Professor Glenn cites an in extenso quote from Steyn's latest article. Frankly, I'm the one getting weary with the facile Eurobashing. Steyn and the other jingoistic Anglosphere bloggers undoubtedly feel superior sneering at the Europeans. I'm not.
In fact, the Islamist terrorism has won a strategic victory with 11 Sept. Its members have driven a wedge between the West that'll faciliate their divide and conquer policies to discredit our values, undermine our civilization, corrupt our polities and wreck our freedoms. As disgusted as Steyn and the jingositic bloggers are with Europe, they consistently fail to differentiate between the elite and the ordinary people. The latter are much closer to the American/Anglophile position; they know far better than their elites and are far more attuned than the Americans what's at stake.
Bruce makes an excellent and arresting point when he expresses his irritation at America's reinterpretion of the Monroe Doctrine to reduce the rest of the world to banana republics obliging intervention at any signs of resistence or termerious policies.
Indeed, J Licthy perfectly corroborates my arguments that I've written in previous posts on the subject; deep down neither the American military nor the defense industries want Europe to increase their defense spending. Not for the reasons that J Lichtly advances but for the following.
First, if the Europeans became genuinely serious in in defense spending, the American military fears- quite rightly- that their European counterparts would embrace the revolution in military affairs (RMA) with a mixture of passion and professionalism that would surpass the American military's capability and seriously challenge the former's preeminence.
Second, thre's a strong probability that the Europeans would expose the flaws in the American implementation of the revolution in military affairs. Specifically, the American military is far too enamoured with expensive, hi-tech equipment that dangerously swells the tail in comparasion to the teeth. Indeed, my own view is that the American military is dangerously vulnerable to an ingenious enemy that will concentrate its kick against the former's 'tail' and result in its teeth falling out.
Third, the American military industries want to monopolize the global weapons and military equipment market while conceding a few sops to 'loyal' countries like Britian or Canada. The American defense industries are aided and abetted by the their government and military. It's in their respective interests; the sale of American military equipment gives the government the leverage to prohibit or limit Allied actions at variance with former's policies; while the American military protects its preeminence by denying potential adversaries strategic/critical components of weapons systems and military equipment or sanctioning recalcitrant allies.
The Europeans aren't completely dispensed from their abdication of civic responsibility. they've consented to lower military spending that has caused serious problems for their militaries. Yet, their reflex to bristle at the American demand that increased defense spending alone will somehow get them back to the former's good graces, is sound. In fact, it's an unjustifiably simplistic perspective to demand just increased defense spending without a grand strategy. However, instead of falling back to gratuitious, facile anti-Americanism, the Europeans should call America's bluff and make a demand of their own: they'll increase their defense spending if America profoundly reforms its intelligence services. An area where, quite frankly, America is abysmal resulting in unimpressive results. Failures that were fatal.
America's reaction will then reveal its sincerity or lack thereof
Arabnews has published a snivelling article about the alleged anti-Moselm bias in the west.
15 of the 19 came from Saudi Arabia. 80% of the terrorism is conducted by Moselms. Prudence necessitates that Arabs and Moslems be placed under much harsher scrutiny just like the Columbians and Latin Americans are for drug trafficking
I shake my head in bemusement because the editors complain about how the Moslem clerics that come from abroad must learn about Duch laws and respect for the country's sociopolitical regime. Can't support euthanasia? Fine then advocate by peaceful means a change in the laws. As to learning Dutch; again it's a natural expectation and the clerics can still speak Arab or another language to the faithful at other times.
The editors are spineless hypocrites when they express shock that Moselms must accomodate their culture to the welcoming society. That signifies no polygamy, no clitorial circumcision, no removing the girls from school when they get their first period and other incompatible values at varience with the society's. No advocacy of violent overthrow and imposing the shari'a either. The British Home secretary hasn't insulted Modelms for reminding them of commonsense duties that when you come to a new country you give up something but you also gain much as well. By contrast, when Christians come to Saudi Arabia, they're not allowed to have a bible, can wear their crosses or medallion in public and can't even hold their religious services in the privacy of their own homes
Perhaps it's time that Christians make demands on the Saudi regime and dare Arabnews to publish an editorial decrying the anti-Christian preduice in Saudi Arabia when these aren't met.
