Thomas the Wraith

Dishonest and Deceptive

2008-03-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you heard Obama's speech yesterday. You can read the whole thing here. I think it's better to read it than to hear it as it is easy to get caught up in the spoken emotion of the performance rather than the words on the screen.

As a piece of political rhetoric I thought it was very well done. The media certainly loved it. However, I also thought the speech was dishonest, deceptive and emotionally manipulative, even a touch sinister. In the speech I find at least 4 dishonesties and deceptions.

1) Sure, Wright said some things. Obama addressed some of the statements by Rev. Wright.

"Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed."

"They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -
a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with
America above all that we know is right with America..."

He acknowledged that Wright's sermons were "divisive" and "racially charged".

But this, as harsh as this may seem, is a sugar-coating of some of Wright's charges. Wright said on a DVD sold by the church itself, "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." This is not merely divisive or racially charged. This is the worst kind of paranoid delusion. Wright accused the white-controlled government of waging biological warfare against blacks by inventing a fatal disease. Wright stood in a church and accused the government of essentially Nazi behavior; he accused the government of unspeakable evil. To call this divisive is not enough.

Likewise Wright said that FDR let the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor to justify an imperial war in the Pacific. Again, not only is this factually wrong, it defames a man millions of Americans consider to be a hero. This kind of accusation is not merely criticism of US foreign policy, as Obama describes it. This is an extremist conspiracy delusion and an insult to a great American, someone who held the very office Obama is running to occupy.

2) But he's done a lot of good. Obama defended Wright by saying that despite his lunatic ravings he has done much good as pastor of the church.

"He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."

All this may be true. But the he-was-wrong-but-has-done-much-good excuse doesn't seem to work for other people. Obama called for Don Imus to resign after a racially charge incident, despite the fact that Imus had entertained and informed people for 20 years on his radio show and used his fame and fortune to start and fund many charities including a camp for disabled children. Obama called for him to be fired, plain and simple. Or take the case of Michael Richards, who played Kramer on Seinfeld. The man was a talented and entertaining comic for 25 years, who entertained millions around the globe. He had a meltdown with a heckler one evening and was essentially banished from the entertainment world. These were not prepared remarks, mind you, but off the cuff insults during a moment of stress (unlike Wright he didn't put them on video and sell it for profit). Yet he did not get to use the I've-done-much-good-excuse.

Think back. Who else gets to scream in public like Wright and then excuse themselves because they've helped some other people? Please. I seriously doubt Obama would apply this standard to a white hate-monger. "David Duke is okay because he volunteers at the hospital." If I work at a soup kitchen do I get to use the word "nigger" in public? Not if I value my job and my teeth. Lots of evil men through history have started charities and orphanages, sponsored the arts, and helped their fellow men, even as they worked to fulfill their nefarious plans. Life is not a balanced ledger. You don't get to buy off your wrong-doings by helping people.

3) Hey man, blacks are angry. Oh, and whites too.

"That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. ... And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. ... But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

Obama then shifts to white anger.

"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most
working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. ... So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time."

True enough. You're angry, I'm angry, everybody's angry. Despite the eloquence, to say this is to say nothing. Anger is part of the human condition in a fallen world. Thanks for the insight, genius. Again though, Obama is using his well-written and well-delivered text to gloss over the fundamental problem. White anger is very rarely vented in public and certainly not in church. I'll give Obama's campaign $100 for every DVD the campaign can produce from a mainstream church where a white preacher screams about "lazy stupid niggers" or something similar. (Remember, Trinity is not some fringe group. It's the largest black church in Chicago with something like 8000 or 10000 members.) But the campaign won't find any such video from this century. Any white preacher at mainstream church who acted in a way remotely comparable to Wright would be dismissed. People would walk out. Some would shout back. Over the past generation whites have learned to be very careful with their anger in public. Obama is correct in that whites are angry but this anger is only expressed in the most controlled, most private settings. (Please, don't send me emails about lunatic local churches where some marginal preacher rambles in front of a dozen people. Wright preached in front of thousands and gave several services to SRO crowds on Sundays. Obama's campaign said Wright was one of the 10 most influential black preachers in America. Not marginal and not on the fringe.)

This issue is not about black anger. It's about the expression of that anger against whites in general expressed in church before thousands of applauding people. Wright spoke of "greedy whites" who "control the culture" "giving drugs" to blacks. This is more than anger. It's bigotry and if you're being intellectually honest, it's racism. Anger is acceptable. Racism isn't. What Obama seems to be saying, in a subtle way, is that it's okay for blacks to scream sheer racism in church because, well, they're black. So much for judging people by the content of their character. We've moved beyond that. Let's just judge them on the color of their skin.

4) We can't blame Wright because your white grandmother is a bigot. To me this is the worst kind of emotional extortion. This is where the speech derails and crashes. This is where someone should have heckled him.

"I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who
loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more
than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

There simply no comparison. None. Zero. His grandmother said she was afraid of black men on the street. Hey pal, Chris Rock said he was afraid of black men at the ATM. Jesse Jackson said he was relieved when the two men who came up behind him at night were white. Are these racist statements or merely honest expressions of real fears?

Moreover, private statements of bigotry by one's elderly relatives from 30 years ago cannot compare to public expressions of bigotry before thousands of people last year (recorded and sold by the church itself). Not. Comparable. This white woman helped raise him after his African father had abandoned his family and fled the freaking country and he compares her to a hate-filled spastic, gesticulating wildly on stage before an audience who applauds his racist paranoia? Maybe I romanticize my grandparents. Maybe I'm sentimental by nature but my jaw dropped when I read that. The implication of course is that we all have elderly relatives who have said bigoted things over the years so we can't sit in judgment of Wright. Well, I can and I will. Moreover, to imply that my relatives are in some way comparable to a race-baiting simpleton parading as a religious figure who thinks his malignant weekly ravings pass as sermons is profoundly insulting. Fuck you Barack.

No doubt this speech contains many more dodges and slights of hand but those are the ones that most appalled me.

Change, Hope, Unity. And Blank-ness

2008-03-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

Today's edition of Change, Hope and Unity focuses on Unity, by any means necessary.

African-American superdelegates are being targeted, harassed and threatened,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), a superdelegate who has supported Clinton since August. Cleaver said black superdelegates are receiving “nasty letters, phone calls, threats they’ll get an opponent, being called an Uncle Tom.

This is the politics of the 1950s,” he complained. “A lot of members are experiencing a lot of ugly stuff. They’re not going to talk about it, but it’s happening.” [snip]...

Cleaver questioned why white superdelegates such as Massachusetts Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry weren’t being targeted to support Clinton after she carried their state.

