Part I is here, and Part II here.
We are all waiting for someone, a sensible Republican or a sensible Democrat, who recognizes that the best argument for staunching the flow in Afghanistan depends on recognizing the threat of Islam. Obama put himself into a box of his own making. When he gave his Cairo speech, he uttered such untruths about Islam that he could not get out. He saw Bush, and raised him. Raised him, in fact, that the argument that might have been available to Obama, who is clearly so terrified of appearing to be weak in the "war on terror" that he is wiling to go along, despite his long-standing but confused reservations, with those who want to send more troops.
He is willing, that is, to sacrifice another few thousand lives, and another one or two hundred billion dollars, because he cannot go back on what he has said. He cannot begin to recognize that throughout the American government, and among those whom those in the government claim to protect and instruct, there has been an effort to obscure the truth about Islam and the history of Islamic conquests over the past 1350 years. What, after all, could one learn from John Esposito or his "Al-Waleed Center"? What, for that matter, could one learn at Columbia, from Joseph Massad or Rashid Khalidi or Hamid Dabashi? What could one learn from a few dozen other major universities, where the teaching of Islam is firmly in the hands of Muslims or of non-Muslims who have shown themselves eager to act not as scholars and teachers, but as apologists of Islam? (For a little more, google "MESA Nostra").
By being easy on Islam, Obama now must be extra "tough" in the misleadingly-named " war on terror." And the so-called "conservatives," who back in 2003 locked themselves into a policy of unthinking loyalty to the Bush Administration's naïve campaign to "bring freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East, and then to do something of the sort in Afghanistan as well, are also in a box of their own making. And the only people who are not in some kind of box are those of us - you, dear reader, and I - who began by ignoring the repetition of pieties about Islam and instead chose to find out something about the ideology of Islam and the history of Islamic conquest, and to see if the observable behavior of Muslims around the world today appeared to reflect that ideology of Islam, and that history, or if it did not.
And tiens, it turned out that a knowledge of the texts, tenets, history of Islam gave one the ability to make sense of events around the world, and not merely to make sense of what had occurred, but to accurately predict what would happen. As we have, here, with Iraq, ever since calling for a withdrawal from that country at the end of February 2004, and with Afghanistan - where it seems we are to go in deeper because Obama doesn't want to reconsider what he said at Cairo, doesn't want to think too clearly, or to prepare himself too well, on the subject of Islam. And his opponents on the other side think Iraq is a "success" and that somehow our goals improve our position, when our position could only be improved, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, if the end result is a dividing and demoralizing of the Camp of Islam, by ceasing to prevent those countries from going to their natural hell.
What could be done with 1% of what is going to be wasted in Afghanistan? I don't mean what could be done for medical care, road repairs, teacher training, and so on. No, I mean what could be done to more cleverly defend the interests of the imperiled West, and of all Infidels, everywhere?
Well, here's just one thing. We could recognize the need for propaganda. Not the Bush Administration "propaganda" where Karen Hughes was talking non-stop about how wonderful it was for Muslims in America, what success stories they were, and how we had no problems with Islam at all. No, we get quite enough of that, and we certainly don't need more. It does nothing to protect our interests, and instead of weakening the hold of Islam on Muslims, makes them think that they are on the side that will inevitably grow stronger, and win.
He is willing, that is, to sacrifice another few thousand lives, and another one or two hundred billion dollars, because he cannot go back on what he has said.
It's not what he said that constrains Prez Obama, it's what made him say those things, what he actually thinks that is.
*** 92:8 ***
Look at his actions: He's apologized profusely to the Ummah and he meant it, noting that Americans had "lost their moral compass." Prez Obama is deeply confused, and probably burying moments of clarity in the dustbin of his mind, when he attempts to extend the conventional wisdom on Islam with his notions of understanding better, interacting better.
*** 13:27 ***
But it's not that simple. Prez Obama seems to be simple, not especially bright, definitely not courageous. Simplisms don't work well combatting real bad trends cloaked in obfuscation. He wouldn't know a truth about Islam if it bit him in his ass, which it soon will.
The Afghan war is a war based on wishful thinking and platitudes. Given the bigoted and uneducated population there, a lasting peace or real democracy is a fantasy.
What we should do is to stake out Islam-free zones as liberated areas. That would guarantee progress in the Western sense. We would never do that though, in our current, PC environment.
Our big mistake was in not setting up secular regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I hate to seem partisan because I am not. As a life-long conservative (almost 57 years now) -- not a neo (or new) conservative -- I must face reality. Conservatives cannot afford to dabble in delusions. The fact of the matter is, the left will not come to terms with the reality of the danger we face here in the West. I've read material from leftist thinkers and scholars; I have debated and argued with leftists on Islam for several years now. Denial on the left borders on the pathological. Perhaps not all leftists, but many / most.
Immediately post 9/11 and within the following years, conservatives and Republicans had their / our chance to define the enemy and to define the nature of this conflict. Led by President Bush, the conservative movement chose lies and deceit over hard truths. I don't know how many times I was scolded by conservatives, "He is better than Al Gore! Would you rather have had Al Gore or John Kerry?" Led by President George W. Bush, the conservative movement chose lies about the enemy. We chose apologetics for the enemy. We chose to appease the enemy and worse, we chose a vision and a road map that undermined our only reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Israel is in the heart of the battle against these jihadist killers; Israel has been for many decades. Led by President Bush (who repeatedly lied about the Israel's Muslim enemies; he characterized arch-terrorist Mahmoud Abbas "a man of peace and vision" for example), conservatives chose lies over truth. Bush lied. Obama is exacerbating these lies as we should expect from a hard-core leftist / radical. We are paying the price for Bush's lies. These are the lies conservatives bought and supported because, well, "would you rather have a Democrat in the White House?"
Don't expect the left to lead in this effort. Conservatives had their chance and they / we failed miserably. It remains to be seen if we have another chance and if we do, whether we will seize it; or not.
Robert and Hugh need to lead the country. They should run in 2012 as Independents. I'm confident they would win, at least among JW readers anyway...
Good propaganda such as was provided by Voice of America could be critically important now at very low cost, but I see that according to Ali Sina at FFI, talking about Obama:-
'This imbecile man has even closed the Persian broadcast of the Voice of America, allegedly to save $3,000,000 annually while spending $150,000,000 for his “coronation” and hundreds of thousands of dollars each week launching sumptuous feasts in the White House.'
If true, this does seem like the actions of a chump.
how do you pull out of Afganistan without appearing weak and a loser to the islamists? will it not make them bolder by cut and running? Vietnam scared the US, this would only be worse. l just want to know what alternative without appearing weak? perhaps weekly drone attacks from headquarter? l am serious for all well written words of Hugh, l just cannot see a way to pull out and look strong?
