Fallachi delivers the goods as promised. The book starts off a tad slow and reaches its peak arond Chapter ten and eleven. I wasn't thrilled with the last chapter. However, this book is short and at times blunt. Nobody has ever accused Fallachi of being soft spoken or circuitous.
This book is an enjoyable experience and highly recomended. Unlike most readers I am versed in some of the source material. Fallachi eloquently descibes the people who aid and abet Jihad as rainbow scarved degenerates. Long term readers are aware that this blog is familiar with such idiocy.
I want to point out the difference between responsible gay activists Rob and the rainbow scarved 167. Rob calls them as he sees them end of story end of agenda. He holds no sacred cows and will critique the idiocy of Falwell and that of muslim regimes that execute gays. 167 has flexible moralility and that is a prerequisite of Communists along with hypocisy. He has made the absurd statement that Iran and Saudi punishment of gays is justified. Yet he wants us to be outraged at the excecution of Tookie Williams. He wants us to move mountains for fake indigenous people while he mocks the plight of religious minorities in the Muslim world. The security fence is a great crime and blowing up busses and dance clubs is rationalized. Even after his city is attacked he blames the police for using "zionist methods " in an accidental killing. The notion that the police were on edge due to terrorism is a minor detail.
I am starting to wonder if we are investing too much energy on the Islam side of this fight. There are plenty of decent Muslims but they place themselves in jeapordy when they speak up. Saturdays NYT had a story on page one of a Syrian woman who is writing a book When God Is a Monster. Jihadism does not exist in a vacumand ignoring the far left partners of this illness is a mistake. I look at our familiar blogs and we have an almost mono focus on the genuine evils of Jihadism. However, our fight to reclaim our country must begin with those with the rainbow scarves.
The era of big media is over and the most subversive thing we can do is change the channel or vote with our feet. The days of the genteel response to Marxist bloviations must end. We need to fight the hard left in the trenches.Conservatives should give Marxists a taste of their own tactics.Lets heckle Chomsky, Michael Moore and all the oither swine.
This pacifism is neither noble or virtous. It is a tactic called Revolutionary Defeatism and dates back to Lenin. Do not ignore the enemies of our nation at home.
On tap for tommorow Part two of Sowell's essay Are Jews Generic or the Middleman minority phenomena. One Wen Sowell's the real history of Slavery .
Today is the birthday of my younger brother the beloved Rav Roov. My pen name is a tribute to an inside joke in our family. Rav Roov's nickname was the Beakerbecause he looked like the familiar muppet. At one time he was upset that he was known as my youger brother . In a tribute to an old gripe I took a his nickname and added kin as my pen name.
Beamish in 08, Ducky to join the ISM and become pressed Duck and 167 to make a new movie Silence of the Insane
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26 comments:
Beak,
Jihadism does not exist in a vacumand ignoring the far left partners of this illness is a mistake. I look at our familiar blogs and we have an almost mono focus on the genuine evils of Jihadism. However, our fight to reclaim our country must begin with those with the rainbow scarves.
Good point. The partnership is clear.
My local library doesn't have this Fallaci book. I'll check with Amazon.
beak,
I'm alive and well.... my "orangeman" son is home on spring break and I've been spending time planting a few contrarian ideas into his head. I can't wait till he's thirty to begin picking the fruit.
But regarding your assertion that we are spending "too much time" and thought focusing on Islam, and not enough on their "enablers", I couldn't disagree more. I think that the problem with our approach to date has been that our focus has been way too short-term and confrontational (American) and not sufficiently long-term subtle and "British/Chinese". We need a combination of both short and longer-term strategies, but to develop the latter requires a much deeper understanding of the intricacies of Islam, of its' factions and schisms, so that we can encourage a suitable long-term soft-kill measure for Islamic radicalism that works hand-in-hand with democracy. And that requires considerable more thought (ie - Can an al-Sistani brand of Shi'ism compete with and perhaps "counter" the Iranian model, or is likely to get co-opted?).
Americans have always been impatient and favored the hard kill/short term solution... but this approach is only good against more "autocratic" regimes. Our communist friends have been effectively soft-killing us for going on near a century, we saw their efforts begin bearing ripe fruit in the sixties, and ninety-five percent of Americans still deny their presence or influence. Yes, we need to root out these "enabling" influences as well, but unless we get started in the Middle East, we'll likely spend ourselves into a Soviet style economic crisis.
