BONFIRE OF THE MORAL VANITIES

From the WSJ article about what really happened at Haditha (via Andrew McCarthy at The Corner)

The incident at Haditha--or the massacre, as it is often called--is due for a wholesale rethinking. The allegations are that in 2005 U.S. Marines went on a killing spree and deliberately executed 24 Iraqi civilians. The casualties have drawn an extraordinary amount of political attention, becoming an emblem for everything critics say is wrong with the Iraq war--in the common telling, another My Lai....

Many, including Members of Congress, were looking for another moral bonfire to discredit the cause in Iraq, and they found a pretext in Haditha. The critics rushed to judgment; facts and evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template. Most despicably, they created and stoked a political atmosphere that exposes American soldiers in the line of duty, risking and often losing their lives, to b criminal liability for the chaos of war. This is the deepest shame of Haditha, and the one for which apologies ought to be made.

Sometime back, Scott Johnson from Power Line wrote a column that discussed the Vietnam template used since early in the Afghanistan war to measure all U.S. military behavior:

Many have noted the media's efforts to portray the the current war in Iraq as a replay of Vietnam. These efforts date back to R.W. Apple's invocation of Vietnam on day 24 of the campaign in Afghanistan:

Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad. Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam?

This drum of defeatism has not stopped beating. This past week, for example, Knight Ridder reporter Tom Lasseter portrayed the situation in Iraq's Anbar province as a repeat of Vietnam. Lasseter 's article is a troubling piece with relevant quotes from officers in the thick of the action.

But the Vietnam invoked by most journalists is the media's Vietnam: the Vietnam which Braestrup exposed as a false media construct. (David Brooks's column yesterday
is a notable exception.) The elite media organs covered in Braestrup's book didn't get it right the first time around; it would be nice if they took a timeout for some introspection regarding past errors before superimposing the Vietnam template (as Austin Bay calls it) on the current conflict.

If only one could put Lasseter in touch with the Power Line reader who served in Vietnam and last week wrote in from his current post in Iraq. He finds only one similarity: "[T]he deplorable way the mainstream media with their left-leaning bias have reported the two wars."

There is another similarity, although the political left is incapable of appreciating it. During Vietnam, the media; academics, intellectuals, many public figures, entertainers, and the antiwar protesters of the time consistently and stubbornly refused to see communism for what it really was. They steadfastly ignored the millions of deaths brought about by this ideology in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and instead focused their attention on denouncing the United States as the center of all evil in the world.

Today we have the very same people consistently and adamantly refusing to acknowledge Islamic fundamentalism and the religious fanatics blowing up themselves and others for what they are.

Once again, the left prefers to ignore and/or enable a barbaric ideology that thrives on human enslavement, misery, and death. With tedious and infinitely repetitive talking points, they continue to subscribe to the comforting notion that the US is the cause of the mayhem and butchery and ignore the real butchers. And their deluded women's movement is more interested in forcing science to acknowledge that women are identical to men in every way possible, than they are in helping the women in the Middle East get out from under the oppression of Islam.

In other words, the MSM's Vietnam "template" is actually nothing more than that primitive and immature psychological defense mechanism known as DENIAL.

In two major wars, the political left has consistently perceived America as the threat to the world, and ignored to the point of complete hysterical blindness the real oppressors of human freedom and dignity. During Vietnam they deluded themselves into thinking that communism was okay (some even believed it to be superior to a free society) as long as you didn't provoke it. And now they prefer the same delusion about the religion of peace.

Does anyone doubt that they truly hoped and believed that Haditha would be the Iraqi Mai Lai--and that it would give them another chance to demonstrate their own moral superiority by loudly expressing the latent and fashionable anti-Americanism that is never far from the surface of leftist ideology.

But, as the WSJ article points out, the moral bonfire they gleefully stoked with their rush to judgment against the Marines in Haditha only exposes the flames of their own moral vanity.

TRICKS AND TREATS

Today's nanny state, managed by the compassionate and selfless left! Working 24/7 to make sure that all kids have a chance to grow up to be as entitled, self-absorbed, sexually inappropriate and lacking in self-control as Brittainy--or any of a dozen other wonderful role models.

IGNORING REALITY IS FUN !

It's always fun to ignore reality until the shit hits the fan. And that appears to be something our elected "leaders" do well, particularly-- but not exclusively-- on the Democratic side of the aisle. Their motto: Always put off till tomorrow what you should be dealing with today and maybe it will go away...and don't forget to posture, posture, posture!






And speaking of putting off till tomorrow...there are some projects I simply have to finish today; so, no blogging till tonight.

Consider this an open thread about social security ("Republicans hate old people"); S-CHIP ("Republicans hate children"); Jena ("Republicans hate Blacks"); the War on Terror ("Republicans are Islamophobic") or any other topic of your choice!

THE APOCALYPTIC VISION OF ISLAMIC FANATICS: A Sobering Reality

David Ignatius of the Washington Post--certainly no right wing shill-- has a sobering column at RealClearPolitics about Al Qaeda's quest for a nuclear weapon:

We've all had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime. Indeed, we have become so frightened of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, that we have begun doing the terrorists' job for them by undermining the legal framework of our democracy. And truly, I wish I could dismiss Mowatt-Larssen's analysis as the work of an overwrought former CIA officer with too many years in the trenches...

Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly a decade before 9/11, al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As early as 1993, Osama bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001. When the al-Qaeda leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical weapons, he responded: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

Even as al-Qaeda was preparing to fly its airplane bombs into buildings, the group was also trying to acquire nuclear and biological capability. In August 2001, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met around a campfire with Pakistani scientists from a group called Umma Tameer-E-Nau to discuss how al-Qaeda could build a nuclear device. Al-Qaeda also had an aggressive anthrax program that was discovered in December 2001 after bin Laden was driven from his safe haven in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda proclaimed a religious rationale to justify the WMD attacks it was planning. In June 2002, a Kuwaiti-born cleric named Suleiman Abu Ghaith posted a statement on the Internet that "al-Qaeda has the right to kill four million Americans" in retaliation for U.S. attacks against Muslims. And in May 2003, at the same time Saudi operatives of al-Qaeda were trying to buy three Russian nuclear bombs, a cleric named Nasir al-Fahd issued a fatwa titled, "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." Interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives confirmed that the planning was serious. Al-Qaeda didn't yet have the materials for a WMD attack, but it wanted them.

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.

If we add the mad mullahs and their psychotic president to the list of Islamic fanatic groups obsessed with obtaining nuclear weapons, then any reasonable person should realize that "Islamophobia" is a manifestation of the survival instinct, and simply some irrational, non-sensical or purely emotional response to the realities of the 21st century.


Let's revisit this MEMRI Report from ‘Al-Qaeda Undercover Soldier, U.S.A’ threatening massive destruction and death in the US and other western countries unless they convert or submit to Islam:

"Despite the fact that the New York, Washington, Madrid, and London expeditions have been carried out a few years back. The search for clues on how they were conducted in such a successful manner is still going on and reports upon reports are still being written about them. However, the next expedition might not find someone who can provide analysis for. The top intellects, strategists, and analysts, will be totally clueless as to how to explain what occurred. Let me also inform you that we are talking about two operations, not one. The scale of one of them is larger than the other but both are large and significant. However, we will start with the smaller, and temporarily put the larger on hold to see how serious the Americans are about their lives. Should you value your own life and security, accept Muslims’ demands, but if you shall prefer death (over giving in to Muslims’ demands). Then, we, by the grace of Allah, are the best in bringing it (death) to your door steps.

You should read the entire MEMRI transcript. Despite it being the braggadocio of a rather depraved adolescent bully trying to pump up his pathetic ego; one cannot help but reflect that this is a bully who really really desperately wants to kill you and your loved ones. He has something to prove about his manhood, and by Allah, he intends to prove it though it be the last thing he ever does. Thus, it is wise to take him and his fellow punks seriously.

The reality of the Islamic threat to the world is incredibly sobering. And if you have any doubts about that conclusion, or are tempted to dismiss this discussion as "fearmongering", then I urge you to read this post, and then this post from archives of The Belmont Club.

