We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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9/11 was blowback. It was blowback for the USA making movies featuring nudity. It was blowback for rock and roll and Jack Daniels and hog-roasts and pornography and Marilyn Monroe and Baywatch. It was blowback for not being part of a caliphate. Mohammed Atta was an architect(!) and what really wound him up was that in his native Cairo the Hilton Hotel and the Bank of America towered over the medieval mosques. Oh Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine always gets dragged up as a “legitimate” grievance but that’s pure window dressing. Why has no Arab state done a bloody thing to aid the Palestinians? And by the way, my definition of “aid” does not include bunging $25000 to the family of a “martyr” who has blown up in a Pizza Hut. The PA has basically been bank-rolled by the EU and oddly enough not in fact by their fellow Arabs and brothers in Islam of the Arab League. Why do you think the oil sheiks didn’t pony up the dough?
– Regular commenter Nick M in this thread.
But that wasn’t quite his intention. He was attempting to declare a failure but accidentally got his facts right. On Sunday’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert, a debate waged between Senators Jim Webb and Lindsay Graham resulted in the following statement by Senator Webb.
And with respect to al-Qaeda, quite frankly, al-Qaeda didn’t come to Iraq to try to destroy a democracy. That’s a very, very flimsy democracy there. We all recognize that. Al-Qaeda came to Iraq because the United States was in Iraq, and the people in al-Anbar are not aligning themselves with the United States. It’s “The enemy of the enemy is my friend.” This hasn’t been the Iraqi military, the national military that’s been taking out al-Qaeda. It’s been a redneck justice. It’s been these sectarian groups out there who don’t like al-Qaeda. And if we leave, they still will not like al-Qaeda.
His statement is right on so many points, it’s more than a little heartening.
First, democracy or no, Al-Qaeda is in Iraq to attack the United States. Where would the Senator rather rather have them attack us? Second, he is correct that this is a case of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But in terms of Al-Qaeda, that is called aligning themselves with the United States. We share a common enemy and are fighting it together. That is all “ally” means. What is he expecting? Conversions? Third, al-Anbar is a Sunni province. al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization. Sunnis have been their support base. And now a major part of that support base is turning against al-Qaeda. The biggest sign of success is when we no longer need to count on the military solutions but rather, the support base itself turns against the terrorists. Yet he is bemoaning the absence of a military component to this accomplishment. Senator Webb has done us the favor of highlighting some outstanding signs of imminent success although it was rather ambitious of him to spin them the way he did. It is also difficult to reconcile his belief that this revolt by the support base is “redneck justice” with the following statement taken from his own website.
Looking at these [Viet Nam] examples, you come to a conclusion about the use of force in this situation. In my opinion, we need to articulate clearly that we do not have a quarrel with the Muslim world. But the part of the Muslim world that considers itself at war with us must be on notice. Who are these people? They are the ones conducting terrorist activities and those training and providing logistical support to them. All those people, in my opinion, should be fair game. Over time, we should see the people who are conducting this international campaign of terrorism being cut away from their support base. Many good people were cut away from the support base of the South Vietnamese government. I think there’s a direct parallel.
Senator Webb is delivering good news suggesting that resistance to terrorism may soon be strong enough for us to reduce support levels. But he sounds greatly disappointed that this resistance is at the grass roots, and not a military accomplishment. Why do I suspect that if it was a military accomplishment, he would be lamenting the absence of grass roots support?
I have come up with yet another in a long line of ‘Modest Proposals’ for solving world problems, this time for successful suicide bombers.
When someone is prepared to kill themselves because their religious belief assures them of an eternal party or an eternal peace or large numbers of subservient soon to be non-virgins, there is not a great deal that can be done to sway them from their evil course… or so one would think.
I propose hitting below the belt.
What is important to these folk? What do they want? Why do they do what they do?
They want everyone to be believers of their one true faith.
What else is important to them?
Family.
My modest proposal is a very biblical one. When a terrorist succeeds in not only blowing themselves up but in also killing innocent civilians we should round up their family, nuclear or extended as is appropriate to the culture; men, woman, children and elderly;and give them a very simple choice:
Convert to the religion represented by the majority of the innocents killed… or die.
This strikes at the heart of the belief system of these murdering swine. The message would be that success is a failure worse than their worst nightmare. How many Hamas would want their daughter converting to Judaism and then marrying a doctor? Or even worse… a lawyer!
Thus Sunni wouldst become Shia; Shia wouldst become Sunni; Palestinians would become Jews… and for that matter if any Christian committed a similar heinous act, the same would apply to them.
Fair is fair.
