A ‘listening tour’ turns to capitulation

"It was a "wonderful meeting," she explained, because the two of them were able to talk "about the common language of the heart."

Oh, brother. Is this an Undersecretary of State or a sorority sister?"
-- from the article above

It is an "Undersecretary of State" who, I am sure, has never read the Qur'an, does not know what the words "Hadith" and "Sira" mean, and certainly could not list a half-dozen of the disabilities inflicted on the so-called "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians) under Islam. What did she do to prepare for this job? What did she do to prepare for this trip? After all, she should have been well-versed in what Islam teaches, and in the psychology of Muslims, and should have been trained NOT to apologize or explain, but to insist that the United States, and indeed, almost every country in the world outside the Muslim ones, that have been signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (as opposed to the Muslim states that conocted a Muslim version that is quite different) believe that all people have "certain inalienable rights" and that "among those rights" (gosh, this has a familiar ring -- doesn't it?) is, for example, the right to freedom of conscience -- that is, to switch from one religion to another, or to no belief at all.

That would have been nice to hear. It was wrong to make the Muslims think that the American government consists of sorority-sisters, unarmed, weaponless, without any ability to describe how the other half, or other 85% of the world, lives -- and how it is Muslims themselves who are going to have to deal with, and if possible change, their own belief in Jihad, their own division of the world, so central to Islam, between Believer and Infidel.

Had she demonstrated the slightest familiiarity with any of this, she might have scared them a bit. She might have given them reason to pause. She might, had she raised the issue of punishment of apostates in Islam, and of the unfair and unequal treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, really gotten the attention of first, the few thoughtful, and then the rest.

It is what those smarmy NPR talk-show hosts like to call, following Clinton's idiotic "National Conversation About Race" -- a "conversation."

Sure, Have the conversation. No gush, please. Just someone who is well-informed.

We can't stand too many more of these Michael Brown hirings. Not when it comes to Islam.

Oh, and on that note, at a meeting recently at Freedom House with Vice-President Cheney, where the topic was the Iraqi Constitution, a Muslim woman on his staff proceeded to insist that all present should support, not the rights of individuals, but "group rights" -- in other words, she wished to change the very nature of how we see the world, of how we understand things to be. She is on his staff. She counsels him. This whole idea of learning about Islam, and taking wisdom from, Muslims in government is a bad idea, given that all the best people born into Islam, who inform themselves fully about it, inevitably end up like Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Azam Kamguian, Irfan Khawaja and hundreds of thousands of silent others, all over the world -- as apostates. For who could not, in the end, overcome even filial piety and embarrassment when finally acquainted with the theory (the tenets) and practice of Islam? Anyone who continued to call himself a Muslim -- well, after such knowledge, as the tired old quote has it, what forgiveness?

Hugh,

There you go again, quoting that son of a St. Louis furrier!

Yrs
Robert

I'll go and talk to these people. Anytime. Probably end up having my head lopped off with a sword, but at least I'd be able to tell these worms about their so-called religion first.

Let's hear it (again) for Diana West.

She's got it right about the Islam "problem". Now, why can't our administration get it right?

This lady is an American heroine.

Would some member of the press ask Karen Hughes to supply a list of what, in order to become the public face of the Office of Public Diplomacy, what books about Islam, what texts of Islam itself, she read or is currently reading? We wish to know.

And will she, do you think, after this fiasco -- a fiasco as telling in its way, as the spectacle of General Myers yesterday proudly explaining that "what we are trying to do in Iraq has never been done before. It's historic." Oh, yes, it's historic all right -- historic in its hubris, historic in the sheer inattention to history, longue duree, or short-term, of Iraq and its constituent elements, and inattentation to Islam, and what it does to people.

The newspapers still refer to American puzzlement in Iraq about the insurgency. What is it all about? our generals and civilian leaders wonder? Will better intelligence help us? Good God. Anyone at all, any decent reporter there, could have told them.

It is "about" the following: the Sunnis do not wish to relinquish power. The Sunnis have convinced themselves that they should continue to rule, to own Iraq. Some of those Sunnis, especially those from outside the country, also believe that the Shi'a are "Rafidite dogs" -- i.e. Infidels, and so of course, like all Infidels, have no rights except what the "Muslims" (i.e. the Sunnis) choose to generously give them.

Everyone is waiting for the October 15 referendum on the Constitution. This is crazy. It does not matter what the vote then seems to suggest, or what the elections in December offer. After each of these pseudo-milestones, a cry of delight goes up. It is all nonsense. The Sunnis -- you heard it hear first -- will reject anything that is not a rejection of this Constitution.