The first link discusses what is called "the strategic issue of our time": Is Islam compatible with a free society. The latter evaluates three conjectures about Islam and terrorism; a discussion that remains all-too relevant today:

Conjecture 1: Terrorism has Lowered the Nuclear Threshold
These obstacles to terrorist capability are the sole reason that the War on

Terror has not yet crossed the nuclear theshold, the point at which enemies fight each other with weapons of mass destruction. The terrorist intent to destroy the United States, at whatever cost to themselves, has been a given since September 11.
Only their capability is in doubt.

Their capability several years after the above was written has almost certainly improved dramatically. We know with almost complete certainty that a day is coming when we can no longer pretend that we have lots of time to stop the mullahs. Even as the international community ineptly moves toward some useless sanctions; there are too many among the world powers whose indifference will thwart any positive benefits such sanctions might have--as they did with Saddam. I would say that the Criteria to exceed Conjecture 1 have been satisfied. The threshold was lowered and terrorists either have nuclear capability or will have them imminently.

Conjecture 2: Attaining WMD's Would Destroy Islam

This fixity of malice was recognized in President Bush's West Point address in the summer of 2002, when he concluded that "deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend." The enemy was equally indifferent to inducement or threat. Neither making nice -- Jimmy Carter's withdrawal from Iran, Reagan's abandonment of Lebanon, Bush's defense of Saudi Arabia, Clinton's rescue of Albanian Muslims from Serbian genocide, the payment of billions in aid to Egypt and Pakistan -- nor the gravest of threats would alter the enemy's intent to utterly destroy and enslave America. Allah had condemned America. The Faithful only had to find the means to carry out the execution.

Because capability is the sole variable of interest in the war against terrorism, the greater the Islamic strike capability becomes, the stronger the response will be. An unrepeatable attack with a stolen WMD weapon would elicit a different response from one arising from a capability to strike on a sustained and repetitive basis.

As we see from the MEMRI article from a few short days ago quoted above; this position has continued to be promoted by Islam's radicals, who appear to speak not only for themselves, but an increasingly larger number of Muslims worldwide. You also might want to check out this map from an Islamic website; and this documentation of the bloody borders of Islam's expansion since 9/11.

I think it is fair to say that all bets will be off when Iran's nuclear capability becomes not just a threat, but a reality. I suspect that Ahmadinejad's defiant and bellicose position indicates that they already have some limited capability which they will not hesistate to use if the West tries to shut them down.

The second conjecture posits that there will be an escalating exchange of nuclear attacks that will inevitably result in the destruction of Iran and other muslim nations, possibly Pakistan or Syria; but since the threat of terrorism is transnational, the threat's full eradication of necessity will escalate beyond Iranian borders.

Does Islam care about this possibility? In the almost four years since the conjecture was written there are clear signs that some Islamic countries are concerned and risking quite a bit to prevent this scenario. But the great majority welcome it as "Allah's will" and some even have intentions of precipitating it to give credibility to their own little religious sect.

The problem is that for the seeds of democracy and freedom to break through the infertile Middle Eastern ground in which they have been planted, let alone to bloom--a hope initiated by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by the Bush Administration--we are talking in terms of decades.

Thus, time is not on our side as Al Qaeda and Iran both rush toward accomplishing their apocolypse; and as the political left in this country is more intent on bringing down Republicans and doing battle with global warming than they are are preventing a devastating clash between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.

Conjecture 3: The "War on Terror" is the Golden Hour -- the final chance

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat.

The policies initiated by President Bush bets everything on the hope that Islam can be changed if it is infused with some democratic opportunities and freed from some of the political and religious tyranny that has dominated the Middle East. If such a democratizing process had been started--and carried through-- twenty years earlier when the threat of Islam first came into Western consciousness...well who knows how much the situation might have changed by now? But the West, in its hubris, did not take the growing threat seriously enough because they were "realists"; and even today many in the "reality-based" community still dismiss or minimize it scornfully.

Even the devastating attack within our borders that finally spurred us to mobilize our resources and fight back both militarily and strategically is fading from our collective memory. Remembering 9/11 is now considered an act of "fearmongering" for political gain; and those who want to wipe it out of historical significance have the human tendency to forget whatever is unpleasant (sometimes called psychological denial by people in my profession) working in their favor.

And, contrary to the infantile imaginings of the antiwar and so-called "peace" movements, Bush's strategy actually represents the best possible hope for peace; even if it is slight. He has pursued the strategy, despite growing unpopularity in the polls, not because it will bring political glory, but because it is the 'best' option out of a plethora of really bad options.

It is a strategy that faces the grim reality of Islamic contradictions and historical brutality; yet has enough optimism and goodwill in it to be genuinely worth the price we are paying in Afghanistan and Iraq. If it works--and I haven't entirely given up hope yet-- millions of deaths might still be prevented.

If the peace crowd really cared about peace, then they would do well to reconsider their own perverse antics; and the Democrats their knee-jerk opposition to Bush.

Because, if both the antiwar fanatics, and the Democratic Party they increasingly seem to control, succeed in their determination to undermine the war in Iraq or the war on terror in general (as opposed to working to win it) ; or, if the Islamic extremists succeed in eliminating any voices for moderation and tolerance; then there will be only one strategic option open.

Whether it is appreciated or not, these last few years have indeed been our "Golden Hour" --the short time we have to deal with the threat that is represented by the radical elements of Islam.

So much of the last four years has been wasted and frittered away by the left and their carping and undermining of Bush's strategic ploy. The continual appeasement, encouragement and cover given to those who would destroy us without mercy, has markedly diluted what we might have accomplished up to now with our aggressive pursuit of a strategy that answers the strategic question of the day with a "yes".

The 'Golden Hour' is rapidly approaching an end. As the clock ticks down to answering "no" to that fundamental strategic question; and as we creep closer and closer to the ultimate confrontation with a medieval, uncompromising and fanatically ruthless religion which intends not only to obtain nuclear weapons, but to use them; there will be no deus ex machina --and no pointless protest marches with clever placards--that will be able to save the millions of lives lost in that conflagration.

ANSWER, Code Pink, most of the Democratic Party and all the other leftist nutjobs are already preparing to blame Bush if the worse happens. Rational minds--and history, if it survives--will recognize the truth: that President Bush has chosen a strategy and done everything possible to change the course of history. That the strategy was implemented too far along in the process to be able to wholly succeed; or that the enemy is even more nimble and eager to embrace death than western sensibilities could have possibly predicted-- are painful realities that must be faced.

Sir Winston Churchill once observed, "One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

We in the West need to stop flinching at the reality that faces us. David Ignatius clearly had a wake-up call as he evaluated Mowatt-Larssen's analysis of the Al Qaeda threat--and the rest of his cohorts need to have the same kind of alarm bells go off in their own heads.

Time is running out.

UPDATE: A related post of mine that answers some of the questions in the comments: "Strange Love: How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iranian Bomb"

AN IN-YOUR-FACE-MOMENT FOR THE DAVID DUKES OF THE WORLD

Meryl Yourish notices that all three of latest Nobel winners in economics are Jewish and says:

People talk about the brain drain of various nations’ top scientists and doctors coming to the U.S. because here’s where the action is. But let’s not forget the incredible addition of talent America has received due to the persecution of European Jewry for the last few centuries. The waves of Jewish immigrants from Europe brought America a lot more than the Hollywood studio system. It brought us top scientists, thinkers, doctors, technologists, and authors.

This is what I like to call an in-your-face moment for the David Dukes of the world. The convicted felon, whose only contribution to the world is the spread of hatred and bigotry, goes to Iran to be feted by his fellow bigots at the Holocaust denial conference, while back in America, the Jews that Duke hates so much are working hard at their respective crafts, and being recognized by the rest of the world for the valuable contributions they make. The fact that envy makes up a great part of the world’s Jew-hatred simply cannot be denied.

But there’s one country that has never expelled her Jews. And while there has been (and continues to be) anti-Semitism in America, there have never been pogroms, and Jews are safer, more protected, and more a part of society in America than they have ever been in Europe.