How? You break our alliance with the Sharia-based Afghan government. You keep our troops there, but withdraw them to their bases. You then declare the bases and their surroundings to be Islam-free zones, and spread out from them, gradually creating a sort of replacement country, eventually liberating Afghanistan in the correct way.
Then keep going and liberate the entire region.
how do you pull out of Afganistan without appearing weak and a loser to the islamists? will it not make them bolder by cut and running? Vietnam scared the US, this would only be worse. l just want to know what alternative without appearing weak? perhaps weekly drone attacks from headquarter? l am serious for all well written words of Hugh, l just cannot see a way to pull out and look strong?"
I have again and again answered this question in dozens of previous articles and hundreds of postings. You combine complete, ruthless pull-outs from Iraq and Afghanistan, with announcements that "of course" America reserves the right to attack enemies plotting "violent Jihad" in both of those countries, as well as in Pakistan and, indeed, anywhere in the world.
You annount to cause trouble or undue anxiety for the government of Turkey" on the subject of what may be called "infiltration into our societies of those supporting Jihad, through various means" and, in particular, "threats to the military and domestic security services of the member states of NATO because of such infiltration."
At this meeting, not all the details of which will be known, but a few of which will deliberately be made known, the governments of Saudi Arabia and other rich Arab states, and Iran, will have all the funds they send to spread Islam -- funds to pay for mosques, madrasas, propaganda, and armies of Western hirelings (in the media, in universities, in the corridors of power everywhere -- will be banned, and that any attempt to get around the ban will be considered an act to disrupt our domestic tranquillity because, while Islam "may be called a religion, it also contains political and geopolitical doctrines that threaten the well-being and civilisational coherence of the Western world, as well as the rest of the non-Muslim world, and the funding of efforts that lead directly to threats to our security will no longer be permitted.
A much harder line is taken, publicly and privately, about the matter of Islam, and the word gets out -- is deliberately leaked -- that the American government's highest officials are now studying the texts and tenets of Islam, and instructing others in the government to do so, and are now using a different vocabulary and a different tone. They are openly using the word "Jihad" and they, at the highest levels, are explaining that "for too long we have focussed only on terrorism as a weapon of Jihad, when in fact Jihad may be defined by its goal -- the removal of all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam, rather than by the violence or non-violence of the instruments chosen to pursue that goal. The word "Dhimmi" and the definition of Dhimmi will be used. The word "Jizyah" will be used, and critics of massive gain given to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the "Palestinians" by the member-states of NATO will be encouraged to describe -- and explain why they describe -- such aid as a kind of updated Jizyah.
Everywhere, the tone will change. And government officials will stress a "smarter much cheaper way" of fighting "the war of self-defense against Jihad."
And, even before the last troops are out of Afghanistan, American military forces, perhaps aided by other NATO troops, should seize the southern Sudan and Darfur -- wiping out, overnight, the Sudanese airforce -- and declare that the continued genocide in Darfur, and the renewal of the genocide in the southern Sudan (for there is not a chance in hell that the Arabs in the north will ever let the south go, ever let the oil under the south go -- they might try to kill, or drive out, all or most of the black African Christians in the south and that must not be allowed)-- has now been stopped, and the peoples of Darfur and the southern Sudan are now under NATO protection, or American protection, until such time as a referendum on independence can be held.
Shots of smiling black Africans greeting the American troops (make sure there are plenty of black Americans among those troops, and let them get a good lesson in what the Muslim Arabs have done to black Africans, both Christians in the south, and even non-Arab black African Muslims in Darfur.
Let the electrifying news go all over black Africa, above all to black African Christians. Let the Arab League fume, and demand the divine right of Muslim Arabs to kill, maim, enslave, expel, black Africans. Let members of the American government pay for black Sudanese Christians to spread the word, to give speeches about their treatment. Let more and more the matter of the Arab slave trade be discussed. Let African states start talking about "reparations" being demanded from the Arabs -- after all, it is the Arabs who have received many trillions of dollars, and who today still have a trillion or two in reserves, money just waiting for demands to be made on it.
Let the radio stations and satellite televisiion stations that broadcast in Urdi, Bahasa (in its various versions) French and Tamazight (and other languages spoken by non-Arab Muslims, be full not of American pop culture, but of intelligent discussions, by defectors from the Army of Islam, native speakers of those languages and apostates, who will discuss how Islam is, always has been, and always will be, a vehicle for Arab supremacism.
That's a small list, a list right off the top of my head. But it can be readied now, ready to go, and step after step taken to show that an American withdrawal from Afghanistan -- and our studied indifference to what Sunnis and Shi'a do to each other in Iraq -- does not mean that we are weak, but that we are prepared to stop this nonsensical transfer of wealth to Muslim countries on the naive and missing-the-point assumption that "lack of jobs and hope" and suchlike explain not only Muslim terrorism, but all the other instruments of Jihad -- the Money Weap[on, campaigns of Da'wa, demographic conquest -- that have proven so effective and that must be checked, and reversed.
It is all entirely manageable. There is no "victory" and no "end" to this war. It goes on forever. But Islam, or the threat from Islam, can be managed, can be reduced to manageable proportions, if intelligent and well-prepared people, and not the lemming-minded, are allowed to take control and direct this war without end.
It can be done and -- as the advertisers say -- "at a fraction of the cost" -- so that we can stop the squandering of men, money, materiel, and morale, and divide and demoralize and sow confusion among the enemy camp, the Camp of Islam.
"Robert and Hugh need to lead the country."
How 'bout President and Vice-President? A dream come true.
After Bush invaded Iraq, Daniel Pipes weighed in publicly that Bush should have installed an America-friendly (Sunni?) strongman in Saddam's place, rather than push for the spread of democracy. The same might have applied in Afghanistan. I was and still am inclined to agree with Pipes. Historically, victorious nations imposed their own form of governance on defeated nations; generally it was a loyal ruler or puppet-king. Spreading democracy in the region has become a losing proposition. Remember Bush and Rice strong-armed Israel to allow Hamas to participate in the elections in Judea, Samaria, east Jerusalem and Gaza, against Israel's strong protestations.. "Palestinians" elected Hamas to represent them. Bush then refused to recognize the will of the Muslim peoples living in Israel, even as he applauded the elections as open, free and fair. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly warned Bush to not occupy Iraq and more importantly he warned Bush to not push democracy in the region because the Arab Muslims, by way of culture, tradition, etc., are not prepared for democracy. Bush ignored Sharon's sage advice.
It's obvious that Hugh and the posters here have one thing in common: They aren't naive when it comes to our mission vis a vis Muslims. Quite a contrast to the drivel we usually hear from our so-called leaders and the MSM.
Daniel Pipes weighed in publicly that Bush should have installed an America-friendly (Sunni?) strongman in Saddam's place, rather than push for the spread of democracy."
