To be or Not to Be: This, That, or Alive at All.

Life, according to someone who had us upset for a day or two, is 2 per cent what happens to you and 98 per cent how you take it. Yeah. Most things in life are a matter of attitude, and if one is ready to deal with reality on that basis things go better-- even without coke.

Attitude plays such a large role in life that most people refuse to see it. Attitude is too big and too simple to be loved by intellectuals and social critics. On top of it, most successful people are too deeply invested in their attitudes to be able to afford to give them up: it takes years to develop an attitude, and once one has one it's a thing in itself. And even if that attitude is miserable people are too attached to their own misery to want to give it up for hard work and the self-criticism that might lead to something better. One can have a positive attitude even in times of terror, or in times of plenty one can be a terrorist.

There is the attitude of self-reliance and intellectual independence, an attitude that comes at least partly and very importantly from Baconian induction, and there is insh'allah. There is Modernity, and there is fascist primitivism. Both kinds of mental life, of culture and social life come with attitudes built in. We make a fatal mistake assuming that all people base their lives on compatible attitudes toward the meaning of life itself.

Below we have two glimpses into attitude. Both stories deal with the conflict between modernist Israelis and primitive Muslims, but attitude also divides the whole of mankind between those who want to live and those who want to kill and die. Those latter are the majority, and their death worship, as odd as it is to modern men and women, odd to the point that most Moderns refuse to even listen to its airing by their fellow Moderns, is the norm in the primitive world. As hard as it is to understand that not all people think in the same general way, we must look at the minds of our opponents to see not what we think they think, that they must think at least more or less that they think and feel the same way we do, but what they themselves think. We must, in fairness to ourselves and to our enemies as well as to the very nature of Truth, look at what really is, never mind our assumptions and basic beliefs that everyone is exactly the same as we in all important respects. Stubborn and aggressive ignorance of others based on automatically assumed opinions, based on our investment in ideologies, resting on past practice we might fear to condemn as worthless after having held them for a lifetime, fear of ridicule and social ostracisation, all of those positions lead one to conclude that the person who will not change a wrong opinion and lay aside a worthless attitude, yes, that person is stupid. One must have an attitude toward ones attitude. One cares for the honest pursuit of truth or one doesn't. Those who do not are in the majority, and they are not all fascist primitives. How we approach truth will determine much more in our lives, our attitudes toward life and living with our fellows.

The fascist mind is one clouded by hatred of Modernity, and it is a death worshipping view of life that is prevalent throughout history. It is we who are the revolutionaries, we who have the odd ideas, we who have an attitude that strikes others as arrogant and unseemly. Our attitude toward our own lives and life itself is highly and deeply offensive to the primitives, and nothing we do is going to change their outlooks, their attitudes toward us. We have to change our attitudes toward how we look at our enemies-- if we want to understand them, to deal with them, to find a way to survive them. We have to change our attitude toward of own lives and culture and stop thinking in terms of past opinions that lead to nothing but more attitude based on past attitudes.

We think the way we think, and our attitude is that all men are free and reasonable just like us. How wrong that is. And until we use our cherished reasoning to seek out the truth behind our attitudes toward those entirely unlike us, this chaos of mindless attitude in place of objective truth is going to doom us to constant misinterpretation of others, making our attitudes meaner, our out-looks nastier, our responses harsher, and all because we simply strike up poses that are based not on clear understanding but only on attitude of the wrong kind altogether.
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http://www.defenddemocracy.org

