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."

"The Mentality and Hate That Is Here Today"

2006-08-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

From the talking heads on Sunday morning tv to the Muslim Public Affairs Committee we hear the same argument: They are mad about Iraq. They angry about Palestine and Afghanistan and Lebanon. They feel they are under seige. Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee said

"It's not hard to comprehend the mind of a Muslim." He said young British Muslims look around the world and "everywhere they are getting bombed," so they increasingly respond by saying, "Don't just sit down and take it -- let's fight them."

Later in the same piece we hear from "a leading voice of the young Muslim community" "The root is foreign policy. Only a half-wit wouldn't understand that this is about British and American policies in the Middle East."

A law student attending a mosque near the house of a suspect in Walthamstow said "It's his (Bush's) wars that have breeded the mentality and hate that is here today. And what we're angry about is that our Prime Minister Tony Blair doesn't represent the beliefs of the people."

Why does a British born guy in a Walthamstow, whose parents came from Pakistan before he was born, care so much about what's happening in Iraq or Palestine or Lebanon? He doesn't share a language. His ancestral homeland is not involved, as combatant or victim. (Kashmir has never been mentioned as a motivating cause in any of the coverage I've read.) He has defined himself, not as British or European or even Pakistani, but as Muslim. The ummah does not recognize the structure of the nation-state system. As Mark Steyn says

That's the issue: Pan-Islamism is the profound challenge to conventional ideas of citizenship and nationhood.

Let's accept the notion that the policies and actions of a Nation-State are inviting a violent reaction from a self-defined People. Those who put forward this idea never seem grasp the implications of that idea. I was being half-sarcastic in this post about the two mosque recently set on fire. But this kind of violence is covered under the same principle. In this case a self-defined People reacted to government policies they feel are against their interests, beliefs and way of life. They reacted by setting fire to two mosques. There are lots of mosques in Britain. If you were an anti-Muslim arsonists it would be a target-rich environment.

The horrifying idea is that the Nation-State may become irrelevant as various Peoples struggle against one another directly. Holland gave us a preview of this in the fall of 2004, with tit-for-tat church and mosque fires and arson attempts. The riots in Crunella last year were another reminder.

It's not just Muslims who are angry. I think there are a lot of people in Britian who paraphrase the Islamists quoted above.

"It's not hard to comprehend the mind of many Brits." He said young Brits look around the world and "everywhere they are getting bombed," so they increasingly respond by saying, "Don't just sit down and take it -- let's fight them." The root is domestic and immigration policy. Only a half-wit wouldn't understand that this is about British policies at home. It's the Muslims attacks that have breeded the mentality and hate that is here today. And what we're angry about is that our Prime Minister Tony Blair doesn't represent the beliefs of the people."

Pan-Islamism Challenges the Idea of the Nation State

2006-08-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn:

Absent a determination to throttle the ideology, we're about to witness the unraveling of the world.

Airline Policy and Investigations

2006-08-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

The BNP has a suggestion for one thing that should be kept off of planes: Muslims.

The British National Party Executive's solution to this problem is to ban immediately, ALL MUSLIMS from flying out of (and in to) Britain until the
security situation has been fully resolved.
During recent international football competitions, a similar ban on English football hooligans was carried out, when many football fans had their passports confiscated and travel restricted.
If white working class men can be treated in this fashion it must be possible to apply a similar ban to Muslims.

It will never happen. But we'll see how this kind of thing plays in the next election. There are currently 'many dozens' of investigations in the UK.

Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch, said police were engaged in 70 separate terrorism investigations, the most ever. "This is unprecedented and the flow of new cases shows no sign of abating," Clarke said. "If anything, it is accelerating." (emphasis added)

If the jihadists succeed with one or more "apocalyptic" attacks, then we will see an election, as the Labor goverenment will fall. Oh, and probably more mosque burning and the like.

British 'Youth' Protest Government Policies

2006-08-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

I think they are protesting the goverenment's policies.

Sixteen firefighters took almost two hours to put out the fire at the Al-Birr mosque in the town of Basingstoke, south-east England, which was reported to them about 3.30am (12.30am AEST) today. No-one was injured.It was the second suspected arson attack at a British mosque since 24 people, most of them of Pakistani origin, were arrested in pre-dawn raids on Thursday in connection with the alleged plot. ... [snap] ...
Youths attacked a mosque in Blacon, north-west England, on Thursday night, causing minor damage.

Why would 'youths' want to attack a mosque? Maybe this helps.

A mosque in Walthamstow, east London, is emerging as the hub where a number
of the terror suspects may have met each other and become friends, writes Abul
Taher.

At least eight suspects worshipped at the Masjid-E-Umer mosque regularly, three of whom were well known to those that run it.

It looks that maybe British policy is putting civilians at risk, just not the way the Muslim Public Affairs Committee thinks. We have to remember that these arsonists are alienated and angry. Everywhere they look around the world they are being bombed. Some Brits feel that their way of life is under seige. A tiny minority are saying "Don't just sit down and take it -- let's fight them."

We have to understand the root causes of this violence. Clearly government policy is driven this frustration.

British Fear Street Violence Over Arrests

2006-08-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Seems that some people, 'youths' probably, may want to demonstrate for the innocence of their commards and, surely, also for the essentially peaceful nature of their religion, through mob violence in the streets of Britain.

PREPARATIONS to head off possible violence on the streets are being made in the wake of the alleged terrorist plot uncovered last week.

Talks are being held with local authority leaders in seven areas of England where it is feared tensions could boil over.

New measures to win over the Muslim community are to be considered as Islamic leaders predict protests. Yesterday a mosque was set alight in what police believe could be the first in a series of revenge attacks.

Reaction to the UNSC Resolution

2006-08-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

An Unmitigated Disaster

The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. ... [snip] ...

By handing a victory to Hizbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East.

The Worst Government in the History of Israel

Mr. Olmert, Mr. Peretz, Mr. Halutz: You have squandered the lives of our soldiers. You have squandered our opportunity to free the nation of Israel from a deadly enemy. You have set the stage for the next war.

By September, we will be under attack once more. Do the decent thing: Resign, all of you, and let Mr. Netanyahu and General Ya'alon (who was kicked out because he refused to go along with the disengagement) take over.

Resign, Mr. Olmert. Resign in shame for your incompetence.

Olmert Cannot Remain in the PM's Office

You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say - oops, I made a mistake. ...[snip]...

[T]he day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real prime minister.

Shalom, Ehud, and Goodbye

Ehud Olmert's days are numbered as prime minister. The slapdash, haphazard and wholly indecisive way he has handled the Hezbollah war has doomed his chances of remaining in office past the end of this year, probably before then and maybe very soon. ... [snip] ...

Benjamin Natanyahu will succeed Olmert as prime minister.

Government and IDF Racked by Leadership Crisis

Relations between the country's political and military leadership are at the lowest point in the country's history, on the verge of a crisis. In addition, there is a growing lack of confidence between Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, the first CoS to hail from the air force, and many of his general staff colleagues from the ground forces, who say he and his "blue clique" [blue being the color of the air force uniform-ed] do not fully appreciate the nature of ground warfare.

According to informed sources, there is an almost total breakdown in trust and confidence between the General Staff and the PM's office. They have described the situation as "even worse than the crises that followed Ben Gurion's decision to disband the Palmach, and Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan's cynical decision to place all the blame for the Yom Kippur fiasco on the IDF's shoulders.

The Pace Quickens

2006-08-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything new to add on the Londonistan Airline Bombing Plot. The details unfold by the minute. But I did notice that Anderson Cooper is at Heathrow tonight. He was in Israel yesterday. But that was yesterday.

The pace of war quickens. It was exactly one month ago, on July 11, that bombs exploded on a commuter train in Mumbai, India. The attack killed 179 people. The Indian PM accused Pakistan of harboring terrorists.

We are also certain that these terrorist modules are instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border without which they cannot act with such
devastating effect," Singh said. "Pakistan in 2004 had solemnly given an assurance that Pakistani territory will not be used to promote, encourage, train and abet terrorist elements directed against India. That assurance has to be fulfilled before the peace process or other processes can make progress," Singh said.

Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Hezbullah captured the two Israeli soldiers just after that. The Israeli-Hezbullah combat didn't start until days after the Mumbai bombing. You can search Gateway Pundit for all the other attacks since Mumbai, one month ago. The murderer in Seattle who killed one woman. The attacks in Thailand. In one month.

The attacks are coming faster and in greater variety - from lone assassins to death squads and suicide cells, from large complex teams attacking civilians to an entrenched military group acting as a proxy for a near-nuclear power.

Then there is August 22.

This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the
month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).

That's also the day when Ahmadinejad said Iran would reply to the UN offer regarding its nuke program. He's been saying that since June. Why on earth would Iran plan the reply 10 weeks in advance? To the day? Could this be the end of the world? Since it's also the day when the Paris Hilton disc hits the stores, so I think the odds are better than even.

I guess we'll find out in 11 days.

Friday War Linkfest

2006-08-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

IDF Calls Nasrallah’s Bluff

"If you bomb our capital Beirut, we will bomb the capital of your usurping entity... We will bomb Tel Aviv."
[snip]
An Israeli military spokesman said that if Tel Aviv were bombed, Israel would deal a "painful" blow to Lebanese civilian infrastructure. Asked for clarification, an Israeli source said that the government would most likely "for starters, turn out the Lebanese lights." Several hours after Nasrallah's threat, Israeli jets bombed Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut, igniting several huge explosions.

Your move, pansy-boy.

Islamists Attack British Embassy in Iran (Iran Focus)

Radical Islamists attacked the British embassy in Tehran on Friday and called for the expulsion of the British ambassador from Iran. [snip]
They threw stones at the embassy building, shattering several windows, and tore down the embassy plaque on the gates of the compound.

Several British flags were set on fire during the demonstration.

Egyptian Judges: End Peace with Israel (YNet)

Judges in Egypt called upon the government to dissolve its peace agreement with
Israel, on the grounds that it is inconceivable for Egypt to coexist peaceably with Israel while the IDF operates in Lebanon. The judges expressed support of popular resistance against Israeli advances, which, in their eyes, is the only way to protect the Arab ummah (greater nation).

In a statement issued Thursday, Egyptian judges censured "the barbaric Israeli attacks on the Palestinian and Lebanese people." [snip]
The Egyptian union of professional associations, boasting seven million members, announced that they intend to hold a general, hour-long strike on Sunday…

Lebanese Packaging Found in German Train Bombs (Expatica)

German investigators declined Friday to discuss a news report that packaging from Lebanon was found in two bombs that were planted four days earlier on German railway trains. A federal prosecutions spokesman, Ullrich Schultheis, said, "When assessing supposed or genuine clues, it has to be remembered that they might have been put there to mislead the investigation."

Iran Racing to Resupply Puppet Army (NY Sun)

Iran is racing to resupply Hezbollah across the Syrian border ahead of a possible cease-fire being ironed out this week at the United Nations. Meanwhile, Israeli jets have begun a new bombardment of Beirut's suburbs and Hezbollah is threatening to launch a missile attack on Tel Aviv.

Israeli military and intelligence officials here say Iranian technicians were aboard a flight to Damascus on Monday with the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.

Iran Says UN Security Council Must Close (Iran Focus)

“The United Nations and the Security Council are so weak that they cannot issue a resolution against Israel, but when it come to Iran using peaceful nuclear energy they immediately issue a resolution”, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told Friday prayers worshippers in Tehran. His comments were aired on state television.Jannati, who heads the powerful Guardians Council, said that the United Nations was an instrument in the hands of large world powers.

“The support of Muslims for Lebanon’s Hezbollah in any shape or form is an absolute necessity”, he added.“They must close down the UN and its Security Council”, he said. Jannati is a key ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.On Tuesday, he called on Muslim nations to provide arms to Hezbollah.

Welcome to 1938 (Victor Davis Hansen at NRO)

When I used to read about the 1930s — the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Germany, the appeasement in France and Britain, the murderous duplicity of the Soviet Union, and the racist Japanese murdering in China — I never could quite figure out why, during those bleak years, Western Europeans and those in the United States did not speak out and condemn the growing madness, if only to defend the millennia-long promise of Western liberalism.
[snip]

Not any longer.
Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity.