And now is not the time to "abandon" our Middle Eastern project. The opportunity to influence the region may not come again.
Machiavelli, "The Prince" (Ch VII)
Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a principality with difficulty, but they keep it with ease. The difficulties they have in acquiring it arise in part from the new rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.
It is necessary, therefore, if we desire to discuss this matter thoroughly, to inquire whether these innovators can rely on themselves or have to depend on others: that is to say, whether, to consummate their enterprise, have they to use prayers or can they use force? In the first instance they always succeed badly, and never compass anything; but when they can rely on themselves and use force, then they are rarely endangered. Hence it is that all armed prophets have conquered, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed. Besides the reasons mentioned, the nature of the people is variable, and whilst it is easy to persuade them, it is difficult to fix them in that persuasion. And thus it is necessary to take such measures that, when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe by force.
If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could not have enforced their constitutions for long — as happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe. Therefore such as these have great difficulties in consummating their enterprise, for all their dangers are in the ascent, yet with ability they will overcome them; but when these are overcome, and those who envied them their success are exterminated, they will begin to be respected, and they will continue afterwards powerful, secure, honoured, and happy.
To these great examples I wish to add a lesser one; still it bears some resemblance to them, and I wish it to suffice me for all of a like kind: it is Hiero the Syracusan. This man rose from a private station to be Prince of Syracuse, nor did he, either, owe anything to fortune but opportunity; for the Syracusans, being oppressed, chose him for their captain, afterwards he was rewarded by being made their prince. He was of so great ability, even as a private citizen, that one who writes of him says he wanted nothing but a kingdom to be a king. This man abolished the old soldiery, organized the new, gave up old alliances, made new ones; and as he had his own soldiers and allies, on such foundations he was able to build any edifice: thus, whilst he had endured much trouble in acquiring, he had but little in keeping.
-FJ
Farmer John
Good to see you around . I asked about you the other day.
My brother arrives home from Kuwait
today. I do not know if there is a market for reconstructive dentistry on the civilian side. I guess car accident types would require this type of work.
I'm sure there's a HUGE market for reconstructive dentistry. Haven't you ever watched the BBC?
Half a trillion? Committed? or already spent?
Anon
I do not know what special you are talking about. The type of reconstruction my brother does is only likely to happen in some type of car accident. I do not see a huge practice on the Civilian side for this aplication. Even in a big city there could only be a fairly limited number of patients.
Ducky
Glad you asked the question.
I will answer in a future post
Ducky
Presumtion number1 is that Communism is protected by the first amendment. Sedition is not protected by the first amendment.
Presumtion Number 2 People born in the USA can not be denaturalized.
This can be fixed quite easily but I would be careful about wearing your Che shirt in public.
I don't know beak...check out these chompers .
...believe me when I tell you, that's just the tip of the British dentistry requirements iceberg.
;-) FJ
It would be a shame if all that training at taxpayers expense goes to waste. The cost of training a surgeon is vast. However in the scope of things at least we got some return on our money allready. If it cost an additional $250,000 it was money well spent.
Beak,
One of the major obstacles in getting rid of the radicals from our lives is their chameleon tactic to change colour and promote actions/idea(s) which are presented to the “neutral” public as “progressive” and in fact are destructive to the democracy.
The radicals had a century or so to sell and introduce their real political programs to the public and failed badly. As you know they can find millions of logical explanations why and it is never their fault.
In my view destroying the image of their current “pet ideas” is the only way to get the carpet from under their feet.
FJ,
I'm not suggesting abandoning our efforts in the Middle East. But I do think it's important to expose the ties of both tyrannies, as Beak suggested.
kev,
You're right, our domestic fight waxes and wains in 4-8 year cycles. But we aren't going anywhere and we'll be fighting that one continuously for the rest of our lives.
The window of opportunity in the Middle East, however, is a very limited one. We have, perhaps, only three more years to effect an outcome... when we'll either be thrown "out of there" by our "progressive" political rivals or we'll go "broke" from our own policy of not "really" occupying Iraq and trying to stupidly maintain a long-term 100,000 man force to keep Iraqi's from dying but serving no strategic American purpose. And so chances are there won't be another openning for "pacifying" the region short of participating in a "nuclear exchange" with Iran for another sixty-years (time it took the Cold War to play out)...cuz as soon as Iran gets the bomb, we'll probably be looking at a Mexican standoff scenario... with Iraq eventually becoming an Iranian partner instead of counter-weight (making our Middle East "problem" much more difficult than it is today)....kinda like our problem in South America w/Chavez financing Castro w/$60 a barrel oil revenue.