And they will cry Fraud, for they insist, they all "know," that despite the figures, they constitute a majority or near-majority of the population in Iraq. They "know" that the Sunni Arabs are more than twice the number that the Infidel Americans, and their running-dogs the Shi'a, and the intolerable worthless Kurds, keep telling them. Are you telling the Sunnis that they are only 20% of the population? What nonsense -- of course it isn't true. Why not? Because, because, because -- it just can't be.

That's the insurgency. Sunnis of two kinds. The Al-Zarqawi kind, that regards the Shi'a as Infidels, aided and abetted by some Sunnis who simply worry about a Shi'a super-state, and fear the power of Iran. And the other kind, the local Ba'athist Sunnis, who ruled the roost under Saddam Hussein, whatever his little faults (for Sunnis he is looking better, more neat and clean, and devout, every day), simply are not going to allow the unwashed Shi'a either to control Iraq, or to split off from Iraq. No, it's not right. It would be wrong. And in the end, it would be un-Islamic, for Shi'a to rule over Sunnis in the heartland of Sunni Islam, the heir to the Abbasids, and of course the Muslim mental time-line goes way way back as of course, in the world-view of Arabs, it must, for all the supposed glories of Islamic Civilization (Arabic Wing) came to an end nearly a thousand years ago.

That's the great mystery solved for all those people in the government trying to "fathom" the great mystery.

Oh, and the Shi'a -- are they great democrats, followers of Mill, great readers of Jefferson and Lincoln and Michael Oakeshott and John Rawls? No they aren't. They "support democracy" because they constitute 60% of the population. That's it. Want to see the Shi'a idea of minority rights, and the rights of individuals, in their "democracy"? Well just go to Basra today, or anywhere south of Baghdad, in the Shi'a-controlled lands? Remind you of New England town meetings? Democracy at work, anywhere in the Western world? Something worth having American troops fighting and dying for?

We are now being run by those who will not tell the particular Emperor Penguin in power, with his I-have-a-dream-for-Iraq sentimental nonsense, that his inability to articulate the problem with Islam, or even apparently to fully understand it (if Karen Hughes is his close adviser, and that is the level of comprehension), is costing us, is suqnadering American lives, American money, American equipment, American morale -- and the morale of Infidels everywhere.

Stop the jizyah. Stop trying to make Sunnis and Shi'a lie down together, like the lion and the lamb in those series of famous folk paintings from Pennsylvania. There isn't a lamb in the bunch -- in Iraq, they are all lions. Let them go at it, without trying to do, as General Myers so tellingly, so complacently, with such self-unawareness revealed, "something that has never been tried before. It's historic."

Spare us that Can-Do spirit. History matters. What is in the brains of the people in Basra or Baghdad or Balad matters -- does General Myers, do the other generals, does George Bush, have any idea what is in those brains, what forms their minds? Let's stop that All People Want the Same Thing idea. In its tracks. It isn't true.

Believers do not like Infidels. They will take their money. They will use them. They will try to keep them in situ for as long as it su9its their own purposes, and then, when it suits them, boot them out. Americans are now being used by the Shi'a in Iraq. The Americans keep thinking that they are "building democracy" and creating a Light Unto the Muslim Nations. A Shi'a-dominated state is not, and cannot be, a light unto the Muslim nations, all of which, except for the hideous Islamic Republic of iran (which is an third-party beneficiary -- incidental, and not intended -- of America's deluded contract between itself and the "Iraq" of the perfervid American imagination), are run by Sunnis. Why the hell would they look to a Shi'a-run state, that they deplore and would always try to undercut, as a model of everything?

But why should George Bush, or the gneerals, or anyone else trouble themselves to learn about Sunni and Shi'a, or about what happened in the 1920s, as modern Iraq was a-borning, or in the 80 years since, when Sunnis have lorded it over the Shi'a? That would simply offer all sorts of inconvenient facts, a history we prefer, Podsnap-like, to snap our fingers and make disappear.

