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.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Much as I respect the analytical abilities of the CIA, surely I am not the only one who thinks the audio tape of ‘Osama bin Laden’ offering the hand of peace to Europe, provided Europe withdraws its troops from Muslim lands, is completely bogus.
Are we to believe that the head of that nasty global franchise called Al Qaeda cannot afford to purchase a cheap camcorder in a medina somewhere in Pakistan to reproduce the distressingly effective spectacle of Osama waving his finger at the USA and going “Nah nah, you can’t get me”? The notion he is hiding what he looks like after radical plastic surgery is, I suspect, the product of watching too many Hollywood movies.
Sorry, but I do not buy it. If I was a betting man, I would wager that Osama bin Laden died in Afghanistan years ago either when that group of people was attacked by US aircraft and ‘an unusually tall man was with them’ (can anyone point me at a link to that story?) or he was buried in a collapsed tunnel after one of a number of heavy US air attacks.
Only time will tell for sure but although Al Qaeda lives, I very much doubt Osama bin Laden does.
 
Both still dead
Arts & Letters Daily links to two articles, both protesting against the absurdities and cruelties of political correctness.
David Mamet writes in the Guardian in connection with the forthcoming London production of his play Oleanna, the central character of which is a young woman who falsely accuses a man of raping her:
The play’s first audience was a group of undergraduates from Brown University. They came to a dress rehearsal. The play ended and I asked the folks what they thought. “Don’t you think it’s politically questionable,” one said, “to have the girl make a false accusation of rape?”
I, in my ignorance, was stunned. I didn’t realise it was my job to be politically acceptable. I’d always thought society employed me to be dramatic; further, I wondered what force had so perverted the young that they would think that increasing political enfranchisement of a group rendered a member of that group incapable of error – in effect, rendered her other-than-human. For if the subject of art is not our maculate, fragile and often pathetic humanity, what is the point of the exercise? And if the writer is capable, why enquire, let alone obsess about his sex? No one ever said of a comedy, “I laughed myself sick until I discovered the sex of the writer.”
But as Theodore Dalrymple makes clear, there are limits to the notion that a woman can do no wrong. If the wrong is done to her by her own ethnic minority, and even in particular by a male member of it (her father), then it is all her fault. → Continue reading: She can do no wrong – but it is all her fault
It is not often I quote Nikita Khrushchev in any context, but Al Qaeda is quite correct that western civilization poses a clear and present danger to their cherished notions of a universal social life centred on submission to God. An economically successful western civilisation underpinned by severalty and free intellectual enquiry is caustic to a civilisation based on the submission to non-rational ideas which are propagated by force. To put it bluntly, we will enervate them and eventually destroy them by gradual assimilation.
The best and brightest muslims are already hard pressed to not see the glaring practical and intellectual flaws in their societies and want better for themselves, and as a result there is already a small but fairly well integrated middle class of secularized American and Euro-Muslims who can be observed in the markets, cinemas, offices, pubs and bars of the west. But far more dangerous to the broader Islamist project is the example not of western thought but of western affluence and the ease and secular self-direction it yields.
The sheer material wealth of the more advanced west is almost guaranteed to subvert the broad masses who come in contact with it. The current difficulties in assimilating the lower parts of the socio-economic western muslim population should not blind us to the fact that western culture’s corrosive effects on the Islamic world view really counts far more when they are felt in Peshawar, Ankara and Cairo than in Marseilles, London and Chicago. In that theatre of the war of civilisations our truly effective weapons are not the gunship helicopters, laser guided bombs and 5.56mm small arms being used in Iraq right now, but rather our cheap DVD players, Internet connections, music/porn/action videos and smorgasbord of good, accessible but inexpensive Tex-Mex, Thai, Italian and Lebanese foods that globalisation has brought us, etc. etc. I have made this point before but as we concentrate on the more local and violent issues being resolved in the streets of Iraq, it does not hurt to put it all in the broader context within which our enemies certainly see things.
It is the horror of this viral characteristic of western consumer culture which really lies at the heart of the antipathy of the Islamists to the west: as secular society and severalty is the true heart of our civilisation, by our very nature we cannot and will not just ‘leave them alone’. It is not a matter of what western governments want to do, because western businesses and cultural influences will go wherever there are receptive markets and audiences. It is not a western ‘conspiracy’ to subvert Islam, merely the very nature of western civilisation at work. Short of turning the entire Islamic world into a hermit empire like North Korea writ large, the mullahs and ayatollahs cannot avoid their flocks hearing our siren songs.