USCB Professor Visits Israel to Study Terrorism and Learn to Cope By Geoff Ziezulewicz The Beaufort Gazette August 9, 2005 In June, Colin Pearce found himself in a prison yard surrounded by 30 Palestinian militants who had been convicted by the Israeli government for acts of terrorism. It was unlike anything the University of South Carolina Beaufort political science professor had ever experienced or expected. Halfway around the world, in the Gilboa Prison in Israel, Pearce heard from men known to some as terrorists and to others as freedom fighters. But regardless of labels, what Pearce saw ran contrary to popular perception. "I didn't know what to expect, but when you think of terrorist acts, you think of extreme violence, of shooting up a car or a suicide bomber," he said. "But these prisoners were incredibly mild and quiet. They milled around us and started explaining their point of view. You wouldn't associate their demeanor with the act which they are accused." Pearce visited Israel with other professors from across the country for 10 days in late May and June as part of a program set up by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research organization that studies terrorism. The prison visit gave Pearce one of many glimpses into Israeli life, its paradoxes and what parallels exist between that conflict, the war in Iraq and how the West views terrorism and security. "There was a senior prisoner, and the other guys looked so young," he said. "It wasn't in any way scary." Life in Israel is completely unlike any other society on earth, and through an array of lectures and field trips, Pearce saw it all firsthand. He visited a man whose family was gunned down in their car years ago by Palestinian militants. Through a translator, Pearce said the man personified living under such danger. "He was saying how he had to come to terms with the loss of his family, and how since then he has carried on," Pearce said. "It's a tragic story, a tragic life in a way, but he had risen above it and carried on." With the dedicated objectivity of a career academic, Pearce said he saw different ways of living amid such conflict and how a society learns to cope -- all within a mix of modernity, tension and millennia of history that is squeezed together into one tenuous location. "It all conveys an uncanny impression," he said of the Israeli experience. "We were in Jerusalem, a beautiful city on the hill. You ride the bus and then overlook the security wall that Israel is building and over to the West Bank. Then, next to the bus is some guy with goats. It's modernity and ancient times, all side-by-side in a country about the size of the Lowcountry." Israel's status as the only modern democracy in the Middle East furthers those contrasts, he said. "You have a modern, liberal, rule-of-law state with a Western style constitution and economic development," Pearce said. "Parts of Tel Aviv make you think you were in Phoenix or Atlanta." As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues through suicide bombings and military incursions, Pearce said Israeli society does not feel like a country under siege. "It's more of a security-minded society, but it's not a fear state," he said. "It was just normal, people going into bars and clubs and going about their business." Pearce grew pensive when asked what he sees as a solution to the conflict. Solving the dilemma is similar to working toward an end to the Iraq war, which he called an "intifada on steroids." Intifada is a common translation for "uprising" and has been used by the Palestinians to define their struggle against Israeli occupation. "Everything in some ways hinges on the security factor," he said. "It's the same in Iraq. They've got a new government and all types of changes, but the withdrawal of U.S. troops all depends on whether you can have a secure state. Everything else is moot in the absence of those kind of conditions." In terms of terrorism, Pearce said the West should look to Israel for how to live with such threats in light of Sept. 11, 2001, and the London bombings. "Israel has been under these kinds of threats for many years, but they go about their business," he said. "They live under conditions that have certain risks, but they don't let them phase them. There are always risks at any time in any society, but they don't let it get to them." The U.S. reaction to terrorism is different, he said. "The U.S. approach tends to be kind of hyper and panicky," he said. "Here's country with 285 million people, the most powerful in the world, and they've had some incidents, but they seem to get more hysterical about things than Israel, which is a tiny little country surrounded by countries that want to do them harm." Pearce said the perseverance he saw among Israelis is a lesson in which Americans can take comfort. "If terror could never really cause a much smaller state like Israel to vacate the premises, how could it hope to defeat a superpower like the United States?" he asked. *** Over the course of this blog's enquiry to date we have looked at various aspects of fascism as it is a personal outlook on life as held by our fellows throughout the past 5,000 years since the beginnings of the agricultural Revolution up to the time of the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions. We have argued successfully that the world is bifurcating, splitting in two, one stream of Humankind moving into a life of intensifying Modernity and further reason, and the other, greater bulk of people fighting to maintain and even restore the primitive life of the times of most of Human history. How we approach this division, which side we choose to value and fight for, will determine the course of Human history for centuries to come. We argue that many on the Left are dedicated philobarbarists, lovers of barbarians, people who hate Modernity because they are mediocre in themselves and cannot stand the recognition thereof to the point that they wish to destroy the world they cannot excel in. Much of the fascist Left attitude of valuing primitives is based on the classical tenets of Counter-Enlightenment, and it is that which we strive to expose here and combat. Much of what today is thought of as Left and liberal is simply confused and vaguely understood fascism. The attitudes people speak from are attitudes toward Humanity that are completely rooted in fascism, in feudalism, in pre-Modern social organisations of tribalist hierarchy. What most people think of as their deepest and most important convictions are simply ungrasped and unexamined fascism. This