So let’s hear it for America, the nation where Jews have carved out one of our greatest successes since Biblical times. Let’s celebrate the nation of true diversity, not the faux diversity that is the European Union.

It was once noted that in an article "Are Jews Smarter": "Though Jews make up a mere 0.25 percent of the world’s population and a mere 3 percent of the United States’, they account, according to their paper, for 27 percent of all American Nobel Prize winners, 25 percent of all ACM Turing Award winners for computer science, and 50 percent of the globe’s chess champions."

This reality is pretty impressive; and a few months back, SC&A wrote a piece titled "Jews, Basketball, and the Human Potential" that discussed the phenomenon:

Pondering whether or not Jews are ’smarter’ than everyone else is like asking if basketball players are taller than everyone else.

The evidence speaks for itself. The real question, is why Jews are smarter. There are of course, many theories. Some point to genetics, others point to culture. Yet others see the Jewish achievement as a combination of factors, giving no added weight to culture or genetics. Let’s examine that.

The case for superior genetics is pretty easy to make. The smart Christian kid became a priest, or, if she ‘heard the call,’ became a nun- and that was that. The smart Jewish kid married the Rabbi’s daughter and produced more smart kids- and that was that.

From a cultural standpoint, there is an equally easy connection that can be made. Even in the most religious of households, Jews had to read and write in at least two languages, Hebrew and the ‘language of the land.’ In addition, Jews were obligated to participate in the welfare the community- not just their own, but the community of which the were a part. While many people have referred to the Jews as ‘clannish,’ the facts clearly indicate otherwise. As a group, Jews give more charity per capita than any other group. Various studies have concluded that most charity is given to make the donor feel good. Jews, on the other hand, historically give money because it’s the right thing to do. Within that community, there is a whole subculture of anonymous giving.

Let us, for a moment, look at the question from a slightly different perspective. Instead of asking, are Jews smarter? we might be better served to look at the significant individual and cultural impediments that stand in the way of both individual and cultural success.

Gagdad Bob wrote:

One of the most important but little known concepts in psychoanalysis is that of envy. It is a term of art, not to be confused with the dictionary definition. While potentially present in all people, it becomes much more problematic when aggravated by primitive defense mechanisms such as splitting and projective identification. It is one of the most important "mind parasites" discussed in my book, One Cosmos Under God.

According to Webster's, envy is defined as "malice," and a "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, joined with a desire to possess the same advantage." The psychoanalytic understanding of envy is that it is an unconscious fantasy aimed at attacking, damaging, or destroying what is good, because of the intolerable feeling that one does not possess and control the object of goodness. As such, it is an aspect of what Freud called the death instinct, since it ultimately involves a destructive attack on the sources of life and goodness. Particularly envious individuals cannot tolerate the pain of not possessing and controlling the "good object," so they preemptively spoil it so that they don't have to bear the pain.

Bob's post was discussing psychological dynamics of the political left, but the destructive and soul-eating envy that motivates third-rate individuals like David Duke and facilitates the decline of third-rate cultures like those in the Middle East can be understood in the same way.

To those multiculturalists out there who insist that cultural traditions cannot be interpreted psychodynamically; or claim that all cultures and cultural practices are equally good (except, of course, for Western culture which is uniquely evil by their standards) , I beg to differ. Here is an exchange that cries out for some pertinent psychological analysis:

Did you know that there are certain situations when a woman of Islam does not need to seek the permission of her husband to go without the veil?

Interviewer: "Dr. Al-Astal, we have seen that some of the female martyrdom-seekers set out on their martyrdom operation without a veil. To what extent does our religion allow women, when they embark upon jihad for the sake of Allah, to use means of camouflage such as removing the veil?"

Yunis Al-Astal: "When jihad becomes an individual duty, the husband's permission or consent is not required, because jihad becomes like prayer. Just like a woman does not have to ask for permission to pray, to fast during Ramadhan, or to give charity, she does not need to ask for permission when jihad becomes an individual duty. In my opinion, in places invaded by the enemy, jihad becomes an individual duty.

"With regard to your question about the veil, especially when it comes to martyrdom-seekers who had to go into the Zionist cities deep in Palestine - jihad is a duty, and so is wearing a veil, but the duty of jihad is ten times great than the duty of wearing a veil."

The psychopath being interviewed in this TV program is "Dr." Yunis Al-Astal, a Palestinian MP from Hamas. Clearly he was given his doctorate by one of the many fine Palestinian academic institutions that Hamas (and Fatah) has worked so hard at building to bring a better life to the people they represent. I believe the discipline Al-Astal majored in was Genocidal Studies, a popular area of study in that part of the world.

Women suicide bombers? Now there's an Islamic, and quintessentially Palestinian/Arab, cultural tradition that begs to be psychiatrically analyzed.

Consider for a moment the supposedly educated speaker in the TV program quoted above who authoritatively comments about the priority of jihad duty over wearing a veil; and then also consider the following TV interview translated from the always enlightening MEMRI . The discussion is an attempt to explain why more Muslims have not won Nobel Prizes :

Samir 'Ubeid: "Why has the prize been awarded to 167 Jews, and to only four Arabs out of 380 million Arabs - and all four are considered traitors? For example, Al-Sadat got the prize during the normalization process, and as a price for Camp David, together with Begin, who carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, and who was in the Hagana gangs. Later, the prize was awarded to [Ahmad] Al-Zewail, in order to buy his invention, and Al-Zewail has disappeared since."

Interviewer: "You mean the Egyptian Ahmad Al-Zewail?"

Samir 'Ubeid: "Yes, the Egyptian chemist. The prize was also awarded to Muhammad ElBaradei, and in this case, it is soaked in the blood of the Iraqi children and people. [...]

"Mother Teresa was brought, along with a group of people like her…"

Interviewer: "Some say the prize was awarded to her for her missionary activity in Africa, India, and so on..."

Samir 'Ubeid: "Let’s assume she was righteous, according to the logic of the media, which is now controlled by the Jews and Hollywood. When they awarded the prize to Teresa, they were trying to award an 'artificial hymen' or 'artificial honor' to this prize.
"My colleague said that there is democracy. What democracy is there, if out of 1.5 billion Chinese, only two or three were awarded the Nobel? If you examine the Russian scientists and writers, who shook the world with their literature and their knowledge...

"What about Sakharov, what about Tolstoy? In addition..."

Interviewer: "But Sakharov was awarded the Nobel prize."

Samir 'Ubeid: "I meant Chekhov. Chekhov! Chekhov! [...]

"Are we Arabs not included in the transfer of the scientific genetic code? We, the descendants of Al-Khawarizmi, Al-Jahez, Al-Razi, Avicenna, and Ibn Al-Haytham - are we all born idiots? Is there not a single scientist among us? Are we not included in the genetic code? Is intelligence not transferred down among us Arabs?"

Interviewer: "Scientific creativity occurs in freedom and democracy, brother."

Samir 'Ubeid: "Democracy does not explain how it was awarded to 167 Jews, from among those 15 million scattered around the world, while abandoning 1.5 billion Chinese, a billion Indians, and 380 million Arabs. This is racism. [...]

"The [Grameen] bank for the poor won the prize because some of its shareholders are giants like Haliburton and others. [...]

"They infiltrated this bank, which came to be in the pocket of the Freemasons. This prize stems from the core of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Let us analyze the remarkable cri de coeur of the interviewee. His is a hearfelt and passionate exclamation that stems from his righteous outrage and indignation at the unfairness of it all: "Are we all born idiots?"

That is a very important question, indeed. Are idiots of the magnitude displayed by the two experts above born--or are they made? If the former is the case, then there is not much hope that the culture or the religion will ever be able to function normally in civilized society.