Oslo Synagogue, Roman Shops Vandalized

2006-08-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

Oslo synagogue vandalized:

On Saturday evening a man defecated on the steps of Oslo's synagogue, then smashed two windows there." ...
"The entire incident was immortalized by the synagogue's security cameras. No one was in the building at the time, but neighbors quickly summoned police. When they arrived the culprit had vanished."

One could hope that the video would be used to capture the thug. One could hope that he would be arrested and sent to prison. One could ... but why bother. It's Scandanavia. Even if he is caught the punishment will be some laughable nonsense like sensitivity training or values courses when the asshole needs to be beaten down hard.

This is in addition to the 20 shops defaced with swastikas in Rome. Such is the state of Europe in the 21st century.

German Police Hunt Train Bomber

2006-08-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

German police hunt train bomber after devices found:

"A day after the discovery of two unexploded suitcase bombs on the German railways, federal prosecutors took charge and launched an anti-terrorist inquiry Tuesday.

The railway station in the western city of Koblenz was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after lost-and-found staff noticed a gas canister inside a bag that had been handed in the previous day. "

Islam Against the World

2006-07-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

Islam against the world - Opinion from Israel, Ynetnews: "Even if Israeli tanks stand at Beirut's door, Nasrallah will present himself as Sallah al-Din, and even if all his fighters fall in battle - he will declare victory over the Zionists. And most of his admirers (and they are many) will accept his lies. But above all, we shall not win this war because it is a single battle, just one more promotional campaign leading to the real war whose signs are already on the horizon. The third world war - Islam's war against the free world. "

Cheap and Immoral Europe

2006-07-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

Telegraph Opinion: "It is as if, having relinquished power, we Europeans now wish our own powerlessness upon the rest of the world. We make vaporous and offensive Nazi comparisons. We preach that unilateral action is always wrong. That position can be maintained only by people who do not have to make life-and-death decisions. It is cheap and immoral."

Monsters and Morons on Parade

2006-07-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

Moonbat Media has some fab photos from Saturday's anti-Israel / Pro-Hezbollah rally in London. I confess to enjoying the knowledge that the Islamists would like to beat the shit out of the British "whores" in their tight black t-shirts and shorts. Marching to support people who would gut you like a fish - a sure sight of decadence and mass idiocy.

Anti-Israel protest, London, 22 July

Volcano of Delusion

2006-07-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Ahmadinejad promised

a "rejoicing" for Muslims in the Middle East "soon," the Islamic Republic News
Agency reported.
Speaking to university officials in the town of Mashhad, Ahmadinejad said the "volcano of rage" at the "arrogant powers" was "on the verge of eruption."

Earlier this month

Iran has said it would not reply to the offer until August 22, precipitating
calls for U.N. action.

Why August 22?

The date marks the end of the Persian solar month of Mordad, and also coincides
with the Islamic calendar date Rajab 28, the day Jerusalem fell to the Islamic
warrior Saladin, in October 1187.

Could Ahmadinejad's surprise, the "volcano of rage," be scheduled for August 22? Does 5 weeks qualify as soon? Is he deluded enough to try to conquer Jerusalem or attack Israel? Will the Guns of August begin in earnest on August 22nd?

'Army of Suicide Bombers' marches in Gaza

2006-07-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

From Haaretz:

"About 100 veiled and heavily armed Palestinian women marched through the streets of Gaza City Tuesday.

The militant women belong to a unit recently founded by the Popular Resistance Committees. The 'Army of Suicidal Bombers,' as it is dubbed, consists entirely of women.

... The militant women burned Israeli, U.S., British, and EU flags.In an unprecedented step they also defaced an Arab League flag, which they then proceeded to set ablaze.

Take that Arab League.

Weapon Testing

2006-07-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

The War is being used to test a new weapon. Like all weapons tests the outcome will determine how the weapon is revised for future deployment. The weapon being tested is not a drone or a missile or a bunker buster bomb. It's a rhetorical weapon: the argument against so-called 'disproportionate response'.

The disproportionate response (DR) argument is all over the left-wing Web, from Prospect.org to the disreputable wingnut sites. The DR is an attempt to restrain Israel in a situation, conventional warfare, where they have the advantage. "Proportionality" is never defined. No examples of such are ever provided aside from the cheap and easy cry to "only hit Hezbollah targets."

Hezbollah committed an act of war. The leader of Hezbollah declared "open war". Under the old rules of war, this is justification for Israel to destroy Hezbollah utterly. But under the DR argument Israel has to be restrained to only cause a 'proportionate' amount of damage. Hezbollah indescriminately targets Israeli civilians. Israel bombs runways and roads and TV stations. Israel drops leaflets telling Lebanese to evacuate certain areas prior to attacks. Yet Israel is accused of disproportionality.

There are two kinds of disproportionality weasels. The first, the most simple minded, just count the casualties on each side and declare the side with the most dead to be the "victim" of the disproportional response. This argument display gross historical ignorance and a bizarre ethical system to say the least. Under this notion, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were the victims of disproportionate US response. Sad.

The other DR weasels are more clever. They argue that "Israel has not taken every precaution to avoid killing innocent civilians". Naturally Every Precaution can never be taken as the number of precautions included in 'Every' would be infinite. Israel's attempts to avoid hitting civilians, which are inevitably incomplete, are dismissed because "intent is not enough." Israel is described as "belligerent" and "eager for war." These DR weasels ignore Hezbollah's belligerence. Indeed Hezbollah is dismissed as mere terrorists, or downplayed as a Shia gang, all the better to portray Israel in a worse light for "going balistic" on the poor Lebanese.

If this new rhetorical weapon succeeds then it will be deployed later against the US. I can hear it now. "Iran only killed 10,000 Americans. You can't destroy an entire country. You can't wipe out an ancient civilization. You can't," they will whine. "That's a disproportionate response."

The War's Next Front

2006-07-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

The War has just about taken over my life. I can't leave the laptop. I've even started watching Anderson Cooper again (gasp!). I'll spare you the minute by minute updates. Ynet, JPost and the blogs are better places to go for blow-by-blow accounts.

Hezbollah is getting its ass kicked. Their Iranian 'advisors' managed to hit an Israeli naval vessell with an Iranian-made radar-guilded C-102 missile yesterday (not a crude drone as first reported). Except that it's been pretty one-sided, as the blogger Sandmonkey says in his anti-Hezbollah rant:

Now, I for one awaited the Hezbollah surprise, and I have to say I found it rather dissapointing. They hit one f-ckin ship. That’s the surprise? That’s what the Israelis should beware? Hehehe. Dude, they blew up half of Beirut, they destroyed Nasrallah’s home and Office, and he is now hiding like a rat, declaring war on a cellphone since he no longer dares to show his face in public. He declares open war from a hideout and he doesn’t even have the means to have it televized. We are suppsoed to be impressed by this? What are your war capabilities you f-ckhead if in one day you run hiding and can’t even show your face? What is this bullsh-t anyway? And you know the Israelis haven’t even started fighting yet.

True, true. The war is not going well from Hezbollah's perspective. Indeed the war is entirely playing to Israel's strength and Hezbollah's weaknesses. What do you do in this situation? You change the entire configuration of the conflict so that it plays to your strengths and your enemies weakness.

Hezbollah is not known as a conventional military power. Hezbollah's only real weapons are the 12-15000 rockets they can fire into Israel. But at the current rate they will deplete those rockets in 2-3 weeks. The only real risk from the Israel's point of view if that the IDF may run out of targets. Hezbollah has to open the war on yet another front. Israel is fighting in the south and the north. Hezbollah will expand the war to the frontless-front: the diaspora.

Soon, perhaps withing days, Hezbollah will attempt to attack an Israeli or Jewish target far removed from the battlefield. Obviously Europe presents the most tempting and probably the most rewarding target. I'm sure the Israeli embassies are on high alert and are well guarded. But there are too many soft targets: community centers, temples, charities, schools, Jewish-owned businesses. etc. With a little help from Iranian and/or Syrian intelligence Hezbollah can kill a lot of people and cause significant damage in the heart of European cities.

And the topper is that the Europeans would blame Israel. In Lebanon, on the battlefield Hezbollah can't win. In Europe, in a terror war, Hezbollah can't lose.

The Dalai Lama Speaks

2006-05-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Telegraph News 'Westerners are too self-absorbed':

On George W Bush: "On my next visit, he didn't mind when I was blunt about the war. By my third visit, I was ushering him into the Oval Office. I was astonished by his grasp of Buddhism."

On the West: "In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences - yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours."

On relationships: "Too many people in the West have given up on marriage. They don't understand that it is about developing a mutual admiration of someone, a deep respect and trust and awareness of another human's needs," he says. "The new easy-come, easy-go relationships give us more freedom - but less contentment."

On homosexuality: Although he is known for his tolerant, humane views, he is a surprisingly harsh critic of homosexuality. If you are a Buddhist, he says, it is wrong. "Full stop."

"A gay couple came to see me, seeking my support and blessing. I had to explain our teachings. Another lady introduced another woman as her wife - astonishing."

On British suicide bombers: [H]e was horrified to hear about Britain's "home-grown" suicide bombers. "In any country or society, there will be rich, poor, different races, different religions - but this is all secondary. Your country should be your common ground.

"This new terrorism has been brewing for many years. Much of it is caused by jealousy and frustration at the West because it looks so highly developed and successful on television. Leaders in the East use religion to counter that, to bind these countries together."

On happiness: "I was happiest in my childhood when my mother smiled, or my teacher let me off lessons. But as an adult, life without challenges is meaningless. Now, I feel happy because my flowers are growing in this rain even though I know that, at the same time, my country is facing elimination."

On air travel: "If I fly abroad, I fly business class - or my robes engulf everyone," he explains. "But first class is an outrageous luxury."

Vanity and Force

2006-04-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

In several cities across the nation today thousands rallied "against the genocide in Darfur". This is all well and good as far as it goes. Which is not far at all. As a massive exercise in moral vanity, this was a rousing success. As a serious attempt at ending what is happening in Sudan it doesn't even rise to the level of failure. To fail first you have to try.

What would it mean to try. On Monday Lawrence Kaplan wrote about the planned march in a piece titled "If Iraq Was Wrong, is Darfur Right?"

As in Bosnia before it, the victims of Darfur can be saved by one thing and one thing alone: American power. Unfortunately for the victims of Darfur, too many of their advocates have come to view that power as tainted, marred by self-interest and by its misapplication in Iraq. Hence, the contradiction at the heart of the Darfur debate, which pits the imperative to halt the persecution of innocents (Darfur activists have enshrined as their motto the biblical admonition not to "stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor") against a reflexive opposition to the only power that can actually do so.

This puts most Darfur activists in the position of wishing for a goal but opposing the means to achieve it. A grandiose and rather public display of willful impotence. Kaplan concludes:

So, yes, march on Washington. Comfort your sensibilities. Testify to your virtue and good intentions. Offer assurance that your call to action is not a call for the unilateral or unprovoked exercise of American power. But don't pretend that Darfur will be saved by anything else.

But pretend they do. Some live in a hermetically sealed pretend world. Here is George Clooney's father Nick Clooney: "We didn't stop the Holocaust. We didn't stop Cambodia. And we didn't stop Rwanda. But this one we can stop." Sorry to let facts intrude, Nick old boy, but we did stop the Holocaust. Much too late, no doubt but Allied troops liberated several camps, saving thousands of Jews from certain death. And even though "we" didn't stop the Khmer Rouge killing fields, the Vietnamese Army did by invading Cambodia in late 1978. By January 1979 the Vietnamese captured Phnom Penh and drove the Khmer Rouge into the jungle. (The US gave $100 million to the relief effort between 1979-82.)

What is the theme here? Marches and drum circles don't stop organized mass killing. Military force does.

For all their well-intentioned focus of the crimes of the Sudanese state in Dafur Clooney and the other Darfur activists are overly optimistic about the human condition. They do not see these marches as exercises in futility. They believe that somehow, through their positive vibes or righteous mojo that they can influence the Islamists who rule Sudan. Clooney and the activists fail to appreciate the degree to which sheer evil suffuses human existence. Not mere injustice, or crime, or indifference, but active, willful, determined evil.

How exactly are the atrocities in Darfur different from numerous massacres in Sudan since it achieved "independence" from Britain in 1956? Human slavery, the forced depopulation of tribes in the south, bombing villiages - this has been an ongoing effort for 50 years.