conflict between Modernism and fascist primitivism is more clearly obvious in the struggle between Palestinians and Israeli than is any other. How one approaches the conflict, the attitude one has toward this conflict says more about a person than perhaps anything else in ones life. Progressive Modernists side with Israel, fascists, conscious or not of their fascism, take the attitude, not the reasoned response of rational people, that Israel is -- well, whatever the cliches of the day are this day. Those who are irrational, who are philosophical Irrationalists are: "Blinded by ideology" BARRY RUBIN, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 12, 2005 Those who let ideology and misinformation color their analyses and policies are doomed to failure. This is the Arab world's paradox regarding terrorism and Iraq, as well as Israel and the United States, socioeconomic development, human rights and democracy. For instance, the typical view of terrorism comes from the head of Egypt's al-Azhar mosque-university, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi. He is a pillar of mainstream, establishment Islam. In general, Tantawi will say nothing Egypt's government dislikes. Tantawi is often called a moderate and, sad to say, in relative terms he is one. But he is also typical of a major trend in which mainstream clerics are increasingly influenced by radical Islamists. A decade ago Tantawi would probably have defined suicide bombing as heretical in Islamic terms. In recent years, though, Tantawi gives a definition, by far the most popular one among Arabs, that justifies the vast majority of terrorist acts originating from the Middle East. There is no excuse, he explains, for any attack in Arab countries aiming to kill Muslims. But it is ok to blow oneself up among: "An enemy who came to kill me, and I have no way of defending myself except for blowing myself up among this enemy who came to kill me and my countrymen, or to attack what is sacred – in such a case, whoever blows himself up is a martyr" (MEMRI translation). In other words, anything is permitted in self-defense. At times he implies this does not include deliberately killing civilians – that is what makes him a relative moderate – but this clause is played down. The three real keys to being a proper martyr are: being under attack, facing an evil enemy, and lacking any alternative. One problem here is that anything can be justified if it can be called self-defense. Yet some deeds are criminal no matter what the rationale. Equally, once the door is opened to terrorism in principle many excuses can be used to justify it. If al-Qaida and other extremists define as legitimate killing anyone they view to be opposing their rule (which they equate with God), the moderates can merely limit the appropriate victims to non-Muslims. BUT THIS is just the beginning of the problem of the acceptance of this approach by the overwhelming majority of the Arab world. The most disturbing aspect is that it fits with the false characterization of Israel, the US, and sometimes the entire West. It becomes necessary to claim that the West is inherently aggressive and is trying to take over the Muslim, or at least Arab, world, leaving the "victims" no alternative to terrorism. In reality, of course, Israel has basically been eager to make a deal to get out of the "occupied" territories for at least 12 years and would have been willing to do so even earlier in exchange for a real peace agreement ending the conflict. Similarly, the US wants to get its forces out of Iraq as soon as the situation is stable enough there to do so. In short, the terrorists are ensuring the continuation of the very situations they claim as grievances, using them to block moderate solutions and to gain power. The charges of foreign aggression and ruthlessness, combined with a lack of alternatives to violence, are false. The Iraq issue cuts to the core of the dominant discussion and politics of the Arab world today. In an al-Ahram article entitled "The end of Arab Iraq," Abdallah al-Ashaal, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, attributes the new Iraqi constitution to American machinations designed to destroy Iraq by stoking ethnic conflicts there. Here again, critical facts are ignored. The Iraqi constitution is shaped by the demands for decentralization of Kurds and the Shi'ite Arabs – who are, after all, about 80 percent of the population. And that determination is the product of their ill-treatment by the Arab nationalist (and largely Sunni) dictatorships that ruled the country for 45 years. Yet it is impossible for mainstream Arab nationalists (or Sunni Islamists) to admit that fact. They must blame this antagonism on American imperialist conspiracies. Just as in the failure to face terrorism or such problems as the Arab world's political-economic backwardness, a refusal to confront the real issue makes solving the problem impossible. It is "ridding Iraq" of Arab identity which "really motivated the US invasion," al-Ashaal claims, inaccurately implying that Iraq might not even stay in the Arab League. Well, what about the universal Arab state support for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the failure of anyone to lift a finger to help the Iraqi dissidents, the Arab world's failure to help post-Saddam Iraq, and its continuing sponsorship and applause for terrorists murdering thousands of Iraqis? On this, not a word. Yet these are the kinds of experiences that make Iraqis want to rid their country of the type of Arab nationalism that subjected them to almost a half-century of dictatorship, war and suffering. In contrast, visitors to the Kurdish north of Iraq describe a prosperous, stable area, with rising living standards. As Nimrod Raphaeli of MEMRI writes, summarizing these reports: "An environment of democracy and freedom appears to prevail across Iraqi Kurdistan." Are people there, or in the Shi'ite south that suffered so greatly under an Arab nationalist regime, so foolish to reject this disastrous system and philosophy? As long as the current ideology of victimization and distortion dominates Arab decision making, the situation will not improve, and could even deteriorate further. http://www.jpost.com *** How we look at ourselves, not so much how we look at our primitive Muslim cousins, will determine the outcome of history for centuries to come. We could, as the Romans did, let things decay to the point the primitives overwhelm and destroy civilization as we know it. How this particular episode of history turns out is a matter of attitude. Ours.