I am not aware of any research that suggests that the differences in intelligence between different religious groups is large enough to account for such a significant discrepancy in outcome regarding the Nobel Prize. And it is worth noting, that, not only is the Nobel Peace Prize --which of all the Nobel Prizes probably represents the one that is most politically correct and awarded on the basis of prevailing political winds-- not awarded much to Islamic politicians (I wonder if that could it have something to do with the fact that many of them are psychopathic tyrants, despots, and religious bigots?) or even to citizens of the rigidly controlled Islamic regimes; there is also a noticeable lack of Arab/Islamic winners in all the other categories--i.e., medicine, physics, chemistry; as well as in literature and economics. Other subtle clues that might explain this state of affairs might found here, here, and here.

According to the second interviewee, this unfair outcome has something to do with a deliberate Jewish plot/conspiracy and is likely the reason why the learned doctor in the first interview so delightfully encourages women to kill Jews with girlish abandon.

If all this Islamic intellectual discussion sounds familiar, it should. Jewish Conspiracies is another discipline (along with Genocidal Studies) that is a favorite academic field of study in the institutions of higher learning (such as they are) of the Middle East. Indeed, these complex disciplines are taught even in institutions of lower learning, so that a vast majority of the Islamic population are completely conversant with them and find them extremely helpful for explaining away the oppressive, barbaric, and primitive aspects of their culture and religion.

The ubiquitous unwillingness to look within themselves or their cultural and religious practices to understand the serious defects that keep them among the most backward and ignorant people on the planet, despite their access to great wealth, is the psychological foundation of their dysfunction.

The psychodynamic explanation has been discussed many times on this blog, and it is a psychological defense mechanism called projection--which in more extreme and bizarre forms is referred to a paranoia. And this cultural projection and paranoia serves a very important purpose for the culture: it allows them to maintain a delusional sense of grandiosity and superiority, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary in the real world. Thus, they never have to confront their own inadequacies and failures. If everything is the fault of the Jews, then the solution is to eradicate the Jews and all will be well!

SC&A once observed:

By the year 2020, the projected Arab population will reach 400 million. Currently, there are less than 100 universities in the Arab world. Of that number, at least 10 are 'Islamic' universities that do not teach anything other than theology. Notwithstanding the obscene wealth generated by these oil rich nations, there is not a single Arab institution of consequence. There is no major research and no important scholarship that originates in the Arab world. In fact, the greatest scholarship concerning the Arab world and Middle East, originates outside the region, in America or Europe.

This is but one example of the consequences of the cost of dysfunction and repression.
...
Indeed, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year.

The abysmal backwardness found in this culture and region of the world has been studied and several explanations just seem to leap out at the investigators :

The barrier to better Arab performance is not a lack of resources, concludes the report, but the lamentable shortage of three essentials: freedom, knowledge and womanpower. Not having enough of these amounts to what the authors call the region's three “deficits”. It is these deficits, they argue, that hold the frustrated Arabs back from reaching their potential—and allow the rest of the world both to despise and to fear a deadly combination of wealth and backwardness.

Or here:

The oil wealth is matched by social backwardness, and the only other region of the world with an income level lower than ours is sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is decreasing, scientific research is virtually nonexistent, thzione region is suffering a brain drain, and illiteracy afflicts half of Arab women.

Or here:

The report mentions a number of factors that block the dissemination of knowledge. Among these factors are authoritarian and over-protective child rearing, the deteriorating quality of education in many countries in the region, curricula in schools that encourage submission, obedience, subordination and compliance rather than free critical thinking, the lack of autonomy at universities and the poor state of university libraries.

Note that nothing in these three separate reports implicates the fictitional Protocols of the Elders of Zion as the cause of Arab/Islamic intellectual stagnation! Nor do they provide any evidence of a Zionist conspiracy to restrict the development of Muslim IQs.

Yet, I would venture to say that a significant number of Muslims, like the good "doctor" who exhorts women to be suicide bombers and the gentleman interviewed by Al-Jazeera, are unwilling to consider their own cultural and religious beliefs and practices as causative and find it completely "logical" to blame Jewish conspiracies for their impoverished status in the middle east and elsewhere.

No, the members of this culture and this religion are not born idiots...rather their idiocy is carefully and deliberately crafted and molded by the societal and religious dysfunction so rampant in the Islamic world. Ignorance, stupidity, violence and blind obedience are rewarded; clear thinking is not particularly valued and often punished.

"Intellectual" debates about whether women should wear a veil when blowing themselves to kingdom come; or how grateful they should be to Allah that her sacrifice of her son has been accepted are not the hallmark of a sharp cognitive capacity, but rather indicative of a societal brainwashing that is so deep and totally pervasive that it has stripped women not only of their individual identity, but also separated them completely from their brains.

The stupid and the willfully blind are never willing to confront the true malignancy within and will forcefully denounce anyone who exposes their self-delusion, since that self-delusion is all that stands between them and a complete collapse of their basic assumptions about themselves as a culture or religion (i.e., that they are "religion of peace" is one, often-mocked self-concept).

To maintain the psychological denial, projection and paranoia on a cultural level takes quite a bit of group psychic energy. Constant vigilance must be maintained to prevent reality from undermining the fantasy. Consequently, there is little encouragement of independent thinking (too dangerous) or autonomous functioning (rules must be developed for even the most simple interpersonal interactions). Reality, truth and reason are the natural enemies of delusion, and all the cultural institutions must strive to eradicate any fertile ground for these to develop.

SC&A again (he is an expert on this part of the world, after all):

This is the kind of environment that allows for and justifies ‘honor killings.’ This is also how many young women are recruited into terror. If they are thought to have shamed the family, an act of terror serves as act of redemption for their family as well as themselves. The higher ‘morality’ of indiscriminate killing of innocents makes up for their transgressions.

This highlights another reality. In Arab cultures, there is no real reward or recognition for loving the sanctity of life. Those who profess a desire for real peace, non-violence, less corruption and less oppression are considered reformers.

In societies and cultures where increased violence is often seen after religious services (unique in the Abrahamic faiths), little emphasis is placed on self improvement, the betterment of society (the ‘real jihad,’ we are told) or humility. Rather, worshipers are whipped into a murderous frenzy directed at non- members. Each week, the hate is elevated.

These realities have brought Arab nations to their knees. Repression, oppression, terror, genocide and hate flourish. Entire populations are groomed to know only hopelessness, and not hope. There are failed economies, failed civil infrastructures and failed educational infrastructures. A child born in the Arab world today has little hope of achieving success on his own. There is little in the way of opportunities or a way out if the bleakness. There is no bright future to look forward to.

The only promise and guarantee that child can count on, is being taught to hate.

The only equality a woman in this sick culture can aspire to is as a suicide-bomber (and do they also get 72 virgins for their trouble? Inquiring minds want to know). Death, death, wonderful death is drummed into them during practically every waking moment because life is impossible when there is so much psychopathology. I can only imagine how the poor bastards--male and female alike, but perhaps specially the invisible women-- raised in such a pathological and dysfunctional environment must absolutely long for death after a lifetime of being hit over the head repeatedly by this cultural garbage.

The indoctrination into cultural idiocy starts young and continues throughout life, but the good news is that there is little evidence that the rampant idiocy found in Islam is biological or genetic. On the contrary, all evidence points to the fact that the underlying ideology embraced by the Islamic world deliberately ensures the "dumbing down" of the intellectual and moral functioning of its adherents.

So developing just a teensy bit of psychological insight into the denial, projection and paranoia that has run amok in the dysfunctional culture and religion of Islam could be an extremely helpful first step to finding real solutions to your very serious problems. Blaming the Jews is fun and all, but if you want to get serious about those Nobel Prizes, then you need a complete intellectual, moral and spiritual overhaul.

Sadly, Al-Astal represents compelling evidence that it is unlikely any insight will be developed in the present generation of Palestinians; and, since they have taken great pains to make sure that the next generation remains handicapped by the pervasive cultural idiocy, we might as well not expect any at all for some time to come.

TURKEY TACTICS AND IRRESPONSIBLE POLITICS

Thomas Sowell this morning on sabotage in a time of war:

With all the problems facing this country, both in Iraq and at home, why is Congress spending time trying to pass a resolution condemning the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago?

Make no mistake about it, that massacre of hundreds of thousands -- perhaps a million or more -- Armenians was one of the worst atrocities in all of history....