The Iranian branch of Shi'aism is already moving in to take over (in the South of Iraq) and so far, the only thing keeping them out of the north appears to be a recalitrant al-Sistani (although you've got to wonder if he's not just buying time until we leave) and a hot-headed Moqtada al-Sadr, who still listens to al-Sistani, but I suspect is even deeper into the Iranian's pocket. And al-Sistani's main backers in the UIA (Badr Organization and SCIRI) were all Iraqi defectors during he Iran-Iraq War who took refuge in Iran and turned around and fought Saddam (kinda like the Russians who fought for the Nazi's in WWII).
And so the real question is whether we think we understand al-Sistani and should work to "support" him, or whether we should be looking to undermine and "counter" him, because just letting things work themselves out for themselves is NOT an option. If al-Sistani can't be trusted, we need to "change sides" in this war and start backing the very Sunni's we are currently fighting...and attempt to limit the Shi'a to occupation and control of the non-oil producing regions of Iraq. The LAST thing America needs to be facing is an extremely WELL financed Islamic terrorist threat buying North Korean long-range missiles and Chinese nuclear know-how and turning those tools over to the radical Shi'a terrorist organizations (who are at least, if not MORE dangerous than al-Quaeda).
And so, I don't think that NOW is a very good time to go "soft" on Iraq and start looking "inward". They'll be plenty of time for that if we lose in '08 and the Middle East outcome window shuts and the "progressives" begin to re-deploy our forces home.
-FJ
always,
I'm NOT trying to argue that we should ignore the domestic enablers, I just don't think that the forces that have been working to understand and alert us to the Islamic threat should now "shift gears" and start working on the domestic front against a "different" opponent. It has taken three years to build a "front" of "interested observers" that reasonably understand and can monitor the Islamic threat, but those subject matter experts need to now probe even deeper and start kicking around potential long and short term "solutions"... politically "practical" solutions... that are short of the typical "nuke 'em", Pull out and let 'em kill each other (Iran will likely win that one), or "kill all Moslems" mentality that is far too often espoused around the blogs.
-FJ
FJ,
I just look at the 200,000+ Kurdish peshmerga the US Army Special Forces have been training in Northern Iraq for almost 15 years now and say "what problem?"
Beamish,
Wikipedia say the NY Times estimates peshmerga forces at 80-100K, not 200K. Are the peshmerga, in your opinion, strong enough to keep the Sunni (operating w/ the Muslim Brotherhood and w/ al-Quaeda support) and Shi'a (operating w/Iranian support) under the yoke? If Iraq were to split, could they hold the oil fields around Basra, or would they be forced to concede those to the Shi'a and focus on protecting Kirkuk? Is Barzani reliable and resourceful enough to be able to hold off and serve as counterweight to Iran?
Or is al-Sistani and a Shi'a dominated Iraq a better, more viable, long term solution?
-FJ
...and have you considered what Iran might be up to?
From today's Washington Times...
Mr. Ghaninejad was one of 13 experts in economics who warned, in two petitions to the government just before Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected, that his populist, short-term policies would spell disaster for Iran in the long term.
"Now he's throwing money at complex problems and just doesn't care about the long term. He thinks he should help the poor today and leave everything else to the Hidden Imam," the newspaper editor said, referring to a character whom Shi'ites believe will one day emerge to bring justice to the world.
The critics say Mr. Ahmadinejad's budget, which has just been approved by parliament after prolonged wrangling, flouts economic doctrines sanctioned by the powerful Expediency Council, which is under the supervision of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's long-term planning calls for vigorous efforts to reduce the size of government and to curb subsidies to state-owned entities, which account for an estimated 75 percent of the economy. But the Ahmadinejad budget boosts spending by 25 percent and envisions a 31 percent increase in spending on state enterprises.
The 2006 budget also calls on the government to use up to $40 billion of its foreign cash reserves -- generated from oil sales -- to meet the fiscal year's spending needs, in spite of long-term plans calling for restraint.