Writing Tips for Would-Be Pros.

Is Gaza Burning?

Written by Jack Engelhard
Saturday, September 17, 2005

The dictionary defines "looting" as "to rob, steal, pillage." But, in its first reports on Gaza, where Palestinian Arab mobs were, well, looting, the New York Times came up with a nifty twist to avoid the L-word. There was no looting going on, only "looking for usable materials."

Our friends in Print and Broadcasting are having difficulties putting a shine on this Palestinian Arab rampage that's been in progress ever since the Israelis departed. Obviously, we need a new dictionary, or the same dictionary that they're using over there at the Times, the BBC and wherever truth needs to be camouflaged.

CELEBRATION, for example, usually means "to express happiness," but it means something entirely different when describing the total takeover of Gaza by Palestinian Arabs. In this case it means rage and rioting, or, indeed, "looking for usable materials." When the new inhabitants of Gush Katif ransacked the greenhouses left behind by the Israelis, and, like termites, tore down everything that stood, they were celebrating.

HOLY PLACES used to refer to places of worship of all religions. Not so anymore. Holy Places refers only to mosques and other Muslim shrines. Churches, for example, are not Holy Places ever since Arab terrorists invaded the Church of the Nativity (April 2, 2002), used it as a latrine, and hardly anyone complained. They also ripped the place apart, no doubt "looking for usable materials." More recently, like yesterday, the new inhabitants of Total Gaza set fire to about 25 synagogues and this, indeed, is seen by the world as a step toward peace. Torching synagogues can also be found under TO CELEBRATE.

FIRE. What fire? The BBC only showed the smoke and conceded that things were burning, but were careful not to mention the arsonists. Fire happens.

PAIN. Only Muslim Arabs are entitled to pain. Here, for example, is the BBC's Orla Guerin reporting from Gaza: "Palestinians came streaming to the settlements that caused them so much pain… Israel stole 38-years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they could." The Israelis who were evicted from their homes felt no pain. Is that clear? Also, thanks to Ms. Guerin and the BBC, we know that "Israel stole 38 years from them." This sets a new standard for totally objective and thoroughly unbiased journalism.