Our weapons are varied and effective
I can only hope that the Americans keep their nerve and use the wide scale of the uprising to not just decapitate the more florid Islamist leadership but also place clear ‘markers’ as to what the response will be to armed uprisings during the de facto ‘protectorate’ phase of Iraq’s post-Ba’athist reconstruction.
As things are developing day by day, it is pointless for me to just reiterate the reports filling the news media as to the current state of the cut and thrust on the ground, but there may indeed be an analogue with the Vietnam war here… and it ain’t a ‘quagmire’… the Tet offensive may have been a political disaster for the USA but it was a military triumph and more or less wiped out the Vietcong as a significant military and political force. If the US can do the same to not just Muqtada al Sadr’s Islamo-fascist militia but also to any the militias of any who make the mistake of supporting him, it will have profoundly useful effects long after the fighting fades into history and the US and UK forces have gone home.
 Translation: Follow my finger and shoot… hereAlthough Ali Sistani is, in the overall scheme of things, someone that the occupying powers can probably do business with (though that remains to be seen), it can only be helpful to his education if Muqtada al Sadr, that heir to the ‘Mad Mahdi’, can be seen to come to a fairly public and messy end surrounded by as many of his supporters as possible. Notions of putting this man on trial are to say the least ‘unhelpful’.
If a successful confederated Iraqi republic is going to come out of this without falling into a democratically sanctified ‘popular Islamic’ tyranny like that which so many in Iran are trying hard to throw off with their own efforts right now, it is going to take some serious stick, and not just carrot, to make things come out more or less the right way. That is, alas, the way the real world works and hopefully the US and UK have the fortitude to see it through to its conclusion without cutting and running prematurely. So far the signs are reasonably good as only the usual suspects are bleating for political defeat to be plucked from the jaws of eventual military victory.
I believe the events of the past few weeks will be seen, in time, as a major turning point for the better in Iraq. When the dust has all settled, two of the major threats to a peaceful, prosperous, and free(er) Iraq were beaten back.
First, the Baathist bitter-enders invested heavily in Fallujah, where they tried to recreate Mogadishu and failed utterly. Fallujah is over for all practical purposes, and was a complete and crushing victory for the US Marines, and a humiliating and very costly defeat for the Baathists and their Sunni allies. Marine casualties were low (less than 20 killed, I believe), Baathist casualties were extraordinarily high (their body count is likely well into the mid-hundreds so far), plus the Iraqis have been treated to the sight of women and children fleeing from the Sunni/Baathist stronghold into the American-held safe zone, where they will be fed, housed, and not used as hostages or human shields.
What many of the handwringers in the media and elsewhere fail to realize is that the exodus from Fallujah means that the Americans have won there. The Americans have been trying to get non-combatants out of Fallujah all along, as the noncombatants were in Fallujah primarily as hostages and human shields. The fact that they are now fleeing means either (a) their neighborhood has been taken by the Americans or (b) the Baathists have been so weakened that they can no longer stop them from leaving. → Continue reading: Turning point
Salam Pax has this to say about the al-Sadir militia.
Remember the days when every time you hear an Iraqi talk on TV you had to remember that they are talking with a Mukhabarat minder looking at them noting every word? We are back to that place.
You have to be careful about what you say about al-Sadir. Their hands reach every where and you don’t want to be on their shit list. Every body, even the GC is very careful how they formulate their sentences and how they describe Sadir’s Militias. They are thugs, thugs thugs. There you have it.
I was listening to a representative of al-sadir on TV saying that the officers at police stations come to offer their help and swear allegiance. Habibi, if they don’t they will get killed and their police station “liberated”. Have we forgotten the threat al-Sadir issued that Iraqi security forces should not attack their revolutionary brothers, or they will have to suffer the consequences.
The Jews are behind materialism, animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society. Principal among them are Marx, Freud, Durkheim and the Jew Jean-Paul Sartre.
Sayid Qutb, former leader Muslim Brotherhood, quoted by Barbara Amiel.
Well I disagree with the conclusion, but I must admit that the pantheon of evil is pretty exhaustive.
Marx: the inspiration for all the best serial killers
Freud: the apologist for all the best serial killers
Durkheim: serial killer of brain cells
Sartre: creep
Hmm…
What seems to be developing into an open revolt in Iraq by Shi’a Islamists could be a Godsend to the coalition and secular elements of Iraqi society in the long run… in openly taking up arms against the coalition and its Iraqi supporters, radical leader Muqtadar al-Sadr has changed the equation: what could have been a long term intractable political problem has been turned onto a military problem with a fairly obvious and direct solution.