Vaste programme, monsieur. It's no longer 1920, and the notion that once Saddam Hussein had been removed, and his
Sunni-officered army humiliated and mauled, that America could have "installed" a Sunni strongman, strikes me as an impossible thing to believe in, even before breakfast. Once Saddam and his sons and the regime's main figures (remember that game of 52 pick-up?) were captured or killed, the game was over. Power had shifted to the Shi'a Arabs, and they were never again going to give it up, even if they decided to give up oil-less parts of Iraq, such as Anbar Province. The Sunnis will never acquiesce in this loss -- the bombs going off right now in Baghdad are not from Al Qaeda alone, but from Al Qaeda and Ba'athist (Sunni)elements, some of them in Syria, and elsewhere among Sunni Iraqis, supported by non-Iraqi Sunnis, including -- no doubt -- some deep-pocketed anti-Shi'a Arabs in Saudi Arabia.
Once the decision had been made to invade Iraq -- a decision urged on many in high places by those charming, plausible, affable, smiling Iraqis in exile who all turned out to be Shi'a (Ahmad Chalabi's name led all the rest), and who had their own reasons for getting the Americans to remove Saddam Hussein, reasons that had nothing to do with American national interests, it was important for the Administration to realize it had been snookered, and to figure out, once the regime of Saddam Hussein was gone, how to extract a "victory" from the situation.
The only "victory" that made sense would be one that would weaken the overall Camp of Islam. But the transfer of power from Sunni Arab to Shi'a Arab in Iraq could not weaken the Camp of Islam, if the Americans were hell-bent on dampening down sectarian tensions and hostilities. In fact, if they had succeeded in this -- they haven't though those who keep prating about how "the surge worked" think the Americans succeeded -- that would have been like running down the field the wrong way and making a goal for the opposing team. The American government has not only squandered vast sums, and many American lives, in Iraq, but what is maddening, it has done so in the unexamined and heedless pursuit of a goal that not only does not make sense, but is the very opposite of the goal we should wish to achieve.
Most people, most of the time, do not sit still and analyze things rationally. They attitudinize. Thus, for "conservatives" Bush, being a "conservative" and a Republican, simply had to be supported, whether or not his policies toward Islam and the Islamic threat made sense. And that continues to this day, in many quarters. Similarly, those who hated Bush opposed his policy, but they opposed it not because it was an ineffectual and pointless way to attempt to contain the forces of Islam (what possible effect does what happens in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan have in the countries of Western Europe, trying to come to their collective senses about the threat of islamization?) but because, you see, it involved "war" (boots on the ground, tanks, planes, that sort of thing)and we shouldn't be at "war" because, really, Islam is just fine, no better and no worse than, say, Christianity, and what's all that right-wing fuss about?
Between these two kinds of sillinesses, one longs for someone to tell the truth. I longed for it so much, that I decided to do it myself.
"....once Saddam Hussein had been removed, and his
Sunni-officered army humiliated and mauled, that America could have "installed" a Sunni strongman, strikes me as an impossible thing to believe in..."
Maybe. I've a few books on this conflict. I cannot remember which. Sunni Bathists told US officials as US forces pushed through to Baghdad, they thought the Americans would hand control of Iraq over to them. Sunnis were sure the US would keep them in power. President Bush had other plans.
Sunni Arabs make up less than 20% of the population in Iraq. The Shi'a Arabs make up at least 60%, and possibly more. And the Shi'a Arabs control the entire south, with all of the major oilfields in secure Arab control (the other oilfields are in the north, where the Kurds are most populous and are in control, in that part of Kurdistan which is in Iraq). It would not have been possible for the Ba'athist camouflage of what was essentially a Sunni-led despotism to remain affixed to the face of any Iraqi regime, once the old regime had collapsed. As soon as the Americans invaded, it was over for Sunni rule in Iraq. And while Infidels normally should not care who rules, in this case, since the major threat right now is Iran (but only because of its nuclear weapons project -- and if that is taken care of, the humiliation of the Islamic Republic's regime will lead, after the briefest of rally-round-the-flag rallies, to its welcome demise. And then, while taking no sides in Iraq, the Western powers can enjoy the spectacle of Sunni-Shi'a hostilities in Iraq, and delight in the amount of resources that are diverted by the rich Arabs to fend off what they see as an Iranian, Shi'a, "Rafidite" threat.
'President Bush had other plans.'
Was that after someone explained to him the difference between Sunni and Shia or before?
OK, maybe he did have plans and maybe he was traduced by gossip-mongers, but we have to admit the whole project was reckless and misconceived. Mainly because of the ignorance of him and his advisers.
Yet still after all this time this site remains one of the few oases of sense and the general public, media and politicians still haven't got the message.
What will it take I wonder?
I hope Hugh is still up for a few more articles.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope it's not the Tehran Express.
Reading Hugh's article and then the subsequent posts reinforced for me the conviction that the fundamental problem remains the pass Islam continues to get from American and Western leaders. It's not that working with those who have an antithetical assessment of how human society should be ordered is the problem. America aligned with some Communists against others (e.g. Tito v. Stalin), supported right-wing dictators across the world (e.g., Latin American authoritarians like Pinochet) during the Cold War as a counter to the greater enemy, i.e., the Communist world, and in the supreme example of realpolitik supported Stalin against Hitler. But in none of these situations did we pretend that non-democratic, non-freedom ideologies were good or OK. But that is exactly what we're doing now with Islam.
I have no gripe against cooperating with some Muslim countries (e.g., Tunisia or Indonesia) against other Muslim nations or against transnational Islamic terrorist organizations. My objection is rooted in the pretend game that America and the West continue to play and that is that Islam is just another religion which, unfortunately, has been hijacked by some extremists. The reverse is actually the truth of things, to wit, that the extremists have been hijacked by Islam (though this in no way removes personal responsibility for one's actions). As long as this stupid game continues, victory against Islamic totalitarianism is in grave doubt, if not impossible. Once Islam is understood to be itself evil, a real enemy of freedom, then everything else will start to fall into place. Not there yet. It's a very big "there" we have yet to travel to. Time to do so.
Hugh is once again, absolutely correct. There is no strong military victory outcome possible here. We have neither the will nor the resources to maintain what amounts to a permanent occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq, nor should we even attempt to. We aren't really fighting the proper war there against Islam, against ALL of Islam, so the entire exercise is wasteful.
De-stabilize and pull out and watch the countries inevitably burn, no longer a result of the US "occupation." Intentionally leak to the Muslims everywhere that we are on to what Islam really is, do the requisite research and then adjust our policies accordingly.
Iran has always been the real problem sense 1979. Saddam was part of the solution until he decided to go rogue. Because of Iran, Saddam was allowed to remain in power and let the Shia ans Sunni "work things out". Unfortunately, the MSM, as biased to the liberal cause then as they are today, made letting that continue a big fat human rights issue. So we ended up with no fly zones and a war the MSM had no interest in except an occasional blurb about bombing something. The Left Scream Media only played Saddam's badness when they could could make political hay. Sure, some platitudes were spoken, passing resolutions for this and that, with an Army that was deactivated. Throw in a couple of Major Man made disastrous Crimes. The Country is actually bending over backward to placate the Muslim Crowd. There was a kind of disconnected numbness in the population with regards to Islam.