How are the atrocities in Darfur different from life in North Korea? 200,000 people, including children, work in labor camps in the far north. They live (actually they starve) on a few hundred calories a day while working in mines and forests. Malnurished. Beaten. Arbitrarily shot. Forced to stone the corpses of executed prisoners while chanting allegiance to Kin Jong-Il. (Read The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag for a moving account of life in the Yodok camp.)

Forced stavation is rather commonplace. In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has reduced 700,000 people to homelessness and starvation in an effort to stay in power. Conditions are so bad that mothers abandon their children because they are unable to feed them, or really themselves. In the Congo, 1,200 people die each day from war-related hunger and disease. The death toll since the war began in 1998 is estimated at 4 million.

Cruelty and sadism are endemic. I wish as much as any 'activist' that the Sudanese government would stop killing and raping people in Darfur. But my vision of human nature tells me evil is an active force in the world, that there are no changes of heart, no epiphanies; that they will only stop killing under two conditions. Either a) when they are forced by a stronger military power or b) when there is no one left to kill.

"This is one world and we are all one family," Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of the Washington archdiocese told the crowd. "What happens to the people of Darfur happens to us."

Actually, no. It is precisely because what is happening in Darfur is not happening to us that we have the luxury to march and sing and give speeches. If this was happening to us we would fight back.

So, if clapping and buying bumber stickers won't help these poor people, what will? Force. Power. Men with weapons. Clearly we are not going to bomb or invade Sudan. But are we unwilling to provide the people of Darfur the means to defend themselves? Are our values so inverted that we view violence in self-defense as worse than being killed, becoming refugees? Would the thousands marching today give money to buy the villages in Darufr weapons to fight against the Janjaweed? Or would they rather buy a "Save Darfur" t-shirt, thereby saving no one, but proving how much they care?

Asymmetry

2006-04-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

We often hear the war against the Enemy described as asymmetrical warfare. By this we usually mean that jihadists do not have the capability to fight what we consider a conventional battle. But there is another way of looking at symmetry. The jihadists fight us on several fronts:

State-to-State: Iran is the chief example of a state enemy. There are others. Still more are potential Enemy states. Many are only a coup or an assassination away from falling into the Enemy.

Non-state actors: Al-Qaeda is the most famous but there are many others all around the globe. You know who they are, from the Philippines to London, from Sweden to South Africa. Some like Hamas are in the process of taking over something that is Not-Quite-a-State. Thus one Enemy front becomes another.

Leaderless Cells / Lone Wolves: From the London bombers to the guy who shot the El Al counter at LAX to that student in North Carolina. They're always described by neighbors after the attack as "nice chaps" and "quiet boys" who were normal, liked football, studied hard. The Enemy is among us, waiting.

Demography: the Enemy grows. In the West and in other "infidel" lands and in its homelands, the Enemy fight with her womb. Each generation more than the one before. The Enemy threatens us with its numbers.

Each of these fronts feeds into another. The Enemy States fund and supply the Non-State Actors who generate the methods and ideology for the Leaderless Cells which get their manpower from the growing Enemy demographics. The Enemy fights us with at least four interlocking, self-reinforcing fronts.

Ask yourself how we fight against all this and you will probably come up with only one answer: the State. The West uses only State-based resources to combat the Enemy, from the military and security services to financial embargoes and diplomatic "pressure". The West does not threaten Islam with its high birth rate. The West doesn't unleash waves of terrorists or fund underground militant groups.

All we have is the State. We treat the Enemy as a military force to be defeated, as an underground terror group to be hunted down, as leaderless cells or lone wolves to be punished after the fact. As a rising demographic group to be co-opted, appeased or ignored.

But no matter how you look at it, the West still only has one front against the Enemy - the State. This is asymmetry. The West does not have terror groups training militants to bomb and kill. The West doesn't have leaderless cells of Christians or Libertarians or cartoonists in Tehran plotting to kill the president or ordinary people. Multiculturalists are not doubling their numbers every two generations, expanding into other lands, demanding accommodation and assistance, changing the societies they enter. The West doesn't even send missionaries in any real numbers. The West sends diplomats and businessmen, not all of whom are on our side.

Can we continue to fight like this? Can the State, with all its limitations and restrictions fight against an Enemy that comes at us from so many different directions, at so many different speeds, with so many different weapons? What can a Stealth Fighter do against terror cells in Hamburg? How can diplomats fight assassins in Virginia? How can we expect spies to combat demography?

Comedy Central Pussed Out!

2006-04-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

I just watched the much anticipated second episode of South Park's "Cartoon Wars." Last week at the end of the first episode South Park promised/threatened to show a cartoon image of Muhammad.

Long story short, Comedy Central caved in, lost its balls and censored South Park. When Cartoon Muhammed was supposed to walk on "camera" the screen went black with white words to the effect that Comedy Central refused to allow an image of Muhammad to be broadcast on its network. I have seen nearly every episode and this is the first time to my knowledge that Comedy Central has censored South Park.

What a freaking disgrace! What a spineless crowd of pussies! Network executives with the fortitude of a leaky bag of wet shit! Dhimmitude Central is more appropriate. I am disgusted.

Comedy Central allows shows mocking every conceivable belief in humanity. Have you seen Drawn Together. It's slop but it's offensive slop. But Muhammad, precious, delicate, ever-so-fragile Muhammad can never be shown because it might hurt some tighthead's feelings. Since when did Comedy Central give a turd about people's feelings?

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it's all part of the episode. Perhaps there was no censorship. Perhaps my ass. We've been screwed by a comedy network. I expect as much from the New York Times and NBC but Comedy Freaking Central!? How craven! Where is the limit? Is there no gutter our business elites will wallow in? No threat they won't cave to?

If anyone can find the name of the executive(s) who authorized this ugliness please post it or email me. The worm(s) needs a good ass-kicking. An actual, physical beating with fists and boots. It shouldn't be hard to pummel someone so cowardly.

El Modesto Proposal

2006-03-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

I have a simple solution to the illegal immigration problem, one that will please the pro-immigration side and the law-and-order folks. It's so simple that I'm surprised no one has thought of it yet. I could very well win a Nobel Prize for this. Here it is.

The U.S. should make Mexico the 51st state. (Okay, maybe states 51-55.) This pleases the pro-immigration crowd because residents of each state have the right to travel freely between states. This pleases the law-and-order types because Mexicans coming north for work would not break any laws.

The benefits on both sides are too numerous to list. Mexico would benefit from legal reform that would clean up its corrupt institutions. Mexican schools would become bilingual, like schools in the current US. The US would instantly have access to more domestic oil production. The US military would increase the pool of available recruits.

The Greens would be happy to see US environmental laws enforced in Mexico. PETA would be happy to end cock-fighting. Feminists would be pleased to apply Federal sexual equality laws in the great State of Mexico. Same for homosexual rights groups. Homeland security would be greatly increased by Federal control of borders.

Mexico would benefit from higher quality public services, education, public health, law enforcement, taxation, etc. Native Mexicans (meaning indigenous, tribal Mexicans like we use the term Native Americans) could improve their lot through legalized gambling.

The US would increase its beach-front property. The increase in property values along the beach would price those annoying spring-break college kids out of the market. Plus Mexico, like all other states, would raise its drinking age to 21. (Take that Girls Gone Wild.)

Sure we would still have immigration issues with the southern Mexican border but it's a smaller border. And with so many Mexicans now Americans we could hardly be accused of racism by putting up a wall. It's a win-win I tell you. Win win.

There would be an inevitably rough period of transition on both sides. But this would pass. And after that, we can solve the Canadian problem once and for all.

Sounds Like a Deal to Me

2006-03-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Outcry rises over Afghan Christian convert - Yahoo! News:

"A cleric and member of parliament from Badakhshan province said Rahman should be executed. 'It would be better to get no aid or military help from the West for 100 years than accept this affront,' said Sadullah Abu Aman."

I'll take that deal. See you in 2106 asshole.

They have a right to enforce their "laws" and we have a right to not help them. If Afghanistan does not want to be integrated into the modern world then they cannot expect to reap the benefits of the modern world.

This is an issue that cannot be compromised. It's yet another symptom of the clash of civilizations. If they execute a man because he converted to Christianity then the US should leave them to rot in the godforsaken wilderness. Why should we support such people? Why should we engage such a society? We don't owe them anything. If they want to demonstrate their independence by executing this Christian, then we should let them demostrate their independence by supporting themselves.

Afghanistan - sink or swim pal. You're on your own.

Religion of Moral Confusion

2006-03-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

BBC NEWS South Asia Mood hardens against Afghan convert: (emphasis added)

"'The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back,' says Ansarullah Mawlafizada, the trial judge.

'Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, than we will forgive him,' he told the BBC News website."

Straight from the Ministry of Truth. Execution is tolerant and kind. War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Life is death.

Importing Poverty

2006-03-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

An excellent column by Robert J. Samuelson in today's Washington Post. We Don't Need 'Guest Workers'

Here are the key quotes (emphasis added).

"Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162 percent. Over the same period, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty rose 3 percent and the number of blacks, 9.5 percent. What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions ...

"It's a myth that the U.S. economy "needs" more
poor immigrants. .... They're drawn here by wage differences, not labor "shortages."

"President Bush says his guest worker program would "match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs." But at some higher wage, there would be willing Americans.

"Business organizations understandably support guest worker programs. They like cheap labor and ignore the social consequences. What's more perplexing is why
liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality, support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of
unskilled Americans. The only question is how much.

A persuasive argument from a respected economist, not a racist or an angry nationalist. Illegal immigration must be stopped. Not managed or regulated but ended. Why do we want millions of unskilled people who do not speak or read English? We don't.

"At the World Cup There Will be a Massacre."

2006-03-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

The coming clash of fascisms in Europe.

"We will attack them. They are all enemies that need to be eliminated, just like the police."

No it's not another Al Qaeda spin-off making threatening spineless Euro-wussies. This is from a group called AS Roma, some kind of extremist group based in Italy. The newspaper Repubblica carried the statement. The group claims that neo-fascists from all over Europe met to organize against "Turks, Algerians and Tunisians."

The odds of this actually happening are very close to zero. Still, unless the Euro-elites seriously deal with uncontrolled immigration then sooner or later this will be a reality.

German Concert Cancelled Under Pressure from Right

2006-03-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

It's not just Islamist flexing their muscle in Europe.

A concert planned for March 8 in the former eastern German border town of Halberstadt was cancelled at the last minute after the right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD) applied pressure to local authorities. The extremist party had claimed the event scheduled for performance in a school and held under the motto "Nazis get out of our town" was in fact an unacceptable form of political campaigning for left-wing parties ahead of state elections on March 26.

The NPD threatened to buy up all the tickets and turn out in large numbers at the concert orchestrated by political [left-wing: ed] songwriter Konstantin Wecker if local authorities refused to call it off. They had begun mobilizing forces in other eastern German cities to protest the concert and what they regarded as a clear state-sponsored preference for leftist parties.

Imagine that - official Europe showing a preference for the left and pissing off the right in the process.

Look Who's Joining the BNP

2006-03-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

Yet another sign of the meltdown of the British electorate. A councilor of Keighley, West York, has resigned her post as mayoress and joined the British National Party.

What makes this such a damning indictment of the situation is Britian is the identity of the mayor. She is Rose Thompson, a 49 year-old grandmother who takes care of her grand-daughter full-time. She is the second local female politician to join the BNP.

Why would such a person join a political party condemned by the British establishment as "far-right extremists"? One word: immigration.

"I feel angry that immigration gets largely ignored and wish I had done this earlier," she said. "I do not want to see anybody chucked out, but I believe in stopping immigration, whether it be white, black or brown, until we sort out the problem.
"I imagine there will be a lot of people appalled at my decision but there will be a lot who will be quite happy that somebody is standing up."

When grandmothers start joining the BNP something is very wrong with the system.

New York Times: Just Convert and Get It Over With

2006-03-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

Buried in this puff-piece about an Egyptian imam in Brooklyn is this classic NYT dhimmi sentence.

Like many of their faithful, most imams in the United States come from abroad. They are recruited primarily for their knowledge of the Koran and the language in which it was revealed, Arabic.

Written! Written! The Koran is a book and it was written, not revealed. The Koran didn't pre-exist Muhammad. It wasn't found whole and complete like some natural phenomenom. Books are written by people.

What a cringing, spineless bunch of turds. The reporters and editors should just convert and get it over with.

Update: You can write the New York Times' Public Editor at public@nytimes.com. You can write the newsroom directly at nytnews@nytimes.com.