Do the Iranian Imam's really think the "apocalypse" is near and that the Mahdi will return to save the day and establish the Caliphate?
-FJ
The Shi'a Islamic scholars in/from Najaf like al-Sistani seem to have a lot of influence over ALL the Shi'a... perhaps even enough to restrain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.
Khamenei's religious school of thought seems centered around the city and clerics from Qom and has been highly influenced by the Haghani Circle, and so they are VERY attuned to the West and understand Western thought/ideas. The Iranians obviously know us MUCH better than we know them. The Iranians appear to be "modern" shi'a, and the clerics from Najaf more "traditional".
-FJ
On the Qom-Najaf "split".... and the difference between al-Sistani of Iraq and Ali Khamenei of Iran.
Four senior Grand Ayatollahs constitute the Religious Institution (al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah) in Najaf, the preeminent seminary center for the training of Shiite clergymen. Before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, Najaf was the most important center of study for Shia religious leaders. However, Saddam Hussein ordered mass arrests and the expulsion of senior clerics, giving the Iranian seminary in the city of Qom the opportunity to take over the religious leadership of the Shias. Qom was the pre-eminent religious center for Shia Muslims for 25 years. But Najaf has a history of more than a millenium of leadership, and the Iranian clerics who run the holy city of Qom, are facing a revived rival. As of mid-2003 the seminary in Qom hosted between 40,000 and 50,000 clergy, while the number in Najaf stould at about 2,000, down from about 10,000 before the Ba'ath regime took. The first exodus from Qom to Najaf is expected to be by exiled Iraqi clerics, estimated to number between 3,000, and 5,000.
Qom may face a challenge over the concept of the Velayat-e-Faqih - the God-given authority for a top religious leader to oversee secular in the absence of the Prophet Mohammad and infallible imams. The Najaf school does not interpret the Velayat-e-Faqih as meaning the direct intevention of religion in politics. The Najaf seminary's view of the Velayat-e-Faqih is that of a supervisor and adviser. The Qom school believes the opposite, with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, officially considered as the highest religious authority of the world's Shias. Qom sees the direct involvement of clerics in state ruling and executive affairs as their legitimate right and moral obligation.
-FJ
Or should we just accept the enemies perspective and submit to our fate?
-FJ
More on Velayat-e-Faqih
-FJ
and Shi'a "opposition" to it...
-FJ
It would appear that al-Sistani "outranks" Iran's current leader Ali Khamenei and that many might view Ali Khamenei's rule "illegitimate"...Is he worthy of emulation???
Wow, if anyone can bring the Iranians to "heel" it would appear to be al-Sistani. No wonder even al-Sadr defers to him...
-FJ
A "whos who" amongst the Shi'a...Leaders
-FJ
FJ,
I've been saying this all along. The legitimate Shia leadership, as well as Shia Islam's 3 holiest shrines, are in liberated Iraq.
Iran has nothing.
Nothing.
Well, now I'm convinced. So why does everyone think we lost we war? I can't wait for al-Sistani to can Ali Khamenei. It's Jefferson vs Adams in 1800 today.
-FJ
FJ,
For one, there are less people than you can count on half a hand working in the mainstream network and cable news media that can tell you in rich historically verifiable detail what happened 30 seconds ago much less 1400 years ago.
For two, look how successful the "Islamic Revolution of 1979" has been in other Shia-dominant regions. Note my sarcasm. Outside Iran, the thugs have to be imported. Iran can't deflect nearly 30 years of ill-will and known ties to anti-government terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, against Israel AND Arab nations as well. The Iranian government is not on anybody's favorites list. China will buy oil from whoever's in charge.
Why did Oman grant Israel air basing rights for reconnaissance and refueling planes?
Do Arabs often offer Jewish F-15s a deep strike capability throughout the Middle East?
To listen to the MSM tell the tale, you'd think the opposite were true. I read today that the only reason Hamas in Gaza accepted Iranian funds was to embarrass the Saudi's and other Sunni's in the region to kick in some dough.
And it sounds as if should Europe and America just stop funding the stupid jerks, the Palestinians would likely dry up and blow away. What in the 'H has our State Department been thinkin' all these years. Turn OFF the $$$$ and the problem will go away! Jeesh, we're dumb.
-FJ
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