo muslims their own little country, I give you the example of Spain. What credit have they got for removing their crap little army from Iraq? Nil point.
They recently rounded up a gang who were going for a repeat of the Atocha spectacular, but in Barcelona.
I get the distinct impression that the whole western world is giving itself a group hug over this Kosovo 'independence' because it pushes all the right buttons of the internationalist/fantasist mainstream press. It gets governments who have been buffeted for years for being decisive in Iraq and Afghanistan some kind and plauditry headlines. It makes absolutely no sense from a geo-strategic point of view, and it opens the door for 50,000 minority groups to claim that they should have their own countries, but it does mean that western politicians get to feel good about themselves for a few minutes.
Yay.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
"Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin'"
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/02/heere-bigynneth.html
This is some of the best satire since Jonathan Swift. Laughed out loud on numerous occasions. Read it and weep (with laughter).
This is some of the best satire since Jonathan Swift. Laughed out loud on numerous occasions. Read it and weep (with laughter).
Monday, February 11, 2008
Pompous windbags!!!!
I have tried to stop myself from posting again about the idiots at the top of the Anglican church, but having just seen them again on the 7pm news, I just have to. The Synod gave Williams a STANDING OVATION. Yes, a STANDING OVATION. Like he'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize or something really worthwhile. The message was clear: the Archbishop of Canterbury is a pompous, arrogant windbag, and we love him for it! For we like sheep are also pompous arrogant windbags.
I can't express my contempt for that stuffy clique of know-nothing do-nothings. Get out into your parishes and preach the word of Jesus Christ! Thats what you are there for. St Augustine would be so angry. And impatient. Where is our St Augustine?
I can't express my contempt for that stuffy clique of know-nothing do-nothings. Get out into your parishes and preach the word of Jesus Christ! Thats what you are there for. St Augustine would be so angry. And impatient. Where is our St Augustine?
Unclarity of the non-inappropriate kind
"But I must of course take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview and for any misleading choice of words that's helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large, and especially among my fellow Christians,'' he added.
He said: "I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities, and to try and bring them into better public focus."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7239409.stm
Oh my. This guy is BRILLIANT. The only evidence for that is the assurances of one R Williams, but whatever. Two points. He can't even apologise without massacring the English language. And second, when was the last time you heard any MCB or MPACUK spokesman talking about the concerns of the Anglicans? You haven't and you won't. They don't bother about that, its not on their priority list. Why is Sharia on Williams's? Empty Anglican churches anybody? Openly gay prelates anybody? Not bothering to teach the word of God as it is written anybody? Hundreds of millions of disgruntled African Anglicans anybody? I haven't heard a peep out of Williams about re-invigorating the Anglican church and restoring it to its formerly vibrant state. How about sorting that out, Rowan, then we'll talk about the other low-priority crap.
Deal?
He said: "I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities, and to try and bring them into better public focus."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7239409.stm
Oh my. This guy is BRILLIANT. The only evidence for that is the assurances of one R Williams, but whatever. Two points. He can't even apologise without massacring the English language. And second, when was the last time you heard any MCB or MPACUK spokesman talking about the concerns of the Anglicans? You haven't and you won't. They don't bother about that, its not on their priority list. Why is Sharia on Williams's? Empty Anglican churches anybody? Openly gay prelates anybody? Not bothering to teach the word of God as it is written anybody? Hundreds of millions of disgruntled African Anglicans anybody? I haven't heard a peep out of Williams about re-invigorating the Anglican church and restoring it to its formerly vibrant state. How about sorting that out, Rowan, then we'll talk about the other low-priority crap.
Deal?
Friday, February 08, 2008
The New Selous Scouts
Buried in a couple of recent news stories were these interesting nuggets. The first was the expulsion of two Brits from Afghanistan. 'Mervyn Patterson, a British political adviser to the United Nations mission in Kabul, and Michael Semple, the Irish-born acting head of the European Union mission, left the country this morning, according to reports.' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/27/wafg327.xml
Look at Mervyn. He doesn't look like a desk-jockey does he?
Now read this. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/04/wafg104.xml
'Britain's troubled relations with Afghanistan's government has hit new turbulence as it emerged that London secretly planned to build training camps for ex-Taliban fighters.' Great counter-insurgency ideas never die, they are just recycled.
By far the most effective unit in the Rhodesian army was the Selous Scouts. They took captured terrorists, broke them psychologically and 'turned' them. They then took them straight out into the bush to mix in with real terrorists and reveal their location. The Selous Scouts would then call in the copters and the RLI would shoot them. It was a staggeringly efficient tactic. I'm pretty sure by the look of him that Mervyn may well be ex-Selous Scout, or at the least knows some.
It warms the cockles of my heart to know that the British still know how to do some things.
The Benefits of being Invaded
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/02/the-final-missi-1.php
Reading through this post, especially the last few paragraphs, brought to mind very strongly how an intervention like the American one in Iraq is not one event but many millions of individual events. There have been millions of interactions between individual Iraqis and Americans since March 2003, and Iraq will be changed in many subtle ways as a consequence. For one thing, America and Americans are for most people in the middle east mythical entities about which they hear much but have experienced nil. Not Iraqis. A very large majority of Iraqis will have now met Americans, talked to them, perhaps even had daily dealings with them. Meeting people, looking them in the eye and getting a chance to make your own judgement is so so different from judging from afar. For one thing, many of the myths about people fall away to dust when you stand in front of them and talk to them. Its impossible to be around people considerably different from yourself and not take an interest in how they think, how they live, how they behave morally.
I lived in Africa for six years, and my overall judgement of Africans was that individually many of them are great people, but that African culture as I got to know it was woeful and punitive. The Africans who gave it up and lived by our cultural rules seemed to gain tremendously from it. Will that happen in Iraq? Will American culture, the real actual American culture which is tolerant, even-handed, rough and ready but dependable and generous, rub off on Iraqis and give Iraq a much better chance of success as a country? Perhaps it will. Vanquished often copy their victors. Who knows, in a few years, young guys who were foot-soldiers in the insurgencies may well be playing basketball, pimping their rides and drinking beer down at the local haunt. And perhaps imbibing the more subtle flavours of American culture too...
I'm pretty sure though that Iraq will never be quite the same again. The Guardianistas and the Palestinian intellectuals in New York will hate it, sure, but Iraq will almost certainly gain from the experience. You only have to look at the other countries America helped down the road to western-style civic dispensations to understand that being taken over by them is generally a marvellous and salutary experience. Do you want to be rich and free and strong? Invite the Americans in.
Reading through this post, especially the last few paragraphs, brought to mind very strongly how an intervention like the American one in Iraq is not one event but many millions of individual events. There have been millions of interactions between individual Iraqis and Americans since March 2003, and Iraq will be changed in many subtle ways as a consequence. For one thing, America and Americans are for most people in the middle east mythical entities about which they hear much but have experienced nil. Not Iraqis. A very large majority of Iraqis will have now met Americans, talked to them, perhaps even had daily dealings with them. Meeting people, looking them in the eye and getting a chance to make your own judgement is so so different from judging from afar. For one thing, many of the myths about people fall away to dust when you stand in front of them and talk to them. Its impossible to be around people considerably different from yourself and not take an interest in how they think, how they live, how they behave morally.
I lived in Africa for six years, and my overall judgement of Africans was that individually many of them are great people, but that African culture as I got to know it was woeful and punitive. The Africans who gave it up and lived by our cultural rules seemed to gain tremendously from it. Will that happen in Iraq? Will American culture, the real actual American culture which is tolerant, even-handed, rough and ready but dependable and generous, rub off on Iraqis and give Iraq a much better chance of success as a country? Perhaps it will. Vanquished often copy their victors. Who knows, in a few years, young guys who were foot-soldiers in the insurgencies may well be playing basketball, pimping their rides and drinking beer down at the local haunt. And perhaps imbibing the more subtle flavours of American culture too...
I'm pretty sure though that Iraq will never be quite the same again. The Guardianistas and the Palestinian intellectuals in New York will hate it, sure, but Iraq will almost certainly gain from the experience. You only have to look at the other countries America helped down the road to western-style civic dispensations to understand that being taken over by them is generally a marvellous and salutary experience. Do you want to be rich and free and strong? Invite the Americans in.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Sad day for our masters
Just watched Channel Four news. Not a fave of mine, but still good in its way. The presenter was discussing the moronic comments of the Archbishop of the Church of No One in Particular. He had a 'mainstream' muslim bigwig and some minor government minister in for his 'debate'. The govmnt minister said 'We must have only one set of laws for all citizens in this country'.
The presenter said "Why?". The minister waffled for a couple of minutes, and again the presenter said "Why? You can't just assert, you have to tell us why." And as far as I was concerned he was completely right.
If you get up in public to defend our nation and its laws and habitual ways, you'd better know enough about the 'why' to have a credible answer. We are governed by intellectual midgets.
The presenter said "Why?". The minister waffled for a couple of minutes, and again the presenter said "Why? You can't just assert, you have to tell us why." And as far as I was concerned he was completely right.
If you get up in public to defend our nation and its laws and habitual ways, you'd better know enough about the 'why' to have a credible answer. We are governed by intellectual midgets.
Rowan Williams: I'm an idiot of almost unprecedented idiocy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7233335.stm
"Complete Collapse and extinction of the Anglican Church Unavoidable" Says Archbishop of Canterbury. "But its OK because being a Muslim is much better".
Ok, I may have made that up, but his actual comments are, if anything, more bizarre.
"Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One the UK had to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. He said adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law could help social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court."
Er, call me an idiot but how does that help COHESION? Having a chunk of our population using its own laws while the majority plod along with British law will ALIENATE the minority from the majority and vice versa. Or is that just too obvious for RowanAtkinson Williams?
Up until this point in my life, I've been happy to waffle along calling myself an Anglican (as a sort of default Christianity) but I will not be doing so from here on out. So I guess its back to the Church of Rome...
"Complete Collapse and extinction of the Anglican Church Unavoidable" Says Archbishop of Canterbury. "But its OK because being a Muslim is much better".
Ok, I may have made that up, but his actual comments are, if anything, more bizarre.
"Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One the UK had to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. He said adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law could help social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court."
Er, call me an idiot but how does that help COHESION? Having a chunk of our population using its own laws while the majority plod along with British law will ALIENATE the minority from the majority and vice versa. Or is that just too obvious for Rowan
Up until this point in my life, I've been happy to waffle along calling myself an Anglican (as a sort of default Christianity) but I will not be doing so from here on out. So I guess its back to the Church of Rome...
Monday, February 04, 2008
Serbia and Turkey
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7225727.stm
Whats good for the goose is apparently genocide for the gander. The Turks have been beating the crap out of the Kurds for a large swathe of the 20th and all the 21st century. According to this website, 12,000 have died during this altercation. According to this story, almost exactly the same number died in the conflict between the Christian Serbs and Muslims in Kosovo, according to the US state department (the Red cross casualty stats have far fewer dying, 3,368 civilians: 2,500 Albanians, 400 Serbs, and 100 Roma).
It is instructive to note the difference in how astonishingly different these two cases are being dealt with. The EU has made virtually no protests on behalf of the Kurds, and has made absolutely no noises about recognising a Kurdish homeland in South Eastern Turkey. Indeed, the very idea of a Kurdistan involving part of Turkeys soveriegn territory is completely anathema to European capitals. They have proscribed the PKK, the main Kurdish separatist movement, and condemned it as a terrorist organisation.
