Tzvi Kahn takes on our old pal Mark LeVine once again in "The Marxist Strikes Back" in FrontPage (thanks to Rebecca Bynum). Kahn rightly denies plagiarizing me, a charge that LeVine irresponsibly made in his response to Kahn's first piece. And he scores a few direct hits:
In his long and rambling response to my article on his blog, LeVine can't imagine what would motivate me to call him "Marxist," "anti-American," and "anti-Israel," though, echoing Bill Clinton, he notes, "the proof is all in how one defines 'anti-.'" So before I address a few specific points of his rebuttal, perhaps some basic definitions are in order.
I call LeVine "anti-American" and "anti-Israel" because he applies a moral standard and an attitude of perverse American and Israeli exceptionalism to putative crimes against Arab populations that far exceed his indignation at identical or infinitely more horrific offenses committed by Arab countries. Yes, LeVine has, to his credit, criticized Arab governments for fomenting terrorism. Yet he insists, repeatedly, that America and Israel harbor the most responsibility for the continuation of global conflict, implicitly suggesting that the threat of terrorism from Islamic fundamentalists would be drastically reduced if America ceased its supposed imperialism and globalization. "Let's only hope," he writes, European leaders "will have the courage to explain to president Kerry (or even Bush) that, without both an acceptance of responsibility for past policy and the transformation of future policy toward the Islamic regions of our planet, there will be no solution to terrorism, only continued violence and war."
Rarely in LeVine's work do we see any discussion of Islamic fundamentalism and religious extremism that inspires terrorism. LeVine can't imagine that Islamic terrorists might attack the West on the basis of precepts derived from religious ideologies. For him, it simply isn't possible that Islamic fundamentalists oppose not American "imperialism," but the values of individual rights and freedom that America stands for. Likewise, for LeVine, it isn't remotely possible that corrupt, dictatorial Arab governments play a greater role in promoting global instability than America and Israel. Four days after 9/11, in fact, LeVine called upon Americans "to engage in the honest introspection of what our role has been in generating the kind of hatred that turns commuter jets into cruise missiles." For LeVine, Osama bin Laden's aggression derives not from Islamic ideologies, but from American political dominance and globalization in the Middle East....
Read it all.
Additional:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17650
Four days after 9/11, in fact, LeVine called upon Americans “to engage in the honest introspection of what our role has been in generating the kind of hatred that turns commuter jets into cruise missiles.”
ummm...we're not Muslim???
A historical fact unknown to (or at least unmentioned by) Mark LeVine: the United States was attacked by Islam in 1795... and in fact in 1801 the Islamic caliphate declared war UNILATERALLY on America WITHOUT PROVOCATION! Imagine that! Freighters of the United States being terrorized in the Mediterranean at a time when there was NO Israel to blame for such aggression! Yet, people like Mark LeVine continue to assert that the United States has brought terror upon itself by siding with Israel, the criminal state reviled by all good Muslims everywhere....
However, it is clear that this episode in American history explodes Mr. Levine's fallacy once and for all: Islam will terrorize at will-- which, as we all know, it does. And that is the reason for the Islamic attacks on the United States in 1795 and 1801.
If you don't believe me, perhaps you will believe the Yugoslavians who found themselves at war with the Islamic world since about 1200 AD, when there was assuredly no Israel state to scapegoat for being tergeted for Islamic terrorism and warfare. Yugoslavia was attacked by Muslims determined to seize and conquer their territory using brute military force--they still are. It's that simple.
Was it the Greeks' fault that most of what was once Greece was attacked and seized by the Islamic world?
What foreign policy snafus could have caused such a bloody demise of the once-proud Greek civilization at the hands of the bloodthirsty (yet according to Levine, just) Muslims?
What sort of criminals were the residents of the major Greek city of Smyrna for Islamic jihadists to seize their city obliterate it and everyone who lived there using torches and machetes?
Mark Levine would probably invent some convoluted explanation as to why it HAD to have been the Greek peoples' fault they were attacked by Islam. How stupid does Mr. LeVine believe us to be? Is there ANYONE ON EARTH that stupid? (NO).
And what, pray tell Mark Levine, foreign policy crimes did Hindustan commit to bring about its lethal attack (and annihilation) by Islamic jihadists in the seventh century? What sort of criminals could the Hindustanis have been to invite the slaughter of over 100 MILLION Hindsustani people? The Hindustanis must HAVE BEEN HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE PEOPLE to receive such treatment at the hands of Islam? Mark Levine would tell you they had to have been. Just like the Americans and Israelis today.
Was it the Yugoslavians fault that in the 1990s Islamic terror was being lobbed at them from all sides under the auspices of Ousamah bin Laden and al-Qaeda? Ask Mark Levine. Or not. (I wouldn't).
Mark Levine would have us believing that those who are attacked by Muslim terrorists probably deserve it. That is the insidious and greatly offensive logic used by this ignortant man. I admit it, I am ofended by Mark Levine!
One wonders when if ever people like Mark LeVine will get it through their thick skulls that Islamic terror has existed for as long as Islam has been around?
Judging from the historical record, Islamic terrorism did not and could not have begun with US foreign policy or Israel's existence and will thus continue to terrorize the world in spite of anything the United States or Israel can manage to do. Islamic terror may outlast them, God forbid...
Islamic terror does not exist to mete out to justice or to fulfill the fantasies of people (like Mark Levine) who feel slighted by the caprices of history (why the United States wields political and economic power exceeding that of nations Mr. Levine feels more Kindly disposed to, for example).
Islamic terror exists for one reason only. And that is because ISLAM IS TERRORISM!
Islamic terrorism is as old as islam, islam is a religion founded on terrorism. Read the Koran and you'll see that old muhhamed was a big fan of terrorizing people who would dare question allah. As long as islam exists there will continue to be terrorism.
One day maybe not to far in the near future the islamic world will cast off the shakles of facism.
Until then israel and America will continue to fight the war on terror.
Question for someone here who knows better , how long militarily speaking would it take Israel and America to destroy every arab army in the middle east. Im geussing about 14 days. Syria would probably be done in like 5 hours.
And do u think it would be possible to nail them with EMP and take our all their power grids?
"United States was attacked by Islam in 1795... and in fact in 1801..."
The first military engagement -- war, really -- that was fought by the young Republic was against the Barbary states. They lived off attacks on Christian shipping, and on the tribute paid to them by Christian kingdoms.
In, for example, "Algiers in the Age of the Corsairs" by William Spencer, in Chapter V, "Resources and Revenues" (pp. 108-110) one finds that the Algerine state in 1822, according to a report by United States Consul Shaler, had tribute paid by various European rulers, including the "king of Naples, king of Sweden, king of Denmark, king of Portugal." A kind of jizyah on an international scale. The corsair-state of Algeria lived on its attacks on Christian shipping for 300 years. But a new way of dealing with the situation was offered by the Americans, who had no intention of paying tribute. Their example led some of the European powers -- the British, and then the French -- to change their own strategy, and to become far more aggressive in bringing the attack right to the port of Algiers. The various deys and beys would sign agreements, and then break them as soon as they felt able (google "John Quincy Adams" and "Islam" for more). It became clear that no treaty would be permanently honored by the Muslim side (and why should it? See the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya). The Barbary piracy -- it was not piracy, but high state policy (in Spencer's book one sees that amost all of the state's revenues went to outfit and man the "pirate" ships -- see p. 110) -- ended only when the French finally seized Algiers, and Algeria. And thus began 132 years of relative tranquillity and advancement, which had been interrupted in the eighth century by the Muslim invasion that destroyed what had been first a Carthaginian, then Roman, then Christian civilization.