In order to make your very best first impression, practice your suicide bombing at home first, preferably with all your friends and family present to “critique” your efforts.
You’re welcome.
11/11/11
Once known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, we now call it Veteran’s Day. While I usually cite “In Flanders Field” on this day, today I’m eschewing that traditional notice to make note of the current scene and the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “remembrance” of those who died recently at Ft. Hood as a contrast to the kinds of remembrances that have gone before. It seems none dare call it terrorism; none dare note the clear and unequivocal connection to clear and unequivocal teachings of Islam; and none dare call it treason.
In time of war, a man who redefined his identity (he called himself Palestinian, though he was born in Virginia), prayed with a jihadist cleric, complained and preached to acquaintances, and may have contacted terrorists, shoots several dozen people, most of them servicemen and -women, and our commentariat wonders what is going on.
No, the politically correct, multi-culti response from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind is to call what happened a ‘tragedy” and to downplay or completely deny its connection to The Cult of Hate while fearing a (reasonable) backlash against Islam.
Once again:
Those who commit horrific acts of savagery and claim they do it to advance the cause of Christ are liars and not at all Christian, because their very acts contradict both the Nazarene’s life and His teachings.
OTOH, Those who commit horrific acts of savagery and claim they do it to advance the cause of Mohamed are clearly following the example and teachings of The Butcher of Medina, whose first “great victory” was won over the bodies of 900 men of the Ban Quraysa Jews of Yathrib (now known as Medina) who he gulled with a lying offer of truce into the massacre he had planned, followed by the pillage of the Ban Quraysa Jews’ goods and the rape and enslavement of their families.
Those who follow the example of this first “great victory” and all the other subsequent acts of savagery, betrayal, perversion and other evil committed by Mohamed (the Butcher of Medina), can lay claim to being genuine, true, honest and forthright moderate (mainstream) Muslims, just like Nidal Hasan, the Butcher of Ft Hood.
Federal law-enforcement sources have told the British press (which is where one has to go to get news about Islamist terrorism in America) that Hasan came to the FBI’s attention early this year when a blogger identifying himself as “Nidal Hasan” — a name bearing a striking resemblance to “Nidal Hasan” — posted odes to suicide bombers on the Internet.
But our “commentariat”–the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind–would have us not notice these simple things, and so they spit upon those killed at Ft Hood.
Great way to observe Veterans Day, eh?
“Mighty Mouse” Saved the Day
She may be small at only 120 pounds, but Sgt. Kimberly Munley is a “moderate Muslim’s” worst nightmare: a woman with a gun who refuses to back down.
In case you’ve been living in a box under a bridge somewhere and thus missed the news, Sgt. Kimberly Munley is the civilian police officer under contract to the Army as a part of the security services at Ft. Hood who is responsible for putting enough bullets into “moderate Muslim” Islamic terrorist, Maj. Nidal Hasan to stop his bloody rampage.
Good on you, Sgt. Kimberly Munley. And a big “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” to Islam and its view of women, too.
BTW, although Munley took three hits from “moderate Muslim” Islamic terrorist Hasan, she still took him down. From reports, she lost a lot of blood but is recovering.
“She said one of the bullets hit an artery and she lost a lot of blood, but she sounded in good spirits,” said country music singer Dierks Bentley, who met Munley at a July 4 event and called her Friday.
“She was laughing and joking.”
To her friends, relatives and former colleagues in North Carolina, Munley’s bravery was par for the course.
Hats off to Sgt. Munley. American woman vs. “moderate Muslim” Islamic terrorist. Moose-limb boys? you really don’t want to go there.
Oh, the title of this post? Don’t blame me. “Mighty Mouse” is the nickname Munley was saddled with after saving a fellow officer–a man–from an assault by a motorist at a traffic stop.
Respect for Islam
Frankly, I have read the Muslim “holy books” (OK, in several translations, because I do not read Arabic) and done as much reading as I could stomach on the life of Mohamed, the Butcher of Medina, and I can find nothing of worth in Islam at all. Any morality in the life and teachings of Mohamed, the Butcher of Medina, is either lifted from elsewhere or twisted into a vile perversion and in any case is overwhelmed by the 70+% of Islam’s “holy books” that is simple, plain hate speech and incitement to abuse of “unbelievers”.