Contrast with this the treatment of the Muslim Albanian Kosovans. The KLA, which according to the same story I quoted above, murdered about 1850 and kidnapped a further 1450 who are missing. This is vastly more than have been killed by the PKK. The Kosovans though are the toast of the town, and have been given the green light by most European governments to prepare for independence. This despite the fact that NATO and the EU consider Kosovo to be riddled with both Islamists and gangsters of the very nastiest types.
Only Russia dissents from this consensus view. So what can we deduce from this? Why are Kurds the scum of the earth, who don't deserve a homeland, and Kosovo Albanians Gods gift who must be presented with their own state by lopping off soveriegn territory from Serbia? I don't pretend to know the answer to this, by the way, as I don't subscribe to any of the usual Serbian conspiracy theories, but I am genuinely curious why there is such an enormous disparity in the treatment of the two cases.
I usually have at least some idea why countries behave the way they do, but on this occasion I'm genuinely mystified.
Whats good for the goose is apparently genocide for the gander. The Turks have been beating the crap out of the Kurds for a large swathe of the 20th and all the 21st century. According to this website, 12,000 have died during this altercation. According to this story, almost exactly the same number died in the conflict between the Christian Serbs and Muslims in Kosovo, according to the US state department (the Red cross casualty stats have far fewer dying, 3,368 civilians: 2,500 Albanians, 400 Serbs, and 100 Roma).
It is instructive to note the difference in how astonishingly different these two cases are being dealt with. The EU has made virtually no protests on behalf of the Kurds, and has made absolutely no noises about recognising a Kurdish homeland in South Eastern Turkey. Indeed, the very idea of a Kurdistan involving part of Turkeys soveriegn territory is completely anathema to European capitals. They have proscribed the PKK, the main Kurdish separatist movement, and condemned it as a terrorist organisation.
Contrast with this the treatment of the Muslim Albanian Kosovans. The KLA, which according to the same story I quoted above, murdered about 1850 and kidnapped a further 1450 who are missing. This is vastly more than have been killed by the PKK. The Kosovans though are the toast of the town, and have been given the green light by most European governments to prepare for independence. This despite the fact that NATO and the EU consider Kosovo to be riddled with both Islamists and gangsters of the very nastiest types.
Only Russia dissents from this consensus view. So what can we deduce from this? Why are Kurds the scum of the earth, who don't deserve a homeland, and Kosovo Albanians Gods gift who must be presented with their own state by lopping off soveriegn territory from Serbia? I don't pretend to know the answer to this, by the way, as I don't subscribe to any of the usual Serbian conspiracy theories, but I am genuinely curious why there is such an enormous disparity in the treatment of the two cases.
I usually have at least some idea why countries behave the way they do, but on this occasion I'm genuinely mystified.
Ezra Levant and the Alberta Human Rights Comm
http://www.steynonline.com/content/blogcategory/15/100/
This is probably THE freedom of speech issue at the moment. Canada is usually assumed to be a jolly good Anglosphere country with hearty lumber-jack folks quaffing Labatts Bleu with hearty mounties, toasting the Queen. Sadly, the Canada of 2008 is much closer to the Netherlands of 1990- brimful of self-hating lefty do-gooders and multi-culti moral-equivalancers. It turns out that all Canadian provinces have one of these 'Human Rights Commissions' which police thought crimes and other contraventions of ideological purity. This despite the fact that actual hate-crimes in Canada are by world standards vanishingly rare.
Who sets up quasi-legal courts to solve a problem that doesn't exist? People who have talked themselves into believing their own propaganda about white Canadians being oppressive and racist, perpetrators of multitudinous crimes against the poor and brown. Unsurprisingly, until the Islamists discovered them, they had virtually nothing to do. How funny is this?
'In its entire history, over half of all cases [brought before the Federal Human Rights commission] have been brought by a sole "complainant," one Richard Warman. Indeed, Mr. Warman has been a plaintiff on every single Section XIII case before the federal "human rights" star chamber since 2002 — and he's won every one. That would suggest that no man in any free society anywhere on the planet has been so comprehensively deprived of his human rights. Well, no. Mr. Warman doesn't have to demonstrate that he's been deprived of his human rights, only that it's "likely" (i.e. "highly un-") that someone somewhere will be deprived of some right sometime. Who is Richard Warman? What's his story? Well, he's a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: an investigator. Same as Shirlene McGovern.'
I recently used the word Kafkaesque in anger, and I'm about to do it again. In the last six years ONE person has been the plaintiff in every case brought. If that doesn't bring to mind visions of the Soviet Union at its most 'Big Brother'-ish nothing will. Or you're Jon Stewart, who never gets round to lampooning stuff like this because satire is about beating the same Republicans over the head every day of every year until he gets cancelled.
As Mark Steyn points out, despite this whole 'Human Rights' kangaroo court thing being a huge laugh, there is also a serious side. Now that the Islamists have discovered a place to enforce Koranic law, they will avail themselves of it at every opportunity. And given that the standard of proof necessary for conviction is ludicrously low, they're almost guarunteed convictions against their ideological foes.
Why are we so determined to despoil our own systems of law (and government) by creating idiocies like these ideological straightjacket-enforcers? Political parties seem loath to critique these things and make them an issue. Time for new political parties?
This is probably THE freedom of speech issue at the moment. Canada is usually assumed to be a jolly good Anglosphere country with hearty lumber-jack folks quaffing Labatts Bleu with hearty mounties, toasting the Queen. Sadly, the Canada of 2008 is much closer to the Netherlands of 1990- brimful of self-hating lefty do-gooders and multi-culti moral-equivalancers. It turns out that all Canadian provinces have one of these 'Human Rights Commissions' which police thought crimes and other contraventions of ideological purity. This despite the fact that actual hate-crimes in Canada are by world standards vanishingly rare.
Who sets up quasi-legal courts to solve a problem that doesn't exist? People who have talked themselves into believing their own propaganda about white Canadians being oppressive and racist, perpetrators of multitudinous crimes against the poor and brown. Unsurprisingly, until the Islamists discovered them, they had virtually nothing to do. How funny is this?
'In its entire history, over half of all cases [brought before the Federal Human Rights commission] have been brought by a sole "complainant," one Richard Warman. Indeed, Mr. Warman has been a plaintiff on every single Section XIII case before the federal "human rights" star chamber since 2002 — and he's won every one. That would suggest that no man in any free society anywhere on the planet has been so comprehensively deprived of his human rights. Well, no. Mr. Warman doesn't have to demonstrate that he's been deprived of his human rights, only that it's "likely" (i.e. "highly un-") that someone somewhere will be deprived of some right sometime. Who is Richard Warman? What's his story? Well, he's a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: an investigator. Same as Shirlene McGovern.'
I recently used the word Kafkaesque in anger, and I'm about to do it again. In the last six years ONE person has been the plaintiff in every case brought. If that doesn't bring to mind visions of the Soviet Union at its most 'Big Brother'-ish nothing will. Or you're Jon Stewart, who never gets round to lampooning stuff like this because satire is about beating the same Republicans over the head every day of every year until he gets cancelled.
As Mark Steyn points out, despite this whole 'Human Rights' kangaroo court thing being a huge laugh, there is also a serious side. Now that the Islamists have discovered a place to enforce Koranic law, they will avail themselves of it at every opportunity. And given that the standard of proof necessary for conviction is ludicrously low, they're almost guarunteed convictions against their ideological foes.
Why are we so determined to despoil our own systems of law (and government) by creating idiocies like these ideological straightjacket-enforcers? Political parties seem loath to critique these things and make them an issue. Time for new political parties?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Whose problem is Gaza?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201523788535&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
'Wednesday, Egyptian officials said security forces captured a cell of Palestinian terrorists that infiltrated Sinai from Gaza and was in possession of a number of explosive belts. Israeli defense officials confirmed the report and said that additional Gazan terrorists, with plans to infiltrate into Israel, were believed to be hiding in Sinai after crossing into there via the open border in recent days.'
Immediately the border was breached, most commentators from the MSM chortled with glee at what a poke in the eye this was for Israel. People who know about the situation in southern Israel and northern Sinai took a very different view. Tens of thousands of lawless Palestinians wandering around in the Sinai is definitely bad news for Egypt. The authorities know that although many Palestinians just want a can of cooking oil and a sack of flour, many others will be there to cause mayhem and criminal activities. But the Egyptian authorities are hamstrung (if they'll forgive the infidel analogy)- if they crack down on the Palestinians who are there to bomb, buy arms and do criminal deals, the Arab world will come down on them like a ton of Korans. If they don't, the already dodgy Sinai towns will turn into full-fledged criminal bazaars like the towns in the NWFP of Pakistan, and the border towns of Mexico. For very good commercial and diplomatic reasons, Egypt doesn't want the spawning of a criminal economy in one of its major tourist areas.
It also doesn't want its relationship with (much stronger and wealthier) Israel to suffer major damage. So what to do? I wouldn't want to be Mubarak right now.
'Wednesday, Egyptian officials said security forces captured a cell of Palestinian terrorists that infiltrated Sinai from Gaza and was in possession of a number of explosive belts. Israeli defense officials confirmed the report and said that additional Gazan terrorists, with plans to infiltrate into Israel, were believed to be hiding in Sinai after crossing into there via the open border in recent days.'
Immediately the border was breached, most commentators from the MSM chortled with glee at what a poke in the eye this was for Israel. People who know about the situation in southern Israel and northern Sinai took a very different view. Tens of thousands of lawless Palestinians wandering around in the Sinai is definitely bad news for Egypt. The authorities know that although many Palestinians just want a can of cooking oil and a sack of flour, many others will be there to cause mayhem and criminal activities. But the Egyptian authorities are hamstrung (if they'll forgive the infidel analogy)- if they crack down on the Palestinians who are there to bomb, buy arms and do criminal deals, the Arab world will come down on them like a ton of Korans. If they don't, the already dodgy Sinai towns will turn into full-fledged criminal bazaars like the towns in the NWFP of Pakistan, and the border towns of Mexico. For very good commercial and diplomatic reasons, Egypt doesn't want the spawning of a criminal economy in one of its major tourist areas.
It also doesn't want its relationship with (much stronger and wealthier) Israel to suffer major damage. So what to do? I wouldn't want to be Mubarak right now.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Borders cause wars (or not)
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011608E
What do people who can't have original thoughts do? They repeat the lazy groupthink of the day.
'The Allied statesmen gathered in 1919 paid little attention to the needs and wants of the people of these territories they were remaking or, in many cases, creating from scratch - drawing boundaries that today, in the next century, ware [sic] are often defending with our own blood.'
Over and over again, I read this same argument- that the British (and French, Portuguese and Dutch) colonialists created states by randomly drawing lines on the maps. According to the argument, this created artificial states that do not cohere resulting in domination by one ethnic group of other ethnicities, leading in the worst cases to intra-communal warfare. These artificial states are the cause of many conflicts round the world, we're told.
Unfortunately, it's bollocks. Firstly, there is no correlation between the likelihood a country will cause wars, and how arbitrary its borders are. Germany was formed in the 19th century from many small statelets, and immediately began a series of wars of aggression. Nobody pretends its borders are arbitrary. They do a pretty good job of including Germans and only Germans. Iraq is a highly heterogenous state consisting of three large groupings, two Arab and one Kurd. It also has large numbers of Turks. Since its creation, Iraq has initiated two aggressive wars. Russia (European Russia) is a homogenous nation which from its inception fought many aggressive wars and built a large empire. Britain is comprised of at least four groupings, English, Welsh, Scots and Irish. It has initiated many many wars. What can we deduce from this? Heterogenous nations are as likely as non-heterogenous countries of launching conflicts, but not more likely. For every example of an 'arbitrary' state causing conflict, there are many of non-arbitrary ones doing so.