“If white people were being harassed and threatened because they were not supporting a white candidate, we’d see headlines,” he said.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8762.html

Obama as Borg. You will be assimilated. New Obama slogan: Unity - You Will Join Us. Dissent Is Not an Option. But I thought dissent was the highest form of patriotism? (I read that on a bumper sticker.) Wrong. Dissent from Hope can only be Despair. And despite all my efforts the Politics of Despair ain't selling. (Note to self: re-double effort.)

And on the pop culture front, here's a preview of the mass idiocy which will dominate American pop culture during the Obama Administration:

Is Fred Armisen, who is not African American, "black enough" to embody Obama on "Saturday Night Live"?

Debate over that question has been pinging around the Internet since Armisen, a veteran cast member, donned darker makeup to portray the Democratic candidate for the first time Saturday. [snip] ...

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?" (ed: Okay, you're batshit crazy.) Ryan went on to conclude: "I find 'SNL's' choice inexplicable. Obama's candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African-Americans have made in this country. I guess 'SNL' still has further to go on that front."

Hannah Pool, a writer for the Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, suggested the whole setup had "minstrel" overtones.

"Casting a black actor wouldn't have guaranteed the quality of the sketch, but it would have made the whole thing a lot less shoddy," Pool wrote. "Let's get one thing straight. The moment anyone starts reaching for 'blackface,' they are on extremely dodgy territory. Anyone who thinks it's either necessary or, for that matter, remotely funny to black-up needs to have the gauge on their moral compass reset."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803988.html

That sound you hear in the background is Dave Chappelle and Eddie Murphy's heads exploding. Four years of this stuff. I can't wait! Guess I'll stop watching TV. Maybe with all the time saved I can learn to play the piano. See, hope lives.

Thursday's news about Obama's staff telling the Canadians not to worry, that his anti-NAFTA rhetoric was just for show (it fools the rubes in Ohio, don't you know?) has been confirmed. And Canadian TV is naming names:

However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama's senior economic adviser -- Austan Goolsbee -- and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080228/turkey_Gates_080228/20080228?hub=TopStories

Whoosh! Austan Goolsbee, flushed down the Toilet of Hope.

Here's a short collection of misc items to finish the post.

The Times of London:

The problem is that there's a danger that the presidential contest between Mr Obama and Mr McCain will become not a debate but a silly battle of conflicting icons. You can be sure that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, and much of America, if Mr McCain wins it will be not because of his superior experience or the quality of his ideas, but because America is irredeemably racist.

Instead of being the welcome break with America's recent past that he truly is, he will be painted as a continuation of it. Worse, that that, he will have won by vanquishing Hope and Peace. He will be for ever The Man Who Shot Bambi.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article3455572.ece

New McCain slogan: I'll Crush Bambi. Now that's a bumper sticker

The Chicago Sun-Times:

The next day McCain mocked Obama, ''I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq." Obama fired back, ''I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq and that's why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets. But I have some news for John McCain. There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

So what is Obama's Iraq strategy? It seems to be that he knows al-Qaida is in Iraq but he's going to pull out anyway. But if al-Qaida establishes a base in Iraq, he will go back in. Does that sound confused to you? Me, too.

His policy, in a nutshell, seems to be this: Pull troops out of Iraq and hope for the best. And anyway, the real issue is what cowboy Bush and McCain did five years ago.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/818710,CST-EDT-hunt29.article

Obama vs. Angelina Jolie? At least on Iraq:

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. [snip]...

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217.html

But what's Brad's opinion? Do Angelina and George Clooney have political discussions over appletini's while Brad plays with the kids by the pool? And won't somebody please think of poor Jennifer! [insert anguished wail]

On Nightline Hillary Quotes Obama: "Blank Screen"

"I think the best description, actually, is in Barack's own book, the last book he wrote, 'Audacity of Hope,' where he said that he's a blank screen. And people of widely differing views project what they want to believe onto him. And then he went on to say, 'I am bound to disappoint some, if not all of them.'"

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/Story?id=4362837&page=3

I guess he's a leader of the Blank Community. Obama, our first blank president? The jokes write themselves, just put the comic in blank-face. (Whoops. Do I need to have my moral compass reset? I report for reeducation after lunch.)

Muhammad Cartoons 3: Chaos in Copenhagen

2008-02-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

Since the Danish Muhammad (Mohammed, Mahomet) cartoons are back in the news I thought I'd reprint a selection of my Muhammad cartoons, just to goose the fanatics out there. My collected Muhammad cartoons can be found here. 1. Crybaby Muhammad. I always liked this one, as a commentary on the hyper-sensitive, oh-so-fragile emotional state of so many Muhammadeans.
2. Muhammad's View of Free Expression. Not only is this one accurate, but the events in Denmark validate it.
3. Footprint Muhammad. I've read that the bottoms of feet are particularly offensive in Arab cultures. Plus, including Ali should piss off the Shi'a nutbags out there.
4. Dog Muhammad. I drew this one to support Swedish artist Lars Vilks. People seemed to like it. He is kind of cute. More on that episode here.
5. Atomic Muhammad. An homage to the famous Muhammad with the turban bomb, but with nuclear warheads and a mushroom cloud.
6. Muhammad the Skull. Muhammad, the Bearded Skull, Bringer of Death. The least amusing of the bunch.
7. Denmark Rocks. Finally, a show of support for beleaguered Denmark. We're with you, guys.

I have a few other cartoons. See Dog-Faced Muhammad! See Effeminate Muhammad! See Muhammad in Hellfire! And yes, even the Muhammad who loves cartoons.

Why do I do this? Will I apologize? Read the links. Feel free to send you comments, complaints and yes, your pathetic threats to thomasthewraith-at-gmail.com. Threats or sad little attempts to convert me to Islam may be published and subjected to ridicule and mockery. Good luck, kids.

UK Immigration Craziness

2007-11-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

Charles Moore, in that notorious racist hate-rag, the Telegraph UK, writes this about current British immigration "policy" (emphasis added):

The craziness consists in thinking that we can accept any number of new people without demanding anything of them, and yet leave the idea of "we" undamaged. To anyone who is not an extreme economic liberal, or a Western-hating Marxist, or a euro-fanatic, the idea of a nation is intrinsic to other ideas we care about – culture, identity, neighbourliness, community.
If we are decent people, we do not hate the idea that newcomers can join us. But we want the place we live in to be more than a populated space, especially an over-populated space. We want it to be home.
How can it easily be home – for us, or for them – when, as is now the case, 450,000 children in British primary schools do not have English as a first language? How can it, emotionally or even physically, be home for the indigenous poor if the newcomers move ahead of them in the council housing queue?
The craziness also damages immigrants, when they come too fast and, in the case of some minorities, furious. Far from integrating, they close in on themselves. Far from wanting to be British, they seek salvation in the assertion of ethnic or religious identity.