Down with the Flu

2006-03-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't been this sick in years. Should've gotten a flu shot when I had a chance. Now I'm paying the feverish, nasty price.

I should be back up in a few days. Stay safe.

"The Discriminatory Nature of the Soup"

2006-02-28T06:31:00.000-08:00

A fascinating story of the rise of the nationalist right in France. These rightists are threatening the Republic by serving soup. Soup with pork in it. The horror... the horror.

In 2003 Odile Bonnivard began serving soup to the homeless.

At first, she said, the group used pork because it was an inexpensive traditional ingredient for hearty French soup. But as the political significance of serving pork dawned on them and others, it quickly became the focus of their work. [...]
[T]he authorities initially left the pork soup kitchen alone, shutting it down only once to avoid an altercation with a group of indignant French leftists.

Leftists Against Soup. I can see the t-shirts now. First cartoons and now soup.

As winter closed in and other pork-soup kitchens run by similar-minded groups popped up in Strasbourg and Nice - as well as Brussels, Antwerp and Charleroi in Belgium - the authorities worried that they might be witnessing the start of a dangerous racist trend.

A dangerous trend of racist soup? The charitable act of providing soup for the hungry homeless is deemed racist?! No one has to eat it. It's given away free but as the group's Website says, "The only condition required for dining with us: eat pork". Once again, Europe's vision of multiculturalism means criminalizing traditional European culture while allowing minority groups to serve their own communities.

Europe's Islamic charities serve halal food to disadvantaged Muslims and its Jewish charities operate kosher soup kitchens.

Halal and kosher are, well, kosher. But don't serve pork damn you woman! In December

several busloads of police officers arrived to stop her group from setting up at their usual spot near the Montparnasse train station, citing "the discriminatory nature of the soup."

Busloads of police? The French police barely tried to stop the Muslim riots but the send busloads of cops to stop a secretary from serving traditional soup to the homeless. Bonnivard is made of strong stuff.

"Our freedom in France is being threatened," she said. "If we prefer European civilization and Christian culture, that's our choice."

Not really. Remember, this is France. The Eurocrats know best, not the French people. The soup is even enjoyed by those who are not homeless but live on a tight budget in expensive France. Helene, 61, is more honest about the situation in France than all of Official France.

"At least here there are people who are of the same mind as me. The French, and the Europeans in general, roll over for foreigners, and particularly Islam."

Rock on Helene! Even as the grateful poor line up for the "Identity Soup" the absurdity of modern France knows no limits.

[F]our vans filled with riot police officers were waiting at the group's
designated meeting point outside a conservative Catholic church. Bonnivard and her confederates huddled in a nearby café, plotting ways to serve their soup before the police could stop them. "They're more afraid of us than any march by Islamists or Jews," Bonnivard's husband, Roger, later declared as people slurped soup around him.
Bruno Gollnisch, the silver-haired No.2 of the far-right National Front, mingled in the crowd, calling the "persecution" of the soup kitchen a "betrayal of the French identity."Other activists handed out slices of oily sausage as flags bearing the fleur de lis fluttered overhead.
"We're not yet living in a land of Islam," Bonnivard bellowed from atop the sedan.

Not yet Odile. Not yet.

Far-Right Watch

2006-02-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

Two interesting items regarding far-right movements: 17 counter-demonstrators were arrested at Neo-Nazi march near Orlando. No Neo-Nazis were arrested.

A group of about 100 counterdemonstrators, many covering their faces with black masks, held anti-Nazi signs. [...]
[Those arrested] faced charges including disorderly conduct, battery on a law enforcement officer and wearing a mask, the police said.

Wearing a mask is a crime in Florida? When will the police start arresting women in the niqab? I'm sure any day now.

As for those counter-demonstrators with their 'anti-Nazi' signs - The Neo-Nazis

were confronted by more than 100 protesters, some holding signs including ones that read, "Stop the hate. Stop the violence" and "Love everyone."

I have a hard time reconciling those signs with fist-fights and battery. But that's just me. Someone send me an email when a woman is arrested for wearing a mask. I'm holding my breath.

Meanwhile, the British National Party takes a page from the hippies and produces a CD of folk songs. Kumbaya it ain't.

The 11-song CD, entitled Time To Make A Stand, is billed as "a collection of patriotic British folk songs performed by a group of popular patriotic musicians". But the lyrics, mainly written by Griffin, are awash with polemic. One song, The Menace, features lyrics about "a shower of foreign traitors who want to take our land".

Eat your heart out Peter, Paul and Mary. Ironies abound as Marxist folk singer Billy Bragg threatens legal action against the CD for, of all things, possible copyright violation of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." That's oh-so capitalist of you Billy, hiring lawyers and all. So much for the abolition of private property, eh. This song is considered in the public domain and is routinely re-written or used without permission. Remember this Jib Jab animation from a few years ago. That's only one example.

The theme here is that many members of the far-right (or even the far-far-far-right) are learning to play by the rules and obey the laws of a democratic society. They are learning from the left; learning organization and marketing. They are applying for marching permitts and making CDs. Yet it's people against them who are arrested for battery.

Does society fear the message of the far-right so much that it will resort to violence to stop that message? Are some people so sentitive to the far-right that folks songs threaten them? Folk songs?

Update: Here are some photos of the march. Notice the pitiful wannabe Nazi (who are really just white supremacists with matching khaki shirts). This is what drives people to violence? It's like a Mel Brooks bit left on the cutting room floor or a deleted scene from the Blues Brothers. These clowns deserve to be laughed at and mocked. Violence only validates what passes for their worldview. As sad as these Grade-K Nazis are the thugs throwing punches at them are even sadder.

The First of Many?

2006-02-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

Attack Fails at Huge Saudi Oil Site:

Suicide bombers in explosives-laden cars attacked the world's largest oil processing facility Friday, but were prevented from breaking through the gates when guards opened fire on them, causing the vehicles to explode, officials said. [...]
It was the first attack on an oil facility in Saudi Arabia and it targeted one of the kingdom's most important. The huge Abqaiq processing facility near the Gulf coast handles around two-thirds of the country's oil output [...]
A Saudi journalist who arrived at the scene soon after the explosion said only one car exploded and that the guards killed two people in a second car before it blew up. Guards then battled for two hours with two other militants outside the facility, the reported told AP. He said he saw workers repairing a pipeline. [...]
The Abqaiq facility processes about 5-7 million barrels a day.

The Devil and the Deep Green Sea

2006-02-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

Straight from the Big Freaking Surprise Department:

The far-right British National Party (BNP) is to distribute a campaign leaflet
featuring the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad which have enraged Muslims around the world.
A party spokesman said on Wednesday the images illustrate how Islam and Western values do not mix but were not intended to cause offence. The BNP leaflet asks "Which Do You Find Offensive? A cartoon of Mohammad with a bomb for a turban or Muslim demonstrators calling for terrorist attacks on Europe and the "extermination' of non-Muslims".
"By showing you just how mild and inoffensive the cartoon is, we're giving you the chance to see for yourself the huge gulf that exists between the democratic values that we share, and the mediaeval views that dominate Islam, even supposedly 'moderate' versions," the leaflet said.

The leaflet can be viewed at the BNP Website here. That this is so predictable makes it all the more depressing. If the British government allows enraged mobs to scream incitements to murder then the government cannot be surprised when rightists use official passitivity as a campaign issue. If the media rigorously surpresses the cartoons then of course the BNP is going to use them, if only for their shock value and the free press.

The British and other European governments and media cannot simultaneously appease Islamists and marginalize the "far-right." The very act of appeasing Islamists empowers the nationalists. Any compromise with the nationalists would infuriate the Islamists. And I'm sure the Europeans will soon find a way to anger them both.

Europe is trapped between what its elites view as the "far-right, nationalist" Devil and the Islamist deep green sea.

The Sleeping Giant Stirs

2006-02-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Nigerian Christians "protest" Muslim anti-cartoon riots.

Christians in this southern Nigerian city burned Muslim corpses and defaced wrecked mosques Thursday [...]
"We don't want these mosques here anymore. These people are causing all the problems all over the world because they don't fear God," said 34-year Ifeanyi Ese, standing amid the concrete rubble of an Onitsha mosque. With a crowd gathered, Ese angrily scrawled "Mohammed is a man, but Jesus is from above" on a shattered mosque wall with a burned stick. [...]
One entire Muslim district — an area of about 100 homes — was burned to the ground. Crumpled corrugated tin roofs lay on top of the remains of smoldering houses.

The Pre-War Years in Suburbia

2006-02-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

As part of my job I used to travel quite a bit. In the three years I’ve worked in San Diego, Puerto Rico, Virginia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and now Kansas City. I lived in all these places at least 4 days a week for many months at a time.

Regardless of the client or consultants I worked with I found that people are the same. From Californians to Puerto Ricans to Virginians. From school district executives to telephone company employees to directors of large financial corporations. People are the same. They wrap themselves in the same blanket of willful ignorance and wallow in the same trivial distractions. In Suburban Middle America, the September 10 mindset reigns.

One particular episode is iconic for me in this regard. During the early days of the invasion of Iraq I took the red-eye from San Diego every Thursday. I would get to the airport a little early, saddle up to the one bar and order a tall Bass. Like most airport bars this one had several TV sets behind and above the bar. It was March. I had been captivated by the invasion since it started. My productivity had plummeted. I couldn’t stand to be away from the news to take a whiz. I remember being particularly gripped by the CNN footage from atop a tank; the TankCam so to speak, beaming back stunning, live images of the Iraqi dessert.

So here I was in a bar in the San Diego airport, drinking a beer and watching live images from atop a moving tank racing through the desert as our military invaded another country. (I’m still stunned by that.) I looked around the bar for someone to share my abject amazement with. I found no one. The bar was full but everyone else was watching college basketball on the other three TVs. No one bothered to watch the TankCam. To a person the crowd preferred college basketball to live images from a moving tank in a war zone. (I’m still stunned by that.) That single moment has stretched out now for nearly three years.
Most people are willfully ignorant of what is happening. The rest are only vaguely informed. They find the details confusing and obscure:

Hizbullah is a Shi’a terror group/political party in Lebanon but Hamas is a Sunni terror group/political party in the Palestinian territories.
Syria is a Sunni Arab country run by Alawites, considered heretics by the Sunnis, and supported by Iranians who are Persians and Shi’as. The Iranians harbor Al Qaeda figures who are Sunni Arabs but who are killing Shi’as in Iraq who are Arabs and not Persians.
The centrifuge plant in Natanz, based on Pakistani designs, enriches uranium to make fuel for nuclear warheads to put on missiles supplied by North Korea that may reach Vienna, the headquarters for the IAEA charged with monitoring the treaty that North Korea dropped out of and Pakistan never signed.
The majority of Jordanians are Palestinian but Jordan is not Palestine, although it used to control the West Bank where most “Palestinians” live, except those who are in Jordan where they are bombed by Al Qaeda which supports the “Palestinian cause”.

People don’t have a scorecard for this stuff. Only blog geeks know of these matters or care about such distinctions.

Most Americans, including smart people I work with, including my own family, don’t have any idea what the cartoon riots were about. There are many reasons for that. For one thing they didn’t see the cartoons. But just as importantly, they don’t understand the situation of Muslims in Europe. Americans, in their naivety, imagine Europe like something out of a 1950s movie or a tourist brochure. Most have no clue about the seething jihadists and the radical imams, or the demographic implosion of native Europeans. When I mention to people that 10% of France is Muslim they are stunned, unable to process such a fact.

Not that Americans are stupid. We just have short attention spans and are a bit self-centered. To use a very 9/11 phrase, we fail to imagine. Even those who pay some attention don’t connect the Cartoon Jihad to the Iranian nuke program to the French-Muslim riots to the London bombings to the van Gogh assassination. People are aware of each individual event but simply do not imagine that something connects them. They do not allow themselves to think such thoughts. Part of this is that Americans are basically good hearted people who don’t spend their time dwelling on tragic events. We are a land of optimists. This is normally a very good trait. But we do not live in optimistic times. We simply do not think that people who build nukes and say they want to kill Jews really mean it.

Like the crowd in the airport bar, Americans have turned their eyes from world events and anesthetized themselves with sports and celebrities and political nonsense. Cheney’s hunting accident received far more detailed coverage than the Iranian nuclear program. Jessica Simpson’s divorce is on the cover of a dozen magazines a week and on a dozen more tabloid shows but you have to be dedicated to search out a single scrap of information on Iran’s missile capacity. This may shock foreigners but it’s true. Pitiful for a superpower, but true none the less.