The American soldiers have performed fantastic feats of reconstruction. But these feats are not appreciated by the Iraqis. They win no friends. We keep thinking this cannot be, that surely, surely all of these schools, and hospitals, these water-treatment plants and power grids, all this money lavished upon them, all this effort to rid them of Saddam Hussein, has won us, will win us, the hearts and minds of many. No, no, no. A handful at the top, when they come to Washington either to extract more money (Jaafari's little appeal for a "new Marshall Plan" that, he suggested in his oily manner, should be called "the Bush Plan"), or Talebani's visit to convince Official Washington that the Americans should stay, and stay, because for obvious reasons, the Shi'a and the Kurds want us to do as much emptying of our pockets, and as mcuh subduing of the Sunnis, as we possibly can -- "let's you and him fight" is their idea. Well, many Americans would like to pick up that phrase, and re-employ it -- "let's you and him fight" except that they would like it to mean -- let the Shi'a and the Sunnis go at it. Let Saudi Arabia worry about Iran, and Iran, in trun, worry about Saudi Arabia. Let them each help their respective co-religiionits. Let them expend money, men, materiel, and let the Infidels see what Muslims do to each other. Let's get out. But of course, as long as the Dreamers in the White House attempt "to do what's never been done before -- it's historic" they will not "cut and run" or veer from their obstinate, immune-to-new-understandings "course" (obstinacy, based on a refusal to take in new information, and leading to continued squandering of resources, and all of it justified by silly schoolyard phrases -- what would Lord Palmerston say?)

The Americans are being used to train not an "Iraqi" army, but the Shi'a and the Kurds who make up that army. The "Iraqi" army used at Tal Afar was not "Iraqi" at all -- it was the Kurdish peshmerga. This of course maddens the Sunni, who realize that the longer the Americans stay, the more they train those largely non-Sunni troops (oh, some Sunnis manage to infiltrate, of course), the more the Sunni advantage in superior training and ferocity will disappear. And that is why, too, the Shi'a -- who are no friends of the Americans -- nonetheless wish them to stay. That, and the continued desire for billions in American aid.

The refusal of the Bush Administration to see this, when practically everyone else -- save of course for MoveOn.org and George Soros and Cindy Sheehan -- will eventually realize that what has been hammered at here, for more than a year, makes sense, makes the only sense, and ultimately will come about, if only because the those who want us out, for all the wrong reasons, will win the next election -- is astounding. They really are as ignorantly obstinate, lacking flexibility and finsesse,as we keep assuming they cannot possibly be, that there must be some hidden there there. Thoere are those who know better, both civilians and soldiers, but they do not know how to directly challenge the entire underlying assumptions about the policy in Iraq -- the assumptions that 1) we have no problem with Islam, only with the conditions that keep Muslims from being as normal, and sweet, as they would be 2) we must help create, or jump-start, or something, those conditions -- that is, "democracy" -- that will allow Muslims to forget all about what Islam teaches, and concentrate on running for Alderman, and be completely engaged in such matters as street-sweeping, and curriculum reform in "our nation's schools," and drug benefits for Muslim seniors -- you know, all the things that Muslms would care about, if they only had democracy, and Jihad, and Islam, would simply cease to be a problem. Just the way it ceased completely to be a problem in Turkey, after 80 years of sustained Kemalism.

Who is going to bell this cat? Who, in Congress or out, is going to tell Bush, or at least go beyond Bush to the public, to explain that his policy is naive, ignroant, and that he's got the whole thing wrong, that Iraq as a Light Unto the Muslim Nations was always a silly idea, and every day, in every way, it looks sillier and sillier and sillier. And those who among the Bright Young Conservative Things keep making more and more implausible predictions in support of this policy, and cannot bring themselves -- they are too lazy -- to study Islam, and remain shallow and shrill chearleaders for a policy that, if it were to be followed by Democrats, would raise from them howls of justified protest, should be replaced by those less careerist, more studious, and more principled.

Of course Sunnis want us out. So do the Shi'a -- after they have millkied us for everything they can get, including our soldiers being used to fight the Sunnis. But the Sunnis want us out sooner. Why? Well, from their point of view, the longer we stay, the more they fear we will train (and what's more, possibly equip) both groups they wish to again suppress, the Shi'a and the Kurds. In one way they have a point. We should let the Shi'a, possibly aided by Iran, go at it against the Sunnis without further training by Americans or American equipment. Any such training or equipment should be reserved for the Kurds. Why? Partly because they are more secular (they do not have the sense of "Arabness" to reinforce "Islam"), partly because they, having nowhere else to turn, and grateful for our protection since 1991, are necessarily pro-American. But mainly because the creation of a non-Arab Muslim state could inspire other non-Arab Muslim populations -- beginning with the Berbers in the Kabyle, and even the Berbers in France -- to see Islam more correctly as the vehicle for Arab supremacist ideology it has always been, and to realize that, like the Kurds, they may not necessarily have to endure that ideology forever. For whittling away at Islam, beginning with the non-Arab Muslims, is important if Islam is, world-wide, to be contained and constrained.

