newcity
We need an ambassador. It would be a low presence position, but one that's essential for the future. We need an ambassador to Islam.
The US, the greatest marketing power on earth, has had a largely ineffective campaign to get our message out to moderate Muslims. We tried a few ways to do this, such as hiring Madison Avenue types to make up magazines, etc. These efforts failed largely, it seems, because the gap between our view of ourselves, and the view of those we are trying to reach is too large. Decades of hate speech from Saudi Arabian Wahabists, government hacks in Egypt, etc. have definitely poisoned the well.
The crux of their universe is Palestine. The fact that, if Israel disappeared tomorrow, it would not affect 99.99% of Muslims is irrelevant to them.
But, in a larger sense, the confrontation, a la Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations", is one that can only be resolved within Islam itself. This is an Islamic problem, a battle between fundamentalists and normal Muslims. What we need to do is crystallize the ability of moderates to confront and destroy the ideological foundations of fundamentalism from within.
We need to provide the ability of moderates to do this. We need to establish a non-partisan dialog between us and moderate Muslim leaders worldwide. Obviously this is not as simple as it seems. We can't fool ourselves into believing that, once they know us they will love us. After all, Sayyid Qutb, the father of Islamic fascism, lived in the US for several years. Mohammed Atta, the perfect fascist killer who planned 9/11, lived here as well.
But if there is, within moderate Islam, respect for pluralism and democracy, we need to build an atmosphere of mutual respect. We don't have to agree on every issue, or even eliminate strong passions on various topics (like Israel). But we DO have to reach an agreement on the illegitimacy of a culture of violence as a solution to Islam's problems.
We have to strengthen that concept within Islam. As the Saudis have funded their Salafi empire worldwide, leading to xenophobic hatred, we have to communicate the values of pluralistic tolerance and get agreement from Muslim leaders that this is the future of Islam.
They, then, have to develop this as a value within Islam itself. They have to communicate this. We can not. We do not have the presence or credibility to reach to the Masjid level and re-focus Islam on culture rather than violence.
Daniel Pipes estimates that 10-15% of Muslims are fundamentalists. That's over 120 million people who are dedicated to establishing medievalism in the world. That's completely unacceptable. The future of Islam rests on the ability of moderate Muslims to re-center Islam on a progressive path. The US has the resources to help. And, we have the attitude; one of respect for diversity.
But we have to take the first step. We have to reach out because, it seems, many Muslim leaders are unable to confront the demon in their midst.
More terrorism in Russia. Now there are 37 dead at the hands of a homicide bomber. A tragedy for the Russian people, who have my sympathies. I wonder if Putin will follow his own advice, and open a dialog with the Chechen rebels, as he urged us to do with Hussein when he, and the oleaginous member of the demimonde, Chirac, opposed our liberation of Iraq.
I can't help but think, when reading Islamist fascist literature, about the difference between what they want, and what normal people want. We want the world...freedom, peace, literature, arts, science, communication. They want 'God'. And ONLY God. Nothing BUT God...whatever they perceive him to be.
As I've stated before, religion is one of the most powerful concepts ever invented by humans. And the Islamists have a burst of genius: they've coupled sex with God. It's ironic that they hate one of "God's creations", women. They loathe women. Despise them. Wish to completely expel them from life. Journalist Robert Kagan, and columnist Andrew Sullivan have, on occasion, both described reports of homosexual advances from men in Muslim countries. Sullivan's take on it was that, since fundamentalist Islam has eliminated women from public life, teenage boys have no one left to turn to but other boys, and men.
Fundamentalist Christians and Jews have pretty much the same view of women. Fundamentalists of all religions attack women first. The difference is that, in the west, women have rights. If they choose to enslave themselves to religious fanaticism, it's their choice. In Saudi Arabia, however, they have the murderous "Mutaween", the religious police, who kill girls rather than let them be seen in public.
Women, in a sense, are like the canaries in the mineshaft. When religious beliefs get powerful enough to start repressing them, we know society is in danger. Women are first, but they're followed by Jews and gays.
In Europe, however, it seems Jews are the first to go. European appeasers of Islamist thuggery are, after that, quite content to see women fall victim to that brand of fascism. They never say a word about it.
So the Iraqi Governing Council is defying Ayatollah Sistani in his call for elections? Interesting. Apparently many Sunnis and the SCIRI (the largest Shi'ite council in Iraq) also feel it's premature to hold elections. I think we Americans always feel elections will solve everything.