The average American, for example my own beloved mother, knows more about the ins and outs of the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie relationship than about Ahmadinejad’s mad plans.

We are living, quite unaware, in the Pre-War Years. For some of us this is a time of anxiety, nervously awaiting the end of an era. But for most, it is an unappreciated Golden Age. We will look back on it with nostalgia.

That’s how it was in my beige anonymous suburb in early 2006, in the years Before The War. People drove to work, cheered at their kids’ soccer games, mowed their lawns, and went about their business, assuming that the future would be like the past.

I imagine this is very much like life was in Paris or London in 1912. Everyone was vaguely aware that war with Germany was inevitable, but only in an abstract academic sense. No one, not those paying the closest attention to events, not the most far-sighted artists and thinkers and strategic planners, no one ever imagined what the future held for them.

In the spring of 1912 Parisians filled the cafes and gossiped about which minor aristocrat attended the opening of which opera. The women talked of the season’s fashion. In British pubs men discussed cricket or the latest political maneuvers of Labor. The spirit of the late Queen Victoria still suffused life in Europe. Her blood relatives were scattered around European capitals. The Kaiser was her grandson; her granddaughter the wife of the Czar. European life continued as it had for generations.

Six years later 10 million people were dead. Whole villages in England and Wales lost every grown man under thirty. A wasteland of utter devastation stretched from the English Channel through France all the way to Italy. Three centuries-old empires were gone. Revolution seized Russia. The Sultan had been deposed and the caliphate abolished. The Kaiser had abdicated and fled into exile. The czar, his wife and children were prisoners of the Bolsheviks, waiting to be murdered. A generation destroyed in a military meat grinder. A way of life blasted out of existence.

After the Great War, no one cared about the aristocracy or opera stars. People were amazed that they ever did.

Another Charming Email from a Devout, Peace-Loving Reader

2006-02-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

I use the word 'reader' loosely since this person seems semi-literate at best.

u know what fuck u ... u motherfucker who drew this... and u know what? go fuck urself or something instead of messing with our beliefs... and listen baby .. we're gonna c u sooon all fucked up in hell... so go eat ur motherz shit, and when i'll c u in hell u shit ... holla me burning asshole ... u know what fuck ur religion u dont even believe in jesus... so screw u assholes... and u know what we dont need ur fucking apology we're gonna screw ur fucking ass..!! anywayz go eat shit well so u get used to it when we feed it to u ... peace MOTHAFUCKER!!

The last bit is the best. After various threats and insults she signs off with 'peace'. I guess that would be the peace of the grave.

By the way, this so-called human goes by the name "roba adham". She can be reached at freshgirl2005@hotmail.com. Let her know what you think. Piece!

Puzzles and Trojan Horses

2006-02-19T12:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes items in the news fit so well they are like pieces of a puzzle. Each one by itself is only a blotch of color but put them together and you can begin to get intimations of the larger image, as yet unformed.

Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right". [...] Half of the 500 people surveyed said relations between white Britons and Muslims were getting worse. Only just over half thought the conviction of the cleric Abu Hamza for incitement to murder and
race hatred was fair.

This more than supports researcher Patrick Sookhdeo prediction that

"in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law."

A decade sounds optimistic. The Islamist agenda is moving along so well in Britain that all this could come to pass in much less time, through the criminal incompetence of the government.

"The trouble is that Tony Blair and other ministers see Islam through the prism of their own secular outlook. They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.

"For example, one of the fundamental notions
of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.

'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one
religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this. "That is why they do not believe in integration."

Which leads to this piece from Canada's National Post. This is the first time I have seen this sentiment published in a major news outlet.

In the clash of cultures between secular Europeans and extremist Muslims, there can ultimately be no compatibility or compromise, only loss by one side or the other of the absolute values it holds dear. [...]
European leaders have reacted to the Muslim upset over the cartoons two ways. Publically and to buy time, they seek to calm the protesters by deploring the abuse of freedom of speech. More significantly, they seek to preserve their societies by legislating Western norms, by tightening or ending immigration from Muslim countries, by
enabling the expulsion of radical imans and other Muslim activists, and by raising the spectre of mass deportations.

The quotes from European figures are quite revealing. German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

"The notion of multiculturalism has fallen apart," she said prior to her election. "Anyone coming here must respect our constitution and tolerate our Western and Christian roots."
"Islam is now the number one enemy not only of Europe, but of the entire free world," states Filip Dewinter, leader of Vlaams Belang (The Flemish Interest), now Belgium's most popular political party. Mr. Dewinter has gained popularity by arguing that, "it is an illusion to
think that a moderate Islam exists in Europe." He states: "There are already 25 million to 30 million Muslims on Europe's soil, and this becomes a threat. It's a real Trojan horse."

Untimately that is Europe's choice: to accept sharia on European soil and resign themselves to the long darkness of dhimmitude or find a way to push the Trojan Horse out of the city. Those are some piece of the puzzle. Can you see the image they make?

Religion of Peace. If "Peace" Means Arson and Murder.

2006-02-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

Religion of Peace. Religion of Benevolence. That's what everyone in the press and government keeps telling us. Via LGF.

Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people [...] An Associated Press reporter saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and setting him ablaze. [sic]

Hey that's peaceful. The peace of the grave but peace nevertheless.

Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said. [...] "Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters," Ezeoke [a Christian resident] said. Witnesses said three children and a priest were among those killed.

That's the second priest killed. You may remember the Italian priest shot to death in Turkey but a "youth". I know about that turn the other cheek thing but I'm wondering if there's point when even Christ would say enough is enough.

Update: CNN claims 16 dead and 11 churches burned to the ground. When will American churches start raising money to buy weapons for our besieged Nigerian brothers? I'll gladly give.

"An Enemy"

2006-02-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

"From now on, we will define the Palestinian Authority as an enemy" [Israeli] Army Radio quoted a senior Israeli spokesman as saying Saturday, following the swearing-in of Hamas to the Palestinian Legislative Council.

I certainly hope so. A group dedicated to destroying you would seem by definition to be an enemy. But how will this translate into action? Will the Israelis cut off the PA from customs duty transferrs as some have suggested? On the face of it that seems not only logical but required. After all, how do you transferr money to an organization that does not recognize you?

On the other hand this will just allow the PA to use the "suffering of the Palestinian people" as propagnada against the "Zionist oppressors." It will be a reply of the Iraqi sanction debacle. Except this time Ahmas is a democratically elected governement. No one can claim that the "innocent populace" didn't have a choice.

Perhaps the Palestinians can learn a lesson most American college kids learn: if 90% of your budget comes from other people, it's best not to alienate them.

Revealing emails from an idiot

2006-02-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

I keep getting these annoying emails from this address saleem_juma@comcast.net. Here is a quote:

[Y]ou call Prophet Isa by the name Jesus and believe that there is such a thing like a holy ghost and whatnot. But I give you one question, If Jesus didn't have a father, what about
Adam. he had neither father nor mother, why is he not the son of god.
Oh and another thing, I hate to say this (as I have many Christian Friends) that the Holy Trinity was made up by a Roman Emperor. Also we have more humility than you, you womanizing thugs. The terrorists do not worship what we worship and you only base your opinions on them while I have done extensive research on many religions. [...] I do though thank you for misleading many of my fellow people to your foolish religion. Christ being the son of god doesn't make sense, are you insulting almighty Allah by saying that
he had sexual intercourse with the virgin mary is that it. No he simply put him in the womb which is why he is not the son of god. One more thing, when you say Allah is stupid, you insult your god as well because Arabic speaking Christians
refer to the god of the bible as Allah.

He originally wrote accusing me of "islamophobia" and saying that I should "stop doing blasphomous (sic) things." Notice how this ignorant twit insults Christianity but can't stand a few cartoons. What a spineless hypocrite. But that's characteristic, isn't it? They can dish it out but they can't take it. "Please don't insult the sacred and precious Muhammad but Christ wasn't the son of god and Christianity is a foolish religion." Please grow the hell up! Such whining!

Note how he tries to distance "what he worships" from "what the terrorists worship." In all fairness I don't know what Saleem prays to but the terrorists tell us exactly what religion they identify with. It ain't Jainism. They attack consulates chanting Allah akbar and they behead people after reading from the koran. Those are facts that should tell you something. Saleem's "extensive research" must have been is a dark bathroom because he shows no sign of grasping even the basics of Christianity. For example, as I have written elsewhere, Christians do NOT worship the same god as Muslims. This is just another example of Islamic propaganda, similar to their plagiarism of Biblic figures who were not Arab and clearly not Muslim (as the word had no meaning before Muhmmad.)

I found his emails very revealing of a certain muslim mindset. It's not that he and those like him are unprincipled. It's that they show no sign of even understanding that principles exist. He's not a cynic. He lacks the sophistication to be cynical. It's the blind and uncritical acceptance of Islamic supremacism, an unself-conscious egomania that elevates all things Islam to the apex of human life without even the glimmer of thought that other ways of living are valuable. It's the crude reduction of the glorious splendor of human existence into the self-serving formula "Islam good. All else bad." This borders on the irrational. It is what passes for thinking among certain simple-minded people. Sad.

Feel free to contact "Mr. Juma" and let him know what you think.

Rise of the Danish Street

2006-02-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Flemming Rose, editor of the Jyyland Posten now on indefinite leave said:

“We are used to seeing ourselves as a permissive and open society on the side of
the good, and it is shocking to see Danes as objects of hate," he said, adding "It's easier to be lenient when your neighbor looks like you, speaks the same language and has the same habits. People are willing to pay for a welfare state, but not for Ali who comes from 5,000 miles away."

Meanwhile the leader of the People's Party, Pia Kjaersgaard, wrote that

the Islamic religious community here was populated with "pathetic and lying men
with worrying suspect views on democracy and women."

She added: "They are the enemy inside. The Trojan horse in Denmark. A kind of Islamic mafia."

Strong stuff from a party that is part of the ruling coalition. The Danes are pissed with a capital P. Brussels Journal has a fascinating translation of “We Are Being Pissed On,”an angry article by Per Nyholm, a journalist for the Jyylands Posten. Mr. Nyholm has more than just anger, he has a few policy recommendations:

“Perhaps the ambassadors that have been called home to fictitious consultations
in the Middle East should be told that they may spare themselves the cost of the
return ticket.

In so far as possible The Lying Imams probably ought to be expelled. And then we ought to make an effort to support those Muslims who in a difficult situation have proven themselves to be true Citizens.
We, for our part, have no wish to be a burden to the Arab governments. We will happily withdraw our soldiers, policemen and diplomats. If they think our money smells, we will retract our aid. Our trade must make do as well as it can. We promise to not bear a grudge and, in time, we will be glad to return, but we are through with the hypocrisy. We have better things to do than being pissed upon at our own expense.
Cut down our activities in the Middle East. The world holds plenty of other opportunities.”

Anger is not limited to editorial rooms and political party offices. It is simmering in the “Danish Street.”

About 25 Muslim graves in western Denmark were vandalized late Saturday night…

Who is surprised?

When a Danish “youth” bludgeons an Imam with a crowbar, I wonder how many editors will decide not to publish pictures of the Imam’s bruised and swollen face, so as not to “provoke’ or “enrage” people (after all words can describe it just as well)? How many columnists will examine the “root causes” of Danish anger? How many politicians will demand greater efforts to address the alienation of the Danish Street? How many Muslim leaders will declare that this was the act of a single disturbed “youth” and in no way reflects on Danes as a whole? How many Imams will talk about opening dialogue to increase understanding?

Zero.

British Press Roundup

2006-02-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

The British press had several good pieces of the Cartoon War and related matters. Many of these links are via Watch.Winds of Change. Others I found myself.

The Sunday Times has a column on a prominent moderate group, the Muslim Action Committee, and their demands to outlaw cartoons of Muhammad :

“What is being called for,” said Faiz Siddiqi, the committee’s convenor, “is a change of culture. In any civilised society, if someone says, ‘don’t insult me’, you do not, out of respect for them.”