SUFFERING. In the old days, suffering used to include everyone who was, well, suffering. That's been changed to Palestinian Arabs only. They have "suffered under Israeli occupation" for so long that they are entitled to grievances beyond the rest of us. Christians, especially Zionist Christians, do not suffer. Hindus do not suffer. Sikhs do not suffer. Jews certainly do not suffer. In the Times, the BBC, and along the remaining network of Print and Broadcast, the word "suffering" is reserved for Muslim (not Christian) Arabs. Christian Arabs, incidentally, are continually harassed and murdered by Muslim Arabs, but since they are Christian, they do not suffer. Such harassment and murder against Christian Arabs takes place in Gaza and in other territories occupied by Muslim Arabs, most recently in Beirut. See OCCUPIED TERRITORY.

OCCUPIED TERRITORY. The above definition is incorrect. Occupied Territory refers only to Jews, or any place a Jewish man or woman sets foot or builds a home. See ARAB LANDS.

ARAB LANDS. Everything. Everywhere.

AL QAEDA. The name for every terrorist attack around the world, but actually a code when we are afraid to mention the real enemy. See TERRORIST.

TERRORIST. There is no such thing.

JIHAD. Some call this a holy war against Western Civilization. This is what it is - "looking for usable materials."

About the Writer: Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. Jack receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com.

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16840

IDF to Blame for Arab Looting

Those of us who thought Arab looting in Gaza was due to the moon being in Virgo now find that we were sadly mistaken: It's the fault of the Jooos.

When will we ever learn?

Here's a start. Let's see if we can get it right next time.

"Arabs Ransack Homesh, IDF Stays Away"

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Arab looters overran the demolished Jewish community of Homesh in northern Samaria Saturday. Israel has retained authority for the area, but the government did not send troops to stop the rampage.

Several days earlier, soldiers and police entered Sa-Nur, another former Jewish community, to forcibly evict scores of Jews who had returned. Knesset Member Eliezer Sandberg (Shinui) demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "deal with the Palestinians in Homesh with the same determination with which he dealt with the evacuated settlers."

Hundreds of Arabs brought in tractors and wagons and ripped down electric poles and stole metal, wooden and plastic materials and burned rubble. Several Arabs also looted in Sa-Nur, despite the presence of IDF soldiers who were stationed to prevent Jews from returning to the site.

Israel has allowed the Palestinian Authority (PA) to deploy its police force in the northern Samaria, but both the IDF and the PA have abandoned Homesh, giving local Arabs free and unsupervised access. The IDF said it does not prohibit Arabs from being in the area on condition they do not take control of land or buildings.

Arab officials in nearby cities blamed Israel for the rampage, claiming it was a result of Israel's unilaterally expelling Jewish residents and withdrawing IDF forces. [More]
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Birth of a Nation

It takes years for a nation to change its mind. Individuals are often perceptive and attuned to changes, but the national consciousness is a far bulkier thing that takes many years to move from one positon to another, even then reluctantly, and even in the midst of revolution not completely. In revolutions only one third of people support the revolution, while one third oppose it, the final third do nothing.

Those rough figures come from reading Eugene Methvin on riots, among other sources dredged from memory. Empirically one sees that most people do not like change, gradual or otherwise. And America, a dynamic nation in most ways, is still not different in its antipathy toward sudden social change. Regardless of how important it might be to confront the world of Islam as an aggressive enemy that must be dealt with militarily and completely, the rousing of the masses will take more time than most of us are likely to live to witness. Not everyone feels that way, particularly the Muslims of al-Qaeda.

The politics of confrontation, the goading into action by means of violence the opposing forces, and the goal of making conditions too intolerable for the remaining of the staus quo, is the device that seems to have failed for bin Laden and friends. America and the West still don't "get it." They too, our Mulsim cousins, are disgusted. But the rousing of the beast takes time, and the Muslims have run out of patience. No one will accuse them of intelligence, but their frustration with the stupidity of the West is certainly understandable.