Take India. The British unified it and ran India for about 150 years. What happened when they partitioned it in 1947 to allow the muslim population to have a separate country? The two entities immediately went to war with each other. Given that the British were careful to try to draw up borders that included mostly muslims on the one hand and Hindus on the other, the result should presumably have been eternal harmony, if this argument is to believed. Beyond the original partition war, East Pakistan fought a further war of independence from West Pakistan because they had no real kinship with them despite a shared religion. The British tried to create viable states based on rational criteria, and succeeded. What happened next was up to the people of those new states. My question for the sheep-like repeaters of this stupid argument is this: how many of the 'arbitrary' states created by the British colonial authorities still exist i.e. are viable? The answer is, nearly all of them, including Iraq. In fact apart from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (Pakistan) and Somalia, all of them. Which I believe reveals one of the more hidden aspects of countries- even countries arbitrarily created have a tenacity of existence few other institutions seem to.
Blaming intra-communal warfare on national boundaries also can't stand up to scrutiny. Switzerland is fairly evenly divided into German, French and Italian strands. When was the last time they tried the Rwandan method of changing the mix? Despite many conflicts between the ethnic groups in Britain, at no point have we had ethnic cleansing like in Bosnia (unless you go back to about 450 A.D., which is not too bad really). The Highland clearances were a disgrace, but had no ethnic element- lowland Scots wanted Highland Scots land for running sheep, an economic fact. Many African countries are dictatorships in 2008, despite being democracies when they became independent from Britain. Often these dictatorships are tribally based. The Xhosa in South Africa and the Shona in Zimbabwe are two examples. Tribal warfare and empire-building were very old traditions before the British (and Portuguese, Dutch etc) arrived, and are certainly not the product of cartographic activities. In fact, the Zulu empire was on a huge roll before the British came along and stole their thunder.
So why do we hear the argument over and over again that it was the British governors and their map-makers who caused the wars of the late 20th and early 21st century? Its easier than studying peoples histories, I guess, and researching long enough to find out why Arab Iraqis fight non-Arab Persians, for instance. I have another question- why is the Ottoman empire not considered arbitary, while Iraq is? Iraq, as I've mentioned before, is comprised of three of the old Ottoman vilayets (bureaucratic divisions) and a bit of a fourth. Were vilayets arbitrary? The Ottoman empire held within it perhaps two hundred different ethnic groups, from Bulgars to Egyptians. Often, Vilayets had five or six ethinicities within them. Did that mean that the Ottoman empire wasn't viable? Did it mean that it was condemned automatically to intra-communal warfare? Of course not.
What determines the stability and peacefulness of a country is not how many different peoples inhabit it, or whether its borders were determined by a Briton. It is determined by the peaceability of those people, and whether their cultures allow for peaceful co-existence or not. Africa and the middle east seem to have pervasive cultures of tribal annihilation and predatory behaviour. Being a minority in those regions is not like being a minority in Canada. Its sad but true.
What do people who can't have original thoughts do? They repeat the lazy groupthink of the day.
'The Allied statesmen gathered in 1919 paid little attention to the needs and wants of the people of these territories they were remaking or, in many cases, creating from scratch - drawing boundaries that today, in the next century, ware [sic] are often defending with our own blood.'
Over and over again, I read this same argument- that the British (and French, Portuguese and Dutch) colonialists created states by randomly drawing lines on the maps. According to the argument, this created artificial states that do not cohere resulting in domination by one ethnic group of other ethnicities, leading in the worst cases to intra-communal warfare. These artificial states are the cause of many conflicts round the world, we're told.
Unfortunately, it's bollocks. Firstly, there is no correlation between the likelihood a country will cause wars, and how arbitrary its borders are. Germany was formed in the 19th century from many small statelets, and immediately began a series of wars of aggression. Nobody pretends its borders are arbitrary. They do a pretty good job of including Germans and only Germans. Iraq is a highly heterogenous state consisting of three large groupings, two Arab and one Kurd. It also has large numbers of Turks. Since its creation, Iraq has initiated two aggressive wars. Russia (European Russia) is a homogenous nation which from its inception fought many aggressive wars and built a large empire. Britain is comprised of at least four groupings, English, Welsh, Scots and Irish. It has initiated many many wars. What can we deduce from this? Heterogenous nations are as likely as non-heterogenous countries of launching conflicts, but not more likely. For every example of an 'arbitrary' state causing conflict, there are many of non-arbitrary ones doing so.
Take India. The British unified it and ran India for about 150 years. What happened when they partitioned it in 1947 to allow the muslim population to have a separate country? The two entities immediately went to war with each other. Given that the British were careful to try to draw up borders that included mostly muslims on the one hand and Hindus on the other, the result should presumably have been eternal harmony, if this argument is to believed. Beyond the original partition war, East Pakistan fought a further war of independence from West Pakistan because they had no real kinship with them despite a shared religion. The British tried to create viable states based on rational criteria, and succeeded. What happened next was up to the people of those new states. My question for the sheep-like repeaters of this stupid argument is this: how many of the 'arbitrary' states created by the British colonial authorities still exist i.e. are viable? The answer is, nearly all of them, including Iraq. In fact apart from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (Pakistan) and Somalia, all of them. Which I believe reveals one of the more hidden aspects of countries- even countries arbitrarily created have a tenacity of existence few other institutions seem to.
Blaming intra-communal warfare on national boundaries also can't stand up to scrutiny. Switzerland is fairly evenly divided into German, French and Italian strands. When was the last time they tried the Rwandan method of changing the mix? Despite many conflicts between the ethnic groups in Britain, at no point have we had ethnic cleansing like in Bosnia (unless you go back to about 450 A.D., which is not too bad really). The Highland clearances were a disgrace, but had no ethnic element- lowland Scots wanted Highland Scots land for running sheep, an economic fact. Many African countries are dictatorships in 2008, despite being democracies when they became independent from Britain. Often these dictatorships are tribally based. The Xhosa in South Africa and the Shona in Zimbabwe are two examples. Tribal warfare and empire-building were very old traditions before the British (and Portuguese, Dutch etc) arrived, and are certainly not the product of cartographic activities. In fact, the Zulu empire was on a huge roll before the British came along and stole their thunder.
So why do we hear the argument over and over again that it was the British governors and their map-makers who caused the wars of the late 20th and early 21st century? Its easier than studying peoples histories, I guess, and researching long enough to find out why Arab Iraqis fight non-Arab Persians, for instance. I have another question- why is the Ottoman empire not considered arbitary, while Iraq is? Iraq, as I've mentioned before, is comprised of three of the old Ottoman vilayets (bureaucratic divisions) and a bit of a fourth. Were vilayets arbitrary? The Ottoman empire held within it perhaps two hundred different ethnic groups, from Bulgars to Egyptians. Often, Vilayets had five or six ethinicities within them. Did that mean that the Ottoman empire wasn't viable? Did it mean that it was condemned automatically to intra-communal warfare? Of course not.
What determines the stability and peacefulness of a country is not how many different peoples inhabit it, or whether its borders were determined by a Briton. It is determined by the peaceability of those people, and whether their cultures allow for peaceful co-existence or not. Africa and the middle east seem to have pervasive cultures of tribal annihilation and predatory behaviour. Being a minority in those regions is not like being a minority in Canada. Its sad but true.
Weird and worrying
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7210284.stm
Welsh celebrate almost murdering English King in Ambush!
'A plaque commemorating a relatively unknown battle in Flintshire more than 850 years ago has been unveiled.
The battle of Ewloe in 1157 saw 200 Welshmen led by Owain Gwynedd, who was then king of north Wales, nearly kill English monarch Henry II.'
Spot the difference: "Henry brought up to 30,000 troops and camped on Saltney marches. Owain Gwynedd led a force of 3,000." I thought it was 200?
Of course, the secret of this 'battle' is it wasn't a battle at all. It was an ambush in the woods. A battle won by 3,000 against 30,000 would definitely have been an impressive feat of arms. An ambush of a few dozen men by 200 in the woods is not very impressive, and showed that the Welsh knew they couldn't win in a straight fight. Why anybody would want to memorialise a failed ambush with a plaque is hard to say...
Welsh celebrate almost murdering English King in Ambush!
'A plaque commemorating a relatively unknown battle in Flintshire more than 850 years ago has been unveiled.
The battle of Ewloe in 1157 saw 200 Welshmen led by Owain Gwynedd, who was then king of north Wales, nearly kill English monarch Henry II.'
Spot the difference: "Henry brought up to 30,000 troops and camped on Saltney marches. Owain Gwynedd led a force of 3,000." I thought it was 200?
Of course, the secret of this 'battle' is it wasn't a battle at all. It was an ambush in the woods. A battle won by 3,000 against 30,000 would definitely have been an impressive feat of arms. An ambush of a few dozen men by 200 in the woods is not very impressive, and showed that the Welsh knew they couldn't win in a straight fight. Why anybody would want to memorialise a failed ambush with a plaque is hard to say...
Saturday, January 26, 2008
That, my friends, is a leader
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/658dwgrn.asp?pg=1
'The president was in a weak and lonely position. After Republicans lost the Senate and House in the midterm election on November 7 [2006], nearly 200 members of Congress had met with him at the White House, mostly to grouse about Iraq. Democrats urged him to begin withdrawing troops, in effect accepting defeat. Many of the Republicans were panicky and blamed Bush and the Iraq war for the Democratic landslide. They feared the 2008 election would bring worse losses. They wanted out of Iraq too....'
'...[When] the Pentagon said one or two more Army brigades would suffice, the White House consulted General David Petraeus, whose selection as the new commander in Iraq had yet to be made public. Petraeus said he'd need a minimum of five and that's what he got. "I decided to go robust," Bush said. A senior adviser added: "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly." For an unpopular president facing a Democratic Congress ferociously opposed to the war in Iraq, it was a risky and defiant decision. Now, a year later, it's clear the surge has been a success. Violence is down, Baghdad mostly pacified, many Sunni leaders have abandoned their insurgency, and Al Qaeda in Iraq has been crushed (though not eliminated).'
I'm going to predict that when history looks back on George W Bush and Anthony Blair, they will be seen as excellent, clear-headed, forceful leaders who took a courageous moral stand. And that they were opposed by the least moral, least insightful, least honest and most pathetic dwarves that democracy has so far churned out. "Leave the Iraqi people to die, we don't care if they all die, as long as not one more of our children dies in Iraq". Utterly squalid and depraved.
'The president was in a weak and lonely position. After Republicans lost the Senate and House in the midterm election on November 7 [2006], nearly 200 members of Congress had met with him at the White House, mostly to grouse about Iraq. Democrats urged him to begin withdrawing troops, in effect accepting defeat. Many of the Republicans were panicky and blamed Bush and the Iraq war for the Democratic landslide. They feared the 2008 election would bring worse losses. They wanted out of Iraq too....'
'...[When] the Pentagon said one or two more Army brigades would suffice, the White House consulted General David Petraeus, whose selection as the new commander in Iraq had yet to be made public. Petraeus said he'd need a minimum of five and that's what he got. "I decided to go robust," Bush said. A senior adviser added: "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly." For an unpopular president facing a Democratic Congress ferociously opposed to the war in Iraq, it was a risky and defiant decision. Now, a year later, it's clear the surge has been a success. Violence is down, Baghdad mostly pacified, many Sunni leaders have abandoned their insurgency, and Al Qaeda in Iraq has been crushed (though not eliminated).'