That disconnect and a bit of DNA on a blue dress was just enough to keep one of Americas premier con artists from becoming President.
Something that made the same biased left wing MSM rabid with hate.
Then 9/11 comes al. ong and the MSM is caught with their pants down. Way way down. Way farther than even today's fashion trends.
GW has done more to splinter the Camp of Islam than any man alive in decades. What better way to dishearten the hearts of Muslims than to give them freedoms against the wishes of their leaders? While having options that deal with the most devout in a permanent manor. including taking sides of convenience when necessary.
In my opinion, way too many individuals view President Bush through a prism the MSM, a corrupt and bribed UN, and a Socialist Europe who saw Gore as the culmination of life's dream, wishes you to see through.
War is deceit. Everyone was at War with Bush. Many still are.
Bush did not get Obama elected. The Prism did that for us.
Now Obama is president and the MSM is just as Bias as it always has been. Only now the General Public is aware of it like no other time in the past.
With all that hope and change going on, how do things look now???
Prisms optional.
Iran is still the problem and soon the majority of the deplorable Army will have Iran surrounded.
The only question needing answering is if the UN does not act as Obama demanded, will he???
"Iran has always been the real problem....Iran is still the problem."
No, and no.
The Islamic Republic of Iran -- not to be confused, these days, with Iran -- is a great problem, and the greatest problem of all, one that however admits of a solution, is the nuclear-weapons project of the Islamic Republic.
But it is the ideology of Islam, which fills its adherents with the belief that Muslims have a right and a duty to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam, and inculcates them with the idea that all of humanity is divided between Muslim and Infidel, and that a state of permanent war (though not necessarily of open warfare) must exist between the two, and between the two domains of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, is what you call "the problem" while I prefer to describe something as "a problem" only if it admits of a solution, and there is no solution to the danger that Islam permanently poses to all non-Muslims, but rather, a situation to be handled, rendered more manageable, in the main by dividing and demoralizing those in the Camp of Islam, and in large part merely by allowing their own internecine resentments and hostilities to play out, but in some cases -- as with an attempt to explain to non-Arab Muslims all the ways in which Islam has been a vehicle for Arab supremacism, beginning but not ending with, linguistic and cultural imperialism. It's not hard to do, but someone in power has to organize a campaign, and speak about this in public.
As for your defense of Bush ("GW has done more to splinter the Camp of Islam than any man alive in decades. What better way to dishearten the hearts of Muslims than to give them freedoms against the wishes of their leaders?"), perhaps it can be seen as the obvious obverse of the mental medal, the one on which is inscribed "Down with the MSM." Some may be satisfied with such an easy-to-remember three-little-letters all-purpose explanation of what ails this country and the rest of the West. I'm not.
But, Hugh, flowerknife_us, does have a point. When working with the enemies of liberty, to show at least some of those within the opposite camp the wonders and benefits of liberty can in and of itself have a divisive effect--------upon the enemy at large, upon any freedom-crushing ideology.
Islam cannot stand up to fresh air and scrutiny. Even one (like Bush) who could not bring himself to fault Islam per se, nonetheless by exposing some of the adherents of Islam to the intoxicating and liberating effects of freedom, this alone has undermined this particularly loathsome totalitarian assessment of mankind and the universe.
Really, if the West and liberty is to ultimately triumph over the Islamic world and its self-imposed tyranny, it is imperative that the West turn many in the camp of Islam against Islam. Arguably, Bush was instrumental in the formative stages of this process, though I do concede it has come at a high price, but I damn the Neanderthal Islamic world far more for this and not those in the West like Bush who wanted the termination of such a world without realizing that they were a catalyst in its necessary destruction, all the while thinking (erroneously) that all that was needed was reformation. But the motives were pure and noble, naive though they were to a large extent. Hey, take the long view and see that many chapters in this sorry and tragic saga will ensue before Islam becomes the anachronism it so deserves to be. Bush seen in this light comes off better than I think you think he should.
I'm interested in the world of Islam only insofar as it threatens the rest of us. I don't see how life under Islam can be improved. If one wished Muslims well, one would, I suppose, try to weaken the hold of Islam. For it is Islam itself that explains the political despotism, the economic paralysis, the intellectual statis, the undeveloped moral sense (one rule for Muslims, another for all others). Those who truly wish Muslims well would offer them, not schools where Islam will be taught, not new hospitals and so on, not even three cups of tea but, rather, try to work to loosen the grip of Islam, to allow in some air.
What happened in Iraq was not the interruption of Western-style democracy. What happened only was a transfer of power from one set of Muslim Arabs to another. For all of the enormous and heart-rending efforts by the American military, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, there will be no permanent or significant change in the practice of Islam, or in the hold of Islam, in those countries.
And besides, we have to look after ourselves. We are the people who deserve to be saved from Islam, not Muslims. They are last on the list.
Errata Sheet:
For "intellectual statis"
Read "intellectual stasis"
Islam itself must be the focus of attention.
It must become known as the enemy to us "non-muslims" that it is, and also to become understood as the real enemy to the islamic world itself.
The "faith" of islam is the threat of this planet that must end with islam being destroyed and ended, or it may very well be the life of this world that could end.
Islam itself must become understood as the threat to our world's survival. Not just the many here writing or reading these posts, but to the mainstream, to the middle east, to the shores of all nations. It must be seen as the enemy.
Clear and no question of intent, the word of what we are saying must be seen as the truth of our actions. Say what we feel, how it is seen, and then say what we will do. Nothing more or less.
Life under Islam can't be improved but life in spite of Islam can be. Introducing Western notions of freedom is just about the surest way to accomplish this. It's not a cure all, only the complete eradication of Islam would be, but it's a first step. Bush took the first step, though with fits and starts and tortuous turns, in large part because he made the assumption so many in the West still do and that is that Islam is OK. Well, as we know only too well, it isn't. But Western notions of freedom have been introduced nonetheless, courtesy of America's 43rd President. I see this as an early chapter in a long book which I hope will have a happy ending. If it is to have such an ending, ultimately it will be up to Muslims to insure this, which will mean Muslims leaving Islam in very large numbers as the decades roll on. If this doesn't occur, it will be war with virtually the entire Islamic world so that liberty can survive.
Obama has set clear limits to America's involvement in Afghanistan...I.E 18 months then the wind down. This not an escalation , it is a pacifcation process that has clear goals and seeks to remain engaged in a land that the US has resposiblities to... as it is a nation that has been defeated by the US, so the US must ensure its rebuilding!
