Daniel Pipes (thanks to RB) expertly targets the latest lunacy from the Administration:
If Al-Qaeda renounced terrorism, would the U.S. government welcome its running candidates in American elections? Had the Nazis denounced violence, would Hitler have become an acceptable chancellor for Germany? Not likely, because the tactics of Al-Qaeda and the Nazis matter less than their goals.
Similarly, Hezbollah and Hamas are unacceptable because of their goals. These organizations are important elements of the Islamist movement that seeks to create a global totalitarian order along the lines of what has already been created in Iran, Sudan, and in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They see themselves as part of a cosmic clash between Muslims and the West in which the victor dominates the world.
Washington, trying to be consistent in its push for democracy, prefers to ignore these goals and instead endorses involvement by Hezbollah and Hamas in the political process, pending their making some small changes.
Ah, yes. A nip here, a tuck there, and Hamas will look just like the Christian Democrats.
These signals began last week when President Bush stated that although Hezbollah, a Lebanese group, is "a terrorist organization," he hopes it will change that designation "by laying down arms and not threatening peace." White House spokesman Scott McClellan then elaborated on this comment by specifying the two alternatives: "Organizations like Hezbollah have to choose, either you're a terrorist organization or you're a political organization."
Why is it an either/or? Why can't they get their minds around the possibility that a jihadist organization might pursue violence and political action in pursuit of its ultimate goals?
Bush himself explained further what he meant a day later, presenting elections as a method to shed the terrorist designation: "I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table."
Mr. President, you are assuming too much. Baalbeck isn't Boise. What plays in one won't necessarily play in the other.
Hamas, a Palestinian organization, Secretary of State Rice then noted, could also evolve in the right direction once it enters the democratic process:
"When people start getting elected and have to start worrying about constituencies and have to start worrying not about whether their fire-breathing rhetoric against Israel is being heard, but about whether or not that person's child down the street is able to go to a good school or that road has been fixed or life is getting better, that things start to change."...
Somebody, please, fetch me my smelling salts...Read it all...read it...all...
The topic of democracy is one that is particularly fraught with pitfalls when discussing it with Muslims. A Muslim can honestly say that they support democracy, provided the discussion is narrowed to encompass only the electoral process for choosing leaders. The standard Muslim retort to the charge that Islam is incompatible with democracy is that the tribal shura mechanism is “democratic".
It is quite another matter however when the democratic process is used to legislate, as in the original Greek and Roman paradigm upon which modern democratic systems are modeled. It is the use of democracy to legislate that is anathema to Islam. In this regard, democracy is fundamentally incompatible with shariah.
Having elections for leaders by using popular democratic voting systems does not make a democracy. Even a truly clean democratic election may do nothing more than install a fascist despot. A democratic society is one in which sovereignty is vested in the people and in which self-rule is operationalized through democratic public choice mechanisms in matters of legislation, not just choice of leadership.
A society that uses democracy to choose its leaders but uses shariah to govern is a hideous wolf in sheep's clothing of the worst kind. Let's not forget that the Nazis came to power through democratic elections in 1930 (18% of the popular vote), 1932 (35%) and 1933 (44%).
"Let's not forget that the Nazis came to power through democratic elections in 1930 (18% of the popular vote), 1932 (35%) and 1933 (44%)."
Yes, and 1933 was their high-water mark - the next scheduled elections (which incidentally never occured) would have had them losing seats.
Ultimately, however, the democratic republic simply couldn't hold the loyalty of the German people.
I would say the same is true in Iraq and indeed all Muslim countries. Islam makes a big claim on the allegiance of the people. For anyone to repudiate that allegiance is suicidal (literally).
The Administration is not seeing this, to our own great peril.
Oh my God! How dumb are all of us here? American created democracy is a Judeo Christian concept of morality, not an Islamic tribal free for all way of thinking which is to elect someone who imposes elected dictorial practices, which is the common ideological acceptance of the tribal democracy of Islam. When are we all going to wake up?
It's the Judeo Christian idea to have a modern democracy, (evidence suggests and educated Muslims are fearful, assuming you could put such a practicing government in their cultural mind set by force like we are doing now, for the short term, stability is highly unlikely because the masses will not want a Crusader puppet government to be embraced for a long term period), so how can we expect it to work? Eventually they will want an Islamic ideological form of government.