I just ran across the apocalyptic biblical quote:
And in those days shall men seek death and not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flea from them – Revelations 9:6
In a sudden heavenly flash of deep preternatural understanding and prognostication the true meaning of this ancient prophecy suffused my being.
We are going to capture all the suicide bombers and lock them up for life! I also inferred from it that we will soon have the nanotechnology necessary to extend life to lengths most find unimaginable. This will allow us to lock up these self-portable munitions for even longer.
There is a very interesting article in the Telegraph about middle class Islamic terrorism. For me the ‘money quote’ came from Ed Husain, a former member of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahir group.
Mr Husain, whose book, The Islamist, exposed the workings of Hizb ut-Tahir, is contemptuous of the idea that the latest plots were inspired by the West’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is just an excuse. They reject Western culture full stop, not just ‘slags in night clubs’. They would have supported the bombing of Muslims attending the cinema in Cairo in the 1950s. They do not want Muslims to enjoy social freedoms. If it was not Iraq they would cite Chechnya. Or Palestine. These are angry men. Accommodation is not an option. It has to be containment or annihilation.”
That is what makes these people so different from the IRA or ETA or any of the West’s entirely indigenous terrorists: there can be no possible meeting of the minds or compromise or middle ground to be found with the current crop of Wahhabi inspired mass murderers. It really is them or us.
The attempted London bombings were, we will be told, a consequence of US/UK actions Iraq or Palestine or Afghanistan or something or other about George Dubya Bush or Halliburton or Global Capitalism or Social Injustice. You may be certain that all these bullshit excuses will be trotted out by the disingenuous left who crave the accusations or the deeply provincial Americocentric faction of libertarianism who pretend bad people will leave you alone if only you stay in your mountain bunker in the Ozarks, do not ever send soldiers abroad and refuse to trade or interact with the rest of the world.
However I wonder what these people will make of the possibility that the attacks could well have been about Britain daring to grant an honour to Salman Rushdie. Yet again I am delighted that Rushdie was so honoured, thus subjecting so many of western civilisations’ enemies, domestic and foreign, to the harsh light in which their true natures are revealed.
Of course I have no doubt this will all be used to bring in yet more regulation of our lives, reducing even more of our already grotesquely abridged civil liberties whilst leaving us not even slightly safer.
I for one was delighted when I heard Salman Rushdie was going to be knighted… which might sound odd given that I regard the puffed up popinjay as a caricature of the very worst traits of the ‘meejah’ class, truly an example of how the empty vessel makes the most noise (though I cannot fault his taste in crumpet).
But the fact UKGov did something that was so obviously going to put one in the eye of the Islamists is a good think in and of itself regardless. Like the Mohammed cartoons incident and its aftermath, the reaction across the Muslim world to this serves as a very useful reminder that the ‘moderate Islam’ is a myth (for a superb account of this ‘from the inside’, I recommend Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and that not only helps in the battle against intolerant Islam directly, it helps in the culture war closer to home against Islam’s host of useful idiots in the western world.
The book is now officially open…
Muslim radicals burned an effigy of Queen Elizabeth Tuesday as Pakistan summoned the British ambassador over Salman Rushdie’s knighthood and Iranian hardliners turned their fury on the monarch.
…so time to place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.
Will the British government buckle? Yes or No?
The Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has issued a strong rebuke to the Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister for saying that the UK’s decison to award a knighhood to author Salman Rushdie was a justification for suicide bombing.
Mr. Haniyeh was quoted as saying:
“Ejaz-ul-Haq is a dog. The whole world knows that the reason for suicide bombing is the suffering of the Palestinian people. Now he is saying it is Salman Rushdie. Does he want the world to simply forget our plight? Is he in the pay of the Zionists now?”
The row has prompted EU officials to express concern that there was a “risk of public confusion” as to the genuine justifications for suicide bombers and other terrorist acts. EU Ministers are expected to convene an emergency session to determine the real root cause of terrorist acts which member states will be required to officially endorse.
In Lebanon media bias goes to a whole new level:
A Lebanese TV news presenter has been sacked over comments in which she gloated over the assassination of anti-Syrian politician Walid Eido.
The presenter, who has not been named, then went on to name a Lebanese MP who would be assassinated next.
She was unaware that her microphone was on and that the comments were being broadcast live.
That is taking character assassination way over the top.
If you are not regularly reading Michael Yon, you are really missing out on something interesting.
I am not particularly in favour of sucking up to the Saudis, or of political subsidy for the British arms industry; but can someone please explain why this is vicious nasty corriuption that ought to be internaltionally banned even if it is the custom where the deal is done, and this is a UK local government policy raising a mere £2,500 million a year, in extortion bribes grateful contributions from property developers (on top of which HMRC now is trying to arrange to take a further20% rake-off supplement)?
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