What is missing here is the concept of "Progress". That we can even think we can revert back to the days of Teddy and his big stick. Of fortress America ...lets face it , once we disengage from from the Middle East as sugested here , the same root causes will remain , the US will have to close the mexican border ...it will have to do an Israel to fence out all the malcontents.
This is not progress , building walls is an atavistic response that can be seen in history past. See the Great wall of china or Hadrians wall or even Israel's attempt. You say we can keep the barbarians, keep the 'other' out...no we cant.
Only by mollifying the percieved grievance's of those in the Middle East can we hope to rein in the nastier practitioner's of Jihad. Through engagement we can take of wind from their sails.
Obama , Noble prize recipient, has started this process by a more balanced approach to Israel. Bibi has recognised that progress demands some further concessions from Israel so that the Palestinians will be in a position to finally accept the generous offers put forward by Bibi's predecessors. Once the stain of the disenfranchisement of the palestinians is dealt with , the sails of Jihad will flap empty.
Obama has also made overtures to the Iranian Government , again to engage and meet and forge a less confrontational path to coexistence. Here again is to remove the driving force behind the pursuit of Nukes which the invasion of Iraq gave further impetus. The results must be measured ina more circumspect manner as the Iranians have much to distrust the West about. Certainly the end to the Palestinian problem will provide an end to Iran's meddling with Syria on Israels northern border.
Obama has reached out to the 1.3 billion Muslims in his Cairo address , part of this is to promise that tensions at home in the US are not further enflamed by random acts that could be construed as "Jihad" ( like the Ft Hood event)by more American's with a more parochial out look. We can only see the psycological damage wrought at a national level by Geert Wilders in his quest to become his nation's leader , but also we see his failure to embrace 'Progress' and resist the locomotive of historyand turn back to darker times.
We cannot go scurrying back to the dark recesses of humanities fears that when confronted with change and the 'other'. While such flight or fight responses were acceptable in colonial times , progress allows to accept a more diverse , giving , cultural basis for sciety. We shouldnt go running into the streets with pickforks to kill the 'Frankenstein' hijab wearing fellow citizens just because we dont want to change , we dont to progress. Such recalcitrants just want ot sit in dank caves stroking the precious glories of the past... yes the precious "good old" days , when 'we' were all 'one' , of blonde hair and blues eyes. The precious , the precious....
Obama's election , is a celebration of the kind of progress humankind can make. His goals , his hopes , through the awarding of the Noble peace prize ... is to further progress America's destiny away from notions of exceptionism , but toward a true new world order that is well grounded in equality and mutual respect. His re-empathsis on the UN is telling.
Not in notions of empire , of national purity and 'oneness' , of cultural supremcy and other reactionary silliness.... but in simple certitude that progress will lead us to a better , more equal place. And equality demands that we respect each other's differences and support our fellow human beings. As Obama has alluded to , civilisational conflict is not a certainty ... and AGW and Copenhagen may provide the circuit breraker in any event. For to stop the world from melting we must all work together to ensure our survival.
Only then can we gather together and sing those 60's folk songs of love and recognise how far ahead of time the 60's poets were. Though disparaged now , spiritual songs from long ago, like Kum Bay Ya , will , again be sung like anthems.
Hugh is again, painfully correct. Iran is nothing but a cog in the machine of Islam. To worry and to wring hands over that cog at the expense of exposing the machine is indeed...folly at best.
The problem is simply that too few of us have arrived at that conclusion, to date.
There is the obstacle. We are the solution, one, myself, albeit not well-received so far but I work at it each and every day.
Obama has set clear limits to America's involvement in Afghanistan...I.E 18 months then the wind down. This not an escalation , it is a pacifcation process that has clear goals and seeks to remain engaged in a land that the US has resposiblities to... as it is a nation that has been defeated by the US, so the US must ensure its rebuilding!
What is missing here is the concept of "Progress". That we can even think we can revert back to the days of Teddy and his big stick. Of fortress America ...lets face it , once we disengage from from the Middle East as sugested here , the same root causes will remain , the US will have to close the mexican border ...it will have to do an Israel to fence out all the malcontents.
This is not progress , building walls is an atavistic response that can be seen in history past. See the Great wall of china or Hadrians wall or even Israel's attempt. You say we can keep the barbarians, keep the 'other' out...no we cant.
Only by mollifying the percieved grievance's of those in the Middle East can we hope to rein in the nastier practitioner's of Jihad. Through engagement we can take of wind from their sails.
Obama , Noble prize recipient, has started this process by a more balanced approach to Israel. Bibi has recognised that progress demands some further concessions from Israel so that the Palestinians will be in a position to finally accept the generous offers put forward by Bibi's predecessors. Once the stain of the disenfranchisement of the palestinians is dealt with , the sails of Jihad will flap empty.
Obama has also made overtures to the Iranian Government , again to engage and meet and forge a less confrontational path to coexistence. Here again is to remove the driving force behind the pursuit of Nukes which the invasion of Iraq gave further impetus. The results must be measured ina more circumspect manner as the Iranians have much to distrust the West about. Certainly the end to the Palestinian problem will provide an end to Iran's meddling with Syria on Israels northern border.
Obama has reached out to the 1.3 billion Muslims in his Cairo address , part of this is to promise that tensions at home in the US are not further enflamed by random acts that could be construed as "Jihad" ( like the Ft Hood event)by more American's with a more parochial out look. We can only see the psycological damage wrought at a national level by Geert Wilders in his quest to become his nation's leader , but also we see his failure to embrace 'Progress' and resist the locomotive of historyand turn back to darker times.
We cannot go scurrying back to the dark recesses of humanities fears that when confronted with change and the 'other'. While such flight or fight responses were acceptable in colonial times , progress allows to accept a more diverse , giving , cultural basis for sciety. We shouldnt go running into the streets with pickforks to kill the 'Frankenstein' hijab wearing fellow citizens just because we dont want to change , we dont to progress. Such recalcitrants just want ot sit in dank caves stroking the precious glories of the past... yes the precious "good old" days , when 'we' were all 'one' , of blonde hair and blues eyes. The precious , the precious....
Obama's election , is a celebration of the kind of progress humankind can make. His goals , his hopes , through the awarding of the Noble peace prize ... is to further progress America's destiny away from notions of exceptionism , but toward a true new world order that is well grounded in equality and mutual respect. His re-empathsis on the UN is telling.
Not in notions of empire , of national purity and 'oneness' , of cultural supremcy and other reactionary silliness.... but in simple certitude that progress will lead us to a better , more equal place. And equality demands that we respect each other's differences and support our fellow human beings. As Obama has alluded to , civilisational conflict is not a certainty ... and AGW and Copenhagen may provide the circuit breraker in any event. For to stop the world from melting we must all work together to ensure our survival.
Only then can we gather together and sing those 60's folk songs of love and recognise how far ahead of time the 60's poets were. Though disparaged now , spiritual songs from long ago, like Kum Bay Ya , will , again be sung like anthems.