He continues, addressing the one particular school, funded no doubt, by our enemy-allies abroad:

In the King Fahad Academy in Acton, our researchers picked up a school book produced by our "allies", the Saudis. Divine Unity explains to pupils the "great requirements for hating the unbelievers". They must shun local celebrations such as Christmas.
They must not sing or dance or go to films or observe the Western calendar. The book emphasises the "impermissibility of congratulating them [unbelievers] or offering them condolences" because, if that happens, the "love towards them will become firm".
When we published, the Muslim Council of Britain defended such books by saying that it was not illegal to print anti-Western material. No, but if people preach "Hate thy neighbour", and if they are defended when they do so by the body that says it speaks for a community of perhaps two million people, who can say that our national cohesion, even our basic security, is assured?

None of this is any surprise to people who keep up with these issues. But in light of the recent Blogger Civil War, I have to ask - is Moore a racist for caring about culture and identity? Is he racist for thinking that the British government should care for the indigenous poor before the immigrants? Is he racist for wanting Britain "to be home".

See You at the Gates

2007-11-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've been posting a lot at the Gate of Vienna lately. The great Blog Civil War has been very dramatic. You can follow it all over at GoV. At first, I admit, I was stunned. Being called a racist and a Holocaust denier, however indirectly, is not pleasant. But the civil war has actually been very informative. I feel like an ice-jam has been broken in my thinking. More to come.

You can follow all the recent comment at Gates of Vienna at http://govcomments.blogspot.com/.

Dirty Hands

2007-10-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Hot Air and LGF (along with Jawa Report, Infidel Bloggers Alliance and other minor blogs) have spent the past few days repeating that they don't want to be involved in any way with bad nasty racists, religious bigots, or groups that espouse ethnic separatism.

Except that it's too late. Many of our closest allies are up to their necks in racism, religious bigotry and ethnic separatism, not to mention ethnic supremacy. For example, our NATO ally Turkey was created from a cauldron of the religiously motivated mass murder of the Armenians and the expulsion of the Greek Christians. The entire ideology of the Turkish state is based on the ethnic and linguistic supremacy of the Turks over the Kurds, as Spengler reminded us last week. Yet they've been our close ally for 50 years.

Japan, our closest ally in Asia, is a thoroughly racist state as a matter of policy. Third and fourth generation people of Korean decent cannot be Japanese citizens. They are legally Koreans despite not speaking the language or having ever set foot in Korea. This is state policy and has been since, well, since the Koreans were brought to Japan. Every year Japanese politicians including the PM visit the Yasukuni Shrine where the spirits of the war dead, including the Imperial war criminals who terrorized mainland Asia, are enshrined. Japanese textbooks, again as a matter of official policy, downplay or deny the Imperial atrocities in China and the size and scope of the so-called Korean "comfort women" (read sexual slaves). Yet Japan continues to be a valued ally.

During the Cold War the dearly departed saints of both parties, Kennedy and Reagan, worked with actual gangsters and deposed fascists in the fight against Communism in Latin America. These were not merely impolite people or mean-spirited nasties like the VB or the BNP. These were actual murders and true fascists who worked with the US government under both Democrats and Republicans. The US even worked with the quasi-fascist Regime of the Colonels in Greece as a bulwark against Communism. Again, these guys weren't Boy Scouts. The VB and the BNP, for all their faults, do work within a system of free elections. The Greek Colonels, Batista and Samoza were never democrats. They didn't even bother with the illusion.

We worked with some pretty disreputable people in the Cold War because it was a war and defeating Communism was more important than imposing a litmus test on the beliefs of our would-be allies. If, as Norman Podhoretz says ,the war against Islamofascism is World War IV, then we will need allies and these allies will not always share our very American views on 'race' (whatever that word means this week). In other words, we will have to work with people who have dirty hands. Or we can adopt a posture of self-righteousness and moral preening and wring our hands about those super-duper-mega-very bad 'racists' in Europe and isolate the people we should be engaging.

Constructive Engagement

2007-10-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

"Constructive engagement" was Reagan's policy for apartheid South Africa. Under constructive engagement the US did not absolutely condemn the racist apartheid regime of white South Africa, but rather sought to maintain some degree of interaction in an attempt to persuade the apartheid government to mend its ways. Apartheid South Africa was the very definition of racism, yet the Republican's saint Ronald Reagan refused to utterly condemn the regime, preferring dialog.

If you suggest the same thing today with regards to the VB or the BNP you get banned from LGF or Hot Air.

Banned from Hot Air

2007-10-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

AllahPundit has banned me from Hot Air. I assume it was for the following comment.

Krydor and others - Yes, you finally broke my spirit. I confess. I’m a die-hard fascist from way back. Each morning my wife and I bow in our Shinto shrine and pray for the eternal health of the Emperor.

I get it. You are better than me because you think that Griffin a really, really, really bad man, just as bad as Khomeini; that the BNP is equal to Hizb ut Tahir or Hamas; that the 4th largest party in Britain is truly a collection of sinister gangsters waiting for the right moment to violently overthrow Her Majesty’s Government.

Clearly I’m unworthy to engage in this discussion with my moral superiors. My most abject apologies for polluting your pristine discourse with my filth and pro-fascist propaganda. I’d have more to say but I have to go polish my Oswald Mosley statuettes.

Thomas the Wraith on October 28, 2007 at 10:26 AM

Clearly my sarcasm was not appreciated.

Update: AllahPundit kindly responded to my email. Apparently I am considered an apologist for the BNP despite my expressed statement to the contrary. So it goes.

In condemning the BNP AllahPundit relies heavily on some quotes from Griffin provided by a commenter. Note this one:

“Muslims gang rape women in Norway and other cultures. Only Muslims do this,” Griffin said.

While bigoted, this is not racist. Some may consider this splitting hairs but I think it's important to maintain the distinction between racism and religious or other forms of bigotry. (I know, you're thinking that of course I would say this since I'm a religious bigot. )

“You seek to deny the white people of the world the right to collect in their own community and self determinations; then you are a racist,” Griffin said.

This is repugnant in an American context but in England, this is more complicated. The US allows indigenous peoples to gather together separated from the rest of society. We call these Tribal Reservations and few seriously accuse these Indian tribes of being racists. The English are an ethnic group. They deserve to be recognized as such in their own homeland.