Historians need to make us aware of such things. But why are politicians suddenly trying to pass Congressional resolutions about these events, long after all those involved are dead and after the Ottoman Empire in which all these things happened no longer exists?

The short answer is irresponsible politics.

People of Armenian ancestry in the United States and around the world are justifiably outraged at what happened in the Ottoman Empire -- and at subsequent governments in Turkey which have refused to acknowledge or accept historical responsibility for the mass atrocities that took place on their soil.

But the sudden interest of Congressional Democrats in this issue goes beyond trying to pick up some votes.

They want a resolution to condemn what happened as "genocide" -- a word that provokes instant anger among today's Turks, since genocide means a deliberate government policy aimed at exterminating a whole people, as distinguished from horrors growing out of a widespread breakdown of law and order in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

These are issues of historical facts and semantics best left to scholars rather than politicians.

If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of Congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.

Large numbers of American troops and vast amounts of military equipment go to Iraq through Turkey, one of the few nations in the Islamic Middle East that has long been an American ally.

Turkey has also thus far refrained from retaliating against guerrilla attacks from the Kurdish regions of Iraq onto Turkish soil. But the Turks could retaliate big time if they chose.

There are more Turkish troops on the border of Iraq than there are American troops within Iraq.

Turkey has already recalled its ambassador from Washington to show its displeasure over Congress' raising this issue. The Turks may or may not stop at that.

In this touchy situation, why stir up a hornet's nest over something in the past that neither we nor anybody else can do anything about today?

...In a rare but revealing slip, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn said that an American victory in Iraq "would be a real big problem for us" in the 2008 elections.

Unwilling to take responsibility for ending the war by cutting off the money to fight it, as many of their supporters want them to, Congressional Democrats have instead tried to sabotage the prospects of victory by seeking to micro-manage the deployment of troops, delaying the passing of appropriations -- and now this genocide resolution that is the latest, and perhaps lowest, of these tactics.

Jonah Goldberg wonders where have all the Democratic foreign policy "realists" gone?

For quite a while now I've been hearing liberals insist that the Democratic Party is the home to serious-minded realism. Those whack-job, neoconservative-hijacked, Republicans are all a bunch of neo-Wilsonian idealists and democracy voluptuaries. Meanwhile, liberals are willing to make the cold, reasoned, case for America's enlightened self-interested. You'll even hear quite a few folks polishing apples from the Walt and Mearshimer's anti-Israel barrel.

Well, where are all these people when it comes to the Democratic Party's push to condemn the Armenian genocide?

Once again, the Democrats are unable to make a distinction between reality and myth when it comes to turkeys. Undoubtedly they see this sort of behavior as a way of gaining a little cheap glory for bravely standing up against the genocide of a few generations ago. What a bunch of courageous men and women!


Harry "the war is lost" Reid and the Democrats eager for defeat should be immensely proud. Not content with merely enabling Al Qaeda and encouraging them to kill American soldiers and Iraqis (not that they need much encouragement, but you would think that the Democratic bozos in congress would have some sense) ...at least someone finds their negativism and surrender mentality encouraging.

Not having the balls to actually oppose the war and be done with it, these useless hunks of flesh in Congress are trying to negotiate a way to sabotage that war, have the usual "plausible deniability" and at the same time make themselves look like champions of freedom and human dignity.

Sadly, they would appear to have more in common with the terrorist psychopaths they enable than with the troops they claim to "support" or the Americans they claim to represent.

From a purely psychological perspective, they are not your typical run-of-the-mill-cold-war useful idiots; they have taken useful idiocy to the next level and become both cheerleaders and pimps for Al Qaeda murderers. The lofty ideals they tend to espouse with such regularity pale next to their desire to recover their lost power and glory; and live once again in the White House.

There is nothing that the Democrats would like better than to declare the Iraq war officially dead and a disaster. Their inappropriate and reckless haste to surrender to Al Qaeda in Iraq-- without being seen to surrender (they would prefer to call it "redeployment" or "supporting the troops")-- has now deteriorated into frank acts of deliberate sabotage.

The psychological need to defeat and humiliate President Bush (and suck up to their lunatic base) has so overwhelmed their cognitive thought processes, that they willingly, and with malice aforethought, sacrifice our national security interests and American and Iraqi lives on the altar of their endless narcissism.

Why are they so desperate? See here and here for some clues. The Democrats have basically positioned themselves into a corner in which any good news from Iraq is viewed as catastrophic for their 2008 election prospects.

Like the Copperheads of the Civil War, whose unreasoning hatred of President Lincoln, the tinfoilheads of today aid and abet the goals of the enemy and prefer the path that weakens the country as long as it stands a chance of taking down an evil Republican President (Lincoln was a Republican, did you know?).

They have no shame whatsoever as they pursue their political agenda--no matter what the cost. They willingly abandon realism when reality has negative implications for their own antiwar posturing--a stance they take, not out of principle, but out of a desire to reassert a failed ideology and regain a position of power to implement it.

They give the phrase "a bunch of turkeys" a whole new level of meaning.




UPDATE: This is an interesting bit of information (hat tip: Siggy) a letter from President Bill Clinton during his Presidency to Dennis Hastert, regarding the controversy during his presidency:

Dear Mr. Speaker:
I am writing to express my deep concern about H. Res. 596, dealing with the tragic events in eastern Anatolia under Ottoman rule in the years 1915-1923. Every year on April 24, I have commemorated Armenian Remembrance Day, mourning the deportations and massacres of innocent Armenians during that era. And every year, I have challenged all Americans to recommit themselves to ensuring that such horrors never occur again. However, I am deeply concerned that consideration of H. Res. 596 at this time could have far-reaching negative consequences for the United States. We have significant interests in this troubled region of the world: containing the threat posed by East and Central Asia, stabilizing the Balkans, and developing new sources of energy.

Consideration of the resolution at this sensitive time will negatively affect those interests and could undermine efforts to encourage improved relations between Armenia and Turkey -- the very goal the sponsors of this Resolution seek to advance. I fully understand how strongly both Turkey and Armenia feel about this issue. Ultimately, this painful matter can only be resolved by both sides examining the past together.

I urge you in the strongest terms not to bring this Resolution to the floor at this time.

Sincerely,

Bill Clinton

Needless to say, the Republican-led Congress--in the interests of national security--listened to the wise counsel of then-President Clinton.

WHO DO YOU WANT FOR PRESIDENT?

Take the quiz and see!

FOR THE CHILDREN

One consequence of the Bush Administration policies in the Middle East is that a decades-long shadow war has been brought out into the open. This shadow war between increasingly mainstream elements of radical Islam and the West, became evident back in the 1970's with the taking of American hostages in Iran. It exists and is often justified by the very existence of Israel, a Western-style democracy, in the heart of the Middle East and the supposed "oppression" of the Palestinians by that state.

In the Times of London, Peter Jenkins writes about a letter recently sent by Islamic leaders to the Pope:

Coming at the end of Ramadan, the letter is impressive. The signatories embrace a global range of grand muftis, imams, sheikhs and scholars from all denominations of Islam, with a wide span of theological influence. The appeal to religious tolerance at a time of tension between Islam and the West is welcome. But what the letter means needs deconstruction.

Religious leaders like to claim headlines by subjecting politics to a downpour of platitude. The letter makes no mention of (monotheistic) Jews, let alone Hindus and Buddhists. It merely invites the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to acknowledge what the archbishop calls “their common scriptural foundations . . . as a basis for justice and peace in the world”. Two religions that embrace “half of humanity” should stand together or, by implication, there will be war.

Such an implication is grandiose, dangerous and wrong. It implies that the Muslim world has a politico-military power that is in some sense equal and opposite to that of Christianity. This elevates the so-called jihadist tendency within Islam to a status that it does not have and should never think it has. It suggests Islam has sufficient power to confront and possibly undermine the West. It implies a balance of power parallel with a balance of theological interpretation.