Jewdog: "Our big mistake was in not setting up secular regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan."
But Iraq already had a secular regime based upon the Baath ideology and the Russians who spent a whole decade and was fighting a total war in Afghanistan with no regard to the civilian population was unable to keep a secular communist regime in power.
Iraq was not a war of necessity but of stupidity. The US should have made a deal with Saddam Hussein when he implemented Kuwait. Giving him massive support to fight another war with our main enemy Iran. Divide and rule, that´s the smart strategy.
And we should have proclaimed mission accomplished in Afghanistan in 2002 and withdrawn all troops instead of trying nation building and to interfere in an ongoing civil war amongst the tribes.
As long as Muslims primarily kill other Muslims we are doing the right thing! Muslims should bear the full negative consequences of Islam. It should never be our job to save them from the consequences of their own fascist ideology.
From post above...Obama has set clear limits to America's involvement in Afghanistan...
Yes, he limited the number of fresh targets to 30,000 kufr troops...Once there is a great slaughter in the land, Mullah Omar can reclaim it...2:191...
And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.
Was President Bush really naive or was he limited by the bias in those 3 catch all letters known as the MSM? You really expected that Bush could declare 1.2 billion Muslims as enemy's of the US???
It would be nice if we could just leave Islam alone to its own devises in the hope it will eventually kill itself off. But that is very Utopian in theory and flies in the face of 1400 years of recorded history. Just look at what it has done to such places as say, Iran.
The problems of Islam are greater than Islam itself.
The proof is posed here everyday. The primary thread throughout every post is how the MSM, through all its manifestations, falsifies, misrepresents and distorts the Islamic news of the day. To think the MSM plays a small role in our problems really is naive.
But that is ok. It is easier to blame Bush. The only western leader willing to kill the enemy. According to the Left Scream Media the toll was in the millions. And he was a bad,bad, man for doing so.
I some times wonder if President Bush would have suffered as much grief as he did, had he tried to install a Socialist Government in Iraq and Afcrapistan?
l enjoy reading these great posts! what l might add is that we in the West can also destroy Islam from within, with our ideas of freedom with Democracy which will bring economic success to name just one advantage. you just need look at how successful Israel is compared to her neighbous and even compare North Korea to South Korea. Democracy destroys the ideas of islam, and any other facism. Muslims are only human and with enough exposure to the West we can only weaken their logic of keeping islam. its a drop in a bucket, that flood of freedom scares the crap out of Irian mullahs.
Bush was not evil, and the poster just above who thinks he has to defend Bush from such an attack has not been reading me carefully. Bush was ill-informed. He was not well-prepared. He was a sentimentalist, a sentimentalist about "religion" (he himself was saved, so he said, by a renewal of his Christan faith, and that made it difficult for him to see Islam, which like many he thought of only as a "religion" akin to Christianity, as what it is, rather than what he assumed it must surely be). He was also a sentimentalist about man, believing that the Muslims of Iraq surely wanted "freedom" (many people are used to with the regimentation of Islam, and do not long for Western "freedom" -- and there even those pathetic souls in the Western world who ardently desire the Total Regulation of Life that Islam can provide). But Bush was not alone. A great many people in his Administration were also ill-prepared, some of them taken in by the charming group of Iraqi (Shi'a) in exile -- Ahmad Chalabi's name leads all the rest -- who inveigled the Americans into getting rid of Saddam Huseein for them, and who promised that once that happened, why Iraq would settle down, everything would be swell, the Americans would write that new Constitution, and Iraq would be the truest bluest friend America could wish for, in the Middle East.
Opposition to Islam is not limited to Bush -- Oriana Fallaci, in Europe, and a handful of other (almost all of them by your lights "left-wingers") have inflicted far more damage on Islam in Western Europe, damage in the minds of Infidels willing to think, than our military adventures recently have done. The Bush Administration squandered such huge amounts of money -- two trillion dollars is now the total cost of the Iraq venture -- as well as the lives of those of thousands of Americans (and the severe wounding of tens of thousands of others), in a war whose goals were both unattainable, and if they were to be attained, would have done nothing to further Western, Infidel interests, however much it might make life materially better, if not any less Islamic, in Iraq.
Nor did I ever suggest that Bush should openly declare Islam to be the enemy. It is not necessary. The principle of contiguity -- metonymy -- should be exploited. Not "Islam" but "all those who believe in Jihad -- that is, the duty, based on some kind of divine right, to work to undo our societies and our freedoms" is one way to put it, and there are many others, that by repetition will make the -- for Infidels -- the unavoidable point. Furthermore, at lower levels, even in Congress, people can begin to fill out the picture, make the statements, each more daring than the last, as the inhibitions are removed, one by careful one. It can be done. It requires will.
Is military action never useful? Of course it is. Perhaps the greatest folly of the Iraq war is that it gave Iran a reprieve, a chance to go full-steam ahead on its nuclear project. And now this Af-Pak business appears to be doing the same. But would we care one bit if Pakistan collapsed in upon itself, if Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons? Isn't it obvious, or shouldn't it be, that Iran, or rather the Islamic Republic of Iran, would be far closer to the oilfields of the Middle East, and to Israel, our only unshakable and reliable military ally between Europe and Australia, and far more dangerous, with this Twelver Shi'ism, and all that crazed business about the Mahdi, even than awful Pakistan?
And I suggested an easy way to break black Africa from fear of Islam, and from its false alliance with the Arabs - through seizure of the southern Sudan and Darfur, and holding those regions for a referendum on independence? That would be unassailable, morally, and more importantly, geopolitically it makes sense in a dozen ways.
You wrote: "Bush was not evil....Bush was ill-informed. He was not well-prepared. He was a sentimentalist, a sentimentalist about "religion" (he himself was saved, so he said, by a renewal of his Christian faith, and that made it difficult for him to see Islam, which like many he thought of only as a "religion" akin to Christianity, as what it is, rather than what he assumed it must surely be). He was also a sentimentalist about man, believing that the Muslims of Iraq surely wanted "freedom"....Nor did I ever suggest that Bush should openly declare Islam to be the enemy. It is not necessary...."
While I am prepared to accept much or most of this, I am not prepared to accept the (apparently) dominant view that "Bush was not evil." Granted -- like another "conservative" (this one British), who said and did some mighty costly things in human terms -- ascribing evil to a man's motives may not seem appropriate. Yet what Bush said and did as president, not unlike Neville Chamberlain, was and is evil in my opinion, whether by intent or as you believe by sentimentality.
When I voted for then Governor Bush in 2000, I did not know about his and his father's intimate financial dealings (Carlyle Group, etc.) with America's enemies, upon whom we have become utterly dependent; sadly. Bush, I believe was and is very compromised. Little doubt, Republican party leaders knew all of this. I did not learn until later that President Bush made an agreement, an arrangement late August 2001-- with then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz -- to establish a Muslim-enemy state in Israel's historic heartland. Bush rightly boasted, he was the first US president to make the establishment of a Palestinian (no question, terror) state in Israel "a formal goal of US policy." Bush codified this travesty, for the first time in the history of the GOP, in our 2004 national party platform. It remains in the party platform till this day.