I'm certain that Nick Griffin is a thoroughly repellent individual. As a white man married to a Japanese woman I'm sure he would spit on me as a cowardly race-mixer. If he were an American I would condemn him in the harshest possible terms. But he's an English politician in England advocating for his own people and culture in their own land. I don't want to have dinner with the man. But branding him as a racist and a super-duper-mega bad man is moral posing and an exercise in self-righteousness. It does nothing to help us understand why the BNP is more popular every year or the social and political dynamics that cause ordinary Brits to join that party.

But it makes us feel good and in an American context this is all that matters, right? Yeah team.

Against a Common Foe

2007-10-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

There's been a sort of blogosphere fistfight over the past few day at LGF, Brussels Journal, Hot Air and even at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Broadly speaking the fight was over the 'racist' views of the Flemish party VB and the British National Party. LGF roundly condemned the VB earlier in the week. Then tonight both LGF and Hot Air jumped on Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP.

Both LGF and Hot Air are major blogs with advertisers (through the PJM network). Hot Air is the creation of columnist, NRO and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin. These blogs are closely watched and cannot afford any taint of what may ever appear to be racism.

Nevertheless... Europe is not American and Europeans are not Americans. A Turk can move to Belgium or a Pakistani to Britain and each can gain Belgian or British citizenship. But a Turk can never be Flemish nor a Pakistani English (or Scottish or Welsh).

Europe is on the frontlines of the war against jihadism. The front runs through Brussels, London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Amsterdam and Berlin. The front runs between houses and down streets. As the struggle unfolds it will be wagged by Europeans, in Europe. Not only have reasonable, mainstream politicians and leaders proven themselves incapable of mounting an effective response to jihadism, these people are actually responsible for allowing the Muslim fighters to immigrate in the first place.

Europe faces a civil, political and social struggle between the indigenous Europeans and Muslim immigrants. We cannot realistically expect that those who'll engage in this struggle will be nice, upstanding, well-spoken young people, free of any racist attitudes or beliefs. We should not expect that they will conform to our very American views on race, ethnicity and culture. They won't.

So how do we react? Do we condemn them for this and ignore the struggle we share against jihadism? Do we naively wait for a European who will be against jihadism yet be enlightened (by our standards) on race? Or do we write off Europe as an irredeemable pit of racists and jihadists and proclaim a plague on both their houses?

This is not realistic. We will need allies in Europe and the future leaders of Europe will be much more like Franco than Blair. America has a long tradition of working with disreputable characters against a common foe. If we can free ourselves from the adolescent desire to maintain moral purity then we can revive this tradition.

The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend but that doesn't mean we can't work together.

Dog Muhammad

2007-09-02T22:43:00.000-07:00

Let the insanity begin!

The Swedish artist Lars Vilks made a line drawing of Muhammad (spelled Muhammed in Swedish apparently). Big surprise! Two hundred quintzillion Muslims around the world are displeased with his effort. (Background from NRO.) But the Swedes have undergone a national spine transplant and are not prostrating themselves before the OIC. A major Swedish newspaper wrote that the country would not apologize. The artist also refuses to apologize. Several newspapers have reprinted the cartoon of Mohammad (or is it Mohammed or Muhammed?) with the body of a dog. Add this to the list of 10 Million Things That Offend Muslims.

Over the next week or two Muslim activists, imams and dictators will whip up the mob. Islamic Rage Boy and his posse will get some press, no doubt in fine form, super-duper mega pissed off at the unspeakable blasphemy of a pencil drawing in a country thousands of miles away whose language they can't read. Feel the sincerity.

Well, never let it be said that I missed a chance to pile on while the piling is good. Yesterday I posted Muhammad the Dog, my variation on the original drawing, the body of a canine with the head of the first Muslim. Now I give you the Big Mo, not with the body of a dog but as a dog, complete with all the dog parts, enjoying a fine bowl of pork. He may be cute but he's not housebroken.

I have a few more planned including one extra-offensive cartoon guaranteed to give Islamic Rage Boy a stroke. While you're here you can view my cartoons from the first Cartoon War. Leave your angry sputtering crazy-talk in the comments or email me in my secure undisclosed location at thomasthewraith@gmail.com. As usual, those who threaten me will receive public mockery in return; those who try to convert me will get a laughter and derision. Happy typing.

Muhammad the Dog

2007-09-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Cartoon Wars II: Sweden

This time it's one cartoon by an artist named Lars Vilks. Gates of Vienna has a round-up as well as news that Swedish newspapers and the Swedish government are standing firm against jihadist intimidation. So far Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt (all U.S. allies and recipients of billions in aid) have each weighed in with "outrage" at this "irresponsible and offensive" provocation. And it's not even a good cartoon.

To show support for my Swedish brethren I'll join the fray on my obscure little blog with more simple and stupid Muhammad cartoons. This one I call Muhammad with Dog's Head. Other cartoons will follow as I finish them.

If you like this one please copy and post it wherever you want. Or just link here.

My cartoons from Cartoon Wars I: Denmark can be found here. Feel free to leave comments or email me at thomasthewraith@gmail.com. Comments and emails may be posted if they are amusing, threatening or just plain weird.

Keyboard jihadists take note: I'm holding my most offensive drawing in reserve. Threats and incoherent anger in the comments only encourage me to post it.

Banned in Iran!

2007-08-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

That's right - Thomas the Wraith, banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran according to Host Tracker. Must be those Mohammad cartoons from a while back. Ahh yes, the gift that keeps on giving.

"Or What?" Longing for a World Without Consequences

2007-06-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the US and the West in general has nearly completed the construction of a consequence-free politics, a world where we make demands but when presented with the inevitable question, “Or what?” we lapse into silence or incoherence.

On the illegal alien problem, the Senate makes numerous, tough sounding demands about “touchbacks” and visa overstays and requirements for “Z-visas”. But if an illegal doesn’t meet these requirements or fails to even apply and “come out of the shadows” what will be the consequences? The Grand Compromisers say they’ll be deported. We all know these are false threats. People who enter the country illegally or overstay their visas today are not deported, at least not in any significant numbers. If our political elite can’t stomach enforcement personnel rounding up crying and wailing illegals and deporting them today, (see Ted Kennedy and the usual sob sisters in Congress) why will they be able to do so tomorrow? Does the Grand Compromise legislation grant our heretofore spineless political overlords a spine?

The President says that it is “intolerable” that Iran develop a nuclear weapon. Or what, George? Will Bush strike the ayatollahs after they build the Bomb? Before? Wasn’t it intolerable that North Korea build the Bomb? Remind me again of the consequences there.

Repeat the paragraph above in regards to supporting terror groups in Iraq or arming the Taliban in Afghanistan. With the same results.

Darfur is supposed to be “unacceptable”, “intolerable”, “genocide.” And what are the consequences? A concert and a vaguely disapproving report from an EU sub-committee.