But this too requires that the Americans, who until now have done everything they can to discourage and even to berate the Kurds (Condoleeza Rice has been particularly outrageous) now see -- oh, call up Peter Galbraith -- that a Kurdish state is in the long-term interests both of all Infidels, and of the Americans.

And if the Turks don't like it? Too bad. The Turks will definitely end forever their chances of entering the E.U. if they dare to throttle a Kurdish state, and the Americans, too, as the main if not sole supplier of military equipment to the Turks, to get them to understand -- if they do not already from the E.U.'s demand that they recognize the Armenian genocide, that the Cold War is over, NATO does not need Turkey, the decline of Kemalism and rise in Islamic attitudes has finally been duly noted and understood, and that, if they know what is good for them, they will lay off a free Kurdistan, and the United States, as a sweetener, will guarantee that whatever other territorial demands may be made by the Kurds -- on Syria, on Iran -- there will be none in Anatolia.

That's fair. That's sensible. That's something all Infdiels can live with. And so can the Kurds. And so can the Turks. The Arabs? Maybe not. Too bad.

Robert--

Well, I did call it a "tired old quote." Perhaps I was not properly fortified with what, in this particular case, is my usual pepper-upper -- an Orange Julius. Oops, Anthony Julius. You know -- he whose law firm hired Lavinia Greenlaw as poet-in-residence, and who, in his book, apart from the gravamen of the main charge he levels, continues to insist that that son of a St. Louis furrier was a great poet.

Not in my book.

Hugh and I obviously get our news from different sources. I thought karen Hughes just had a revamp and was on her way to greater glories, as the high-brow press offers below:

http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=13144649

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=13144649&postID=112787841901718517

There goes any hope of a career at the State Dept.

In all of our dealings with Islam on a state-to-state basis I have to ask why we're acting so timidly. What is there to gain, or what is there to preserve, by acting out of timidity? It's not just the Bush admin., I suspect we'll get more of the same with a different administration. What am I missing here?

Are we witnessing the triumph of the plodders? Why? What accounts for this? Who are we as a people if we allow the Muslim world to rage violently and insanely with impunity? What's wrong with our culture if we do nothing but sit back and pretend? What's wrong with our people?

"Are we witnessing the triumph of the plodders?"
-- from a posting above

Right you are. Outside of natural science, and even there it is often who writes the best grant proposal who wins, it's often survival of the misfittest. Look at the MLA, the AHA, the tenured faculty, the university presidents, the members of Congress, the captains of industry, the lawyers specializing in murders and acquisitions, the members of the press, the televsion newsmen, those who appear on television, on the movies, with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, all our Great and Good.

Impressed? Like what you see?

Karen Hughes is either doing great harm or leading the Muslim world to believe that all Americans are as ill informed and credulous as is she.

Al Qaeda Training Manual

Get Inside the mind of a terrorist! The attached manual was located by the
Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an Al Qaeda
member's home. The manual was found in a computer file described as "the
military series" related to the "Declaration of Jihad." Read this manual to
gain insightful information on how a terrorist may operate in your
neighborhood, business, or

http://www.wmdtaskforce.com/education.html#trainingmanual

After the FEMA debacle in dealing with Katrina and the revelations of Mr. Brown's lack of qualifications to be FEMA director, and Ms. Hughes' appointment as ambassador to the Islamic world, two things are now clear to me. The Bush administration really is clueless about Islam, and cronyism often culminates in dreadful consequences.

I certainly hope Ms. Hughes does a better job than Mr. Brown, but since she obviously lacks any formal (or informal) education about Islamic theology, politics, and culture, I will assume that they gave her old job to someone else and created this one when she decided to return to work. Her talents may be invaluable in some areas, but her obvious ignorance of everything pertaining to the Islamic world make her the worst possible candidate for ambassador. Her ignorance could be disastrous.

Even if she were a seasoned diplomat familiar with this territory, she would be on a mission doomed for failure. The muslims want our money, appeasement, concessions, and eventual surrender. They are not and will never be interested in warm and friendly relations except to further their own interests. Let's grovel at their feet a little more to show our sincerity and humility. And by all means Ms. Hughes, please be sure to parrot the Bush administration's favorite canard: "Islam is a great religion of peace."

Are we witnessing the triumph of the plodders? Why? What accounts for this? Who are we as a people if we allow the Muslim world to rage violently and insanely with impunity? What's wrong with our culture if we do nothing but sit back and pretend? What's wrong with our people?

Posted by: sonofwalker at September 30, 2005 01:52 PM

If you want to understand what is happening to us, the link below will explain it very clearly. It is quite depressing because there seems to be no cure for this disease and it is epidemical.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19658