Muslims political activists know that they may have their absolute control ideology of Islam slowly pulled out from under them if Western freedoms are granted, and are long term successful! Why would they want a system that presents a possible weakening to their cause of central Islamic control? We Crusaders, as they refer to us, just don't get it from their point of view.
I just cannot for the life of me understand how the US and its allies are going to prop some stupid half-baked quickie democracy in a largely hard-core Islamic world and make it work? Can someone explain in detail to me how our idea of democracy is what he or she should in the Middle East must accept? Why is it good for their Islamic societies where tribal history embellishes slaughter and the conquer of non-Muslims or weaker Muslims as a core of the strengthening and the ultimate success for the Islamic faiths global domination?
So how do we fix this? Hello folks, it's bombing the Islamic masses which will end this war! Why? To make their entire population accountable for harboring these demonic people, and for supporting them, they, like the good Germans of WWII, will pay the price for being guilty by association! If they won't expose them, then they believe in them, and if so, then they are all guilty of harboring the enemy!
Sound crazy? Then why do we have laws for obstructing justice here in the West? If the general populace of Muslims obstructs the rules of war, and they don't play by them, why should we not target them if they in turn harbor the people that target the innocents? If it is safer to hide terrorists than fear the western armies, then it is my view that the only answer is to make the masses suffer the might of the West, in order to destroy evil doers who live among them and control them like the Nazi leaders of WWII.
What is even more amazing is that that same mentality is getting more powerful by the doctrine they subscribe to called the Muslim religion, and the protection it is granted to practice and preach this ideology safely in the West! We are protecting the danger to the very foundation of our way of life by letting them practice their so called faith, which is bringing the world on edge due to it's anti human form of justice for their cause! If we do not conquer these sadistic thinking people, we might as well stick our heads in the ground and inhale deeply. Democracy will not work in a sadistic combative anti democratic world that operates in the shadows killing anything that moves. When the hell is the Harry Truman idea of societal accountability going to be emphasized in a state of war?
I'm tired of political correctness, because of world opinion. If these nations who endorse aid and harbor the enemy continue to do just that, then why should our brave men and women run around getting picked off and blown up from societies that don't want us there, and don’t play by the rules of war? I believe it is time to rethink and ponder how the US, and it’s allies as the new leader of the so called, new world order, must step up to the plate and consider using different military approaches to the problem like such as,
1) Using the neutron bomb on oil nations and take the oil if they won't work with the west to stop supporting terrorist from the profits of the sale of it. We have to protect ourselves and our way of life. If diplomacy is not working why continue to use it?
2) Using the electromagnetic bomb to destroy infrastructure and lay waste to technological development in countries that are anti west and support the destruction of it directly or indirectly like Iran
3) Apply global situated disruptive communicative technology to prevent the spread of Islamic propaganda, and if necessary, shut it down permanently all over the world, wherever it operates
4) Shut down all mosques and places of worship that do not denounce jihad and violence, and require monitoring of all Mosque activities for anything, which suggests otherwise
5) Imprison anyone convicted of being a radical Islamist, and provide global accepted western views of what a terrorist is, before it is too late! Define the concept of putting them to trial and try to reprogram morality back into immoral ideologically perverse demonic people or execute them as a danger to society
6) Demand the immediate cessation of any nations supporting terrorism, or they will suffer mass casualties on a scale no one has seen before, and require those nations to change the charter of the Islamic doctrine and to remove sadistic non logical, non peaceful teachings, of the faith by a global consortium of Muslims to permanently change Islam or cease to practice the ideology of Islam forever. If Islam continues on its present path it will become even more dangerous than Nazism to not only Westerners and non-Muslims but to Muslims themselves.
But if we want to believe in the tooth fairy and think that radical Islam will go away, by setting up democracies, and trying to understand the "good peaceful Muslims" we are simply setting ourselves up to be exterminated like the poor Jews and Christians who sat back and did nothing in WW2, despite overwhelming evidence that genocide was in the making and being practiced in Europe. If anyone has a better idea, I'd like to hear it! God Bless the Americans and our allies, and our Judeo Christian mercy, as if the Muslims don't watch out, they will get steps 1-6 in the very near future. To wait is to invite more catastrophes to ourselves. Remember that we are at war, and not ready for anything other than total submission by force. Gunboat diplomacy worked before, and it will work again, especially against this evil force in the world today.