Last summer, when Israel tried to enforce consequences on Hezbullah and Lebanon for kidnapping its soldiers and attacking its cities with missiles, the Usual Suspects whined that the response was “disproportionate.” (Watch: if in fact the Grand Compromise passes, heaven forbid, we will hear that word or it’s synonyms over and over if the feds actually try to enforce the deportation provisions. The crybabies in the media can always find a sympathetic story of a young, telegenic mother who “is only trying to make a better life for her family”. The law be damned! There should not be consequences!)

Our rhetoric is completely disconnected from reality. We have confused Process with Results. We speak of great ambitions but perform only the most meager actions. We have inverted TR's old maxim. Now we speak loudly and carry a wet noddle. Unfortunately, we live in a real, gritty world of real, tangible consequences. We will be reminded of that sooner or later. And we will not like it.

Edwards Is Doomed

2007-02-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

John Edwards, that is. The 2008 campaign sees its first victim. He's road kill. It's over. Say goodnight and return to your ginormous mansion. Not that he ever had a chance.

Salon is reporting that the Edwards campaign has fired the two bloggers/hate mongers he just hired last month. This isn't confirmed yet but it's only a matter of time. Edwards base is collapsing like a New Orleans levy. Just look at the comments on Edwards own site. Same song, different verse over at MyDD.

Edwards' Internet base will dispise him for firing the two hate bloggers. Not that firing them in and of itself will harm him too much. But the whole episode is very telling. He's willing to hire people who, based on their paper trail, should never have been allowed within 100 feet of his campaign HQ. Then, as soon as their blasphemous bile was exposed to the wider public, he throws them to the wolves.

This is not how you run a serious campaign. Of course, Edwards is a not a serious candidate. He's a rich amateur, a mook, a dilettante. He won't win a single primary. He might not make it to the primaries.

Go ahead, send him money. Say nice things about him to your friends. Sing his praises on the Web. None of this will matter. He can screw up something so simple as hiring a few minor staffers then he'll be crushed by Clinton. If he isn't undone by his own flaws first.

The Where and the How

2007-02-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

The idea has been all over the blogosphere for a while. Its popularity has increased in Britain with the recent revelations of a plot to kidnap and behead British soldiers on British soil, but this is the first time I've seen the idea raised in a respectable publication. This article from the New English Review is titled "Tribalism, Culture and the Nation-State".

In order for the Western world to effectively deal with Islam, it must be just as ruthless a segregator and expel that which is not-West, in this case, the cultural practices of Muslims. For practical purposes this means expelling Muslims themselves, who would naturally take their cultural practices with them and be re-absorbed into the Dar al-Islam.

At this point, it is useful to remember that all war results in the movement of peoples. The mass movements following WWII were perhaps the largest in human experience, when ethnic Germans were expelled from all over Eastern Europe. Sometimes these expulsions were a matter of government decree as in Czechoslovakia through the Benes Decree, while others fled in response to the social pressure exerted by their neighbors. But the fact remains, millions were uprooted from the territories of Poland, Russia and Czechoslovakia to be resettled into the then shrunken German homeland. They endured hardship, starvation, disease and death. The transfer could have been handled more humanely, but it was necessary they be moved. ... [snip]

It seems to me, we have come to a crossroads. We have the choice either to expel the current threat and the people bearing it, and then to contain that threat within certain boundaries, or we can continue with business as before, as the states and elites of Europe continued to do all through the 1930s...
[snip]

Our sentimental belief that everyone wants the same thing, and that all creeds are essentially the same, will no longer do, and the kind of preemptive population transfers undertaken by Czechoslovakia (and many other European states), after World War II, when the Volksdeutsche sent to Germany, will have to be considered, discussed, and ultimately, have to take in a perfectly rational, no-nonsense, unhysterical and humane way. [emphasis added]

Let's think about this seriously for a moment. Let's consider some of the details of such an idea. Some degree of realism is required here.

Forget for a moment the legal obstacles. Laws can be changed in a democratic nation; very easily during martial law. Even more easily after a coup, or as part of a populist authoritarian takeover. This is especially true in countries without a written constitution as in the UK.

Forget for a moment the tsunami of violence that would immediately follow the leak of government plans for ‘population transfer’: the wave of rioting and fire bombs and random murder. Forget the burning cities, the torched schools and churches, the blasted buses.

Forget for a moment the economic consequences, the capital flight, the currency devaluation, the collapsing equity prices. Forget the destruction of British businesses abroad, the murder of businessmen overseas, the financial losses.

Forget for a moment the international outcry, the embargoes, the burned embassies, the murdered diplomats, expatriates and tourists. Forget that any plans to expel Muslims would be seen as a declaration of war on all Islamic countries. Forget the gnashing of teeth at the UN and EU. Forget the World Court, Amnesty International, the Vatican. Forget the reaction of the media worldwide. Forget that the UK would become a true international pariah state.

Forget the logistical complexities of rounding up 1.5 – 2 million angry men, women and children against their will. Forget that many will forcibly resist. Forget that many will go underground, hidden by sympathizers in attics and basements, nursing their hate, biding their time.

The questions I want to address are simple: where do you send them and how do you get them there? This is not like Czechoslovakia or Poland expelling Germans, or Turkey expelling Greeks. Muslims cannot simply be forced across the border into ‘their’ country. First, Britain is an island. Second, no European country ‘bordering’ Britain would want 2 million angry, impoverished refugees. This would not even be like the Partition of India. The refugees can’t walk or pack onto trains for the long ride out.

We are talking about forcing people onto airplanes and flying them somewhere. Between 1.5 and 2 million people would need a lot of planes flying for a long time. They won’t just sit quietly and enjoy the in-flight movie. That’s the whole point of expelling them, remember. The flights would require a significant number of guards on board to prevent the refugees from storming the cockpit.

Ok, these people are rounded up and forced onto planes thick with armed guards. The planes and their fighter escorts leave British airspace. Then what? Where do these planes land?

This is not like Egypt or other Arab states expelling Jews. In those cases Israel was glad to take them. The planes landed at Ben-Gurion airport and the Jewish refugees were welcomed, given housing and many forms of public assistance. This is not like Idi Amin expelling Asians from Uganda. Many flew to the UK where they were accepted as refugees.

What country will take these people expelled from Britain? This I think is the ultimate weakness of this idea. Where do these people go? I argue that no Muslim nation would take them for fear of enabling Britain or even colluding with Britain, the infidel pariah state. Even if a government let the planes land, would the population? Imagine the effect on Pakistan (where many British Muslims trace their family tree). If the dictator of Pakistan decided to accept the planes, I argue that many Islamists would view this as a betrayal, as helping the infidels commit crimes against the ummah. You can imagine the scenes. Mobs storming government buildings. Bombings. A revolutionary situation.