And that's not necessarily so. We've seen, in Algeria, how the Islamist's rule of 'one man, one vote, once' is used to empower fascists and destroy a country. A recent poll found that less than 1% of Iraqis want a theocracy. But religion is about the most powerful idea humans have invented, and, in the case of elections, without a democratic heritage, there's a danger the Islamists could capture the process.
That would be a disaster for Iraq and for us. Iran would have a free hand to extend its unpopular ideology into Iraq. It would polarize Iraqi society. And it would provide an opportunity for Al Qaida. Iran has already given extensive support to terrorists, providing shelter to Ayman al Zawahari, Bin Laden's right hand man.
There's no question the proper path for Iraq is freedom. The path to get there is tortuous. No one, including the French or the Russians, has any better idea than we do how to do it. The French, with their extensive business interests in supporting fascists and communists worldwide (they are Cuba's largest lender), would rejoice in the establishing of a theocratic state in Iraq.
For the mental health of the middle east, as well as our own protection, we can not let that happen.
Man, it's COLD here today. Was 19 F when I got up. Much, much too cold. I'm not a winter person. One must, as a poet said, have a mind of winter to appreciate this cold. I don't. Point me to California!
Modernism...I am still coming to grips with how radical a break with history contemporary modernism is. Nowhere is this more evident than in the history of life on earth-evolution. In today's "NY Times", there is a book review written by Eric Sober of Simon Conway Morris's "Life's Solution". (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/books/review/30SOBERT.html)
The basic gist, according to the review, is to recast some of Lamarck's ideas in an evolutionary framework.
What is striking about Morris's book is how traditional it is, if the review is correct. (I have not read the book, but the review brings up fairly common themes about life's origins). Sober writes, regarding Morris's outlook:
"He also makes bitter remarks about the self-congratulatory atheism of many popularizers of evolutionary theory. He thinks the large-scale features of the history of evolution ''are congruent with a Creation,'' though they do not ''prove'' that God exists. He finds it significant that our universe ''seems strangely well suited for us,'' without pausing to consider that a hospitable universe is the only kind we could possibly observe. His recommended ''path to recovery'' from the corrosive naturalism that he deplores involves facing up to the fact that ''it is reasonable to take the claims of theology seriously.''
Again and again, when it comes to origins, we keep finding authors who want to insert teleology. Is this so bred into our culture that we can not escape it? Atheism, which Morris objects to, is, ironically enough, a NATURAL response to the incessant theologizing of science, and of culture. The subject of origins reeks, drips, with teleology. No one, it seems, really cared about HOW we got here until Darwin. It was merely accepted that, because of the purpose of a supreme being, we DID get here. Is there anything more corrosive to the human spirit than saying 'god did it', and walking away?
I am a scientist. Most scientists are religious, despite what Mike Behe, Phillip Johnson, and other nativists assert. I am an atheist not because of evolution, but, in part, because of CREATIONISM. This insistence that we are here for a 'purpose' stifles free thought and investigation into the world around us.
Steven Weinberg, one of the men who won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics (he helped unite the weak nuclear force with electromagnetism), once said 'the more we learn about the universe, the more it seems pointless'. While that may seem to be an overstatement, it is a refreshing breath of fresh intellectual air versus the exhausted theme of 'purpose' human beings are so reluctant to release.
A picture is worth a thousand words. And nothing is more telling than this picture of a little girl watching US troops preparing for a raid in Iraq:
http://iraq.sgtstryker.com/
If Iraqis were in a popular uprising against US troops, or if our troops were killers, like the far left says, would a child be watching this formidable force getting ready to go into action?
One point I have a small disagreement with Yoshida on is the destruction of fascist Baath forces in Iraq. I think we're dealing with an enemy who learns quickly. I remember reading an article about Taliban fighters which said they were capable 'soldiers' but didn't learn. They'd mass for an attack, then get slaughtered by US liberation forces. They massed because that's how they'd fight their former enemies. They didn't adapt.
But the Baathists have adapted and have learned. The problem for them is, so do we. The US Armed Forces are the most capable on earth. The fascists, entranced by the 'Black Hawk Down' episode (Hussein gave copies of this tape to his generals), thought we'd run when confronted by a ruthless enemy.
But we're not. We're bastards. And we will kill them, make no mistake about it. Norville de Atkine's article about why Arabs lose wars (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/716583/posts) is a classic study that, in a sense, encapsulates the difference between a murderous tribal culture of fascist narcissism and the capabilities of a free, democratic capitalist state. There is no contest.