In the following essay we see the response from al-Qaeda, their making the best of this idiot situation. Having failed to rouse the West into counter-action, the confrontation they so dearly wish for, they are now changing the tone of their programme, if not the text.

What can we expect in our futures? More rage and provocation. And how much more will it take to move the West into full-dress battle against the forces of reaction? Probably more than any of us is willing to contemplate.

But is there more to our lethargic response to Islamic imperialism than meets our clouded eye? We suggest that there are two streams of American thought that flow through the history of the nation, and that those two streams flow deeper still through Europe: The first is the stream of manifest destiny; the second is the legacy of feudal conscription of peasants. We'll return to those concepts again, as we have before in these pages. For now let's turn to the essay below to see where our opponents have positioned themselves in this game of revolution and counter-revolution.IN-DEPTH

Al-Qaeda's 'Bowing-Out' Strategy

The recent release of a tape featuring the address by an American al-Qaeda member 'Azam' (thought to be Adam Gadahn, who earlier broadcast a message prior to the 2004 US elections threatening large scale terror attacks) has been evaluated by some analysts as demonstrating a sense of frustration in the movement. In particular the frustration is over the lack of debate in the West about the long-term political aims of al-Qaeda and the jihad.

The mujahideen are equally busy analyzing the latest statements from the al-Qaeda leadership. While the theme of Western incomprehension is present, predictably, the analyses are more positive and optimistic in tone, consistent with the perception of the immutable logic of the jihadi cause. The idea that the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington backfired on al-Qaeda, in that they subsequently lost their base in Afghanistan without exciting a mass pan-Islamic movement against the West, finds no resonance. But with an admixture of fantasy that compensates for a lack of facts, the image of a waning al-Qaeda is given a new twist.

An interesting example is a recent posting on the jihadi forum Risalat al-Umma by the user Sayf Allah. Under the provocative title: "Al-Qaeda organization is now finished," the jihadi analyst speaks of a new phase "which the infidels are unaware of, or do not wish to believe." He claims that al-Qaeda has, and has always had, a specific aim: to galvanize the sleeping corpse of the Islamic Nation and remove the corrosive body of Western influence. To that end, the 9/11 attacks were designed "to force the Western snake to bite the sleeping body, and wake it up;" a strategy which he evaluates as having turned out highly successful. The "end of al-Qaeda" is, therefore, the end of this galvanizing role. Infidels, the analyst explains, "are still fixated on fighting individuals, oblivious to the fact that they are actually fighting an idea, one that has spread across the globe like fire and which is embraced even by those whose faith is a mustard seed." His conclusion is that Western strategies to fight al-Qaeda are therefore illusory (or are a deliberate self-deception) in that al-Qaeda is no longer operative as a strategic body, but rather "the Islamic Nation's men, women and children are all now 'al-Qaeda.'" [www.alommh.net]

This theme of the 'end' was also developed by Sayf Allah Usama and published by the Global Islamic Media Front. Taking as his cue the statement made to the Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera on the July 7 attacks on London by al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the author defends al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda from criticism of ideological bankruptcy resulting from the loss of their base. Instead, he suggests that al-Zawahiri was explaining al-Qaeda's strategic program and purpose. The reason for this, he explains, is that he became particularly intrigued by al-Zawahiri's focus on historical matters and his account of al-Qaeda's struggle "an unusual thing for one who speaks constantly of the present and of the future." There can be, he states, only one reason for this: "the [al-Qaeda] organization is about to exit the portal of history, to re-enter in another form, but with different forces, in a grander struggle with the infidel."