For the sake of argument let’s say the first plane lands in Karachi. The refugees are welcomed with open arms. Now what? Is Pakistan going to just let this plane refuel and return for another load of refugees? Even if the government, such as it is, says they will allow this, why shouldn’t they shoot the empty plane out of the sky? That would certainly deter a second plane from landing. Why shouldn’t Islamists themselves, using should fired missiles or good old-fashioned gunfire, take down the plane that is being used to commit this 'heinous and despicable crime'?

Without a country willing to accept the refugees, willing to grant landing rights, willing to sell fuel and allow the planes to takeoff and return, over and over, for weeks, this plan collapses. How are poor, backward country like Pakistan and Bangladesh going to house and feed and take care of these extra people, many of whom cannot speak the language and will not have skills useful in a third world economy? It's not that the populace may not want to help their distant relatives. It's that the very act of deportation is an act of war against Dar al-Islam. Working with Britain, the hated kuffar, to see that deportation is 'rational, no-nonsense, unhysterical and humane' will be the traitorous act of apostates, worthy of death.

In short, I think this talk of ‘population transfer’ or deportation is a fantasy people use to comfort themselves in these anxious times. But it is not a harmless fantasy. It’s a variation on the time-worn European dream of the Strong Man who will ride in on a horse and solve all their problems. This fantasy, like so many political wet-dreams, encourages passivity. What’s worse, it’s a fantasy of government action. It’s the government that has gotten them into this mess!

Sorry my British friends, even if you elect the re-animated corpse of Francisco Franco, the government is not going to magically solve this problem for you. You can't vote your way out of this. Radical Islam inside Britain is your problem. You. Your chaps at the pub. Your pals from the cricket team. Your neighbors. Your classmates. Your children.

Militant Islamists are prepared to conspire and plot against you. They’re prepared to threaten and intimidate you. They’re prepared to risk jail to smuggle weapons and raise money. They’re prepared to come at you, your families, your countrymen with real physical violence.

To quote Jimmy Malone’s dying words from The Untouchables: what are you prepared to do?

The Chicago Way

2007-02-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

It's all over the internet - Brits are angry and getting angrier. "Vitriolic" and "volcanic" are words used to describe how people are feeling. And that's just the V-words. I've read phrases like "teetering on the brink of open ethnic warfare". The BNP can't keep up with applications for membership. One Labour MP called the growth of the BNP "a cry for help."

I think all right-minded Brits should sit down over a pint of Bass and watch the 1987 gangster film The Untouchables. On the surface this has nothing to do with Islamic terror or ethnic tensions or Britain whatsoever. But listen carefully, my friends.

In this classic film Sean Connery plays Jimmy Malone, a tough, honest Chicago cop - the voice of brutal realism. (When reading his lines it's important to hear his voice. It sounds much tougher.) Elliot Ness wants to bring down Al Capone but he is limited by his own naive idealism. Ness can't destroy Capone's organization legally because Capone has corrupted the legal and political systems through bribery and intimidation. Malone, the street-smart veteran, explains how to get Capone in the real world.

MALONE: You said you wanted to know how to get Capone. Do you really want to get him? You see what I'm saying? What are you prepared to do?

NESS: Everything within the law.

MALONE: And then what are you prepared to do? If you open the ball on these people, you must be prepared to go all the way. Because they won't give up the fight until one of you is dead.

NESS: I want to get Capone. I don't know how.

MALONE: Here's how you get Capone: he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone. Now, do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?

The Untouchables is not just a mob film. It's about how good men do what's right when the authorities cannot or will not protect people from a violent gang bent on seizing control of city. Sound familiar?

Articles and Bricks

2007-02-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

Today we have word of growing threats of a wave of beheadings across Britain, or even a Belsan-style seige. Some Brits may be taking comfort from this piece in the Times (UK), We're Far Too Nice to Muslim Extremists. That's all well and good but I think perhaps the time for tough articles may be coming to an end. What should a society do when threatened by violent extremists? Here are some insightful words from, of all people, Woody Allen. From Manhattan:

IKE (Allen): Has anybody read that the Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey, you know? I read this in the newspaper. (Waving his fist) We should go down there, get some guys together, you know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to 'em.

JERRY: There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the Op-Ed page of the Times. It was devastating.

IKE: W-e-e-ell, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point down there.

HELEN: Oh, but really biting satire is always better than physical force.

IKE: But true physical force is always better with Nazis, uh ... because it's hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots on.

Replace 'shiny boots' with some other relevant article of politicized clothing and I can imagine this same conversation occurring all over the UK. I'll leave any interpretations to the readers.

Self-immolation As Protest Against Islam

2006-11-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

From the Brussels Journal:

On Tuesday a Lutheran vicar set himself alight in the German town of Erfurt. The 73 year old Roland Weisselberg poured gasoline over himself and set fire to himself in the Erfurt monastery, where Martin Luther took his monastic vows in 1505. Bystanders rushed to extinguish the flames. The man later died of his injuries.
In a farewell letter to his wife the vicar wrote that he was setting himself on fire to warn against the danger of the Islamization of Europe. During the past four years the vicar had frequently expressed his concern about the expansion of Islam, urging the Lutheran Church to take this issue seriously.

The Patronising Patron

2006-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

From the Aussie newspaper, The Age:

But privately, Mr Maliki criticised what he called the patronising US tone
towards the Iraqi Government ...

Of course we're 'patronising'. You're our client. We're your patron. If you want the patronage, you get the patronising attitude. They go hand in hand. Let's be perfectly clear - this is not a relationship of equals. We are propping up the Iraq government, such as it is. Without US troops, the Iraq government falls by dinner.

Look at it this way - if your country has lots of US troops on its soil to protect your country from threats, internal or external, then your country is our client and we are your patron. Client/patron relationships are not partnerships between equals. "Patron" comes from the same word as pater (father). We give you patronage in the form of military protection or aid or.

Countries all over the world often claim that America is arrogant and doesn't respect them. This is the monologue of whining adolescents. If you want to be respected as an equal, then act like an equal. Protect yourself. Countries from Korea to Japan, from Germany to Italy rely on tens of thousands of US troops based on their land to protect them from external threats, real or potential. There is no reciprocity in these relationships. When we the last time you drove by a Germany army base? When was the last time you saw a group of Korean marines drinking in a local bar? Never, that's when.

So yes, we are a patronising patron. Suck it up. Either stand on your own (which means paying for and manning your own military with money and men you probably don't have) or quit bitching.