I'm going to predict that when history looks back on George W Bush and Anthony Blair, they will be seen as excellent, clear-headed, forceful leaders who took a courageous moral stand. And that they were opposed by the least moral, least insightful, least honest and most pathetic dwarves that democracy has so far churned out. "Leave the Iraqi people to die, we don't care if they all die, as long as not one more of our children dies in Iraq". Utterly squalid and depraved.
What's Left: a blog project
Over the next week or two, I'll be concentrating on Nick Cohen's book "What's Left?". The reasons for that will become apparent, but suffice to say Mr Cohen elucidates many of the same criticisms of the 'left' I have made and continue to make. He does so from the position of someone who has been, and claims still to be, of the left.
"What's Left?" is a compendium of interesting issues concentrating on the decline and in some cases fall of the principled left; some dealt with to my satisfaction and some not, but all of which I'd like to get to grips with. The reason I care so much about the left is because they have formed the opposition to traditionalists and conservatives in Britain for the last 120 years, and if they no longer do so, who will form that opposition? And what will be their alternative vision for Britain, if any?
I estimate that I agree with Mr Cohen on about 90% of the issues he discusses. What are the implications of that, given that I deem myself to be on the right (although what that means today is almost as murky as Mr Cohens 'left')?
I will be taking the issues in the order they appear in the book, and then moving on to the reviewers and critics responses to them. Needless to say, I have been deeply impressed by the book, and hope that my comments might encourage other people to read it.
"What's Left?" is a compendium of interesting issues concentrating on the decline and in some cases fall of the principled left; some dealt with to my satisfaction and some not, but all of which I'd like to get to grips with. The reason I care so much about the left is because they have formed the opposition to traditionalists and conservatives in Britain for the last 120 years, and if they no longer do so, who will form that opposition? And what will be their alternative vision for Britain, if any?
I estimate that I agree with Mr Cohen on about 90% of the issues he discusses. What are the implications of that, given that I deem myself to be on the right (although what that means today is almost as murky as Mr Cohens 'left')?
I will be taking the issues in the order they appear in the book, and then moving on to the reviewers and critics responses to them. Needless to say, I have been deeply impressed by the book, and hope that my comments might encourage other people to read it.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Scott Beauchamps sad little lies
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/252602.php
For those of you who followed the Scott Beauchamp/New Republic saga, these military documents will hold great fascination. For they hold within them the kernels of truth which Scott Beauchamp then turned into publishing dynamite (love those mixed metaphors). His fanciful stories about grotesque US soldiers mocking war-damaged Iraqis, covering up mass-murder and killing innocent dogs(I know, what?) shocked middle-of-the-road America. Confronted by the statements of other soldiers in Scott Beauchamps unit, the New Republic stood by its author (whose wife worked at New Republic) and his story. It carried on standing by them long after everybody else was satisfied that the stories were politically motivated fabrications.
The military soon tracked Beauchamp down, and he was interrogated. These documents are the record of that interrogation. They show what 'inspired' the callow youth in his creative writing. Now, I like shaggy dog stories, creative writing and even textual boondoggles. But these invented stories brought the whole US army into disrepute with the people who vote on whether they should be in-theatre or not. Thats a great big nest of hornets to stir up. I get the impression he was talked into this by his wife, who is presumably of the Harry Reid/Cindy Sheehan school of 'truth'. But the 'truth' has a very hard time up against the truth.
For those of you who followed the Scott Beauchamp/New Republic saga, these military documents will hold great fascination. For they hold within them the kernels of truth which Scott Beauchamp then turned into publishing dynamite (love those mixed metaphors). His fanciful stories about grotesque US soldiers mocking war-damaged Iraqis, covering up mass-murder and killing innocent dogs(I know, what?) shocked middle-of-the-road America. Confronted by the statements of other soldiers in Scott Beauchamps unit, the New Republic stood by its author (whose wife worked at New Republic) and his story. It carried on standing by them long after everybody else was satisfied that the stories were politically motivated fabrications.
The military soon tracked Beauchamp down, and he was interrogated. These documents are the record of that interrogation. They show what 'inspired' the callow youth in his creative writing. Now, I like shaggy dog stories, creative writing and even textual boondoggles. But these invented stories brought the whole US army into disrepute with the people who vote on whether they should be in-theatre or not. Thats a great big nest of hornets to stir up. I get the impression he was talked into this by his wife, who is presumably of the Harry Reid/Cindy Sheehan school of 'truth'. But the 'truth' has a very hard time up against the truth.
The New York Times does truthiness
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGE4NWRjNWYxMzU2Nzg2MDUzMDA1YzA3ZTIyNjJhYTQ=
'The government, Ms. Greenhouse said on the NPR audio version of her speech, "had turned its energy and attention away from upholding the rule of law and toward creating law-free zones at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, other places around the world, the U.S. Congress, whatever. And let's not forget the sustained assault on women's reproductive freedom and the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism." She later added, "I feel a growing obligation to reach out across the ridiculous actual barrier that we seem about to build on the Mexican border. . . ."'
'Ms. Greenhouse told me she considers her remarks at Harvard to be "statements of fact" — not opinion — that would be allowed to appear in a Times news article. She said the Times has not suggested that she avoid writing stories on any of the topics on which she commented in June. "Any such limits would be completely preposterous," she said.'
A while back, I poured as much scorn as I could muster on this illiterate ignoramus. What is astonishing and sad is that what Courtney Martin wishes for ('...folks who ...abandon the old-school idea of objectivity and tackle ... issues with a verve for making change, not just reporting on it') Linda Greenhouse gets permission from her editorial staff to do day in and day out. The New York Times is the most august newspaper in America. That thought should worry everybody in America, and many more outside it. If The New York Times doesn't do objectivity, straight reporting and getting the facts out, who will?
'The government, Ms. Greenhouse said on the NPR audio version of her speech, "had turned its energy and attention away from upholding the rule of law and toward creating law-free zones at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, other places around the world, the U.S. Congress, whatever. And let's not forget the sustained assault on women's reproductive freedom and the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism." She later added, "I feel a growing obligation to reach out across the ridiculous actual barrier that we seem about to build on the Mexican border. . . ."'
'Ms. Greenhouse told me she considers her remarks at Harvard to be "statements of fact" — not opinion — that would be allowed to appear in a Times news article. She said the Times has not suggested that she avoid writing stories on any of the topics on which she commented in June. "Any such limits would be completely preposterous," she said.'
A while back, I poured as much scorn as I could muster on this illiterate ignoramus. What is astonishing and sad is that what Courtney Martin wishes for ('...folks who ...abandon the old-school idea of objectivity and tackle ... issues with a verve for making change, not just reporting on it') Linda Greenhouse gets permission from her editorial staff to do day in and day out. The New York Times is the most august newspaper in America. That thought should worry everybody in America, and many more outside it. If The New York Times doesn't do objectivity, straight reporting and getting the facts out, who will?
The right to offend
'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen, the Foreign Minister,'
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2008/01/dutch-quaking-over-islam-film-mass.html
That is possibly the best definition of freedom of expression there is- the right to offend.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2008/01/dutch-quaking-over-islam-film-mass.html
That is possibly the best definition of freedom of expression there is- the right to offend.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Gaza and Kafka
I don't like using the word 'kafkaesque' because it gets used by a lot of sophomoric writers as a synonym of 'weird'. Which is isn't. But this story is kafkaesque. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7198798.stms
The Hamas government of Gaza is at war with Israel. It says it right there in its founding document. Its main goal in life is the destruction of the Israeli state, and as many of the jews living in it as it can manage. It also depends for virutally all its vital daily needs on that self-same Jewish state. So there is a perpetual-motion sequence of action and response; the Hamas murderers send forth the rockets hoping to blow up perhaps a jewish housewife or schoolchild, the Israeli government convenes its committees and sends over a helicopter gunship or closes the border crossings. Then Hamas go bleating to the international media about how repressive and nazi-like the Israelis are for rocketing them and shutting their borders, and the whole cycle starts again.
If thats not Kafkaesque, what is? I hope that there is an out from this situation that doesn't involve the deaths of a large proportion of the 1.4 million Gazans, but I'm not sure.
The Hamas government of Gaza is at war with Israel. It says it right there in its founding document. Its main goal in life is the destruction of the Israeli state, and as many of the jews living in it as it can manage. It also depends for virutally all its vital daily needs on that self-same Jewish state. So there is a perpetual-motion sequence of action and response; the Hamas murderers send forth the rockets hoping to blow up perhaps a jewish housewife or schoolchild, the Israeli government convenes its committees and sends over a helicopter gunship or closes the border crossings. Then Hamas go bleating to the international media about how repressive and nazi-like the Israelis are for rocketing them and shutting their borders, and the whole cycle starts again.
If thats not Kafkaesque, what is? I hope that there is an out from this situation that doesn't involve the deaths of a large proportion of the 1.4 million Gazans, but I'm not sure.
Morally illigitimate
An open letter to the jihadis at http://www.mpacuk.org/
Morally speaking, you are not allowed to use the following arguments:
1. Criticising lobby groups. Lobbying is a function of liberal democracy, which Sharia abhors and would destroy if allowed to supersede British law. Therefore, do not comment on what you would destroy if you could.
2. Lobbying. No muslim group should be allowed to do this. islam is a religion, not a political party. Sharia does not recognise earthly authorities like secular governments and the officials who man them. Lobbying is trying to influence those people, and given that they wouldn't even exist under sharia, you can't participate in that process.
3. Bemoaning Web censorship, censorship, anti-hate-crime legislation. Using the language of civil rights is completely unavailable to you. Where islam has sway, civil rights, such as the protection of free speech, do not exist. The punishment for blasphemy under sharia is death, no muslim group can morally protest about being censored. So just shut up.
4. Producing Propaganda. 'I'm not scared of terrorists, I'm scared much more of the government'. (http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/4323/) In a sharia state, no organisation would have the ability to propagandise against the authorities. Therefore no muslim group has the moral right to propagandise under our regimes. So cease and desist from propagandising now.
5. Hate speech. Whilst constantly proclaiming that there is some massive worldwide 'islamaphobia' plot against them, muslims constantly launch zionistphobic comments, racist comments against jews, and hate literature full of crazed lies against Zionism and Israel. This hypocrisy deprives them of any legitimate right to complain about victimisation.
6. Violent Racism. According to the statistics, acts of violence against Jews in Britain outnumber those against muslims by 5 to 1. Not only that, most of the perpetrators of the violence are muslims, not neo-nazi skinheads. This is explained away by MPAC and the other sewage out-pipes as over-exuberant youths who really really feel the pain of the Palestinians. Whatever the reason, violence against the person is illegal here in Britain, so unless you want the whole population of Britain down on your case, stop now.
Try to keep this in mind: using the freedoms of Britain to foist a medieval thugocracy on it will bring you automatically to the attention of our policemen, judges, spies and eventually, hangmen.
Morally speaking, you are not allowed to use the following arguments:
1. Criticising lobby groups. Lobbying is a function of liberal democracy, which Sharia abhors and would destroy if allowed to supersede British law. Therefore, do not comment on what you would destroy if you could.
2. Lobbying. No muslim group should be allowed to do this. islam is a religion, not a political party. Sharia does not recognise earthly authorities like secular governments and the officials who man them. Lobbying is trying to influence those people, and given that they wouldn't even exist under sharia, you can't participate in that process.
3. Bemoaning Web censorship, censorship, anti-hate-crime legislation. Using the language of civil rights is completely unavailable to you. Where islam has sway, civil rights, such as the protection of free speech, do not exist. The punishment for blasphemy under sharia is death, no muslim group can morally protest about being censored. So just shut up.
4. Producing Propaganda. 'I'm not scared of terrorists, I'm scared much more of the government'. (http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/4323/) In a sharia state, no organisation would have the ability to propagandise against the authorities. Therefore no muslim group has the moral right to propagandise under our regimes. So cease and desist from propagandising now.