And Islam’s “contributions” to civilization? A big fat zero with the rim kicked off. Algebra? Nu-uh. Been known and used for millennia before Islam and the form reintroduced with so-called “Arabic numbers” was stolen from the same place the Muslims stole their maths: India–and BTW, Muslims castrated the maths they stole from the Hindu mathematicians, because negative numbers were “theologically” repugnant to them. Typical.
And so it has gone with all the great Islamic “contributions” to civilization. Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat”–among the very the best of Islamic lit to come to the West–is a. full of things that would get poor Omar killed by genuinely devout Muslims and b. just so-so as literature. Western lit is FULL to overflowing of much better stuff. In fact, so full of “much better stuff” is Western lit that Averroes, the greatest of Islam’s “scientists” (though the term didn’t exist then, really) wrote his greatest work as nothing more than a commentary on… Aristotle.
Whoopee! Nothing original, just a glorified study guide.
And that is the BEST of what Islam has had to offer: mediocre literature that is not very Islamic at all, stolen philosophy and technology, and rehashing of the great thought of WESTERN thinkers.
Everything else? Pretty much either worthless or of highly NEGATIVE “value”.
And contrast so-called “Christian” acts of barbarity with Muslim barbarity. FACT: People who claim to be Christians and who commit mass murder, rape, pillage, slaving, etc., CLAIMING to do so in the cause of the Christ are liars, for all these things are diametrically opposed to the life and teachings of The Nazarene.
OTOH, FACT: Muslims who commit mass murder, rape, pillage, slaving, etc., claiming to do so in the service of Mohamed’s cult of hate are smack dab in the middle of Islam’s teachings, for these things are central (over 70% of Islam’s so-called “holy books” deal with exhorting Muslims to do such things or providing permission to do such things) to Islam. In fact, both “holy lies” (al taqiyah, deceiving the unbeliever) and mass murder are central to Mohamed’s–the Butcher of Medina–first “great” victory: the mass murder under a flag of truce of ~900 of the Banu Quraiza Jews at Yathrib (now known as Medina), followed by the pillaging of their goods and the rape and enslavement of their families.
If Mohamed were alive today and just starting out, he would be seen by those with eyes to see and ears to hear as several orders of magnitude more evil than Jim Jones and his words as more toxic than the Jonestown Koolaid.
So, there you have it: all the respect for Islam I can muster.
Typical Muslim “Moderate”
Fort Hood shooter was member of Homeland Security Panel advising Obama
Chew on that the next time someone spouts bullshit about “Muslim moderates”.
h.t. Atlas Shrugs
Clash of Civilizations?
This is another re-post, this one from November of 2006, recalled for service as a result of the comment in a post earlier today, “Of course, the largest part of the problem is the way Islam has codified the savage tribalism and bent toward irrationality that is endemic in the region.”
Just a few off-the-cuff thoughts on the putative “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islamic societies.
First, let me define what may be an idiosyncratic view of civilization that may find echoes of sentiment in some folks, at least. I recognize that “civilization” (a rather recent word in the English language, as such things go) was coined to refer to a society of “city dwellers,” and that’s about it. But I would submit to you that any society that is truly civilized must recognize and embody certain fundamental principles. Leading those principles are:
1. Private property rights.
2. Rights of persons to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own goals, insofar as those goals do not infringe on the rights and property of others.
3. A government concerned with protecting these rights against outlaws–both within and without the society.
By any measure, especially the principles noted above, one can see that if Muslims can be said to be civilized at all, it is a most crude, rudimentary and severely flawed “civilization” they own, indeed. Property rights? Islam is clear that property rights are first and foremost for Islamic men, almost to exclusion. Oh, dhimmis can own things in Islamic countries… as long as some greedy Muslim man doesn’t decide they want it instead (following Mohammed’s treachery, rape, pillage, butchery and enslavement of the Jews at Medina, et al.). In Islamic society, regardless the false protestations of “moderate” Muslims, it’s essentially a pack mentality where top dogs rule.