Yes, we're arrogant. We're patronising. That's the price you pay for having a patron. Clients aren't equals.

What Everyone Believes but No One Can Say

2006-09-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

Virtually everyone in America, Europe and the Free World shares a single idea: atheists and evangelicals; Platonists, Greek Orthodox and Amish; Hispanics, blacks, and WASPS; Baptists, Catholics, and Marxists; hedonistic materialists, party girls, and comedians; Filipino postmen and Dutch engineers; gays, feminists, and high Church Anglican grandmothers. However, it is the nature of our times that this idea, shared by nearly everyone you know and nearly everyone they know, an idea our ancestors believed going back millennia, cannot be spoken in the public square.

This idea can be stated in many ways but it’s basically this: “Allah does not exist, Muhammad was not his prophet, and the Koran is not a holy book.”

Christians of all denominations believe this by the very fact of being Christians. Atheists believe Islam is superstition, as they believe about all religions. Western people have believed Islam is a false religion as a matter of course since Islam was founded in the 600s. This belief has never been controversial. It was part and parcel of being a Westerner and a Christian, a thread in the fabric of life, unquestioned and accepted and undisputable.

Despite 1400 years of near-universal understanding, this belief is today barred from the public square. In some parts of Europe, notably Belgium, to stating this openly could open oneself to criminal prosecution. Even in America it would be considered offensive and rude and insulting to announce this unspeakable but widely held belief.

Yet this is not rude or insulting in and of itself. It is a self-evident fact that unless you are a Muslim you do not believe in Allah or that an angel recited the Koran to Muhammad. It’s as plain and simple as that.

When did disbelief in Islam become an insult? How have we gotten to a point where no one can say what everyone believes?

To state publicly, openly, the obvious beliefs of billions of people – that Islam is a form of Arab tribal paganism disguised as monotheism – is all but impossible. We have become too “polite”, too “sensitive”, too “respectful” to say it. Yet we believe it and we know others believe it.

As a Christian neither I nor anyone I know is personally insulted that billions of people are not Christians, and as such, do not belief in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ. To non-Christians, Christ was an ancient Jewish sage executed by the Romans. I accept this. I don’t riot and kill people over it. This is part of living in the world.

If Muslims cannot accept that most people do not believe in the existence of Allah, do not believe Muhammad was a divinely inspired prophet, and do not believe the Koran is a sacred book, then we really are in a clash of civilizations. If Muslims in Pakistan cannot accept that the Catholic Pope and other Christian leaders and thinkers will occasionally, without even trying, insult and deny Islam, then we are in for a long and terrible conflict.

Attacks on British Jews Soar

2006-09-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

From the Times UK (emphasis added though no comment is required):

On Thursday an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments. ... ...
The July incidents “were more dispersed than usual”, Mr Gardner said. “It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow.”
The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. “When it’s verbal abuse, it’s just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented.” ... ...
In Hampstead Garden Suburb, swastikas and the words “Kill all Jews” and “Allah” were daubed on the house and car of Justin Stebbing. Dr Stebbing, who works at a hospital, said: “I felt violated. It’s horrible.”
Jon Benjamin, of the Board of Deputies, said: “The problem is the spin that Israel is an irredeemably evil regime, and we are concerned that it may become common currency to connect British Jews with this.”

The Rejectionist Generation

2006-08-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

Geneive Abdo spent two years traveling the country and interviewing a wide variety of Muslims in America. These quotes are from her piece in the Washington Post:

I found few signs of London-style radicalism among Muslims in the United States. At the same time, the real story of American Muslims is one of accelerating alienation from the mainstream of U.S. life, with Muslims in this country choosing their Islamic identity over their American one.

A new generation of American Muslims -- living in the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- is becoming more religious. They are more likely to take comfort in their own communities, and less likely to embrace the nation's fabled melting pot of shared values and common culture.

... [snip] ...

From schools to language to religion, American Muslims are becoming a people apart.

... [snip] ...

"I know I don't have to fit in," she [Ismahan, a computer scientist in
Michigan] said. "I don't think Muslims have to assimilate. We are not treated like Americans. At work, I get up from my desk and go to pray. I thought I would face opposition from my boss. Even before I realized he didn't mind, I thought, 'I have a right to be a Muslim, and I don't have to assimilate.' "

... [snip] ...

Despite contemporary public opinion -- or perhaps because of it -- Muslim Americans consider Islam their defining characteristic, beyond any national identity. In this way, their experience in the United States resembles that of their co-religionists in Europe, where mosques are also growing, Islamic schools are being built, and practicing the faith is the center of life, particularly for the young generation. In Europe and the United States, young Muslims are
unifying around popular imams they believe understand the challenges they face in Western societies ...

The Hollow Years

2006-08-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

I've been reading about the 1930s lately. One chapter from The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s struck me as particularly interesting. I wanted to share several quotes which I included below.

Chapter IX - The Nightmare of Fear
-----

The possibilities of surprise attacks were dire; the only parry against them would be preventative attacks impossible to envisage in a peaceful democracy or else the threat of massive reprisals. The defense debate was slipping into nightmare. ... It was certainly an encouragement for defeatism.
-----

The Journal of Julien Green, the delicate Franco-American writer, is full of rumors of war for the end of the month, panics, images of catastrophe. "The people I see have fallen prey to panics," he notes in 1932. "This happens three or four times a year." And in 1934: "Life is impregnated with this general fear."
-----

In 1935 police and civil authorities distribute posters and brochures: "Precautions to be taken against bombs from planes" and "Instructions for protection against air attack." Julien Green's diary records the passage of policemen and their explanations: "(masks, shelters, don't panic, stay calm, everything). I wonder when and how we shall escape from this hideous age."
-----

In September 1930 the NRF [Nouvelle Reveu francaise] dismissed present peace as "a latent war smouldering beneath the treaties." Two year later, in July 1932, Romain Rolland himself announced that war was coming. Uncontrollable war on the other side of the world confirmed both fear and impotence.
-----

That summer [1938] Montherlant, half-jokingly, told a young friend: "Don't worry about your future - in another year you'll be killed in the war." The lad replied: "That's what my mother tells me."
-----

One thing no one bothered to pretend was that force existed to be used. ... The dominant doctrine was the "the power of the defensive constitutes the most important and least questionable lesson of war." Prudence, protection, avoidance of risk: The army would be ready, but to do nothing much.
-----

Pacifism and antimilitarism went hand in hand.
-----

The next chapter of The Hollow Years, the final chapter, opens with this quote from the poet and essayist Charles Peguy.

It is bad manners to expect victory when you don't feel like fighting.