Bush had intended to announce his "vision" early September 2001. Only the Saudi-backed atrocities on September 11, caused political difficulties in terms of the timing. The announcement had to be put off into early October. I call this (Bush's) "vision" for Israel's destruction on the part of an ally evil.
I did not know until I studied the matter - having read former CIA operative Robert Baer, Israel's former UN Ambassador Dore Gold, (left-leaning author) Craig Unger and others - the intimacy George W. Bush and his father, Bush Sr., had and have with our Saudi enemies. Only later did I learn of Bush's meeting with then Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar (affectionately called "Bandar Bush") on the White House Truman Balcony; Bandar's wife Haifa's alms-giving / Zakat made their way to two of the September hijackers; the Bushes came to Haifa's defense. Within hours of the meeting, flights of Saudi Royals and Bin Laden family members made their way out of the US at a time when all domestic flights were prohibited by the FAA; this without the kind of FBI interrogation one would normally expect from family members and potential witnesses. Someone in the White House, it is believed, authorized these flights while Bush's fellow citizens lay in the smoldering ruins of the Trade Center towers. I call this evil.
While I agree, President Bush need not have openly declared Islam to be the enemy, neither should he have openly and flagrantly lied about the enemy. Was this out of Christian sentimentality or deliberation, or both? I question Bush's pretensions to being a committed Christian just as you aptly acknowledge, "SO HE SAID." (emphasis mine) There are many impostors and phonies like Bush (yes, I believe he is a phony) that champion religion for one self-seeking reason or another. In Bush's case, he brought on board (within his and his father's political base) millions of conservative American Christians and Evangelicals; a rich source of votes indeed. Often we find committed Christians to be the most vigilant when it comes to the danger posed by Islam and its supremacist, expansionist ideology. I question Bush's sincerity as well as his commitment to his faith. A sincere believer lives according to his faith. Bush did nothing of the sort. Osama bin Laden is a committed Muslim for example. If Bush is a committed Christian, how could he have led the effort within the GOP to establish a Muslim-terror state in the Holy Land when the Bible clearly consigns this land (all of it) to the Jews in perpetuity and sternly warns the nations to not divide it? Bush acknowledged in an interview, just prior to departing office, he did not take any of these sorts of admonitions in the Bible literally. This is a committed Christian? Were bin Laden to say he did not take any of the commands in the Qur'an literally, how could he be in any way considered a committed Muslim?
Bush need not have openly declared Islam to be the enemy, yet neither did he have to openly declare, 'the "terrorists" practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam', an outright lie. Nor did he have to declare that 'Islam's teachings are good and peaceful', or that 'those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah', or that 'the "terrorists" are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself'.
To me, these lies are as evil as Neville Chamberlain's lies. Chamberlain's (sentimental?) lies about Hitler and Nazism cost many millions of lives. How are we to separate evil from the one who says it and does it?
President Bush pledged, "We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest ..... And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," and then he went about doing exactly the opposite in his policy decisions. He sought to hide Saudi Arabia's complicity in the September 11, 2001 atrocities. Bush's ally Pakistan and its ISI (intelligence services) were and are up to their necks facilitating jihad terrorism. Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld rescued ISI officers who were in Afghanistan aiding and training Taliban fighters. Taliban fighters escaped Afghanistan along with these ISI officers thanks to Bush and Rumsfeld assistance. I've got a copy of Paul Sperry's "Crude Politics : How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism." Sperry uncovers some of this traitorous nonsense.
Bush redacted 28 pages of the Congressional 911 report that might have hinted of Saudi complicity in the atrocities. Bush met with Muslim terrorists. He prayed with Muslim terrorists. He met with them in the White House, in their mosques, and at his Crawford, Texas ranch. He kissed them and held hands with them. Bush courted Muslim terrorists, like University of South Florida Professor Sami al-Arian who worked our Florida mosques for critical votes in 2000. Al-Arain crowed, the Muslim vote in Florida delivered Bush the election in 2000. Al-Arain might have been right. Bush called arch-terrorist murderer / holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas a man of peace; a man of vision. Bush financed Muslim terrorism within the Palestinian Authority terror regime, all contrary to his own declared doctrine, the Bush Doctrine. I call this evil. As the Bible would say, paraphrasing, Bush "sold himself to do evil in the sight of the LORD" and now, as a consequence, we have President Barack Hussein Obama; an even greater evil. I don't like to be negative. I do not see a lot of hope for this once great nation long-term.
Hi, Jewdog, I agree with you.
I was thinking, what if ... 1. Land was not such a crucial issue as it seems to be to everybody. Because cities can house millions but still only take limited space on earth if only provided with food and provisions. 2. We in the West could spare some land, perhaps in Canada, Australia, Greenland? 3. We make use of the huge desire of many inhabitants of Islamic countries to migrate away from their poverty and horrors, for which some are willing to risk their lives. 4. And we welcome all those who want to sign a contract, which explicitly says that they will be expelled upon breaching it. And especially for Muslims, but applied to all.
This would mean that: We could set up city-states on our own lands in the West, and let immigrants sign very carefully worded contracts about democratic rules etc as a must. Break it and if caught you get expelled.
This would cost a lot of money but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also now cost a lot.
This would get an ever higher % Muslims under democratic rule and influence. And that seems to me a lot more important than how much land both democratic countries and Muslims under dictatorship occupy.
Think of it: The ex-Muslims could leave Islamic countries. Their plentyful agressive young men could find employment instead of joining jihad-groups. And enterprising young women we could help leave these oppressive surroundings through an underground network, as with the black Slaves in USA 19th century.
And the money will be made primarily in democratic countries and that will ultimately buy lands back.
Moreover; when dictatorial regimes get to understand that no longer is their population bound to their countries but instead has a choice where to live, then they would have to compete and create better, freeer circumstances in their dictatorial countries. This happened in Europe in 1600-1900 when it was apparent that large groups of the population could and did go to America.
Bush lied and the MSM has sworn to it to this day. They were swearing Islam was peace long before Bush was even in office.
Muslims of a transnational nature Attacked us on 9/11 in the name of Islam. By implication, all Muslims would be included in the list of potential enemy's, unless some kind of distinction was made. Just making the distinction between Militant and Peaceful Islam splits the house of Islam. It makes one of a thinking nature seek the answer to where that division lies. Is it not the reason why this web site exists? Is it not the reason why so many others over the years have come here to learn? Does a "lie" in this instance serve more than one purpose?
Would this site even have been necessary if the MSM had not been lying all along?