Here in one sentence lies the entire, tangled problem; it is all entwined round several different uses of the word “respect”. First of all there is a tendentious conflation of respect for one’s religion and respect for oneself. It may be true that in traditional Muslim thought a perceived insult to the Prophet is an insult to the believer, but in western culture there is a crucially important — and highly prized — distinction. Freedom of speech depends on people accepting that criticism of a belief, even aggressive, satirical or offensive criticism, is not necessarily intended to insult a person or an ethnic community. ...

Freedom of speech is the keystone of western civilisation, of individuality, of scientific discovery, of wealth and of democracy; without it, the entire edifice would collapse.

A fascinating column by Nonia Darwish, daughter of a famous Egyptian military officer who died in a "cross-border" attack against Israel and was hailed as a hero by Nasser himself.

But the rallies and riots come from a public ripe with rage. From my childhood in Gaza until today, blaming Israel and the West has been an industry in the Muslim world. ...
Is it any surprise that after decades of indoctrination in a culture of hate, that people actually do hate? Arab society has created a system of relying on fear of a common enemy. It's a system that has brought them much-needed unity, cohesion and compliance in a region ravaged by tribal feuds, instability, violence, and selfish corruption. So Arab leaders blame Jews and Christians rather than provide good schools, roads, hospitals, housing, jobs, or hope to their people.

Andrew Sullivan, a harsh critic of the Bush administration who supported Kerry in the last US presidential election, comes out very strong for freedom of expression. Imagine a journalists for freedom of the press. Imagine.

What are you to think? You’d think, wouldn’t you, it might be helpful to view the actual cartoons so you can see what on earth this entire fuss is about. But the British and American media have decided that it is not their job to help you understand this story. In fact it is their job to prevent you from fully understanding this story. ...
The withholding of truth has, of course, been one of the recurring themes of this war. We were not allowed to see the video deaths of those who jumped out of the World Trade Center. We were not allowed to see the coffins of soldiers arriving back in the US. We are still not allowed to see the most revealing photographs of what really happened at Abu Ghraib (the legal case is still tied up in appeals). We were not allowed to see the beheading of Nick Berg. And now we are not allowed to see . . . cartoons. Cartoons! The very things newspapers are designed in part to publish.

The cartoons may not be in the British press but plenty else is.

A leading imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good” act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter.
Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact.
He also praised the bombers as the “children” of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003. ...
Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.

Add this to last week's conviction of the hook-handed super villain Abu Hamza and the revelations of what was found in his mosque and you have to wonder what the British are thinking. Well, here's a recent poll. Let's just say most people are displeased.

The police and politicians are criticised more generally for not confronting Islamic extremism, with 80% of respondents saying the authorities show too much tolerance of Muslims who urge extreme acts. ...
Where foreigners stir up racial and religious hatred, 81% of people think they should be sent back to their own countries, even if to do so would endanger their lives.
There is widespread gloom about the future, with 87% expecting further attacks in Britain by Islamic groups on the scale of the July 7 bombings; and only 17% seeing a future in which there is peaceful coexistence between Muslims and others in Britain, while 67% think there will be a worsening of tensions.
This is also true internationally. While 34% say western nations can coexist peacefully with mainly Muslim countries, 45% disagree.

And this is in a UK which has been under Labor for what, 12 or 14 years? People feel like this under Blair? Wow. This reminded my of something Geoffrey Wheatcroft, author of The Strange Death of Tory England and contributer to The Atlantic Monthly, wrote in Slate.

[T]he most depressing thing I have seen or heard this past week (which is saying something) was from someone who suggested that there was a fundamental incompatibility between Islam "and our democratic secular values." If that's a view that, as I have more than hinted here, I am close to sharing, why was it so depressing? Because the speaker was a leader of the brutal white-supremacist British National Party.

That's pretty startling, I must say. Not that the BNP isn't working this to the best of their ability. Lucky for Britain the BNP is largely incompetent. But how long can a situation so ripe remain unexploited? People are pissed and things are happening quickly. Even a year ago, who would have imagined what has happened in the last month ...

How Many Muslims in the World?

2006-02-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

Punish Mockers of the Prophet:

“We make a call from the podium of the Grand Mosque and the birthplace of Islam, on behalf of Muslims all over the world, that tough punishment should be imposed on those who make a mockery of the Prophet,” the imam said.

I'll look for that "tough punishment" any day now. However, this is the more interesting statement from Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais:

"The repulsive cartoons depicting the Prophet have violated the sanctity of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world and their feelings."

(Awww, puddin' did you get your little feelings hurt? Poor baby, Abdul.)

1.5 billion Muslims? Come on dude. Please. Every week I hear a higher estimate for this number. I get emails asking why I want to hurt the fragile feelings of 1.3 billion Muslims. I've seen 1.2 billion from the propagandists at CAIR. Remember each tenth of a billion equals 100 million people. These wild fluctuations in the "number of Muslims in the world" are in no way accurate. Where do they live? Let's look at the CIA Factbook which has July 2005 population estimates.

I'll start with the 'I' countries. Indonesia,241 million people, 88% Muslim. That's about 213 million. India, 1.08 billion people, 13.4% Muslims. That's about 145 million. Iran, 68 million people, 98% are some kind of Muslim. That's another 66.6 million. Iraq, 26 million people, 97% Muslim adds 25.3 to our count for a running total of 449 million Muslims. Where, oh where, are the other billion Muslims Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais?

Egypt: 77.5 million people, 94% are Muslims: 72.8 million. Turkey: 69.7 million, virtually all are Muslim. Pakistan: 162 million people, 97% Muslim: 157 million. Malaysia: 23.9 million people, about 51% are Muslim (but it is hard to tell) so let's round up and say 12.5 million Muslims. Nigeria: 128.7 million people, half are Muslim. Add another 64.4 million Muslims. These big countries add 382 million for a sub-total of 832 million Muslims. Holy overcount Sheikh! You're missing 670 million Muslims? Where can I find them?

Now we are counting loose change. Sudan: 40 million people, 70% Muslim - 28 million. Moroccon: almost all of its 32.7 million are Muslim. Likewise Afghanistan, 29.9 million, and Somalia, 8.6 million. Syria: 18.4 million people, 90% Muslim - 16.6 million. Libya: 5.7 million, 97% Muslim - 5.6 million. I'm running out of countries, Sheikh. Chad: 9.8 million people, half are Muslim - 4.9 million. China might add another 19.5 million but we are running on fumes here. Let's be generous and say Europe has 25 million and the US another 3 million. All these add 175 million Muslims.

Our total (drum roll please): 1.07 billion Muslims. That's right. The Sheikh is not even close. Let's say I missed a few million in central Asia, Thailand, Canada, Australia, etc. Let's say the CIA, as part of a plot to undermined the ummah, underestimates the figure. Sure, whatever. If this total is off by 10% that is still 1.114 billion. I'll go so far as to say that I'm off by 20% for a Big Total of 1.2 billion.

But let's get real. It's not 1.5 or even 1.3. Claims like this are just Islamist propaganda. I could just as easily claim there are 2.5 billion Christians and ask someone to disprove it. Any takers?

Update: A comenter pointed out that I forgot Bangladesh (add another 120 million Muslims) Algeria (32 million) and Tunisia (10 million). Thanks. But my larger point is that, even with these countries we are nowhere near the 1.5 billion the Sheikh claimed. Nor are we close to the 1.3 billion. Sure I forgot the 10 million in Mali but a few million here and there do not approach the clear errors of such wild exaggerated claims.

My point is that the Sheikh and CAIR and the various Islamist front organizations are not trying to provide accurate statistics about the Muslim population but are purposefully inflating these numbers as part of their propaganda efforts. They are not interested in facts but in the emotional shock value of huge, and unsupportable, figures.

Update with reply to Lindsay: I have counted less than 1.2 billion. Australia might account for another 3 million but there are virtually no Muslims in Japan. You are getting desperate to find these missing people who don't exist. Again, the point is that claims of 1.3, or 1.4 are exaggerated for political effect. And of course I am blindly accepting that every single human being that counts statistically as "Muslim" is in fact a believer and practitioners of the faith. But honestly we know that this is not true. There are atheists and disbelievers even in Iran and Egypt. Whether that reduces the number by 1% or .5% is debatable but it does reduce the number.

In short, there are not now nor have there ever been 1.5 billion believing Muslims alive on this earth. Period. Claims to the contrary are politically motivated and not based in fact.

Cartoon riots in Jerusalem

2006-02-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

Cartoon riots in Jerusalem - Note that the "youths" didn't wave Hamas flags.

Dozens of Arab youths threw stones at police in east Jerusalem during a protest against Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

Police fired stun grenades to disperse protesters who waved Palestine Liberation Organization flags and tried to burn Danish flags, which they laid on the ground.

Comment from "Lilian Dorn"

2006-02-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

An anonymous commenter who goes by "Lilian Dorn" left this comment to my earlier post "No Apologies. Get Used to It." I am posting the comment in its entirety.

So what?I'm a Muslim and I don't feel offended by a bunch of pictures. I do
believe as Chirac put it that you should exercise freedom of _expression in a
manner that is respectful of others and their beliefs. This applies to everyone.

As to some of the comments on Muslims.. I've never prayed to have anyone killed because they're not Muslims. I've never ever had to recite any of the stuff someone wrote down here. Well, maybe some people who call themselves Muslims do that, I've never known any but I guess there are idiots, unrespectful and dangerous people everywhere beyond religion or atheism.

A lot of people just don't want to think. It's much more fun to stick standard fashionable anti Muslim stuff on here. It's OK, it's your right to make sense or talk nonsense and mine to let you know before I pass you by. I'm not a masochist either and didn't even look at the pictures you've got on your site, I saw them in the papers. I only checked some of your comments.

Anyway, each to their own. Democracy is for sure lacking in Arabic countries but this goes beyond religion, it's about politics and money. I think you can work it out with a little thinking.

As to education and fun, I have both like anybody else. You must know some really strange Muslims. It's true to say that some so called Islamic Schools are Islamic by name only but they're a minority, like prostitutes in Western countries.

I guess anyone can call themselves anything and there are tedious uneducated Muslims and non Muslims.

But for the time being, your fashion site is what people want. We want Muslim terrorists and we want to show the world that Islam is synonymous for Violence. Might change the trend to Atheist Killers one day or How Atheism is a fallacy that leads to anarchy. Whatever. The Show must go on.

A rather thoughful and interesting comment. Certainly different from the usual crap ("please don't insult me it makes me sad") I often get. Make of it what you will.

Winter Olympics

2006-02-07T19:27:00.000-08:00

Friday is a big day. First, it's the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. It's also the Muslim day of prayer, the second Friday since the Cartoon Jihad began. Italy contains more than 800,000 Muslims. Without a doubt the Friday "prayers" around the world will incite Muslims to "protest" against the cartoons, Denmark, Norway and perhaps Austria.

Who thinks the Olympics, which lasts 16 days, will pass without violence? I doubt militant Odin worshippers will cause any trouble. But the Olympics are starting at the height of a wave of anti-European, anti-Western violence that has seen arson and calls to massacre and murder. And what is more Western than the Olympics?

I know, I know. It's always a small fringe, a tiny minority, etc. But 1% of Italian Muslims in 8,000. One percent of that is 80. It took a handful of men to bomb London on 7/7. It took a dozen to bomb Madrid on 3/11. Only 19 operatives carried out 9/11. Even discounting foreign element, 1% of 1% is more than enough.

On the up side we got through the Summer Olympics in Athens without an incident. Maybe we can get lucky again. But who wants to count on luck?

Quotes from Europe

2006-02-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

Screw Jack Straw and his spineless kowtowing. The New York Times grows some balls and publishes an article about the widening gulf between the West and Islam, complete with some telling quotes.

Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten ... "When Muslims say you are not showing respect, I would say: you are not asking for my respect, you are asking for my submission," he said.

Notice that word again, submission. You'll hear a lot more of that in the future.

"In America, few people fear that they will have to live according to the norms of Islam," an editorial in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad read. "In European countries, with a large or growing Muslim minority, there is a real fear that behind the demand for respect hides another agenda: the threat that everyone must adjust to the rules of Islam."

Isn't that just exactly what the rioters and arsonist are saying? "Behead those who insult Islam." Where is the jurisdiction of Islamic law? Apparently the whole world.

"Islam is protected by an invisible blasphemy law," said Jasper Gerard, a columnist in The Sunday Times. "It is called fear."

Yes it is. Fear is effective up to a point. Then people turn on those who previously frightened them and it's never pretty. Average Europeans are stirring from their post-historic slumber.