5. Hate speech. Whilst constantly proclaiming that there is some massive worldwide 'islamaphobia' plot against them, muslims constantly launch zionistphobic comments, racist comments against jews, and hate literature full of crazed lies against Zionism and Israel. This hypocrisy deprives them of any legitimate right to complain about victimisation.
6. Violent Racism. According to the statistics, acts of violence against Jews in Britain outnumber those against muslims by 5 to 1. Not only that, most of the perpetrators of the violence are muslims, not neo-nazi skinheads. This is explained away by MPAC and the other sewage out-pipes as over-exuberant youths who really really feel the pain of the Palestinians. Whatever the reason, violence against the person is illegal here in Britain, so unless you want the whole population of Britain down on your case, stop now.
Try to keep this in mind: using the freedoms of Britain to foist a medieval thugocracy on it will bring you automatically to the attention of our policemen, judges, spies and eventually, hangmen.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Iraqi reconciliation
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C3D8B5FD-F86F-466F-BE97-BDAB4F5D1082.htm
'Iraq's parliament has passed a law that paves the way for members of Baath party to return to public life.'
Since the violence in Iraq has subsided to half-of-Venezuelas levels, the mainstream media outlets have not had much to say about Iraq. The two main preoccupations of these august institutions now seem to be whether/when violence gets back to smash-Bush-over-the-head levels, and the lack of any political progress (the glass isn't even half empty!).
So it was with great surprise (NOT) that I discovered that this highly significant piece of legislation had been passed, with very little opposition if Al-Jazeera are to be believed. This act, and the act which distributes the oil revenues between the various segments of Iraqi society were considered by the US government the keys to a viable future. So 50% of that legislation is in place, and the priority given to this story by the big media outlets? Undetectable.
'Iraq's parliament has passed a law that paves the way for members of Baath party to return to public life.'
Since the violence in Iraq has subsided to half-of-Venezuelas levels, the mainstream media outlets have not had much to say about Iraq. The two main preoccupations of these august institutions now seem to be whether/when violence gets back to smash-Bush-over-the-head levels, and the lack of any political progress (the glass isn't even half empty!).
So it was with great surprise (NOT) that I discovered that this highly significant piece of legislation had been passed, with very little opposition if Al-Jazeera are to be believed. This act, and the act which distributes the oil revenues between the various segments of Iraqi society were considered by the US government the keys to a viable future. So 50% of that legislation is in place, and the priority given to this story by the big media outlets? Undetectable.
Monday, January 14, 2008
When assertion just won't do
'My take on the Iraq war has been settled for a while: The decision to invade was a huge mistake, but cutting and running would only make things worse.'
http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/contra_sullivan_on_the_surge_a_small_wars_perspective/
The above is an unexceptional position for tens of millions of Americans, both on the right and left. What strikes me is that although bloggers and journalists very often go on to explain the latter statement, virtually none feel the need to explain the first proposition. Its not good enough.
It is far from settled that 'invading' Iraq was a huge mistake. I think I know why people don't explain their reasons though: they don't KNOW why it was a huge mistake, they FEEL that it was a huge mistake. After four years of hearing everybody from the leader of the House of Representatives to the KosKids screeching that 'Iraq was a huge mistake', it seems beyond most peoples capacity to hold that it was a good idea. And in their defense, even the original proponents of an intevention seem to have gone very quiet and wandered off into the undergrowth (much to my disgust). So why was the Iraq intevention not 'a huge mistake'?
First of all, the festering of cruelty and corruption in the last years of Saddam needed to be stopped. Iraqis were suffering terribly from the awful situation engineered by the UN and Saddam, a grotesque circumstance where Oil was traded for food which never got to the people who needed it, and Saddam took the opportunity to kill many of his own people by pretending that international sanctions prevented him from providing food and medicine. Russian, French and German government officials who were bribed by Saddam with oil contracts provided the latter with both a conduit for his twisted propaganda, and a buffer against those countries who would not take Saddams dirty money. Destroying that sordid and murderous thicket was a major reason for destroying Saddams regime.
Secondly, the Baathist rule of Iraq was a danger to its neighbors, in particular Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi army was huge and experienced, two things nobody would accuse the Saudi army of. About a quarter of the worlds (not just America's) oil comes from Saudi. If that stops, or falls into the hands of an antagonistic despot like Saddam, the world stops. Simple as that.
Thirdly, Iraq is pivotal in the middle east. Although not the most populous (Egypt is), nor the best endowed (Saudi is), nor the most problematic (Lebanon is virtually not a country) it sits in the middle of the middle east. Its in the middle both psychologically and physically. All the crucial middle eastern countries border it. What goes on in Iraq, for good or ill, is immediately apparent to virtually everybody in the middle east. So if we look forward five years, to a possible future where a strong, prosperous and law-abiding Iraq hums and crackles with life and hope, putting into stark relief the battened-down, miserable, poverty-stricken lives of its neighbors populations; that is huge motivating force to remove the crappy despotic regimes of Syria, Iran and Egypt and replace them with something that works for the average Joe.
Finally, our economies need oil. How are you going to drive yourself to the next NoWarForOil rally without some gas in the tank? How are you going to stock your Vegan food hall without trucks to ship the produce in? How are you going to write your HateBushitler Blog without a computer manufactured largely of plastic? Its a toughy I know...
http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/contra_sullivan_on_the_surge_a_small_wars_perspective/
The above is an unexceptional position for tens of millions of Americans, both on the right and left. What strikes me is that although bloggers and journalists very often go on to explain the latter statement, virtually none feel the need to explain the first proposition. Its not good enough.
It is far from settled that 'invading' Iraq was a huge mistake. I think I know why people don't explain their reasons though: they don't KNOW why it was a huge mistake, they FEEL that it was a huge mistake. After four years of hearing everybody from the leader of the House of Representatives to the KosKids screeching that 'Iraq was a huge mistake', it seems beyond most peoples capacity to hold that it was a good idea. And in their defense, even the original proponents of an intevention seem to have gone very quiet and wandered off into the undergrowth (much to my disgust). So why was the Iraq intevention not 'a huge mistake'?
First of all, the festering of cruelty and corruption in the last years of Saddam needed to be stopped. Iraqis were suffering terribly from the awful situation engineered by the UN and Saddam, a grotesque circumstance where Oil was traded for food which never got to the people who needed it, and Saddam took the opportunity to kill many of his own people by pretending that international sanctions prevented him from providing food and medicine. Russian, French and German government officials who were bribed by Saddam with oil contracts provided the latter with both a conduit for his twisted propaganda, and a buffer against those countries who would not take Saddams dirty money. Destroying that sordid and murderous thicket was a major reason for destroying Saddams regime.
Secondly, the Baathist rule of Iraq was a danger to its neighbors, in particular Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi army was huge and experienced, two things nobody would accuse the Saudi army of. About a quarter of the worlds (not just America's) oil comes from Saudi. If that stops, or falls into the hands of an antagonistic despot like Saddam, the world stops. Simple as that.
Thirdly, Iraq is pivotal in the middle east. Although not the most populous (Egypt is), nor the best endowed (Saudi is), nor the most problematic (Lebanon is virtually not a country) it sits in the middle of the middle east. Its in the middle both psychologically and physically. All the crucial middle eastern countries border it. What goes on in Iraq, for good or ill, is immediately apparent to virtually everybody in the middle east. So if we look forward five years, to a possible future where a strong, prosperous and law-abiding Iraq hums and crackles with life and hope, putting into stark relief the battened-down, miserable, poverty-stricken lives of its neighbors populations; that is huge motivating force to remove the crappy despotic regimes of Syria, Iran and Egypt and replace them with something that works for the average Joe.
Finally, our economies need oil. How are you going to drive yourself to the next NoWarForOil rally without some gas in the tank? How are you going to stock your Vegan food hall without trucks to ship the produce in? How are you going to write your HateBushitler Blog without a computer manufactured largely of plastic? Its a toughy I know...
The Last straw?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7186501.stm
'Eight Thai soldiers have been killed by suspected Muslim separatist rebels in the violence-hit south, according to an army spokesman.
The soldiers were on escort duty in Narathiwat province, which borders Malaysia, when the ambush took place.'
Having kept an eye on this insurgency since I found out about it perhaps three years ago, it seems to me that this may well represent a turning point. The Thai government have tried very heavy military presence, planes full of origami swans, light-handed military presence and nothing has worked. Knowing that the Thais are peaceful in the extreme, apart from when provoked enough, I'd say that the point of sufficient provocation has just been reached.
This is bad news for the young jihadis of far southern Thailand. The beheading brigades ('Officials say one soldier was beheaded, and one report quotes an army spokesman as saying attempts were apparently made to behead the others too') will now be destroyed, as will many innocent co-religionists of the jihadis. The blood of the innocent, both Buddhist and Muslim, is on the latters heads.
Its very difficult not to see the many Muslim insurgencies and terrorist operations round the world as a many-headed hydra. From the Phillipines to Mauritania, groups with apparently the same goals and the same psychopathy murder and assasinate and blast their way to... well nothing really. Apart from engendering hatred for Islam in general, its hard to see any goals of theirs which have been realised. Apart from the Gaza strip and a few little fiefdoms in the mountains of north western Pakistan, they control no territory. Yet I can walk a few hundred yards from here in West London and listen to men with exactly the same world view and playbook. It is very disturbing to know that the 2% actually doing the 'martydom' operations (has there ever been such a cynical euphemism?) have a huge pool of 'talent' growing up all over the world for future activities.
What will happen in Thailand? And is it what will be happening in Britain in ten years?
'Eight Thai soldiers have been killed by suspected Muslim separatist rebels in the violence-hit south, according to an army spokesman.
The soldiers were on escort duty in Narathiwat province, which borders Malaysia, when the ambush took place.'
Having kept an eye on this insurgency since I found out about it perhaps three years ago, it seems to me that this may well represent a turning point. The Thai government have tried very heavy military presence, planes full of origami swans, light-handed military presence and nothing has worked. Knowing that the Thais are peaceful in the extreme, apart from when provoked enough, I'd say that the point of sufficient provocation has just been reached.
This is bad news for the young jihadis of far southern Thailand. The beheading brigades ('Officials say one soldier was beheaded, and one report quotes an army spokesman as saying attempts were apparently made to behead the others too') will now be destroyed, as will many innocent co-religionists of the jihadis. The blood of the innocent, both Buddhist and Muslim, is on the latters heads.
Its very difficult not to see the many Muslim insurgencies and terrorist operations round the world as a many-headed hydra. From the Phillipines to Mauritania, groups with apparently the same goals and the same psychopathy murder and assasinate and blast their way to... well nothing really. Apart from engendering hatred for Islam in general, its hard to see any goals of theirs which have been realised. Apart from the Gaza strip and a few little fiefdoms in the mountains of north western Pakistan, they control no territory. Yet I can walk a few hundred yards from here in West London and listen to men with exactly the same world view and playbook. It is very disturbing to know that the 2% actually doing the 'martydom' operations (has there ever been such a cynical euphemism?) have a huge pool of 'talent' growing up all over the world for future activities.
What will happen in Thailand? And is it what will be happening in Britain in ten years?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Venezuela- twice as murderous as Iraq
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/01/holy-chavistas-venezuela-violent-deaths.html (nother hat tip to Instapundit)
'Venezuelan Politics blog reported that an average 33 Venezuelans were murdered each day last year, which comes to 1000 murders per month.