Under this interpretation, al-Zawahiri has "signed the exit visa of al-Qaeda, so that it now is to become a page in the history of Muslims "the beginning of a new era." This 'signing off' is part of the original plan; to "revive the [Islamic] Nation and prepare it for a comprehensive confrontation with the Kuffar" on a scale larger than what has been waged up to now against apostate elements in individual countries. The confrontation is the final scene, "to be played by al-Qaeda against world Unbelief: "the smashing of the great idol [the United States of America]." The author then lists some of the aims and achievements of al-Qaeda:

The joining of efforts against the head of Unbelief, America;

Instilling freedom from defeatism among the Muslim youth, through the attacks on New York and Washington;

Drawing the American enemy outside its borders and casting it into the Islamic swamp, so as to expose the truth about the artificial 'truce' between Muslims and the Unbelievers;

Whetting the appetite of the youth to go to Iraq to form a new front, in order to make the U.S. military taste what the Soviets tasted in Afghanistan;

Detaching America from its Crusader roots in Europe and Australia, by punishing rebel states who participated alongside America in its attack on Iraq; thus inducing terror of al-Qaeda and the gradual disassociation from her great enemy [the USA] and withdrawal of their support for it;

Getting Muslim masses used to the idea that al-Qaeda can reach anyone who harms them; ending the assumption that Western victory is assured; and bringing the battle to its climax.

The grand conflict with the great idol, according to the jihadi analyst, is in two stages, each bearing symbolic similarities to the other as a struggle of a weaker party against a stronger. If the first stage of the struggle was one fought in mountains and caves and hideouts, the second and final stage of the struggle is one conducted "with the full economic, military and political force of the Islamic nations." [Oh no, not that. Anything but that!]

According to this analysis, al-Zawahiri's speech comes at a pivotal moment in the great conflict of the Islamic Nation against "the primary forces in the world defending the Cross." It is the "final, legal, call to the arrogant Americans to avoid the dreadful destruction which will befall them, after which al-Qaeda cannot be blamed for its actions against those who do not leave the Islamic Nation alone." For the nations allied to the United States, they too should know that their time is coming, and that they will be picked off one by one, after the stoutest fortress of the Cross is destroyed.

But al-Zawahiri's address also marks the end of the 'al-Qaeda' phase of this great conflict. After it has passed, the analyst concludes, having served its galvanizing purpose, it will metaphorically re-enter the portal of history, but 'in a more resplendent, stronger form, in the guise of the liberated Muslim masses taking vengeance on their servitude to the West and on America, the scourge of their countries.'

Far from frustration at the failure of the al-Qaeda program to galvanize the Nation, Sayf Allah Usama is confident that this has already been achieved. For the jihadist contemplating al-Qaeda's ebb, it should be regarded as "the exit of heroes, and the re-entry of their souls into a new phase of the struggle waged by revived Muslims, rising proud after their humiliation, assured of their victory against the great enemy and the fool of the era, America." [www.alommh.net]

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http://www.jamestown.org

The Sun Also Rises

Memorial service today for Jules.

Can't write more. Back tomorrow.

John Rhys-Davies: Gimli on Islam

Recently a couple of our friends at the Fortress had a chance to spend a day with John Rhys-Davies, known to some of us as the actor who plays Gimli in the movie The Lord of the Rings. He's not only taller in person, he stands head and shoulders above the packs of dhimmi lap-dogs who roam Hollywood in search of petting.

Unlike so many Hollywood caricatures of preening Scottish Lairds taking all to show off the wealth and power of the clan who starve in rags in the background, Rhys-Davies was not found at a hair salon but in a --wait for this-- in a bookshop! The man is literate. Nor did he require a camera crew to take his picture while he chose books to study. Not only is he honest and straight-forward in his opinions, unafraid to contradict the ruling dhimmi party-line, he's so normal that today we are unofficially acting here as his publicity dept. That's classy. Below is an interview from NRO showing Rhys-Davies to be a giant among the pig-mees of Hollywood.
***

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/leigh200403051052.asp

March 05, 2004, 10:52 a.m.
No Sean Penn
John Rhys-Davies, without Oscar censors.

by Andrew Leigh

LOS ANGELES — Another Academy Awards ceremony has come and gone. If you're like me, you spent much of it on the edge of your seat, silently praying that none of the winning actors would launch into a noxious left-wing tirade, featuring such sagacious bromides as "War is Not the Answer" (to what?).