Such an implication feeds a no less dangerous paranoia in the West. By stating that the “survival of the world” might turn on a struggle between Islam and Christianity, the letter reinforces the militarist fantasies of neoconservatives who see the world as just such a struggle. It is a paranoia which, since 9/11, has driven the “war on terror” and fomented the tension and antagonism to the West to which the scholars’ letter is so vacuous a response.

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation. Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it. The authors of this letter would be better employed vetting their own blood-curdling mullahs and madrasahs than in writing platitudes to the Pope.

It's interesting that Jenkins basically destroys his own argument about the "lack of a threat" to the West from Islam with these words. He claims to be a "cheerleader" for Western values, but like all cheerleaders, he thinks that all you need to do is jump around enthusiastically and recite optimistic mantras and the game will be won by your team.

The fact is that radicalized Islam has indeed evolved into a serious threat to the West; and that there are a number of reasons they believe they can win a clash of civilizations with the West --even if people like Jenkins poo-poo the very idea.

SC&A bring up an important reality that must be considered before we, like Jenkins and many of the Democrats in our own country, write off the the threat of a nuclear Iran:

The best way to deal with Iran can be determined once we understand the threat Iran poses. Understanding how the current Iranian regime views itself goes a long way in explaining their world view. Ahmadenijad’s World, by Mathias Kuntzel is a must read. Iran is not posturing.

Dealing with Iran is not just about Congressional approval and declarations of war. How we deal with Iran will shape the values of this nation for generations to come and how other nations, hungry for democracy will measure our commitment to freedom.

The ‘freedom fighters’ supported by Iran are very different than the ‘freedom fighters’ and opposition in Cuba, Venezuela, China, Syria and even in Iran itself. Those supported by the Iranian want to impose tyranny on nations and will use terror to achieve their goals. That is not the same as ‘freedom fighters or dissidents in Cuba, Syria and elsewhere that want to shed the yoke of tyranny and repression.

Let me quote from the link Siggy cites, which tells the story of the Basiji in Iran, the children of the minefields:

In pondering the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I cannot help but think of the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields, even against the objections of their parents. Before every mission, a small plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise.

“In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettela’at, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the mine fields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes could henceforth be avoided, Ettela’at assured its readers. “Before entering the mine fields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”[1]

The children who thus rolled to their deaths formed part of the mass “Basij” movement that was called into being by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The Basij Mostazafan – the “mobilization of the oppressed” – consisted of short-term volunteer militias. Most of the Basij members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically and by the thousands to their own destruction. “The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies,” a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War has recalled, “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”[2]

The western media showed little interest for the Basiji – perhaps because journalists could not be present during the hostilities or perhaps because they did not believe the reports. Such disinterest has persisted to this day. The 5000 dead of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on the Kurds of Halabja have remained in our memory. History has forgotten the children of the minefields.

Today, however, Ahmadinejad appears in public in his Basiji uniform. During the war, he served as one of the Basiji instructors who turned children into martyrs. The generation that fought in the Iran-Iraq War has come to power along with Ahmadinejad. He owed his election in Summer 2005 to the contemporary Basiji movement. In Fall, he announced a “Basiji Week.” According to a report in the newspaper Kayan, some 9 million Basiji heeded the call, “forming a human chain some 8,700 kilometers long…. In Tehran alone, some 1,250,000 people turned out.”[3] In his speeches, Ahmadinejad praises the “Basiji culture” and the “Basiji power” with which “Iran today makes its presence felt on the international and diplomatic stage.”

Interestingly, the Basiji were a product of a war between two Islamic countries and their continued existence and glorification--along with the celebration of the suicide bomber who murders as many innocents as possible-- are emblematic of a fundamental difference in values between Islamic cultures and those of the West. Nevertheless, Jenkins suggests that it is the West's "paranoid" response to radical Islam's continual aggression and barbarism; along with its justified assault on Western values that has caused an escalation to the problem.

On the contrary, I think it has been our lack of an appropriate paranoid response --undoubtedly facilitated by a runaway narcissistic culture, too self-absorbed to notice the threat--that has permitted the world to reach a point in history where a third-rate religion like Islam has ascended to the world stage. Islam's intellectual, cultural and moral achievements have been in steady decline for centuries; and the only reason it has not yet collapsed from its own inherent contradictions and its inability to sustain its adherents in the real world is due primarily to a fortunate geological happenstance.

For the last 100 years, Islam has abandoned any of the precepts that may have once made it a vibrant and positive force in the world. Today's Muslim leaders for the most part, have hitched their religious wagons to a variant of Marxist ideology, infused by a powerful religious fanatacism and funded by oil. You can hear the imams young and old sprouting the same tired old Marxist slogans for revolution, revamped to be consistent with modern interpretations of the Quran--just substitute the word "jihad" for talk about the "revolution of the proletariat".

Jenkins neglects to mention in his essay one teensy weensy detail that is not explained or mentioned in the 128-page document sent by Muslim leaders to the Pope: a religion that justifies and glorifies the abuse and death of children; a religion that enslaves, oppresses and humiliates women; and a religion that justifies slaughter and martyrdom as a way of life is not even in the same moral universe as any of the other major religions on this planet.

Until and unless that reality about today's Islam is addressed, these Muslim "leaders" are nothing but delusional about their faith.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have had the effect of bringing to the foreground a long-standing conflict between various sects of Islam ; and pitting the two major powers in the region (Iran and Saudi Arabia) against each other for dominance. It has also unleashed the rabid hatred that has existed for centuries and has been simmering all along within the 'religion of peace'.

For too long the world has pretended that peace plans, treaties, cease-fires and talk--lots and lots of talk--would bring about a change for the good in the culture of hatred and death that is being nurtured in that part of the world. But none of these things have helped the situation. Instead, they have only enabled the hate; facilitated the deaths; and emboldened those who thrive on the resultant chaos.

The world's insistent denial and smiling pretense that it was dealing with reasonaable people who sought peace and stability and a future for their children should now be able to be seen for the delusion it was. The West's good intentions have only managed to pave the road and make it easier for the Islamic fanatics to travel down it.

It is unquestionably true that this new landscape is fraught with danger and challenges; and that it has the potential to bring about violence and suffering and death. But what do you think has been going on for the last 50 years or so? There has been continual human suffering and death as a result of the never-ending shadow war; and its toxic ideology--a combination of Marxism and religious fanaticism has already poisoned minds of the next generation of children there, whose growth and individuality are stunted by the culturally-sanctioned and religiously-promoted hatred.

Aafter 9/11 it became obvious that it was not confined to one small part of the world anymore; and that what happened in that small art of the world had enormous repercussions for the entire planet.

The last 7 years have brought about a radical change in the playing field and shaken up the agenda of important Islamic players who had decades of evidence to suggest that they would never be held to account for their behavior. Slowly, surely, and sometimes subtly, the balance and focus in this war has been shifted; as one after the other, the old players have been supplanted; and seeds of democracy and freedom have been planted.

What we are seeing is the chaos that occurs when a static system is disturbed. But the old equilibrium never stood a chance to bring peace, only constant war and calls for jihad. The old equilibrium permitted the jihadis to operate under the radar and grow strong. And more importantly, the old equilibrium did not offer much of a strategic advantage for the forces of freedom and democracy.

The world is slowly awakening to the threat--and it is real, no matter how much Mr. Jenkins would like to believe otherwise; or how comforting it is to believe otherwise. There is less and less tolerance for the lies and brutalities of the jihadists; perhaps a little less appeasement of their agenda; or a passive acceptance of their irrational behavior.

Lines have been drawn in the Middle Eastern sands; and on one side is a path that leads to a chance for real peace and prosperity in the region; to increased freedom and for participation in the civilized world and to a future for all children. On the other side all that is offered is perpetual war and a one way ticket to martyrdom and death. Undoubtedly, many will choose the latter path as that has been drummed into their heads since childhood as the only path; the holy path of jihad and submission to the will of Allah.

This war is real; and it is one in which the West must prevail. For the children.

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. We can certainly expect that Muslims will respect this Holy Jewish site-- about as much as they respected this one.

