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SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up amid a crowd of worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in a rebel stronghold of northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about four dozen, officials said. – from this news article
Shi'a and Sunnis at it again. Yes, of course, the American government must do what it can to try to stop this kind of internecine warfare among Muslims, in Yemen as in Iraq. Otherwise there might be a "catastrophic" situation. Otherwise there might be "chaos" in the Middle East.
And somehow this "chaos" and this "catastrophe" that will ensue will, we are told, be bad for us, in ways always unspecified, as if we are simply to accept the conclusion of our betters -- you know, the people in the government who pick up their news just as you and I do, but who lack the time, and the inclination (unlike you, unlike me) to spend the time to read about Islam, to read the texts of Islam, to learn what the Western students of Islam (not the espositos but the real thing) have said about the contents of Islam.
For they are just too occupied and preoccupied to sit in a room and read. They may be cosseted, chauffeured about, and so on , but their daily lives are full of meetings, and hectic busyness, and travelling hither and yon, and getting someone above to "sign off" on something, and coming up with "policies" that need to be formulated by consulting with everyone and his brother, and then written up in the stilted bloodless bureaucratic language which is now the favored medium -- they know no other, they have never been exposed to any other -- of those in the government, and who presume to instruct, and to protect us. They have to deal now with this crisis, now with that, and with every part of the world.
How can someone as mediocre as Bush, advised by someone as mediocre as Rice -- people who have never had the inclination or leisure to read widely in history, or to exercise their imaginative faculty through literature -– be expected to have read about Islam? Yet if you cannot imagine something, it is difficult to think about it. If you cannot imagine an islamized Western Europe, if it is simply beyond you, then you will not worry about what that would mean, and are not likely to come up with ways to avoid that completely plausible and deplorable, and entirely avoidable, future for the heart of the West.
One more thing. If leaving Iraq would, as some direly warn, cause great disruption, chaos, a "catastrophe" in the area, then why don't any of the Sunni Arab states, presumably those who would have the most to lose, bother to give any aid at all to the government of Iraq? Answer: why should they? They do not wish to shore up Shi'a who rule in Baghdad. They will, however, continue to urge the Americans to stay, in order to keep the Sunnis in Iraq supplied with guns and money and with a powerful protector that will pressure the Shi'a to make concessions, and concessions -- and the Americans will, listening gravely to the advice of rulers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other small sheikdoms, fall for it, not realizing how they are being suckered.
And if leaving Iraq would, as some direly warn, lead to terrible disruptions in the supply of oil (during the Iran-Iraq War, that lasted for eight years, there was little disruption and the price of oil went steadily down), then why aren't other oil-consuming nations concerned? Why hasn't China lifted a finger, or spent a penny, to help promote stability and prosperity in Iraq? Could it be that the Chinese are, like the Sunni Arabs, perfectly content to watch the continuing squandering of American money, materiel, men, morale, happy to see us bleed ourselves, in order to do something which will benefit China and other oil-consumers as much as, perhaps more than, it will benefit the United States?
How dumb do we have to be, and for how long?
Posted by Hugh at May 5, 2008 8:23 AM
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And somehow this "chaos" and this "catastrophe" that will ensue will, we are told, be bad for us, in ways always unspecified, as if we are simply to accept the conclusion of our betters -- you know, the people in the government who pick up their news just as you and I do, but who lack the time, and the inclination (unlike you, unlike me) to spend the time to read about Islam, to read the texts of Islam, to learn what the Western students of Islam (not the espositos but the real thing) have said about the contents of Islam.
It appears that that those with influence among 'the powers that be' are exactly that . . .prodigal sons/daughters of the liberal and humanistic interpretations of Islamic law as written by recent advisors . . .Dr. Sherifa D. Zuhur, LTCDR Youssef H Aboul-Enein.
It doesn't take a long investment of time reading this essay to find the tinted lense through which their interpretation of Islamic Rulings on Warfare are presented.
Yet, throughout my own education, I was exposed to liberal and humanistic interpretations of Islamic doctrine and law.Posted by: miira
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at May 5, 2008 9:09 AM
the people in the government who pick up their news just as you and I do, but who lack the time, and the inclination (unlike you, unlike me) to spend the time to read about Islam,
People tend to read what they want. Usually things that support their preconceived notions. The loud liberals that we need to inform simply refuse to look at islam for what it really is. The don't want to see a religion as something akin to fascism. So they simply avoid reading material that they may think will conflict with what they know.