Of course, given human nature, Western societies have a degree of that sort of thing, as well, but property rights (well, until Kelo) were at least protected with a fair degree of evenhandedness under the law for most of the history of Western civilization. In fact, the progress of true liberalism in Western civilization can be fairly traced largely in the restriction of the greed of the powerful to legally “steal” from the weak. Continue reading “Clash of Civilizations?”
About Afghanistan…
Camille Paglia, of all people *heh*, has articulated my own view rather well, although I have a small difference of strategy with her:
Let’s get the hell out! While I vociferously opposed the incursion into Iraq, I was always strongly in favor of bombing the mountains of Afghanistan to smithereens in our search for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida training camps. But committing our land forces to a long, open-ended mission to reshape the political future of that country has been a fool’s errand from the start. Every invader has been frustrated and eventually defeated by that maze-like mountain terrain, from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union. In a larger sense, outsiders will never be able to fix the fate of the roiling peoples of the Near East and Greater Middle East, who have been disputing territorial borderlines and slaughtering each other for 5,000 years. There is too much lingering ethnic and sectarian acrimony for a tranquil solution to be possible for generations to come. The presence of Western military forces merely inflames and prolongs the process and creates new militias of patriotic young radicals who hate us and want to take the war into our own cities. The technological West is too infatuated with easy fixes. But tribally based peoples think in terms of centuries and millennia. They know how to wait us out. Our presence in Afghanistan is not worth the price of any more American lives or treasure.
I still think it’s worth the time and treasure to bomb the hell out of the Afghan mountains that form a refuge for the Taliban and al Qaeda. And it might not be a bad thing to periodically swing back around that way and carpet the mountains with more Big Berthas until they’re mostly gravel. Just cos.
As for, “…outsiders will never be able to fix the fate of the roiling peoples of the Near East and Greater Middle East,” well, almost. Outsiders have done rather well for historically short periods of time (multiple decades) by partitioning the warring tribes and sects and punishing those who stray from their corners. Such a technique might well work in Iraq, if coupled by a “democracy” that is more republican than democratic, allowing the various tribes and sects to have representation in an overall federation via traditional tribal/sectarian leaders, not by openly democratic elections. In Iraq, it would have a fairly good chance of at least fostering a more or less stable government at least until the next strong man emerges.
But continuing to play “democratic nation builder” with the tar baby of millennia-old tribal and sectarian feuds is a plan for failure, IMO. The only large groups in that area even remotely interested in a more or less Western style representative democracy are Israel, the Kurds (~) and, to some degree, Turkey–because of the still powerful lingering effect of Kemal Attaturk’s example. The rest? Not even the relatively more civilized notional country of Iraq is anywhere near ready for a genuine Western style representative democratic republic, IMO.
(Of course, the largest part of the problem is the way Islam has codified the savage tribalism and bent toward irrationality that is endemic in the region.)
I see others hold similar views, apparently having learned the lesson of Santayana’s Axiom, where most have not. Had I been keeping current in my reading (alas, a monster of a cold has set me back), I would have seen Jerry Pournelle’s comments and his posting of the very relevant “FORD O’ KABUL RIVER” by Kipling, sho knew a thing or three about the peoples of Afghanistan… which things have not changed much since Kipling’s day.
Kabul town’s by Kabul river —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
There I lef’ my mate for ever,
Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
There’s the river up and brimmin’, an’ there’s ‘arf a squadron swimmin’
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town’s a blasted place —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Strewth I sha’n’t forget ‘is face
Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford!
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an’ they will surely guide you
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town is sun and dust —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
I’d ha’ sooner drownded fust
‘Stead of ‘im beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
You can ‘ear the ‘orses threshin’, you can ‘ear the men a-splashin’,
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town was ours to take —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
I’d ha’ left it for ‘is sake —
‘Im that left me by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
It’s none so bloomin’ dry there; ain’t you never comin’ nigh there,
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark?Kabul town’ll go to hell —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Fore I see him ‘live an’ well —
‘Im the best beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
Gawd ‘elp ’em if they blunder, for their boots’ll pull ’em under,
By the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Turn your ‘orse from Kabul town —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Im an’ ‘arf my troop is down,
Down an’ drownded by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
There’s the river low an’ fallin’, but it ain’t no use o’ callin’
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana
and
“In a democracy (’rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom
And, as someone at Pournelle’s site commented,
“Some days reading the news is like living in a Flashman novel.”