2. A Sharia Bakesale --could the true horror ever be adequately depicted by overpriced brownies? Creative torture?

3. Like infidels through an hourglass, so are the sands of passion... (don't miss this series!)

4. A real Bizarro Chief Rabbi...

5. Move along...nothing to see here.

6. Which side has the better munchkin? It's all thinking with a little brain.... and every baboon is entitled to an opinion! And she's got a million of 'em. Is pork racist? Or just not PC?

7. Al Gore did it--you can too! Nobel Laureate--a look behind the scenes....But hey! Congratulations are due! He used to be just a failed presidential candidate. Now he is a superhero! And to think, his running mate used to be highly regarded by the left; and now he is apostate.

8. That Darn Sandy! What a character! Leaks, schmeaks. Whether they're "good" or "bad" depends entirely on which side does the leaking, capice?

9. Freedom? No thanks. What is it with these universities, anyway? Are they serious about diversity, or not? Wackademia at its best! Well, these med students have apparently taken the hypocritical oath. What a wonderful religion.

10. You'll have to pry that lipstick from my cold, dead hands! Chick flick flack.

11. Why Brits have bad teeth? (I'll have to ask Siggy if that's true). More national slurs!...this time it's the Poles.

12. Architecture from another planet. Religion from another dimension; and futuristic robotic neocon insects spying on leftist blogs! Cue the "Twilight Zone" music.

13. The government is definitely sending mixed messages. Men are officially off the hook! Now, saying "I love you" is just a poor substitute for true love.

14. Celebrate all those non-PC holidays in a PC style! Multiculturalism, diversity, and feminism for all! Celebrate Islamo-fascism Awareness week, it's very un-PC. This, OTOH is very very PC.

15. The best revenge is living well :)

16. MBFF, KR...almost Rovian in its diabolical cleverness.

17. Peanuts, a darker side.

17. Ouch. I don't even have one (but I am envious) and this article makes me cringe. No sex for 40 million years? I guess I shouldn't complain.


***************************************
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HANDS IN THE AIR ! THIS IS A HOLD-UP !

From Larry Kudlow at The Corner:

I’m surprised that today’s Wall Street Journal story on income inequality failed to mention that while the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all incomes in 2005, they now pay nearly 40 percent of all taxes.

In 1980, before the Reagan supply-side tax-cut revolution was launched, the top 1 percent earned 8.5 percent of all income and paid 19.1 percent of all taxes. So while the rich are getting richer, the rich are also paying the lion’s share of the taxes.

As others have pointed out, the top 5 percent of income earners pay 60 percent of the taxes. The top 25 percent pay 86 percent of taxes. And the top 50 percent pay 97 percent of all taxes.

It kind of puts a different spin on the WSJ story, doesn’t it?

You'd think that all those "equality of outcome" people would be outraged at this obvious "taxation inequality" that clearly discriminates against the "rich", i.e. the most productive among us.

Ok, forget that. It's unrealistic because it expects some degree of logical consistency from the left.

Fine. You'd think that there would be some gratitude or appreciation for that productive 50% of the population who work hard, pay up to 40 % of their income in taxes, and basically support programs that help the other 50%.

But it is never enough for the left, who are compelled by their ideology to despise the most productive people in society and to stoke the flames of hatred and envy.

Remember this exchange between Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson from the movie Key Largo?

Johnny Rocco: There’s only one Johnny Rocco.
James Temple: How do you account for it?
Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Sure.
James Temple: What’s that?
Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh . . .
Frank McCloud: He wants more, don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That’s it. More. That’s right! I want more!
James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won’t.

The gangster Johnny Rocco is a perfect symbol for a side of the thuggish political left they don't care to ever acknowledge. Their behavior is a lovely mixture of both the grandiosity of the selfish Johnny Roccos and the idealism of the the classic malignant utopian.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH FOR THEM

(with some apologies to William Wordsworth)


The world is too much for them; topsy-turvy,
Through polls and insanity they lay waste their minds;
Little do they care when reality unwinds;
Bleeding hearts infected with emotional scurvy.
The left which bares a collective bosom to the moon,
While antiwar activists howl at all hours,
Has been rotting since the 60's like over-ripe flowers.
In this, like everything else, they are far out of tune;
Unmoved by truth.--Dear God! They're worse than
Pagans suckled in a creed outworn;
Living in a floating bubble;
The pride of Marx and Lenin reborn;
Rising anew from the communist century's rubble;
to once again engage the reality they scorn.

UNDOING: The Healing of the Traumatized Left Has Begun !

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize? I'm amazed. I thought Cindy Sheehan had it all sewn up. Or Hugo Chavez.

I guess it just goes to show how much their cachet with the left has dropped in the last year or so; or, how much Gore's has risen in the pre-2008 election cycle.

Undoing is a psychological defense mechanism where there is an attempt to take back behavior or thoughts that were unacceptable. An example of undoing would be excessively praising someone after having insulted them.

I can't help thinking that Gore's prize is yet another attempt by the left to undo the horrible trauma of Election 2000. Ever the mouthpiece of leftist fantasy and delusion, Jimmy agrees (and don't forget, he was the 2002 winner of the same prize).

As a psychiatrist, I can fully appreciate and understand their delight and anticipation. For almost eight years--since the 2000 election was "stolen" from them, the mentally unbalanced left has been suffering from a sort of group PTSD.

Let the healing begin!

A Gore/Clinton ticket (or even another Clinton/Gore ticket) would be absolutely perfect from an unconscious, purely psychological perspective.

Scott Ott has, by far, the most psychologically satisfying take on the announcement; a scenario that in a fair, just, and compassionate world (or, at least one consistent with reality, anyway) might have been.

But seriously, folks, Glenn Reynolds has the absolutely best understated quote: "I think he makes a fitting addition to the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize holders." Indeed.

Gore, Carter, Annan, Arafat.... can the peace-loving Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be far behind? Look for the President of Iran to win in 2008--especially if Iran gets bombed by the warmongering West.

AMMUNITION FOR THE WAR OF IDEAS HERE AT HOME

If you haven't read it already (or even if you have), now would be a good time to read Norman Podhoretz' essay titled, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win" from the September, 2004 issue of Commentary. This essay has been expanded into a book that is now on the best-seller list at Amazon (see at the end of this post).

Podhoretz wrote a follow-up essay in Commentary titled: "The War against World War IV".

In this latter piece, Podhoretz discusses the forces of defeatism that threaten to overwhelm our resolve in this war.

First, the corrupt, totalitarian regimes of the Middle East:

In Iraq, the insurgents—a coalition of diehard Saddamists, domestic Islamofascists, and foreign jihadists—have a simple objective. They are trying to drive us out before the seeds of democratization that we are helping to sow have taken firm root and begun to flower. Only thus can the native insurgents hope to recapture the power they lost when we toppled Saddam; and only thus can the Iranians, the Syrians, and the Saudis, who have been dispatching and/or financing the foreign jihadists, escape becoming the next regimes to go the way of Saddam’s under the logic of the Bush Doctrine.
The despots tyrannizing these countries all know perfectly well that an American failure in Iraq would rule out the use of military force against them. They know that it would rob other, non-military measures of any real effectiveness. And they know that it would put a halt to the wave of reformist talk that has been sweeping through the region since the promulgation of the Bush Doctrine and that poses an unprecedented threat to their own hold on political power, just as it does to the religious and cultural power of the radical Islamists.
But the most important thing the insurgents and their backers in the neighboring despotisms know is that the battle for Iraq will not be won or lost in Iraq; it will be won or lost in the United States of America.

Then comes the defeatist voices of the "paleoconservative right":

Consider—to begin once more on the lowest rung of the ladder—the isolationists of the paleoconservative Right. Their line is that a conspiracy of "neoconservative" (i.e., Jewish) officials holed up in the White House and the Pentagon is dragging this country, against its own interests, into one conflict after another with the sole purpose of "making the Middle East safe for Israel."