I flatly disagree with Jeff Jacoby's latestarticle If I were an American, I'd be humilatd that I don't know a second language and the society actively discourages me from learning one. Indeed, America since September 11 scrambles like crazy to find Americans who can speaks all sorts of languages only to find that the FBI and CIA put obstancles in their paths.
I'd be humilated by the fact that that the prevalence in the language has the ironical effect of provincializing America and its culture. Until September 11, Americans were so complacent that they didn't debate the important ideas to emerge from the Cold war's end. Since the terrorist attacks, Americans are suddenly confronted with issues and themes they can't grasp because they're not in English
Who cares that in the past, immigrants were so eager to become Americans that they gave up their language to learn Engish? They were fools to throw away so casually their old heritage. Becoming American shouldn've never resulted in giving up the language.
Time changes as always; so much so, that the Internet/communications revolution practically screams Americans learn a second language and I don't mean C++.I also resent how you implicitly support the big states/majority languages: It's pratically a moral obligations for the U.S., France or Spain to oblige immigrants to learn the respective langauges but denounce the small states like Quebec, Catalunya or Brittany from obliging the same for their languages. Guess minority/regional languages don't count.
Jeff, in your country's political system there's only one thing that overcomes money. Numbers.
Thanks to Katheryn Jean from the Corner I came across this collection of shocking sermons The conclusion I draw is why bother? Blogger like Aziz Adil or Bill must despair each time they read sludge as this, they want to throw up their hands and write about other subjects than Islam and Islamic civilization.
Of course, the aforementioned bloggers won't despair and I hope they don't.
I turn my attention to the Christians
These imams hate Christains with the same visceral hatred that they reserve to the Jews. I'm particularly riled by their distortions of Christian values. Tolerance, devoting one'S life to the needy are religious distortions? Really? so establishing hospitals for the sick; providing meals to the poor regardless of background and allowing adherents to practice their religions according to its dictates is religious distortion. That attitude justifies all the societal disability of the dhimmitude and if the Christians get uppity well that justifies slaugthering them in their churches, or massacring them in their offices or lauching a war against them under the guise of jihad.
These same imams underestimate just how persecution the Christians will tolerate. Christanity is older than Islam and one of the former's most defining experiences, in contrast to Islam, is 3 centuries of relentless persecution under the most powerful political regime of the Classical world. The imams commit the same mistake of past hostile political regimes: the more they persecute the Christians, the more blood is split, the stronger they become until they overwhelm you. Further, if these imams presume that they can act with impunity think again; one day, some punks will walk into a church but won't escape. How will the jihadists react when women parishoners empty their AKs into them?
If the imams are to engage in apologetics for Islam, then present reasoned arguments as to why polygamy is better than monogamy. Asserting that the latter leads to the corruption of women is counterintuitive and unconvincing based on the decades of thorough anthropological, pyschological, social and legal studies
The imams rave to the point of spittle fits with respects to the role of women. Reading through the turgid sermons, I conclude that women under contemporary Islamic societies are fungible commidities. They can be replaced if the the husband tires of her and marry another. In extreme cases, he can simply divorce her and the society ostracizes her. She loses her children, she can't remarry as she's damaged godo and the society reinforces her humilation by marginalizing her. Another conclusion, Islamic socities are brittle. The imams' obssession on the public role of women in society bespeaks of a deep pathology. Their rants against Western women and the society that encourages them to pursue their talents, inclinations and choices expose a deepseated fear that Islamic society will break apart. Really, if allowing women to participate in extra-domestic activities will provoke the collapse the society then bring it on! Indeed, a society that tolerates honour killings; impedes women from pursuing public roles; that restricts them to the strictly domestic affairs isn't a robust society. In fact, the marginalization of women, their commodified status, their
The marginal status of women in contemporary Islam perverts the socuety. One ofthe crassest manifestation is value of 'manliness' in the service of the jihad. I'm repulsed. Massacring parishioners in theri churches, waging war to enslave non Moselm population, extending shari'a to non-Modelms, focing conversion on resistant population, suicide bombers deliberately killing civilians on the street. Violence of this magnitude is neither manliness nor civilized. Rather it's the embrace of the culture of death. Historical experience tells us where this leads; unfortunately Arab/Islamic society is determined to pursue this culture of death until they repudiate it.