Iraq’s and Venezuela’s populations are roughly comparable: 27.5 million versus 27.7 million. In the last three months, there have been 1498 civilian fatalities in Iraq. During this same time, roughly 3000 Venezuelans have been murdered.'
Take a moment to digest those facts. Think about the language used by the big media organisations about Iraq (I'm thinking here especially about the naysayers of the Surge) and Venezuela. The fact that Venezuela has amongst the highest murder rates in the world virtually never gets remarked upon in the many paeans to Mr Chavez in the worlds media. Which is weird because if there were as many murders in Iraq as there are in Venezuela everybody would be shouting 'quagmire' 'vietnam' and 'civil war'. Funny how the world is, as opposed to how the world is discussed...
UPDATE
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/venezuela/2006/08/13.html#a2996
Actually, the stats are WORSE than the ones I've quoted.
'Venezuelan Politics blog reported that an average 33 Venezuelans were murdered each day last year, which comes to 1000 murders per month.
Iraq’s and Venezuela’s populations are roughly comparable: 27.5 million versus 27.7 million. In the last three months, there have been 1498 civilian fatalities in Iraq. During this same time, roughly 3000 Venezuelans have been murdered.'
Take a moment to digest those facts. Think about the language used by the big media organisations about Iraq (I'm thinking here especially about the naysayers of the Surge) and Venezuela. The fact that Venezuela has amongst the highest murder rates in the world virtually never gets remarked upon in the many paeans to Mr Chavez in the worlds media. Which is weird because if there were as many murders in Iraq as there are in Venezuela everybody would be shouting 'quagmire' 'vietnam' and 'civil war'. Funny how the world is, as opposed to how the world is discussed...
UPDATE
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/venezuela/2006/08/13.html#a2996
Actually, the stats are WORSE than the ones I've quoted.
Helping the worlds poor and terrorised
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/01/your_inner_terr.html (Hat Tip: Instapundit)
This is quite hilarious. At some points I had to stop reading so I could tone down the belly laughs. But this last quote really got up my nose:
'Lest this sound trite, let me add that the mystic's love is not blind to the complication and suffering in the world. It is all-embracing, using the full human experience as fuel for the raging fire of awakening. Our modern lives are difficult. We face social injustices, environmental crises, war, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger, a vast array of suffering across our planet.'
One of the biggest problems in my view about writers like Stacy Lawson is that they DON'T have to 'face social injustices, environmental crises, war, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger' except in the most theoretical way. In her own words, these things are 'distant and separate'. Wherever she lives in the US, she is at this very moment warm, safe, overfed and by the rest of the worlds standards, immensely rich. For people who have spent a lot of time in poor countries, what is noticeable about poor people is the complete absence of overblown, mellifluous crap like Stacy's column. They don't have the time or the energy to create these steaming piles of horse excrement. I am embarrassed on Stacy's behalf, despite the fact that she declares herself so fervently as part of the grand 'we'. She is deluding herself- she is so far above the morass of the worlds poor and powerless she can't get a good grip on how far.
I vastly prefer in life the taciturn men who go to countries like Haiti, Kirgizstan and Bangladesh and help the poor with their engineering skills and know-how. A thousand thousand Stacy Lawsons don't contribute as much.
This is quite hilarious. At some points I had to stop reading so I could tone down the belly laughs. But this last quote really got up my nose:
'Lest this sound trite, let me add that the mystic's love is not blind to the complication and suffering in the world. It is all-embracing, using the full human experience as fuel for the raging fire of awakening. Our modern lives are difficult. We face social injustices, environmental crises, war, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger, a vast array of suffering across our planet.'
One of the biggest problems in my view about writers like Stacy Lawson is that they DON'T have to 'face social injustices, environmental crises, war, economic imbalances, poverty, hunger' except in the most theoretical way. In her own words, these things are 'distant and separate'. Wherever she lives in the US, she is at this very moment warm, safe, overfed and by the rest of the worlds standards, immensely rich. For people who have spent a lot of time in poor countries, what is noticeable about poor people is the complete absence of overblown, mellifluous crap like Stacy's column. They don't have the time or the energy to create these steaming piles of horse excrement. I am embarrassed on Stacy's behalf, despite the fact that she declares herself so fervently as part of the grand 'we'. She is deluding herself- she is so far above the morass of the worlds poor and powerless she can't get a good grip on how far.
I vastly prefer in life the taciturn men who go to countries like Haiti, Kirgizstan and Bangladesh and help the poor with their engineering skills and know-how. A thousand thousand Stacy Lawsons don't contribute as much.
Friday, December 28, 2007
BBC's fantasy of a downturn in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7143953.stm
'But that vision could turn out to be a pipe dream - it is not hard to imagine a much grimmer scenario, such as:
-bickering Iraqi politicians fail to rise above their differences and agree vital legislation, which is already months behind schedule and would weld the country together
-as US forces start to thin out to pre-surge levels by July 2008, al-Qaeda begins to make a comeback
-Sunni "local security" forces established by the US, clash with Shia militias, which laid low until the American grip loosened
-Iraq disintegrates into sectarian strife, perhaps descends into unequivocal civil war.'
Now that the bad news from Iraq has dried up to a whispy trickle, the BBC has to fantasize possible future bad news! Too funny. Yeah, and a big sea creature might swim up the Thames and eat London too.
'But that vision could turn out to be a pipe dream - it is not hard to imagine a much grimmer scenario, such as:
-bickering Iraqi politicians fail to rise above their differences and agree vital legislation, which is already months behind schedule and would weld the country together
-as US forces start to thin out to pre-surge levels by July 2008, al-Qaeda begins to make a comeback
-Sunni "local security" forces established by the US, clash with Shia militias, which laid low until the American grip loosened
-Iraq disintegrates into sectarian strife, perhaps descends into unequivocal civil war.'
Now that the bad news from Iraq has dried up to a whispy trickle, the BBC has to fantasize possible future bad news! Too funny. Yeah, and a big sea creature might swim up the Thames and eat London too.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Man of the Year: Gen David Petraeus
General Petreaus changed the world in 2007. He changed the dynamic of Iraq beyond recognition. The cascade of information being fed to coalition forces about the criminals and terrorists to enable them to kill them was a trickle in January 2007. It is that cascade which has so transformed Iraq that even tourists are starting to go there. And the reason the cascade came? Because of the FOB's and the COP's and joint foot patrols instituted by Petraeus.
Fallujah, once the dark heart of the Sunni insurgency has not had a single attack in four months. Many US units are now asking to be transferred to Afghanistan because they don't hear or fire a shot during a whole tour. Journalists, up until recently prisoners of the Green Zone, now go out in search of stories, and to try to find people willing to slag off the Americans, although its tougher and tougher to do. Iraqis have discovered patriotism, community spirit and goodwill, and a doughty spirit of resistance against Al Qaeda and the forces of malevolence. Their neighborhood watch schemes, or what US forces call 'force multipliers' leave the remaining groups of murderous scum very little room to maneuver.
All of these synergies were whispily apparent (if you were willing to ignore the torrent of misinformation and noise from the MSM) in January 2007, but it has become apparent to everyone now that Iraq was not lost, was never lost, but was in an excruciating holding pattern. Petraeus, to his eternal credit, broke Iraq out of that holding pattern, and Iraqis can now see the clear potential for a viable and peaceful future. Sadly, dozens of people are dying every day still, but a day will come soon when the pain will stop, and the rebuilding and the real hard work of grafting Iraq back together will start in earnest.
The effects of US victory in Iraq will be manifold. All parties are sure of that. Now, its time to see who will win the peace.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Merry Christmas Everybody!!!
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=7898
'You can watch the film and marvel in its perfect script, unrivaled series of iconic scenes, and the towering performance given by Jimmy Stewart… And you can watch that final scene with the living room full of family and loved ones and realize, like George Bailey does, that it’s all up to us. That our fate and happiness and chance at a wonderful life are almost always completely within our own control. Goals are good, but ambition can poison. Wanting what we don’t have and comparing ourselves to others is a punishing way to live a life. But anyone can fill a living room with people who love them, you just have to accept that love.
George Bailey’s dark and desperate path to that moment is there to remind us that our blessings are not found in the world or given to us by others, but rather in who we are and what we’re capable of as human beings. Everything that matters or is beautiful in life costs nothing more than what we’re born with: our ability to be decent and gracious and kind. This is a bleak examination of the terrible thing in the human condition which makes us look over what we have to what we can’t have. It’s a perspective antidote that ends, as many films do, with an amazing triumph, but a triumph available to anyone for the asking.'
What if I'd never lived? What have I contributed? Would anybody notice if I was dead? As this movie shows, there are very good reasons to be optimistic about the answers to those questions.
And to all a Good Year!
'You can watch the film and marvel in its perfect script, unrivaled series of iconic scenes, and the towering performance given by Jimmy Stewart… And you can watch that final scene with the living room full of family and loved ones and realize, like George Bailey does, that it’s all up to us. That our fate and happiness and chance at a wonderful life are almost always completely within our own control. Goals are good, but ambition can poison. Wanting what we don’t have and comparing ourselves to others is a punishing way to live a life. But anyone can fill a living room with people who love them, you just have to accept that love.
George Bailey’s dark and desperate path to that moment is there to remind us that our blessings are not found in the world or given to us by others, but rather in who we are and what we’re capable of as human beings. Everything that matters or is beautiful in life costs nothing more than what we’re born with: our ability to be decent and gracious and kind. This is a bleak examination of the terrible thing in the human condition which makes us look over what we have to what we can’t have. It’s a perspective antidote that ends, as many films do, with an amazing triumph, but a triumph available to anyone for the asking.'
What if I'd never lived? What have I contributed? Would anybody notice if I was dead? As this movie shows, there are very good reasons to be optimistic about the answers to those questions.
And to all a Good Year!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Fallujah: a place of hope or fear?
'Mr. al-Fadhily quotes many disgruntled Iraqis. That’s all fine and good. I, too, heard lots of complaints. There’s plenty to gripe about. Fallujah is a broken-down, ramshackle, impoverished wreck of a city. It was ruined by more than three years of war. What else can you expect of a place that only stopped exploding this summer? But if the best possible scenario ever unfolds, if peace arrives even in Baghdad, if the government becomes truly moderate and representative, if rainbows break out in the skies and the fields fill with smiling children and bunny rabbits, somebody, somewhere, will complain that Iraq has been taken over by the imperial powers of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Starbucks.'
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/1594
Michael Totten is a gem. A brave, honest, funny man. Where are the rest of the media? Couldn't find the testicular fortitude to make it to Fallujah... He's right about the story though- Al-Fadhily's version will go much further than Mr Tottens because its what people in London, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Paris want to believe is true. Forget about what is real. The story is elsewhere.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/1594
Michael Totten is a gem. A brave, honest, funny man. Where are the rest of the media? Couldn't find the testicular fortitude to make it to Fallujah... He's right about the story though- Al-Fadhily's version will go much further than Mr Tottens because its what people in London, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Paris want to believe is true. Forget about what is real. The story is elsewhere.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Tolerance and relativism
'Toleration is not an assertion of relativism. It is, rather, the forbearance from judging and acting on judgments in the public sphere that one might well believe oneself entitled to make in private. Toleration entails the suspension of public disbelief, or at least political action thereupon, about matters that one might nonetheless consider well within the realm of private moral judgment. Relativism, by contrast, is denial of grounds for judging at all. They could not be more different—
and, crucially, relativism removes the possibility of toleration because it removes the possibility of reasoned judgment.'
http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-weekly-standard-article-mormons.html
There are many other excellent things in this piece (which is available in its full form on the Weekly Standard website) but this struck me as a hugely important factor in todays politics. It immediately brought to mind the words of the Dutch minister when discussing the seemingly inevitable rise of the Muslim population of Holland to become the majority, that Dutch people ought to establish themselves on friendly terms so that when Sharia is voted in as the new Dutch law, the Muslims will be kind in like turn. There is no private moral judgement vs public moral judgement in Islam. That is something we in the west have created uniquely in the history of mankind. The alternative, as Kenneth Anderson points out, is increasingly fractious politics ending up in internicine violence.
and, crucially, relativism removes the possibility of toleration because it removes the possibility of reasoned judgment.'
http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-weekly-standard-article-mormons.html
There are many other excellent things in this piece (which is available in its full form on the Weekly Standard website) but this struck me as a hugely important factor in todays politics. It immediately brought to mind the words of the Dutch minister when discussing the seemingly inevitable rise of the Muslim population of Holland to become the majority, that Dutch people ought to establish themselves on friendly terms so that when Sharia is voted in as the new Dutch law, the Muslims will be kind in like turn. There is no private moral judgement vs public moral judgement in Islam. That is something we in the west have created uniquely in the history of mankind. The alternative, as Kenneth Anderson points out, is increasingly fractious politics ending up in internicine violence.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Am I old school yet?