*heh*
A “Kipling Tuesday” Repeat
One would think the logic of the lil ditty below would be manifest in how we treat with those who finance or otherwise enable terrorism–the default behavior of devout Muslim savages–but, sadly, that’s not the case…
The Grave of the Hundred Head
–Rudyard KiplingThere’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face–
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race–
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven’s gate.The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay–
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village–
The village of Pabengmay,
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris–
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah’s head
Must be paid for with heads five score.There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
Dealing With Terrorists
Thinking on the current administration’s apparent views on terrorism and terrorists, I’m reminded of a contrary POV “Ding Chavez”–a character in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six–articulated about getting inside a terrorist’s mind,
“…the best thing about the inside of a terrorist’s mind was a 185-grain 10mm hollow-point bullet entering at high speed.”
Or, as a bumper sticker I saw not recently said, “Marine Sniper: You Can Run, You Just Die Tired.”
THAT’S how one properly deals with terrorists. Patting them on the head and saying, “Oh, you bad boy, you! We’ll just have to find some way of cominucating with you, dear,” isn’t the way to deal with terrorists.
Proper Discrimination
Making genuine distinctions between classes of events or objects or people, distinctions that are real and reflect an understanding of those distinctions is proper, right, just discrimination between differences.
I say this because it is easy to fall prey to those who simply sneer at careful discriminations between classes (of objects, events or people), especially when such folks climb on a “moral equicalence” horse and attempt to equate events, behaviors and people who are not equivalent.
Recently, in a Facebook discussion, I mentioned some clear behavioral distinctions between Christians and Muslims, and a respondant replied with, “Yeh, but there are some pretty horrific acts incited by God in the Old Testament.”
I threw the bullshit flag on that one, and here’s why. Compare the Old Testament (which is very influential but not dispositive in Christian theology; that’s why there’s a NEW Testament) with Islam’s primary text, the Koran. The Koran is at least 70% by actual content filled with exhortations to murder, slavery, theft, lies and more directed toward non-Muslims–and that doesn’t count the many exhortations to abuse women. The Hadith is even more bloody-minded, as it is more directed toward a recounting of the life of Mohamed. The Old Testament? About 5%–mostly in such books as Judges–of the content approves of violence against those who do not follow the Israelites’ religion.
But don’t stop there. The commenter’s postition was that since this 5% or so of the OLD Testament approved of violence against “unbelievers” then that meant Christians were the moral equivalent of Muslims (note: he never actually denied the facts of the brutality approved of–indeed encouraged by–the Koran… because no one can and not be proven a liar or idiot). But…
When Muslims commit mass murder or rape or theft or enslavement or any number of other brutal acts condemned by civilized people, they are directly, honestly and genuinely emulating the life of their so-called “perfect man”–Mohamed–and following his explicit teachings.
When someone claiming to be a Christian does those things and says it is excusable on Christian grounds then he is a liar, for,
…whoever says he abides in him [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he [Christ] walked.–I John 1:6
…and nowhere in the New Testament is there any record of the Nazarene condoning such behavior or engaging in such. Nowhere. (Go ahead: argue with me about Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple. I can handle that easily, especially in the face of Mohamed ordering 900+ Jewish men killed after they’d assembled under a truce; their women raped; their homes plundered and their surviving families taken into slavery.) Indeed, his teachings are the polar opposite of the violence and other abuse against unbelievers advocated by Mohamed.
So, whenever you see or hear false comparisons between the many horrific acts of Islam–consistent through history on up to today’s Islamic terrorism–and such things as the abuses of the Inquisition, remember: Islamic abuses have clear and unequivocal roots in the life and teachings of Mohamed, whereas all the horrific abuses perpetrated in the name of Christ by evil men, from the mass murder of Cathars to the Inquisition, WERE NOT in any way, shape, fashion or form in agreement with the life and teachings of Jesus of Galilee. It’s simple, really: evil can be freely committed by Muslims legitimately following the example and teachings of the founder of Islam, whereas such acts can never honestly be claimed to be in discipleship of the Christ.
That’s a discrimination that any honest, decent person must make.