French TV is running a story about explosives found along the high-speed railway link between Madrid and Seville today.
The explosives with copper wiring similar to that used in the 11 March attacks on Madrid appear to have been abandoned when a routine track patrol was made near Toledo.
N.B. Toledo was the site of two decisive battles: the first confirmed the Moorish conquest of Spain in 712, and the second was the launchpad of the Spanish Reconquistada with the Moorish defeat there in 1212. If this is the work of an Islamist cell, we have an answer to the question: “Did voting for the PSOE appease Al-Qaeda?”
The report adds that the new (Socialist) Interior Minister – responsible for law enforcement and internal security – is having a meeting today with the outgoing (conservative) Defence Minister. Bi-partisanship in Spain is about as frequent as Bible rallies in Riyadh. Nice one!
The Australian is a national broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, and in terms of quality and direction is fairly similar to the British Times. I suppose. Like any paper it makes the odd mistake, and has to publish a correction. On Tuesday it published the following.
A story headlined ‘Syria seeks our help to woo US’ in Saturday’s Weekend Australian misquoted National Party senator Sandy Macdonald. The quote stated: “Syria is a country that has been a bastard state for nearly 40 years” but should have read “Syria is a country that has been a Baathist state for nearly 40 years.” The Australian regrets any embarrassment caused by the error.
Personally I think that if anyone is embarrassed by this, there is absolutely no need for regret whatsoever. But that may be just me.
(Thanks to crikey.com.au for pointing this out).
Many people, Samizdatistas included, have wondered just where all of those billions of dollars of UN Oil for Food money went. It was rather apparent food and medicine were among the last things for which they were used.
Someone has finally decided to audit the accounts. According to Senior CPA Advisor Dan Senor:
In response to allegations of the former regime’s misconduct in the
administration of the oil-for-food program, Ambassador Bremer has issued a directive to interim Iraqi ministers, CPA senior advisors and regional governance coordinators to safeguard all information related to the oil-for-food program. This includes contracts, amendments and annexes to contracts and supporting materials. The directive stated that documents should be inventoried and recorded and inventories provided to CPA as soon as possible. Irregularities, including any evidence of bribes, kickbacks or corruption, should be noted. CPA officials will review submitted inventories and may seek access to any or all records associated with the oil-for-food program. These documents will be made available to investigations, some of which are being conducted by the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and Iraqi officials. The coalition is also assisting interim Iraqi ministers in identifying any current ministry officials who may have knowledge of misconduct arising from the administration of the oil-for-food program.
I can hardly wait to find out which bureaucracy embezzled more: the United Nations or Saddam’s Baathists.
But what is this? A former Archbishop of Canterbury daring to criticise Islam?
Muslims claim a former Archbishop of Canterbury who criticised Islamic culture is “recycling” prejudice.
Speaking in Rome, Lord Carey said Islamic regimes were authoritarian and committed to power and privilege.
Lord Carey said not enough moderate Muslim leaders had condemned suicide bombers “clearly and unconditionally”, the Daily Telegraph reported.
But Muslim Council of Britain secretary general Iqbal Sacranie said: “One is dismayed by Lord Carey’s comments.”
I just bet one is.
I cannot find the original Telegraph piece that this BBC report refers to, but I did come across this, from 2001, when Carey actually was the Archbishop. Which is interestingly different from what he is now saying.
The BBC report continues:
BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said Lord Carey’s speech had probably been more balanced than the impression given by the newspaper.
(Not that the BBC ever gives an unbalanced impression of anything.)
“One of the things that underlines his concern is the growth of Wahhabism – a very radical part of Islam – which is becoming quite dominant in the developing world,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
“There was also a sense when Lord Carey was archbishop, that he was growing increasingly frustrated by the problem in Islam, as he saw it, of there being something of a lack of a hierarchy where leaders could say authoritative things which could in some sense be morally binding for Muslims in general.”
Which would be why President Bush doesn’t rely on “diplomacy” (that is to say, mere promises of future good behaviour from those in no position to keep them), but concentrates instead on hunting the terrorists down in their own back yards, and uses diplomacy merely to pressurise those who get in the way of that process.
The West is learning.
ADDENDUM: In the hilarious first draft of this, I attributed the paragraph about Bush chasing terrorists, as well as the paragraphs above that, to the BBC. The mother of all misplaced html commands, I think you will agree. I do not apologise, because this was too much of a laugh, and laughs are good.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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