A democratic process should not be considered an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, namely, a more just, free, and prosperous society. But that process does not guarentee these ends.
In the context of a society under the influence of Islam, the ends of the process are transmuted beyond recognition; democracy not only becomes a process without noble purpose, but a means to its own destruction and more.
WOG
Are you ready to rock and roll
If so
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill
I am afraid that PoC/Politics of Confrontation is the only thing the Jihadis will understand.
Always offer your left hand to a muslim in greeting
LOL, thanks for the tip. LMAO. Maybe that is a way to find out who is a covert Muslim, offer them your left hand in greeting.
Let me speak the unspeakable.
This and past administrations, from RR to Bush 41, to Clinton and now this administration, under the guidance of it's ostensible pro Zionist neo cons, have consistently betrayed the west and have facilitated the Jihad, from Afghanistan to Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq (and it is still supporting the Jihadi's in Bosnia and Kosovo, and contratempts the belief system of JW's and "conservatives" after it "invades" a Muslim country, it leaves behind an even more solid and solidified Muslim country (but one that is willing to do business with the west).
Here choke on this piece of info Osama Bin Laden: A Texas style Republican in Muslim Clothes
Perhaps you don't like that depiction, then google Bosnia Bush, Kosovo Bush.
You see Kosovo was once mostly Serb, with a Muslim minority, but it has been ethnically cleansed of Serbs, and only some 19,000 souls remain, and the Muslim Kosovarians want to get rid of that remnant, and where does Bush stand on the issue?
On the side of the Muslim Kosovarians, after all Kosovo is home to Camp Bondsteel, the biggest, most expensive overseas base built (by Kellogg Brown and Root of course) and maintained by KBR o as well, it is so big the troops there joke that you can see it from space, and what purpose does it serve? Why it (and Camp Montieth) sit astride the pipeline being constructed from the Caspian sea.
Kellog Brown and Root is a subsidiary of Haliburton and Haliburton is cough, cough Cheneys firm. Let's not forget that Haliburton also was the recipient of no bid contracts in Iraq, and is being investigated for corruption and over billing the US tax payer.
At the other end of this pipeline route is another luxurious, but smaller base, built by KBR, Camp Montheith, Camp Able Sentry in Macedonia, and Camp Eagle in Bosnia, all conveniently located near this pipeline.
I notice that the "conservative" News Max Vigorously Criticized Clinton in 1999 for the pipeline connection in the Balkans, but "conservatives" are mum as hell on the subject now that their "boy" is in power.
Ahem, guess who sat on the Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce? Dick Cheney, that's who.
Guess which Law firm represents EXXON, the Saudi Royals and The Bush Family? None other than Baker Botts, (James Baker III that is).
Do you get the feeling that we have been scammed? I do, and over and over again.
You guys think that you know what this is all about, and your only response to obvious betrayal is handwring admonishments, and stupid questions like "Why"? Or reiterations of the sins of Islam and it's incompatibility with western values (why waste your time pontificating to the choir).
Daniel Pipes: You need to be more forceful and adamant and call evil by it's name, and that evil is "betrayal", we are being sold down the river.
We all know that Islam is not compatible with western notions of democracy, and quite obviously so does Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and all of Bush's advisors. Bush, as far as I'm concerned is unconscious, incurious, self serving and wilfully ignorant.
You guys wringing your hands and whining about obvious betrayal, is akin to bleeting sheep following a Judas goat up the slaughter ramp.
Time to get angry at the real malefactors, not the distractions and scapegoats, like MSM and "liberal media".
Bush and McClellan sound about as naive about Hamasholes as Roosevelt did about Stalin. They seem to have some childish faith in superficialities of democracy which matches their utterly unrealistic faith based nonsense on their domestic scene!
I honestly do not trust ANY politicians of whatever stripe. It comes down to voting for the one that will hopefully do the least harm to our freedom and ability to make a living.