We can, in sense, understand the fascist. In a way, we've all been there. Greed, corruption, nihilism, are forces which are rampant on the planet. But defending this institution called 'democracy', and internalizing the value of pluralistic secularism is what differentiates modern western culture from the failed societies that came before.
It is not a matter of 'race'. There is no difference between an Arab and myself. None. They are as smart as I am, as conscientious, and have every ability I do. It is a matter of culture. As Bernard Lewis has pointed out, Arab culture never developed the idea we gained from Roman law: the notion of the individual as an institution, with rights.
I've said before the idea of the nation-state is a western one, formulated in 1648 in the first modern nation-state, France. There may or may not be advantages of this type of societal organization vs. others, like tribal societies. And who knows what the future will bring. Is there a form of organization superior to the nation-state?
But it seems the world is in danger from tribal societies seeking to acquire technologies which can only be developed by nation-states. Bin Laden, for all his delusions about the "Umma" (international Islam), still is a tribalist. There is no freedom in his view; no individual. There is only the tribe, and the individual is a creation of it, especially women.
Democratic secularism can handle the idea of tribalism. What it can't survive is the war that tribalism seeks to wage against democracy. If individuals are the property of the tribe, and this value must be enforced through violence, then democracy must act. Democratic secularism is the greatest concept for the advancement of humanity ever invented. But it seems fundamentalists, of all stripes, will never accept this.
Andrew Sullivan, even if you disagree with him on many issues (and I am more liberal than he is), is always a font of information. He links to a conservative Canadian commentator (http://www.adamyoshida.com/) who states that US forces have, since the inception of Operation Iron Hammer, killed over 1000 enemy fascists in Iraq. Bravo!
Yoshida also is correct in that this was not reported in the 'Media' here in the US. So much for the idea that the 'media' is 'controlled' by the administration.
Yoshida has a perceptive analysis of commenting on the war as well. He's right about the phases commentators go through. At first, there's the bandwagon...everyone is for the war. Then it becomes a 'quagmire'. Hell, I remember Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Medicins Sans Frontieres, etc. wetting their collective diapers over the MILLIONS who would die if the US invaded Afghanistan. They were, of course, wrong. And they've never admitted it.
But, they repeat their mistakes ad nauseum. That's why I, who used to be a member of AI, no longer am. They have no credibility. I simply can't trust them. The head of AI in London actually was involved in organizing the anti-Bush protests. As I've stated many times, I did not vote for either Bush, and won't next year. But AI is supposed to be neutral. They aren't. Beyond the 'human rights' agenda these organizations have is a subtle agenda to oppose capitalism, globalization, etc. Except, of course, globalization of Islamist fascism.
Our allies continue, along with US forces, to die in defense of Iraqi freedom. The Spanish are the latest to suffer. According to reports I've heard, 4 Spanish intelligence officers due to rotate out of Iraq were killed, along with several who were just coming into the country. One escaped.
Spain has experience with domestic fascism, so is, probably uniquely among western European countries, familiar with what the Iraqis have faced. My condolences to the families of the Spanish agents, and to the people of Spain.
I guess blogging with blogger isn't perfect. There's supposed to be a utility to allow you to publish links so you can click on it and go to the site. My note below was supposed to contain this NY Times reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/01/international/middleeast/01MISS.html?ex=1070859600&en=cf6c578ab69d1f8b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Sorry about that!
Gee...what a surprise. Hussein was actively involved in acquiring missile technology from N. Korea in violation of UN sanctions. (See the NY Times story here:
What's funny is how there is no honor among thieves, even those who hate the US. Tells you a lot about their character, doesn't it? Apparently Kim Jong Il, the psychopath who runs N. Korea, stole $10M from the psychopath who used to run Iraq. Lovely.
And, it looks as if Syria was involved. No surprise there. Bashir Al Assad, the psychopath who runs Syria (notice a theme here?), thought he'd get away with supplying distribution for the missiles...for a bit of vigorish, I suppose.
Our work is not yet done. When Iraq is democratized, we have to, one way or another, start with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. The world is not safe while these regimes exist.
The number of people killed by US forces when they attacked a US convoy headed for a bank is gratifying. Good to see the fascists finally take one on the chin. We need to kill more of these guys, as well as find their leaders.
The staff sergeant who headed the convoy was interviewed on CNN this morning. He mentioned how he was thinking of his 10 month old child, and his wife, during the fight. The courage of these people astounds me. At Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook (New York City), the young people I work with there are so dedicated to doing their jobs well that I am astonished at how mature they are. Of course, they have their foibles just like anyone else. But, given the nature and character of our enemies, we're in pretty good hands.