"The radicals don't want an agreement, they don't want the round table," said Rainer Mion, a 44-year-old German insurance agent in Berlin. "What they want is to spread their Islamic beliefs all over the world."

Many of us have been warning about this for quite some time. Indeed one of the recurring themes of this blog is that the Islamists will go too far and awaken the violent xenophobic spirit of Europe. People think of Europe as appeasing and polite and eager to do anything to avoid conflict. They have adopted that attitude to compensate for a long history of terrible, unspeakable violence. Listen to this middle-aged Italian.

Giulio Cordese, a 50-year-old salesman in an Italian specialty deli in Berlin, added: "We have to make a point here. Personally, I would expel all Muslims in the concerned countries, because they simply don't accept democratic rules here."

Is this what the Islamists want? Because the more riots and threats and arson they spread the more they awake within average Europeans the spirit of their ancestors. Islam in Europe can either adapt to an open, competitive, modern society and all the offensive crap it produces. Or they can face the wrath of an aggrieved Europe.

Rightist Exploit Muhammad Cartoon Jihad

2006-02-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe I can win a free trip to beautiful Sweden. Share a few brews with some lovely Swedes.

Playing with fire in Sweden? A radical rightist online newspaper in Sweden has joined the cartoon fray Tuesday after initiating a prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. The paper, Sd-Kuriren, justified its decision by saying it supports freedom of expression and backs the Danish newspaper that touched off the controversy by publishing Muhammad cartoons. "Freedom of expression in Sweden
outweighs the Islamic ban regarding prophet Muhammad," the paper's editor wrote.

Where do I sign up? If I could read Swedish I could enter the contest on the Sd-Kuriren site. Alas I cannot read Swedish. No blonde babes for me. So sad.

Seriously, this is just one more bit of evidence that the Cartoon Jihad is doing far more damage to Islam than the stupid cartoons ever did. The global Muslim freakout is feeding rightist causes all over the world. The BNP has posted the cartoons on their Website. I'm sure other nationalist / racist / rightist groups have too. Rioting Muslims threatening to behead and massacre people who "insult" Islam are giving fuel to the rightist camp.

Again, sad. Europe faces a rather unpleasant future divided between two extremes: radical Islam and nationalists. Not a pretty choice.

Islam Means Submission. Don't.

2006-02-07T05:44:00.000-08:00

Tolerance Toward Intolerance:

Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules.

That what Islam means, right? Submission. Not peace. That's a common error. It means submission and that is what the protesters and the radicals sponsoring, organizing and coordinating these riots what. No mere apology is good enough. And that is why we must not submit, now or ever.

Free speech means the right to offend and insult or it means nothing. Religious sensibilities are not exempt from criticism. The craven US media may be cowering in fear over these cartoon and I guess I shouldn't expect anything different. The New York Times will publish state secrets but not cartoons. So it goes.

But just because the media are spineless doesn't mean the rest of us should be. Resist dhimmitude! Don't submit.

Free Speech Muhammad

2006-02-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Muhammad's views of freedom of expression.

"I Forbid Satire, Mockery, or Ridicule! I Forbid Insulting or Offensive Cartoons!"

"I Encourage Murder, Arson, Kidnapping, Threats and Mob Violence!"

To me this seems self evident. Mob have attacked an embassy in Jakarta and set fire to embassies in Syria and Beirut. Mobs have incited murder in London. All the while these people are furious that anyone, anywhere would dare draw a cartoon of their demi-god Muhammad (Mohammed). Mobs across the "Muslim world" burn flags and effigies and chant "Death to Denmark" but the mere mention that rightist in Denmark would dare to plan to burn a Koran resulted in threats that "all hell would break loose."

They can dish it out but they can't take it. How can a whole culture be this insecure?

Who Will Be Our Franz Ferdinand?

2006-02-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

The Muhammad cartoon scandal is a symptom of the fragility, the brittleness of our times. Small, even obscure and seemingly inconsequential events can occasionally have earth-shaking effects. No one in May 1914 would have dreamed that a few gunshots in Sarajevo in June would lead to war in August and 10 million dead in 4 years. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was merely the spark. The world had been ready and waiting for war. There were too many nations and ethnicities, with complex and intertwining relations to avoid it. People thought war was inevitable someday, just not then, during that beautiful summer.

Our world now is very brittle. The cartoon jihad has now burned down embassies in Syria, the Danish consolate in Beruit, and a murdered Catholic priest in Turkey (this cannot yet be directly related to the cartoons but a week of worldwide incitement to murder cannot have gone unnoticed in Muslim Turkey).

The riots and mob violence from Jakarta to London are not spontaneous events. They are the results of a well-coordinated campaign to mobilize Muslims by manufacturing rage and murderous anger. But now events are close to spiraling out of control. For example, any Syrian government involvement in the embassy attacks is a declaration of war against the nations whose embassies were destroyed. If proven or even widely believed the Syrian regime, already under pressure for murdering two opponents, will fall. Who knows where this could lead?

The effects of the Danish cartoons could plunge a region or the world into a war everyone knows is coming someday but not today. Things are so brittle that all it takes is the right assassination, the right murder, the right suicide bombing to signal the start of the titanic struggle of our age. Who will be our Franz Ferdinand, the one death that leads to so very many more?

To switch metaphors, the world is piled high with dry kindling and the Muslim world has responded to some cartoons by trying to strike sparks. Be careful boys. You're likely to get burned.

Religion of Peace Torches Embassy

2006-02-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

In a classic example of respect, humility and love (see previous post) a peace-loving mob of Muslims expressed their criticism of Muhammad cartoons through respectful and humble arson.

Hundreds of Syrian demonstrators set the Danish embassy on fire on Saturday to protest the printing by a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, a Reuters witness said. ...
Protestors also threw stones at the building shattering its windows.
Chanting "God is Great," they stormed the embassy, burned the Danish flag and replaced it with another flag reading "No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet."

Of course the violent, fundamentalist Christians will immediately retaliate by storming embassies around the world. Not.

How long before someone is killed? A day? A week? Once again the cartoonists are proved correct by the very actions of those who criticise them.

Update: Via Gateway Pundit - the Muslim mob burned the entire building.

Witnesses said the demonstrators set fire to the entire building, which also houses the embassies of Chile and Sweden.

More Respectful Comments from a Polite Peaceloving Jerk

2006-02-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

I received this anonymous comment to my rather mild, even delicate cartoon Soft Muhammad.

If you truly believe in freedom of speech you'll post my message, otherwise you'll just prove you're a worthless bag of shit pissing on itself. I'm a Muslim and I guess in your eyes, therefore, worse than an animal. Okay, fine, I can live with that since you're a worthless piece of puke anyway. But must you hate 1 billion people? You're the fanatic, the radical, the fundamentalist, the intellectual whore who's given up on the things that fundamentally unite humanity and allow us to call ourselves human -- love, respect, humility. Go fuck yourself, ass hole.

Well, I posted your humble, respectful, loving drivel jerkweed. But why, I ask, should I respect a religion that threatens me and my culture, a culture far superior in every imaginable way to what passes for culture in the so-called Muslim world?

Respect is not granted automatically or because rabid mobs demand it. Respect is earned. Look at how many cartoon insult the Dalai Lama. Almost none because he displays compassion and humility and respect those of different religions. Islam however displays anything but those traits. It displays arrogance and the will to dominate through violence. The events of the past week have proven the cartoonist of the world correct. Your move my humble, respectful, loving friend.

To Be Western or Muslim. That is the Question.

2006-02-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn from a radio transcript at Radio Blogger:

[T]here aren't a lot of good options when you have a very significant militant minority in your country that is determined, effectively, to demand that its own values be imposed on society at large. You only have to look at, for example, the difference...when a Broadway playwright writes a play about Jesus being gay, and having sex with Judas Iscariot, there are a couple of protests outside the theater, and people write letters. When you attempt to show a representation of
Mohammed, you get people threatening to kill you, you get national boycotts, you get people burning down buildings. And at some point, Muslims living in Western Europe have to decide whether or not they're prepared to be offended, because that's what it involves in a free society.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but a significant percentage European Muslims aren't prepared to be offended but they are prepared to kill. Today it's threats and boycotts but it's only a matter of time (perhaps only days) until someone is murdered over these cartoon.

The clock is ticking on Europe and its Muslim population. With each enraged mob threatening European cities, with each declaration of war in a European nation Europe comes closer to the deciding whether it will be Western or Muslim. Europeans are facing what I wrote about in one of my earliest posts, The Coming Age of Conversion or Expulsion.

Simple and Stupid

2006-02-03T16:40:00.000-08:00

Earlier today "Sarah Mohamed" left this comment to Crybaby Muhammad.

Simple minds are entertained by simple things but this has crossed the border of stupidity. I feel sorry for whoever is entertained by this.

I'm the first to say that my cartoons are stupid and simple. The drawings are crude. The satire is heavy-handed and obvious. I'm not an artist. No argument there, "Sarah".

The point of this debate isn't my lack of artistic or satirical skills. The point is that in 20 minutes I can draw a simple, silly, stupid image at my kitchen table with a box of colored pencils I bought at Target, scan it into my computer, post it to my blog and within minutes complete strangers from the other side of the earth have found my images and been offended enough to send me a threatening email.

Yes, my cartoons are sophmoric and offensive. The point of this debate isn't whether I am trying to offend people (I am) but that people are so easily offended. So, "Sarah Mohamed" we are just two different people. I make drawings for my own amusement and posts them to my obscure little blog. You spend your free time searching the Internet for images you knows will offend you.

My hobby is drawing simple and stupid cartoons. Your hobby is being offended. Now remind me again, who is being simple and stupid?

The Essentials of Islam, from Claire

2006-02-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

Claire emailed me this earlier. Thanks.

Moparody is a blog dedicated to Mohammad cartoons and images, some from famous artworks, some by talented amateurs. Enjoy.

Selections from Threats

2006-02-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

I’ve only received 4 or 5 threats and they’ve been mild as far as threats go. Nothing serious. I’m certainly not concerned. What pisses me off is the poor quality of the emails. Please people, put some effort into it. Here’re a few quotes:

This is a chunk from a very long and unbroken block of text. Most of it was unintelligible. Very stream of consciousness. It reminds me of a mutant hybrid of Allen Ginsberg-style Beat poetry and jihadism. Here’s the most readable part.

ALLAH have given to thos who made fun of HIM and HIS prophets...its ALLAH's word...and wait ...wait its coming when HE orders...n that day...u all will cry from pain…pLEASE KEEP ON LAUGHING...ITS THE BEST THING TO DO IN YOUR LIFE NOW..LAUGH...LAUGH...COZ U WILL BE MISSING IT SO SOON...LAUGH....TO BE DONE WITH IT...COZ ULL B LIVIN IN ANOTHR WORLD SO SOON

The next email was much more readable but way too hipster dumbass to make much sense. I got the feeling that English was this guy’s second language and perhaps he’s watched too many hip-hop videos.

what am sayin is am gonna be laughin when u burnin in hell
so i advice u take the website down and repeant

The last selection was the clearest and most literate. But he loses points for lack of originality.

What will you do if someone hurt your family by any means
possible??? You see, you Westerners (no offence implied here) do NOT understand that we, Muslims ultimately and strongly feel that Prophet Mohammad PBUH is more valuable and more precious to us than anything in our life. We can't tolerate hearing ANY defamatory remark, let alone these highly offensive cartoons, about him.

So, per my earlier promise I will be making a donation to an appropriate charity. I'll let you know which I choose.

Atomic Muhammad

2006-02-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

I dedicate this Mohammed cartoon to Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

If the mohammadeans hated the cartoon of Muhammad and his bomb-shaped turban then they should really hate this one.

Alternate title: Mushroom Cloud Muhammad.

By the way, ZombieTime has expanded his Mohammed Image Archive. Good stuff.

Update: Claire informs me that Zombie is a girl. Shows what I know.

The Collected Muhammad Cartoons of the Wraith

2006-02-01T20:53:00.000-08:00

Here it is by popular demand, the collected Muhammad cartoons of the Wraith. I'm catching up with the Danish. This whole thing started with 12 cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten. I have 7 and counting.

1 - Soft Muhammad

2 - Hellfire Muhammad

3 - Skull-Hammad

4 - I Am Muhammad. Cartoons Are Cool.

5 - Footprint Muhammad and the Toeprint Caliphs

6 - I Am Muhammad. Denmark Rocks.!