Approaching the Nadir

2006-08-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

No one ever accused me of being a blind optimist, but if you had told me that 5 years after 9/11 we would be in the current dismal situation, I would have laughed you out of the room. After all, the attacks that Tuesday morning were a wake-up call. Right? If you had told me that we would still be fighting the Taliban five years later I would have simply not believed you. Who would have? The Taliban? Five years later?

Bush, who once seemed to have the will, fortitude and political support to wage The Long War, is now the lamest of lame ducks. Without some unforeseeable change in circumstances in the next two years, Bush will leave the US worse off than he found it in terms of our security, foreign policy and finances. To me he was always the least bad choice but that is hardly praise.

Not that I place too much blame on Bush personally. The problem rests with our political class as a whole, not merely with one party (and of course, beyond that, with the American people themselves). Clinton tried the twin strategies of ignoring al Qaeda and forging a grand bargain between Israel and Arafat’s PLO. Both failed miserably. Bush tried surgical, decapitating military efforts (so surgical that in some ways each resembled a coup d’etat more than a war) followed by democratization. It is too late for any reasonable success in either Afghanistan or Iraq. We are left with choosing between different shades of failure.

Clinton tried ignoring and accommodating them. Bush tried liberating and democratizing them. Yet each year the enemy expands its efforts against us. It’s a dark time, the season of the pessimists.

Iran will build the nukes its messianist tyrants lust after. Politically they have out maneuvered us. Any military strike on the Shi’a theocrats will at best delay the program while reaping substantial political gains for them, both domestically and with Muslims worldwide, from Birmingham to Lahore to Sydney. I’m half-convinced that they want us to attack so that they can collect the political jackpot. Look at Hezbollah’s big win in Lebanon.

The era of the precision bombing is over if it ever existed. In material terms Hezbollah lost the Battle for South Lebanon. But Hezbollah can replenish missiles and men. The mere survival of Hezbollah was victory. The same goes for Iran but the stakes are higher and the stage is larger. Any strike against Iran that leaves the theocrats alive and in power is a victory for them and for global jihadism. In boxing terms, we are the heavyweight champions and as such we cannot win on points. If we enter the ring, we must be focused on a knock-out, whether with the first punch in Round 1 or with the last in Round 12. To leave our enemy standing, even if he is bruised, broken and blinded, is defeat.

To many people this stinks of ‘disproportionate force’, the latest sin among the international community. And Americans, from political elites to my mother, don’t like seeing lots of dead bodies on the news. Photos of glass-eyed babies pulled from the rubble tend to elicit sympathy. They would much rather ‘win hearts and minds’. (The thought of stopping the dissemination of such images never crosses our minds. Another failure of imagination.)

We cannot simultaneously wage war and win hearts and minds. In Iraq and Afghanistan we have chosen to do neither.

Since Vietnam Americans (not just our political and military leaders) have become ‘allergic to casualties’, American casualties and casualties in general. But, to quote Nathan Bedford Forrest, “War means fighting and fighting means killing.” By refusing to kill we refuse to fight. How can one win if one refuses to fight?

The list of lost opportunities in Iraq staggers the mind. As we all have seen, merely taking Baghdad did not win the war, only the battle. Over the next phase of the war we should have used such draconian but proven methods as shooting looters, razing insurgent cities like Fallujah and Rammadi, killing al Sadr and crushing his militia, mining and fortifying the borders with Iran and Syria. But this is beyond the capacity of Bush and the current class of American leaders, of either party.

(As the descendent of many generations of southerners who is married to a Japanese national I have an idea about how nations are conquered: kill or maim a significant percentage of men between 15 and 50; destroy the cities, infrastructure, crops, and homes; bankrupt everyone by making the currency worthless; reduce the populace to such a state of destitution that people must spend their waking hours looking for food rather than plotting insurgencies. American troops brought chocolate and shoes to the Japanese only after the government surrendered unconditionally and most people were living on 600 calories a day. First win the war; then win the hearts and minds.)

Where does this leave us? The picture is not pretty. As even supporters of the war in Iraq acknowledge, Iraq is fighting a civil war. Perhaps we can yet stop this somehow, but after three years of floundering who thinks we can suddenly save the day? The consequences of this Sunni-Shia civil war range from terrible to abyssmal.

Iran is rising. It has never been stronger militarily, politically or financially. Its missiles can reach Israel and probably central Europe, perhaps as far as Vienna. Its prestige among Sunnis is probably at or near an all time high. Iran controls one blatant proxy with Hezbollah, whose leader is now the greatest Arab-wide hero since Nasser. Iran controls a near-proxy with Syria. Iranian agents and bagmen crawl over Iraq. Iran’s influence over Hamas increases with each passing crises.

Our allies are in increasingly dire straits. The global Sunni insurgency against the West has soldiers in every country in Western Europe. Our closets allies weaken by the day as they are caught between a fifth column of immigrant terrorists and their supporters and a culture of denial and human rights legalism. Crowds march in European capitals with signs saying “We Are All Hezbollah.” Britain could crackdown on its Muslims, increasing surveillance, incarceration, and profiling, but only at the cost of further alienating them, of providing yet more grievances, more material for jihadist propaganda. The Brits can ignore or accommodate or arrest their domestic jihadists. Each path leads to more conflict.

The time for easy solutions has long passed, not just in Britain but throughout Europe. This quote from Livy, which I found, fittingly, in the opening pages of Shirer’s The Collapse of the Third Republic, seems apt:

We reached our last days when we could endure neither our vices nor their remedies.

Israel’s security falls in inverse relation to the rising popularity of anti-Semitism. From the Norway to Malaysia, from Tehran to Berkeley, from the offices of UN to the studios of the BBC, anti-Semitism infects the world, spreading like a pop culture fad (“it’s this season’s must-have accessory”). In marketing terms, anti-Semitism has gone viral. It’s the hate that fits everyone. It matches whatever you’re wearing, whether a burqa or a Che t-shirt. Anti-Semitism unites the far Left and the extreme Right; the educated and the ignorant; the pious and the secular; the sophisticated and the crude. In a perverse way Jew-hatred is the greatest unifying force in the world today.

Of course, things can always get worse. And they probably will.

UK Prisons Bursting with Foreign Inmates

2006-08-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

"The number of foreign prisoners in jails in England and Wales is rising four times faster than home-grown inmates, new figures show.

Dramatic increases over the past six years have piled fresh pressure on already overcrowded prisons. One in every seven inmates is now a foreign national. The prison system currently houses criminals from 168 countries.

... [snip] ...

Jamaica tops the table of foreign prisoners, with 1,564 nationals, including 134 women. Nigeria has the second largest contingent, followed by the Irish Republic, Pakistan, Turkey and Somalia."