How propitious Jackson's movie adaption of the Lord of the Rings has come just after the events of 11 Sept. Indeed, reading through the collected sermons, I'm struck at the resonance of the book's themes as I read those sermons. Each imam vies for the ring in a rising cresendo of abasement and euphorically repugnant oaths of loyalty How deceptively beautiful that ring looks; yet enslaves those who covet it and enslaves those who wear it.
I mock the imams' imbecility. They genuinely believe that they control hate. In fact, it's opposite. Hate controls them; it's seduced them to think that they'll rule the world when in fact, they're ruled by the one ring. Its name is HATE.
Once again, Charles Johnson' blog has elcited a huge number of comments on a post about Moselm extremist persectution of Christians What amazed me was how anti-Catholicism crept out of nowhere.
I'd often heard and read that this prejudice was the last legitimate one in America but never really believed it. Be that as it may, that's not my principal issue. My main complaint is why is there so much silence towards the blantant persecution of Christians by the Islamic integrists?
I suspect that part of the reason is the secularist bent of our media and elites. They disdain religion and don't take it serious; conflicts that have an explicitly religious element merely reinforce their prejudices. Another reason is maybe Christian divisions: the fact that the victims are Sourthern (or to be politically incorrect Third World) Christian who are either Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox; hence not our 'kind'. I bet that the persecuted Christians in those lands would bluntly point out that to the Islamist fantaics, the different Christian denominations are beside the point except as a way to divide and conquer them. More importantly, the same persecuted Christians aren't as obssessed by denominational issues as they have more in common than not.
If religious freedom is to have any substance, it's really up to us the democratic citizens to do something. Like what you ask? How about boycotting their products? I realize that an economic boycott is probably counterproductive. My own preference would be to cut off the subsides. For example, I frankly don't see why the Egypt should receive 2 billion$/year because some treaty says so. Treaties are made my men and can be undone by them.Make the subsidies conditional on certain basic human rights like the abolition of the dhimmitude in the Mideast and allowing all religious minorities to practice freely their religions.
Revoke the favoured nation trading privileges. If some Moselm countries can't tolerate their Christian and other religious minorities; how can we trust you to execute your obligations in good faith? Expose the persecution in public. Sure there are specialized organizations but if enough people lobby their legislative reprsentatives, they have to react.
We have to do our part- no matter how modest- to pressure the Moselm countries to become more tolerant...or else.
Charles Johnson published an article on some pacifist protest in Madrid The commentaries are simply stunning at times. Frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of the American jingoism which blinds some commentators to the efforts of the European allies. Not all of them are idiotarians.
Spain has been one of the more solid if quieter of the European allies. As Juan- one of the commentators on the post- reminds the others that if they bothered to read the Spanish (and Catalan) newspapers online, they would know that the country has very serious problems with the Morrocans in particular.
Like the illegal Mexical immigration, hundreds of thousands of Morrocans and subSaharain Africans cross the Straits of Hercules (which is only 15 km long) Unlike the Mexican situation, there's not a day in the newspapers that there's not a report of dead bodies washing up on shore or boats intercepted by the Guardia civil's coadt guard and they find a number of dead and live people.
Further, there's also the problem of integrating those illegal immigrants (the without papers) into the larger society.
Last month, I read of several reports from the Catalan newspaper Avui about how some girls are pulled out of school once they have their first period. A violation of Spanish educational law which makes schooling obligatory until 16. Also there's the unsanitary custom of slaugthering lambs in the street after Ramadan or the refusal by some neighbours to allow a mosque in their neigbourhood. More importantly because of the large number of illegals, insecurity has become a real problem. In Barcelona, my aunt was robbed as soon as she stepped out from the bank's doors and hurt, not seriously but still.
Unfortunately, the subject is near taboo. The politicians in Spain barely discuss illegal immigration and the civic insecurity for fear of being branded of racist orwhatever insult the 'progressives come up with.
It's in Spain's interest to see regime change in Iraq because perhaps, illegal emigration might stop if people didn't fear or hate their regimes so much.