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=all_the_news_thats_fit_to_depress
'After awhile we look up and get engrossed in a conversation that will last long after our coffee has gone cold -- what, in God's name, are we supposed to do with this information? What are we -- three well-educated, big-hearted, human beings -- supposed to do when we get up from these tables and discard this paper, knowing about the dead people and dreams in Iraq, the injured in India, the starving and old in Maine?'
'This has to change. There must be some method whereby we can become informed and inspired to action. Maybe the answer lies in retraining journalists to go one step beyond reporting. Get the story, and also seek information about how a reader might constructively respond to it. This, of course, would require increased support for the work of investigative journalists. It would also require strategic partnerships between the professional media and nonprofit worlds, links that already exist between journalism and international affairs schools like those at Columbia University.
Maybe the answer lies in citizen journalists -- folks who often abandon the old-school idea of objectivity and tackle local issues with a verve for making change, not just reporting on it. This trend is already on the rise, and while it makes traditional journalists wince, maybe it could actually serve to empower some of the country's currently disenchanted readers.'
Hat tip: KisP/SondraK
This woman thinks she's well-educated? I beg to differ. In fact, all the people who've been educated AT ALL would like to differ. If society can't tell the difference between a campaigner and a journalist, or an advocate and a journalist, then its in trouble. And the fact that this idiot can't figure out what might be wrong with replacing all our newspaper articles with editorials is an indication that perhaps the importance of objectivity, indeed even the possibility of objectivity, is very much neglected in US universities. The danger of a little knowledge...
Oh, and I'd like Courtney to know that despite being a polemicist I am completely dedicated to objectivity. As I would hope are all the other bloggers who hope to have anyone pay attention to their words. Objectivity means 'judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices' according to the dictionary. To me it also means being able to see the flaws and mistakes in your own thinking, being able to see what your views entail and being able to look back at yourself with honesty. This is what you'd like our journalists to give up?
'After awhile we look up and get engrossed in a conversation that will last long after our coffee has gone cold -- what, in God's name, are we supposed to do with this information? What are we -- three well-educated, big-hearted, human beings -- supposed to do when we get up from these tables and discard this paper, knowing about the dead people and dreams in Iraq, the injured in India, the starving and old in Maine?'
'This has to change. There must be some method whereby we can become informed and inspired to action. Maybe the answer lies in retraining journalists to go one step beyond reporting. Get the story, and also seek information about how a reader might constructively respond to it. This, of course, would require increased support for the work of investigative journalists. It would also require strategic partnerships between the professional media and nonprofit worlds, links that already exist between journalism and international affairs schools like those at Columbia University.
Maybe the answer lies in citizen journalists -- folks who often abandon the old-school idea of objectivity and tackle local issues with a verve for making change, not just reporting on it. This trend is already on the rise, and while it makes traditional journalists wince, maybe it could actually serve to empower some of the country's currently disenchanted readers.'
Hat tip: KisP/SondraK
This woman thinks she's well-educated? I beg to differ. In fact, all the people who've been educated AT ALL would like to differ. If society can't tell the difference between a campaigner and a journalist, or an advocate and a journalist, then its in trouble. And the fact that this idiot can't figure out what might be wrong with replacing all our newspaper articles with editorials is an indication that perhaps the importance of objectivity, indeed even the possibility of objectivity, is very much neglected in US universities. The danger of a little knowledge...
Oh, and I'd like Courtney to know that despite being a polemicist I am completely dedicated to objectivity. As I would hope are all the other bloggers who hope to have anyone pay attention to their words. Objectivity means 'judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices' according to the dictionary. To me it also means being able to see the flaws and mistakes in your own thinking, being able to see what your views entail and being able to look back at yourself with honesty. This is what you'd like our journalists to give up?
To intervene or not Part 1
http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=121207A (hat tip Instapundit)
'We may agree with Ron Paul that our interventionist policy in the Middle East has led to unintended negative consequences, including even 9/11, but this admission offers us absolutely no insight into what unintended consequences his preferred policy of non-intervention would have exposed us to. It is simply a myth to believe that only interventionism yields unintended consequence, since doing nothing at all may produce the same unexpected results. If American foreign policy had followed a course of strict non-interventionism, the world would certainly be different from what it is today; but there is no obvious reason to think that it would have been better.'
Further to this point, anti-Americanism in the middle east is VERY VERY NEW. Way back in 1997, Usama Bin Laden caused great consternation within the top echelons of Al Qaeda by indicating that America was the number one enemy. This was very new, and not very welcome news to most elements of his group. For the Egyptians, a very large part of his group, the Egyptian government, and maybe Britain as the former colonial power, were by far the main enemies. By extension, so were the 'apostate' governments of various other 'muslim' countries, even including Saudi Arabia (for allowing US troops onto the sacred earth of the land of the two holy places). But for most violent muslims, the Americans were the good guys. They had no colonial baggage, and had provided huge material support to the jihad against the soviets in Afghanistan. The last thing they wanted to do was go to war with America. Many were not stupid either, and understood the enormous weight of military power and non-military resources that America could bring to bear against them. Why screw with them at all?
It it really a trick of history: the combination of the anal and sexually repressed Sayyid Qutb's weird response to his time at Uni in the US, and Osama Bin Ladens hatred of Christianity that led Al Qaeda up such a weird path.
All the lefty tropes about the Arabs hating America because they deposed Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah- try to understand this leftards!!! Persians are not Arabs, Arabs are not Persians. The Arabs did not give two rat turds about the CIA deposing Mossadegh. Really. They did (and do) care about US help for Israel, but that has never generated the kind of extreme hatred that Al Qaeda evidence. In fact, the left and Al Qaeda have had to invent a fictional past to reframe America as a colonial power to get around the unfortunate reality that it isn't one, and has only ever been so for a few years at the beginning of the 20th century under the first Roosevelt. In fact, America can be seen in many ways as the hammer of empires, the perennial stumbling block for the building of uber-empires on the part of Europeans, the Russians and the Japanese. The left and Al Qaeda have also had to take up the fascist fantasy about the Jews running the world and especially America to give their unwarranted hatred some traction amongst the poor and ignorant of the Levant and the Maghreb.
Ths complicity of the left in this paranoid delusionary fantasy is beyond doubt. It is a sign of their desperation, and a warning for the future as they become more desparate and ever less likely to gain power through the ballot box. The larger point, that it was nothing that America DID which brought it into the cross-hairs of Al Qaeda is proven by the written words of Sayyed Qutb and the reported words of Usama Bin Laden. America is the last bastion (in the wierdo world of Usama) of power which Islam must destroy before it can RULE THE WORLD. Bin Laden, being detached from reality in most crucial respects, thinks that once the US has collapsed, Islam will just walk through the rest of the world, imposing the Ummah on everybody whether they like it or not. Laughable but true.
The debate between Americans as to whether they are likely to cause more damage by intervening or not intervening in the wider world tells you everything you need to know about American 'Imperialism'. If America were an empire, they would not debate this piffling issue. Causing more or less damage would be a trifling concern compared to the one of how to best advance America's interests. Why not just depose the Sauds and steal their oil without paying for it? Because America isn't an empire.
'We may agree with Ron Paul that our interventionist policy in the Middle East has led to unintended negative consequences, including even 9/11, but this admission offers us absolutely no insight into what unintended consequences his preferred policy of non-intervention would have exposed us to. It is simply a myth to believe that only interventionism yields unintended consequence, since doing nothing at all may produce the same unexpected results. If American foreign policy had followed a course of strict non-interventionism, the world would certainly be different from what it is today; but there is no obvious reason to think that it would have been better.'
Further to this point, anti-Americanism in the middle east is VERY VERY NEW. Way back in 1997, Usama Bin Laden caused great consternation within the top echelons of Al Qaeda by indicating that America was the number one enemy. This was very new, and not very welcome news to most elements of his group. For the Egyptians, a very large part of his group, the Egyptian government, and maybe Britain as the former colonial power, were by far the main enemies. By extension, so were the 'apostate' governments of various other 'muslim' countries, even including Saudi Arabia (for allowing US troops onto the sacred earth of the land of the two holy places). But for most violent muslims, the Americans were the good guys. They had no colonial baggage, and had provided huge material support to the jihad against the soviets in Afghanistan. The last thing they wanted to do was go to war with America. Many were not stupid either, and understood the enormous weight of military power and non-military resources that America could bring to bear against them. Why screw with them at all?
It it really a trick of history: the combination of the anal and sexually repressed Sayyid Qutb's weird response to his time at Uni in the US, and Osama Bin Ladens hatred of Christianity that led Al Qaeda up such a weird path.
All the lefty tropes about the Arabs hating America because they deposed Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah- try to understand this leftards!!! Persians are not Arabs, Arabs are not Persians. The Arabs did not give two rat turds about the CIA deposing Mossadegh. Really. They did (and do) care about US help for Israel, but that has never generated the kind of extreme hatred that Al Qaeda evidence. In fact, the left and Al Qaeda have had to invent a fictional past to reframe America as a colonial power to get around the unfortunate reality that it isn't one, and has only ever been so for a few years at the beginning of the 20th century under the first Roosevelt. In fact, America can be seen in many ways as the hammer of empires, the perennial stumbling block for the building of uber-empires on the part of Europeans, the Russians and the Japanese. The left and Al Qaeda have also had to take up the fascist fantasy about the Jews running the world and especially America to give their unwarranted hatred some traction amongst the poor and ignorant of the Levant and the Maghreb.
Ths complicity of the left in this paranoid delusionary fantasy is beyond doubt. It is a sign of their desperation, and a warning for the future as they become more desparate and ever less likely to gain power through the ballot box. The larger point, that it was nothing that America DID which brought it into the cross-hairs of Al Qaeda is proven by the written words of Sayyed Qutb and the reported words of Usama Bin Laden. America is the last bastion (in the wierdo world of Usama) of power which Islam must destroy before it can RULE THE WORLD. Bin Laden, being detached from reality in most crucial respects, thinks that once the US has collapsed, Islam will just walk through the rest of the world, imposing the Ummah on everybody whether they like it or not. Laughable but true.
The debate between Americans as to whether they are likely to cause more damage by intervening or not intervening in the wider world tells you everything you need to know about American 'Imperialism'. If America were an empire, they would not debate this piffling issue. Causing more or less damage would be a trifling concern compared to the one of how to best advance America's interests. Why not just depose the Sauds and steal their oil without paying for it? Because America isn't an empire.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Bye bye Britain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7141651.stm
Not that you can really tell, but today most of the last 22% of Britains soveriegnty was donated by Gordon Brown to the EU superstate. He didn't think we'd want any say in that, so he didn't have a referendum.