As for terror states being formed along side Israel. Sure it was a good thing. It split another set of Muslims against each other. It clearly removed the notion of victim status for Hamas. Hamas gave Israel every possible reason to destroy them. Is it really Bushes fault the Olmert Government wimped out? In both recent engagements by Israel, the President gave quite a bit of cover. It wasn't until the Press formulated and organized it's response against Israel did the President with a 28% or so approval rating relent. (who helped create that rating anyway?hmmmm). Did anyone really think disproportional force in a war was a crime before the Gaza incursion???
I do not know about the rest of you, but in all my reading of Military History, disproportional force was the one thing a commander could never have enough of. In fact, the US Military policy has been to bring overwhelming firepower upon the enemy. Sounds like Disproportional to me. It worked wonders in both Afcrapistan and Iraq. If you really want disproportional, there's always the first Gulf War to look back to. But now it's a crime and Human rights issue? If this isn't a Left Scream Media concept then I really do not know what one would be.
For all the criticism of President Bush for lying in his distinction within Islam, can some one explain why the MSM did not use it against him? They made him into a lier about everything else in his Presidency. Are we really to believe the MSM knows nothing about the true tenets and teachings of Islam? After all this time? After all we are at war with say? After all these recent events of Americans wanting to join the other side? Is it really the Politicians who are ignorant or is it the MSM?
If one assumes neither are ignorant then what is the motive to pretend to be?
You wrote: "Bush lied and the MSM has sworn to it to this day."
I do not particularly care what the MSM swears by. Bush sought the highest office in the land. He sought to be leader of the free world. It's called "leadership." Reagan failed in many similar respects to Bush in the region, yet he had an uncanny ability to go directly to the people, in spite of the media; at least before he fell into sin, trading arms for hostages with a Muslim-terror regime.
President Bush has ability to speak to the people. He proved it right after 9/11. Only he chose to lie to the people. If (as you say) by implication, all Muslims would or should be included in the list of potential enemies, fine. What needed and still needs to be said ad nauseum by Bush and by other leaders, pundits, etc., is what R. Spencer has been trumpeting for several years now. That is, jihadists or Muslim terrorists find sanction for violence against non-Muslims in Islamic teachings, in the Qur'an and the Hadith; in the words and the deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. This is not being said at the highest levels. Why?
You keep bringing up the MSM. As though MSM is some kind of a talisman. I don't care what the MSM says. Neither should any president or world leader. The MSM is on the side of the enemy by and large.
You say it was a good thing for Bush to pursue the establishment of a 23rd Muslim state in the region; one dedicated to Israel's annihilation. This in your view, was a good thing. You believe Bush did well to announce this within days of the 9/11 Muslim-terror atrocities in New York and Washington?
Your recollection of history is not correct. Bush unveiled his "vision" for Israel's destruction only days after 9/11 when his poll numbers were sky-rocketing upwards toward 80%. His approval rating was not 28% until near the end of his last term of office. I maintain, had he been a man of moral courage, instead of parroting lies and acting on them, his poll ratings would have remained high throughout his last term of office.
But he was not a man of moral courage. He was not a truthful man. He gave way to language and acts out of fear of offending Muslim killers, their accomplices and sympathizers. Bush gave way to lies and deceit. It was not the Olmert government that began (as you say) wimping out. It was the Sharon government that caved to immoral Bush administration pressure, early October 2001; this after issuing a warning to not do to Israel what the great powers did to Czechoslovakia at Munich, 1938. Sharon asked Bush "not to appease the Arabs at Israel's expense."
President Bush was deeply offended by the apt comparison to Neville Chamberlain. Who wouldn't be offended? Only it is true. Bush was no better than Neville Chamberlain the disgraced appeaser. Secretary of State Colin Powell called Sharon demanding a retraction. Sharon ignominiously issued a retraction and it was all down-hill after that.
This in no way serves to exculpate, absolve or exonerate Ariel Sharon. Neither does absolve or exonerate George W. Bush, who as an American citizen I believe is the more guilty of the two. Bush had more power than Sharon.
You wrote: "For all the criticism of President Bush for lying in his distinction within Islam, can some one explain why the MSM did not use it against him?"
What difference does it make? Why do you care what the mainstream media thinks about anything of substance?
Not only did Bush lie about Islam, Republicans and Republican leaders, conservative leaders and conservative pundits, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly (independent), Charles Krauthammer, David Horowitz, and many others supported Bush "IN" his lies by and large, with very few exceptions. They supported Bush in his lies to their eternal shame and discredit. I expect lies from the left. I do not expect them from the political right.
One more thing.
You wrote: "For all the criticism of President Bush for lying in his distinction within Islam, can some one explain why the MSM did not use it against him?"
You apparently have not read even one of Spencer's books. Not one. Please, admit it. You haven't. You could not have, otherwise you would not ask this question. Read the Prologue to one of his earlier books, "Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Religions." Begin with page one. Look for the word "news analysts." Then get back to me.
Your right wildjew, I have not read Mr Spencer's books. I am aware that Mr. Spencer does not contend that there is any distinction. If this is what your alluding to? If I am wrong on this point, I'll be happy to suck up the rebuke.
Unfortunately, and in my own defense, Mr. Spencer is not on ABC,NBC,CBS,PBS,MSMBC,CBC,BBC,Talk Radio, or even that new non News outlet FOX. Like all day, every day, day in and day out.
From your perch of moral certitude, would the results of the talisman been different if Mr Spencer's views was fed to the masses?
There is a phrase used many times with regards to Islam and War. It is a concept used by the other side as well.
Israel had its chance to destroy a terrorist state in its infancy and secure it's Eastern Border to the Mediterranean. Secure it's southern border clear to Egypt while making Hamas an Egyptian problem. I will always contend that President Bush offered a Golden Opportunity and Hamas provided the Silver platter. It was the Israelis who just pushed the food around the plate. War and Politics are... an old Islamic saying.
You wrote: "For all the criticism of President Bush for lying in his distinction within Islam, can some one explain why the MSM did not use it against him?"
flowerknife_us, R. Spencer has written, news analysts and others have maintained for many decades, Muslim terrorism has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.
Why would the MSM condemn Bush for adopting their own lies? Why would the MSM use these lies, Bush adopted from them, against him?
What would you have them say, "The lying SOB adopted and is using our lies!" (?)
So what would have been the outcome had President Bush told the World after 9/11 that Islam was the problem? He did use the term "crusade" and was roundly condemned.
I would say your own post proves my whole point. The Talisman was not going to let the truth out no matter what. In the end it made no difference if the President "lied" or not, or if he believed it himself or not.
The Talisman only allows enough of the opposing view, truthful or not, so that it can be marginalized and discredited.
The Talisman is currently running full steam ahead. Hoping to cover the disconnect it created with the American people from our last election. The "Hate Mongers" and "Tea Bagers", and 9/12'ers have become just a little too porky for their tastes.