Posted by: Abrog8 at May 5, 2008 9:37 AM
Hi Abrog8;
I didn't know that you new my wife.
at May 5, 2008 11:25 AM
Six long years,
and what do y'all git?
Another day older,
and deeper in Shi'ite.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go.
I owe my soul to the 'bots of Mo.
at May 5, 2008 11:49 AM
from above: The loud liberals that we need to inform simply refuse to look at Islam for what it really is. The don't want to see a religion as something akin to fascism. So they simply avoid reading material that they may think will conflict with what they know.
It's worse than that. They don't want to hear it from someone who 'has' read the literature either.
One of those loud liberals told me that radical Islamic jihadi's were a 'minute minority'.
When I asked him how many was 'minute', he could not answer. Then he switched to, 'not very many'. When asked, how many is not very many, he started to get a red flush on his face, and said 'just a few'. When I asked him to define the word 'few', he blew up and accused me of being a racist...racist? He can't define the word few, and has no idea what is a 'minute minority', and that makes me a racist.
Uh huh...The liberal mind is a lot like Allah. They both work in strange and mysterious ways, mostly strange and mysterious...
at May 5, 2008 12:08 PM
Here is a minute minority: 19 hijackers: 3000 dead on one day. That is a pretty miniscule minority. One suicide bomber killed dozens on Passover in Israel. Just a minority. Keep telling yourselves, that, Bozos.
Posted by: Jewel Atkins at May 5, 2008 12:49 PM
Jewel, you've got a great blog. Cheers.
Posted by: undaunted at May 5, 2008 1:48 PM
Invincible ignorance has a moral dimension to it. You do not get the moral and ethical pass of eternal dumbness simply because you are too lazy, too self-absorbed, too pompous or too scared to find out.
The government stranglehold on education in this country has had a great effect on the population, true. When the unions, in effect, run the primary and secondary educational systems, you are going to have a poor quality, politicized product. When over-paid parasites run the non-hard science departments at all our universities, you are going to have a poor quality, politicized product.
Somewhere in all that rot, the several hundred distinctive features of Western Civilization evaporated, and we are left with leaders who run on ego and peer approved opinions, following the lazy, uncurious man's line of least resistance.
But poor education does not explain it all. Plenty of folks get around that. Because they wanted to.
Posted by: Moonzoo at May 5, 2008 6:09 PM
Minuscule.
Posted by: Moonzoo at May 5, 2008 6:10 PM
The description of how our leadership approaches the problem of islam and us is hauntingly real. The same leaderless approach has spawned the three losers that we have running for president.
This approach to governess has led us to an out of touch government, that has its priorities totally screwed up.
Posted by: credit man
at May 6, 2008 10:22 AM
The last people who should be advising our government are muslim islamic scholars but that's who they listen to. If they cannot see the obvious conflict of interest in seeking the council of our sworn enemies, what can they see? It is truly unbelievable and no matter who one contacts within the government, the attitudes are the same. If even a hint of antipathy for islam is detected they go ballistic and lambaste you for daring to point out the irrationality of legitimatizing a supremacist death cult.
I have received replies to letters from several elected representatives and they were almost identical. First you get the insincere opener stating how glad they are that you shared your concerns with them, all of which are completely ignored in their replies. Then comes the perfunctory admonishment and civics lesson about how America was founded on the principle of religious freedom and all religions are welcome in America. After all, diversity is what made America great. They just don't get it! They really don't and it incenses them for anyone to even hint that islam is incompatible with American values, society, and government.
It is very discouraging to get these stupid replies from elected representatives and even more discouraging to realize that they are miserably unqualified to hold public office. I have spent hours composing letters, taking great pains to point out specific, irrefutable facts about islam that pose a dire threat to this country. The only issue they ever address in their replies is "freedom of religion". In other words, no matter how destructive, threatening, or evil a religion might be, in America you're free to practice it to your heart's content. If it calls for and pursues the violent overthrow of the United States government, that's the price we'll all have to pay because religious freedom is the cornerstone of our republic and will be upheld no matter what the cost, even national suicide. Of course, they don't say this but it is implicit.
I'm afraid I don't see any wisdom anywhere and the three presidential contenders offer absolutely no hope whatsoever. In fact, any one of them would certainly create a more dreadful situation than currently exists. I no longer look for wise leadership when it comes to islam; there is none. Tancredo and a few others tried and were demonized as right-wing bigots and racists.
When the Speaker of the House of Representatives doesn't even know how much a gallon of gasoline costs, it is logical to assume that our elected leaders are totally out of touch with reality and the people of this country.
Posted by: Susanp at May 8, 2008 12:09 AM
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