Well, Gordo, I did want a say, you promised me a say at the last election, and if you think I'm going to forget that un-illusion yerself real quick. I go back and forth on the EU, as I'm not blind to its merits, but I'd say that for a multi-national trade organisation it already had vastly too many other jobs given to it.
As things stand, you may have turned me into a eurosceptic. Thats because I'm beginning to think that whatever your stance is a on subject the antithesis of it will be much closer to the sane view.
I think you know that most British people already see the EU as over-powerful and therefore you just couldn't risk us nixing your treaty. That disdain for our opinions is going to cost you big time.
Not that you can really tell, but today most of the last 22% of Britains soveriegnty was donated by Gordon Brown to the EU superstate. He didn't think we'd want any say in that, so he didn't have a referendum.
Well, Gordo, I did want a say, you promised me a say at the last election, and if you think I'm going to forget that un-illusion yerself real quick. I go back and forth on the EU, as I'm not blind to its merits, but I'd say that for a multi-national trade organisation it already had vastly too many other jobs given to it.
As things stand, you may have turned me into a eurosceptic. Thats because I'm beginning to think that whatever your stance is a on subject the antithesis of it will be much closer to the sane view.
I think you know that most British people already see the EU as over-powerful and therefore you just couldn't risk us nixing your treaty. That disdain for our opinions is going to cost you big time.
News written by people who don't know anything
'Years ago I was talking to a friend who's a doctor, and he said that the inaccuracy of medical stuff on TV infuriated him. I made some comment about the demands of drama, and he said, "No, the news!" He said just about every medical story was botched by the three networks and the cable networks, botched utterly, and cited examples that would be clear to any doc. "Why can't they be as accurate about medicine as they are about other stuff?"
That got me thinking. I have pretty deep knowledge in several areas, but the deepest are probably aviation and military operations, particularly special operations. And everything about the areas I know best are always misreported on the news. So I started to ask other people... businessmen, cops, lawyers, engineers. And everybody has the same problem.
Namely, we know that everything they report about our domain is bull. But we assume that the stuff they report about other domains must be accurate. Why that assumption?
In fact, it's all bull. Sometimes it's bull because they were careless or sloppy, and sometimes bull because they set out to report the story with it already framed in their little C+ English undergrad minds. But always bull.'
Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien
**************************************************
'Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien wrote, "Namely, we know that everything they report about our domain is bull. But we assume that the stuff they report about other domains must be accurate. Why that assumption?"
Michael Crichton in Why Speculate? calls this the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect."
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the 'wet streets cause rain' stories. Paper's full of them."
"In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
"That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say."
The rest of the article is worth reading.
Posted by: Looking Glass at December 12, 2007 09:24 PM'
These are two comments from http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/249157.php
(Hat Tip instapundit)
Is it time we had a new paradigm in the news media? One where all the news gets reported by people who know what they are talking about? Is that just too darn revolutionary?
That got me thinking. I have pretty deep knowledge in several areas, but the deepest are probably aviation and military operations, particularly special operations. And everything about the areas I know best are always misreported on the news. So I started to ask other people... businessmen, cops, lawyers, engineers. And everybody has the same problem.
Namely, we know that everything they report about our domain is bull. But we assume that the stuff they report about other domains must be accurate. Why that assumption?
In fact, it's all bull. Sometimes it's bull because they were careless or sloppy, and sometimes bull because they set out to report the story with it already framed in their little C+ English undergrad minds. But always bull.'
Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien
**************************************************
'Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien wrote, "Namely, we know that everything they report about our domain is bull. But we assume that the stuff they report about other domains must be accurate. Why that assumption?"
Michael Crichton in Why Speculate? calls this the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect."
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the 'wet streets cause rain' stories. Paper's full of them."
"In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
"That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say."
The rest of the article is worth reading.
Posted by: Looking Glass at December 12, 2007 09:24 PM'
These are two comments from http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/249157.php
(Hat Tip instapundit)
Is it time we had a new paradigm in the news media? One where all the news gets reported by people who know what they are talking about? Is that just too darn revolutionary?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Lefty America and Islam
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/10/144946/67/765/420291
Why do they care? What is it about America's (and Britain's and France's and Sweden's and Germany's) growing distaste for islam that rankles so much with lefty Americans? What drives them to write semi-literate rubbish like the following:
'What are the beliefs representing shades of Islamaphobia?
Islam is monolithic and cannot adapt to new realities.
Islam does not share common values with other major faiths.
Islam as a religion is inferior to the West. It is archaic, barbaric, and irrational.
Islam is a religion of violence and supports terrorism.
Islam is a violent political ideology.'
First item is actually two things. Islam is not monolithic, but all branches of it seem unable to adapt to new realities. Second item is true in a number of crucial respects- there is no universal set of moral precepts in islam; there is what is moral between muslims and there is what is moral between muslims and non-muslims and they are different. Islam has historically had within it strong traditions of violent domination and the conquering by force of non-muslim nations, as an even a vanishingly brief perusal of islamic history will bear out. The third item is both logically and factually nonsensical. How can you compare a religion to a disparate group of nations with many separate cultures, traditions and religions? Is Islam archaic, barbaric and irrational? By my standards (and keeping in mind that all the major religions would probably be considered archaic and irrational) I would say it is. The fourth item is beyond dispute. Pick up a newspaper- read it. There will be an item about islamic violence somewhere. The last item is contentious- is islam a violent political ideology? The answer is that for an increasing number of people all over the world, including many in the 'west', it is. That wasn't true a hundred years ago, but hey, things change. All that Saudi oil money has bought a lot of madrassas and hardline Wahhabist imams.
Why do lefty Americans care whether Islam is liked or disliked?
'It is perhaps worth noting that the toll in Sunday's shootings exceeded the combined total in all "hate crimes" against Muslims in the six years since September 11.' http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019242.php
Islamaphobia is the wrong name. More correctly it is Mismohammedanism. Phobia's are about fear, Mismohammedanism is about dislike (as in misanthropy or misogynist). Whats wrong with disliking someones religion? I know a lot of people in Britain who dislike Roman Catholicism. Its a long-running strain in our history, and there are some completely valid reasons why many Britons dislike and distrust the Catholic Church. I don't hear Roman Catholics bleating on via high profile pressure groups about Catholiphobia and requesting special treatment and new laws outlawing it. Despite the fact that in at least one place in the United Kingdom (northern Ireland) violence against Catholics is a potential and often an actual occurence, most Catholics in Britain just get on with their lives, go to mass and participate fully in British life.
The Daily Kos morons and their pals in Britain don't seem to see any weirdness in their championing of Islam, and their deep antipathy to Christianity. No insult is too extreme for 'right-wing extremist Christians'.
"Turkey: Int'l Summit On Islamophobia Issues Final Statement," from ANSAmed (thanks to Insubria):
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, DECEMBER 10 - "Islamophobia should be accepted as a crime, just like anti-semitism". So read the final statement of the The International Conference on Islamophobia"..."The fight against Islamophobia should be a basic duty for everybody, every institution and every government"
Anti-semitism isn't a crime. If it was, there would be huge numbers of muslims in jail all over Europe and the US. Thinking ill of people and their religions isn't a crime in western nations, and long may it continue. Muslims are risking a growing (non-violent) backlash if they continue to make these hypocritical and nonsensical demands for special treatment. If we allow their demands and pander to their mistaken beliefs, we have only ourselves to blame.
Why do they care? What is it about America's (and Britain's and France's and Sweden's and Germany's) growing distaste for islam that rankles so much with lefty Americans? What drives them to write semi-literate rubbish like the following:
'What are the beliefs representing shades of Islamaphobia?
Islam is monolithic and cannot adapt to new realities.
Islam does not share common values with other major faiths.
Islam as a religion is inferior to the West. It is archaic, barbaric, and irrational.
Islam is a religion of violence and supports terrorism.
Islam is a violent political ideology.'
First item is actually two things. Islam is not monolithic, but all branches of it seem unable to adapt to new realities. Second item is true in a number of crucial respects- there is no universal set of moral precepts in islam; there is what is moral between muslims and there is what is moral between muslims and non-muslims and they are different. Islam has historically had within it strong traditions of violent domination and the conquering by force of non-muslim nations, as an even a vanishingly brief perusal of islamic history will bear out. The third item is both logically and factually nonsensical. How can you compare a religion to a disparate group of nations with many separate cultures, traditions and religions? Is Islam archaic, barbaric and irrational? By my standards (and keeping in mind that all the major religions would probably be considered archaic and irrational) I would say it is. The fourth item is beyond dispute. Pick up a newspaper- read it. There will be an item about islamic violence somewhere. The last item is contentious- is islam a violent political ideology? The answer is that for an increasing number of people all over the world, including many in the 'west', it is. That wasn't true a hundred years ago, but hey, things change. All that Saudi oil money has bought a lot of madrassas and hardline Wahhabist imams.
Why do lefty Americans care whether Islam is liked or disliked?
'It is perhaps worth noting that the toll in Sunday's shootings exceeded the combined total in all "hate crimes" against Muslims in the six years since September 11.' http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019242.php
Islamaphobia is the wrong name. More correctly it is Mismohammedanism. Phobia's are about fear, Mismohammedanism is about dislike (as in misanthropy or misogynist). Whats wrong with disliking someones religion? I know a lot of people in Britain who dislike Roman Catholicism. Its a long-running strain in our history, and there are some completely valid reasons why many Britons dislike and distrust the Catholic Church. I don't hear Roman Catholics bleating on via high profile pressure groups about Catholiphobia and requesting special treatment and new laws outlawing it. Despite the fact that in at least one place in the United Kingdom (northern Ireland) violence against Catholics is a potential and often an actual occurence, most Catholics in Britain just get on with their lives, go to mass and participate fully in British life.
The Daily Kos morons and their pals in Britain don't seem to see any weirdness in their championing of Islam, and their deep antipathy to Christianity. No insult is too extreme for 'right-wing extremist Christians'.
"Turkey: Int'l Summit On Islamophobia Issues Final Statement," from ANSAmed (thanks to Insubria):
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, DECEMBER 10 - "Islamophobia should be accepted as a crime, just like anti-semitism". So read the final statement of the The International Conference on Islamophobia"..."The fight against Islamophobia should be a basic duty for everybody, every institution and every government"
Anti-semitism isn't a crime. If it was, there would be huge numbers of muslims in jail all over Europe and the US. Thinking ill of people and their religions isn't a crime in western nations, and long may it continue. Muslims are risking a growing (non-violent) backlash if they continue to make these hypocritical and nonsensical demands for special treatment. If we allow their demands and pander to their mistaken beliefs, we have only ourselves to blame.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Shhhhhhhh!!! We don't want to hear
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07ali.html?ex=1354770000&en=e437cb676b9833c4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
'IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.'
I'm a big fan of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This piece of hers is spot on- where are the moderates, the great silent majority of regular Sunni and Shia moslems who haven't bought the Wahhabists lies? Its very disappointing that there has been absolutely no public disquiet vioced by the likes of the MCB and MPAC-UK. Its almost like they covertly agree with the punishments...
'IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.'
I'm a big fan of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This piece of hers is spot on- where are the moderates, the great silent majority of regular Sunni and Shia moslems who haven't bought the Wahhabists lies? Its very disappointing that there has been absolutely no public disquiet vioced by the likes of the MCB and MPAC-UK. Its almost like they covertly agree with the punishments...
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