And, of course, the isolationists of the hard Left:

These—exactly like their forebears in the late 1930’s who fought against America’s entry into World War II—have made common cause with the paleoconservatives at the other end of the political spectrum. True, the isolationism of the Left stems from the conviction that America is bad for the rest of the world, whereas the isolationism of the Right is based on the belief that the rest of the world is bad for America. Nevertheless, the two streams have converged, flowing smoothly into the same channel of fierce opposition to everything Bush has done in response to 9/11.
In the years before 9/11, Noam Chomsky, Buchanan’s counterpart on the Left, was very largely forgotten. After achieving great prominence in the 1960’s, he had come to seem too extreme—or perhaps too naked in his hatred of America—to serve the purposes of the New York Review of Books, through whose pages he had first made his political mark.

In like fashion he runs through the "Superhawks", the "Liberal Internationalists"; the so-called "political realists", and the mainstream media. This unholy, coalition of defeat has formed in parallel to the emergence of the Bush Doctrine after 9/11. Podhoretz points out something that, I think is important:

Suppose, then (as I do), that in a year or so, a duly elected coalition government is in place in Baghdad; that it is guided by a constitution guaranteeing political freedom and minority rights; that the economy is improving; that Iraqi soldiers and policemen have taken over most of the responsibility for dealing with a severely weakened insurgency; that the number of American troops has been reduced to the size of a backup force; and that fewer and fewer Americans are being killed or wounded. What then? Will the realists and their liberal allies bow to this reality? Will they be mugged by reality?

I think not. I think they will do unto a success in Iraq what they did when Hamid Karzai was sworn in as the president of Afghanistan this past December.

In other words, even if our efforts succeed in Iraq (as they finally appear to be doing), this coalition of defeat will not be appeased or comforted. They had the same defeatist attitude towards Afghanistan, and are unwilling to acknowledge the remarkable success that has occurred there and are not-so-secretely gratified that the Karzai government is still battling the Taliban in its various reincarnations. The freeing of millions of people and enabling Afghanistan to have the first democratic government in its history was not enough. Freeing millions is not enough. Liberating the women of two countries is not enough. Enabling Democracy and planting the seeds that is not enough. Preventing attacks on the homeland for 4 years is not enough.

No success will ever be enough for this coalition of surrender. They will never admit it is getting better in Iraq; nor will they acknowledge the reality of no attacks here in the U.S. since 9/11. Instead, they attribute this to (1) there never was any threat to begin with; or (2) pure dumb luck.

They will be happy if America loses. Period.

In a recent interview with Katherine Lopez at National Review, Podhoretz comments on a topic that I have dealt with extensively in this blog: the psychological denial of those who dismiss the threat of islamofascism. Here is an exchange from that interview:

Podhoretz: When people under threat are unwilling or afraid to fight back, they tend to deny that they are being threatened at all. We saw much the same thing in the early stages of World War III, when large numbers of Americans and even larger numbers of Europeans insisted that the real threat to the peace came from the United States under Harry Truman rather than from the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Lopez: I don’t get it. You point out that in his address to the joint session of Congress ten days after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush got it. He got it was a world war. But because the Cold War isn’t conventionally called “World War III,” he probably figured he’d confuse people by calling this current war “World War IV.” But, come on, he’s a brave guy. If you build it they will come. Is that a leadership test he failed at a crucial moment? Because really, we’ve needed some clarity.

Podhoretz: I think that Bush will someday be recognized as a great president, much as it has been the case with Harry Truman, with whom he has a lot in common. Having said that, I will stipulate that we needed more clarity than he gave us both in naming the enemy and in naming the war. For this a very steep price has been paid in the coin of confusion about Iraq. Instead of being seen in its proper context as a single front or theater in a much broader conflict, it has been treated as a self-contained war in its own right. And instead of being understood as part of a long-range strategy to “drain the swamps” in which Islamofascism breeds, it has been misrepresented as the wrong place in which to fight terrorism.

Lopez: Speaking of mistakes: What’s gone wrong in Iraq? What’s gone right?

Podhoretz: The following things have gone right in Iraq: It has been liberated from a monstrous tyrant whose regime was the main secular face of the two-headed monster by which we were attacked six years ago. (The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was the main religious face.) And then the seeds of democratization were planted through three elections, the writing of a constitution, and the enjoyment of previously unimaginable liberties. Everything that has gone wrong stems from the desperate efforts of various forces, both indigenous and imported, to prevent those seeds from taking root. If the political transformation of Iraq were doomed to failure, why would these forces be fighting with all their might to turn it back? But it has taken us a while to figure out how best to defeat this so-called “insurgency.”

Lopez: It’s salvageable?

Podhoretz: Certainly — unless, that is, the Democrats, with a little help from pusillanimous Republicans, pull the plug. It has always been the case that the campaign in Iraq, and for that matter World War IV as a whole, will be won or lost not on the battlefields of the Middle East but in the war of ideas here at home.

Read everything to arm yourself for the war of ideas that is being fought right here, right now, in the U.S.



UPDATE: 10/12 - I want to add this quote from Podhoretz which is posted at The Corner, which I think is pertinent:

It isn't that we don't have a strategy. As I try to explain in my book, the Bush Doctrine is to World War IV what the Truman Doctrine was to World War III. Nor—as I also try to explain (pp. 206-7)—did the Truman Doctrine achieve a truly national consensus until Eisenhower tacitly accepted it when he became president in 1953. Up to that point, it had been attacked both from the Left (as too aggressive), from the Right (as not aggressive enough), and from the Center (as having sounded, in Walter Lippmann's words, "the tocsin of an ideological crusade"). The difference is that the State Department under Dean Acheson supported the Truman Doctrine, whereas the State Department under Colin Powell, and even under Condi Rice (having reverted to her roots as a "realist" since moving from the White House to Foggy Bottom) has done everything in its power to subvert the Bush Doctrine; and so has the CIA. We aren't, then, "fumbling for a strategy." We are, rather, involved in a war of ideas that is being fought both within the government and throughout the nation as a whole between those of us who believe in the Bush Doctrine and those who desperately wish to return to the pre-9/11 attitudes and policies that the Bush Doctrine repudiated. Unless and until the Democrats do unto the Bush Doctrine what the Republicans under Eisenhower did unto the Truman Doctrine, the war of ideas at home will rage furiously on.

CASCADE EFFECT

This is what happens when science is "advanced" by polls, as opposed to...you know, science:

But when the theories were tested in clinical trials, the evidence kept turning up negative. As Mr. Taubes notes, the most rigorous meta-analysis of the clinical trials of low-fat diets, published in 2001 by the Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that they had no significant effect on mortality.

Mr. Taubes argues that the low-fat recommendations, besides being unjustified, may well have harmed Americans by encouraging them to switch to carbohydrates, which he believes cause obesity and disease. He acknowledges that that hypothesis is unproved, and that the low-carb diet fad could turn out to be another mistaken cascade. The problem, he says, is that the low-carb hypothesis hasn’t been seriously studied because it couldn’t be reconciled with the low-fat dogma.

Mr. Taubes told me he especially admired the iconoclasm of Dr. Edward H. Ahrens Jr., a lipids researcher who spoke out against the McGovern committee’s report. Mr. McGovern subsequently asked him at a hearing to reconcile his skepticism with a survey showing that the low-fat recommendations were endorsed by 92 percent of “the world’s leading doctors.”

“Senator McGovern, I recognize the disadvantage of being in the minority,” Dr. Ahrens replied. Then he pointed out that most of the doctors in the survey were relying on secondhand knowledge because they didn’t work in this field themselves.

“This is a matter,” he continued, “of such enormous social, economic and medical importance that it must be evaluated with our eyes completely open. Thus I would hate to see this issue settled by anything that smacks of a Gallup poll.” Or a cascade.

A very interesting read, with some good points about the "cascade" effect--especially for someone like me in the medical profession where such fads come and go.

Does anyone see any parallels to current events--e.g., the supposed "scientific concensus" on global warming?

Rand Simberg at Transterestrial Musings notes:

Of course, it doesn't mean that all theories have this problem. But it does mean that we are entitled to a little skepticism when we are told that there is a scientific consensus. Particularly when we are bullied into believing it, and treated like heretics in our skepticism, and there are some other potential agendas at play.

In general, it is probably always wise to be skeptical of science when it is promoted by politics--or polls.