7 - Crybaby Muhammad

8 - Atomic Muhammad

9 - Free Speech Muhammad

Consequences of the Muhammad Cartoon Scandal

2006-02-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

The Great Muhammad Cartoon Scandal has been very educational. One thing it has taught me is that many, many Muslims around the world simply don't have any real understanding of Western culture or the Western mindset.

Many Muslims don't seem to understand that the angrier they get the more we want to continue creating and spreading cartoons. If they laughed at them or ignored them then the 12 original cartoons would have been restricted to Denmark where a few readers of one newspaper would have seen them. Now that protests and riots have spread around the globe the offending cartoons have been reprinted in most European countries and are on countless Internet sites, where they will be available forever.

The effect of their anger has been to spread the images they are angry about. Countless millions have seen what they didn't want anyone to see.

Another consequence of this scandal has been to prove the severest critics of Islam right. If Muslims cannot handle cartoons in a Danish newspaper how can they be expected to function in a open, modern democracy? If these 12 rather mild images can lead to such outrage, are we not in a clash of civilizations? A clash of peoples and worldviews? This is not about economics or politics. It about two irreconcilable views of human nature and society.

This scandal has driven another nail into the coffin of the myth of the "Moderate Muslim." For years we have been told that most Muslims do not support the fanatics, that the terrorists have "hijacked Islam." So where are these moderate Muslims? They are harder to find than Bigfoot. In fairness I had one Muslim commenter who did not like my cartoons but said he supported my right to post them. But that's one guy.

Meanwhile CAIR is trying to intimidate people who publish the 12 Danish cartoons. I have read countless stories in the global press about this scandal and have yet to read a quote from a prominent Muslim leader or organization supporting the right to publish cartoons mocking Muhammad. If you find any please leave a link in the comments. Can Muslims support free speech even if it criticizes or ridicules Islam, Muhammad and the Koran?

Finally, notice how the West interprets freedom of expression: the right to speak and draw. In Gaza and Kuwait and Denmark Muslims support the freedom to threaten people, to issue bomb threats, to assault people. Threats or cartoons? Which society would you rather live in?

No Apologies. Get Used to It.

2006-02-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a few threatening comments and emails and even a few people trying to convert me (which you can imagine is a pretty hopeless cause). And I can tell from Sitemeter that my traffic is way up, 40 or 50 times what is normal. What's more, I can tell that lots of these are visitors from Muslim countries. Let's just say they are not being directed here from links in the comments section of Little Green Footballs or the Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

No, my Muslim viewers are being finding the Wraith through search engines. Hold that thought for a moment. These people in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, or Turkey for example, are finding this site because they are searching for cartoons. Sitemeter provides the search terms that link viewers. For example, "Jyllands-Posten muhammed", "danish muhammad cartoon", "muhammad cartoon row". So Muslims in Islamic countries are cruising the Internet looking for images that the know will offend them. Lo and behold when they find this site - they're offended.

I'm not sorry. I will never apologies. You can't boycott me or have me fired. I'm not subject to political pressure. (Ahh the joys of anonymity.) If you don't want to be offended by my images then good Lord people, STOP LOOKING FOR THEM. Do you have shit for brains? Lots of images offend me and therefore I don't spend my free time looking for them on the Internet.

I'm not broadcasting my cartoons across the world. I'm not sticking them on buses and billboards. If you don't look for them you won't find them. What kind of masochistic retards look for things to offend them so deeply that they have to resort to threatening total strangers? It's stunning.

I don't comprehend the mindset of these people and I don't want to. You can take your threats and your attempts at intimidation and cram them in a hog's rectum. Grow the hell up. The world is not going to treat Islam like it's a fragile piece of antique glass. I'm not going to respect Islam because millions of people believe it. Millions of people believe in alien probing and astrology too and I think they're both horseshit. I once had a woman tell me that she could see the aura around trees. I told her to seek medical attention. I don't respect the beliefs of most people, much less escapees from the 14th century who worship a rock in a cube. And guess what? I respect Islam even less (if that's possible) every time some dung for brains sends my an incoherent threat.

If you want to threaten me at least put some effort into it. Show some style and wit. Oh wait, wit isn't popular with Muslims. I forgot. There is no humor in Islam.

Crybaby Muhammad

2006-02-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest cartoon of Muhammad. I've gotten a few comments and a few emails that basically boil down to what the crybaby is saying, "Whaa! You hurt my willte feelings."

What can I say? I'll quote Dennis Leary, "Life is tough. Get a helmet."

I Am Muhammad. Denmark Rocks!

2006-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

Screw this boycott crap. Show your support for our Danish brothers and sisters. Buy Danish goods.

Update: A commenter pointed out that I had the wrong flag on his shirt. Sorry.

Google bait: Denmark cartoon prophet mohmmed jyllends posten newspaper muhammad blasphemy

Footprint Muhammad and the Toeprint Caliphs

2006-01-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

Conceptually this is my favorite. Muhammad (Mohammed) is the big toe. The others are the first 4 caliphs, the Rashidun or the so-called "rightly guilded" caliphs. The footprint itself is green which is supposed to be the color is Islam.

Blue is Abu Bakr, father of Muhammad's wife A'ishah. He ruled as caliph for two years.

Orange is Umar. He was assassinated by a Persian slave in 644.

Purple is Uthman. He married 2 of Muhammad's daughters. He was also murdered in office.

Red is Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin. He too was assassinated.

Enjoy.

I Am Muhammad. Cartoons Are Cool.

2006-01-30T19:04:00.000-08:00

Screw the apology from Jyllands-Posten. I'm not apologizing.

This picture of Mohammed pretty much says it all. I view this as the slogan of the Muhammad cartoon movement. If fanatics consider this blasphemous then there is just no hope for them in the modern world. Crawl back in your 13th century holes.

Remember, if you do consider this to be blasphemy then first, you're an idiot and a dick. Second, don't blow up anything. If you can write, just send your threats to thomasthewraith-at-gmail.com. If you can't write, well then you have bigger problems than cartoons.

Petition Against Free Speech but for Irony

2006-01-30T06:17:00.000-08:00

A commenter left the link to this petition: "Defend Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) Against the Danish News Agency Jyllands-Posten's Heinous Aggression." I signed it with comments indicating that I supported the right of the cartoonists and the newspaper and thought the petition itself was nonsense.

Then I got an email confirming my signature. That email contained the name and email address of the tool who created the petition. It is one A Kutbi. You can reach this individual at kutbia@gmail.com. Do with that information what you will.

The ironies abound. This was at the bottom of my confirmation email. "Please contribute $1.00 or more and help maintain PetitionOnline.com asa premiere free speech forum." Get it? A free speech forum with a petition against free speech. This is what we have come to.

I wonder if A Kutbi will appreciate the irony.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, International Man of Paranoid Idiocy

2006-01-29T19:35:00.000-08:00

I actually saw this exchange on CNN this morning. If you can find footage of in on the internet it's worth watching more than once. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing Mamoud al-Zahar, co-founder of Hamas and world-class paranoid nutjob. Blitzer kept asking him if he would ever accepts Israel. In the process of dodging the question Zahar left reality and entered the Land of Insane Islamic Paranoia.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said from Gaza that Israel must change its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag", said Zahar. “The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile."

Did you get that? The two blue stripes on the Israeli flag are secret code that the crack team of Hamas cryptographers have decoded. It reveals Israel intention to expand from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. Blitzer asked him to clarify and Zahar repeated his wild claim as if it was accepted fact. Then he embarked on a rant about a symbol on the back of an Israeli coin that reveals a similar plot to expand from Egypt to Iraq. And this guy is the leader. Imagine what the extremists think.

I love this guy. He should be on TV every week. Hell he should get his own show. The more he talks the worse Hamas looks (you didn't think that was possible did you?). Blitzer shouldn't even ask questions. He should just toss out a topic and watch this mental patient ramble his way through a tour of the Muslim subconscious.

Skull-hammad

2006-01-29T18:44:00.000-08:00

Meet Skull-hammad, the third in my series of Muhammad cartoons. I dedicate this one to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference which is seeking a UN resolution "banning attacks on religious beliefs."

Let's get one thing very clear guys. Even if the UN passes your pitiful resolution, it won't mean dick to millions of bloggers all around the world. In fact, the day such a resolution passes will become an annual Free Speech Day when millions of people will go out of their way to be as offensive as possible.

The Danish cartoons of Muhammad and my silly pictures are nothing compared to what you would see. We aren't even trying to be offensive yet.

Hellfire Muhammad

2006-01-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

This is my second cartoon effort in support of the Danish cartoonists. I call this one Hellfire Muhammad. Again, it's all pencils and ink. Do with it what you will.

Same deal for the lunatic fringe out there. Leave insults and/or death threats in the comments or email them to thomasthewraith-at-gmail.com. Any interesting threats will be published. Knock yourselves out.

Soft Muhammad

2006-01-29T16:01:00.000-08:00

I call this one Soft Muhammad. I don't think this is blasphemous or insulting and I don't particularly care if others think it is. This is the mildest possible cartoon I can draw on this subject.

Note to angry fanatics: please leave insults and/or death threats in the comments or email them to thomasthewraith-at-gmail.com. Any interesting threats will be published. For each good threat I receive I will make a donation to either a charity supporting the US troops in Iraq or the IDF troops. Oh what a dilemma!

Note to other bloggers out there: this is all number 2 pencil, ink pen and a few old colored pencils I found in the back of my desk drawer. No Photoshop or computer tricks. Just like the Danish cartoonists.

Update: there are now two other cartoons: Hellfire Muhammad and Skull-hammad. Ahh, the pleasures of infidel free speech.

Cartoons of Muhammad

2006-01-29T15:55:00.000-08:00

Earlier today in a post at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance I suggested that bloggers show their support for the Danish cartoonists by creating their own Muhammad cartoons. I finished mine which I will post immediately after this. If you aren't caught up on this long-developing international scandal probably the best place to start is this excellent link-rich round-up from Watch.WindsofChange.

Stay tuned.

Bad

2006-01-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

This is not going to be a link-rich post. No attempts at irony or cleverness. Things are bad. Very bad. Hamas. Iran. Suicide threats against Denmark. Riots and assaults in Australia. The inevitability of an attack in Italy. A Syrian puppet of a near-nuclear Persia. And Europe ... poor sad Europe. If America is the progeny of European culture, then we have reached a point where Europe is our invalid grandparent, bedridden and incapacitated.

I don't know any more than you do. This is a purely emotional post, not based on evidence or logic or anything tangible I can point to or use as a basis for an argument. But I feel that we are due for bad things. We here in the US have had four and a half years without a domestic attack. I'm sure that some of that is due to our security services but let's be honest, we've gotten lucky. The Enemy is patient and thorough. They are working, planning, preparing. We are overdue and unready.

But it isn't the domestic threat that disturbs me. I'm not worried by the situation here or there or in any one particular place. What haunts me is the big picture; the global impression that the Enemy is on the move while we stick our fingers in our ears and lie to ourselves that islam means peace and that it's been hijacked by an extremist fringe; the general sense that Western civilization is brittle; that we will earn our redemption only through unimagined suffering; that we will defeat the Enemy only by losing a part of what we cherish.

Blood, sweat and tears. And, yes, still more blood.

Hamas vs Fatah: Gunfire in Gaza

2006-01-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was stone throwing in Ramallah. Today it's gunfire in Gaza.

Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire on Friday in political turmoil as the long-dominant Palestinian faction was threatened with a violent backlash to its
crushing election defeat by the Islamic militant group. ...
In the first armed clash between Hamas and Fatah militants since Wednesday's vote, three people were wounded in a gun battle near the southern city of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Clearly these people need more EU financial aid. How else will they afford ammunition?

Hamas vs Fatah: the Pre-Fight Warm-Up

2006-01-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

This is just the preview of what's to come. Fatah died with Arafat but like a creature in a zombie flick it just refuses to fall down.

Hamas supporters raised their flag over the Palestinian parliament Thursday and rushed into the building amid clashes with Fatah loyalists a day after winning parliamentary elections.

After some stone throwing and window smashing, Fatah failed to remove the Hamas flag.

The crowd of about 3,000 Hamas backers cheered and whistled as activists on the roof of the parliament raised the Hamas banner again.

Soon enough Hamas will dismember the Fatah corpse and get on with its war against Israel.