It's a common perception that Hollywood is a liberal town, and rightly so. There are a few bold souls, however, who are willing to swim against the tide.

One of these starred in the film that won the most Oscars last Sunday night. He's John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in The Lord of the Rings (as well as Sallah in the Indiana Jones movies, in addition to many other roles). His comments over the past month or so regarding world affairs have ignited a firestorm of controversy in his home country of Great Britain.

Rather than taking up the banner of global warming, AIDS, world peace, or some other trendy cause, as most of his colleagues are prone to do, the Welsh-born actor has chosen as his particular hobbyhorse the growing demographic crisis in Europe.

He also regularly heaps praise on President George W. Bush and his war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq. "There are at least four or five [officials in the Bush administration] who could hold their own against the Founding Fathers," he says. This is blasphemous speech in Europe and Hollywood alike.

In a recent interview at a European-style café near Hollywood's Universal Studios, Rhys-Davies jokes about his candor, saying with a laugh that betrays a little nervousness, "Every time I open my mouth, I may be committing career suicide."

But he does not hold back, flatly stating, "I think that radical Islam has declared war on the West."

"It's not a question of the decency of Muslims," he says, many of whom he admires and respects. But "radical Islamist groups are controlling, manipulating, and forming the attitudes of Muslims throughout Europe," he adds. And Rhys-Davies fears that, due to their demographic advantages, their culture may eventually swamp or supplant the indigenous cultures of Europe.

Europeans are having fewer and fewer children, while migrant populations, predominantly Muslim, are growing much faster. Most European fertility rates have dropped so much that they have declined below the break-even point, to the degree that populations are actually beginning to shrink.

If the current trend continues, Rhys-Davies says, "The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56 percent of what it is now. The population of France will decline to about 52 percent."

Meanwhile, Muslim immigrants are having babies at a much faster clip, so that in time, they may become the majority population throughout Europe.

"Last year, 56 percent of the babies born in Brussels were Muslim," Rhys-Davies notes. "In a matter of 20-50 years, we are going to see two to three countries become predominately Muslim — Holland, France, and possibly Germany."

This sort of talk, predictably enough, has provoked cries of "racism" from Muslim advocacy groups and left-wing critics back on his home turf. "We want an apology," demanded Mohammed Javed, chairman of the Muslim Society for Wales. "This could stir up racial hatred in society. It's ignorance, he should learn more about Islam...before he makes these comments."

At the same time, the far-right British National party, a fringe white-supremacist group, has tried to co-opt Rhys-Davies's message by reprinting some of his quotes on flyers they distributed at Lord of the Rings movie showings around the United Kingdom. Rhys-Davies strongly repudiated the BNP for their action; he belongs to the Conservative party, which has condemned the BNP as well.

"There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural [aspect] as well," Rhys-Davies has said.

It is the culture of fundamentalist Islam that concerns Rhys-Davies the most. "When I look at contemporary Islam, I see homophobia, forced conversion, genital mutilation, slavery, two million people being put to death in the Sudan because of their religion."

He also sees its hand in an ugly trend: "There is a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe unprecedented since the 1930s," he laments.

In his view, "Fundamental Islamism is a particularly brutish and unpleasant form of fascism." He fears that if it becomes the dominant culture in Europe, it will wipe out all that is good about Western culture.

"It's easy to lose a civilization," Rhys-Davies warns. "The values of Western civilization have brought so much good to the world: the notions of equality, democracy, tolerance, abolition of slavery."

Rhys-Davies sees these same themes espoused in The Lord of the Rings, observing, "[J.R.R.] Tolkien knew that civilization is worth fighting for. There are times when a generation is challenged and must fight to defend their civilization from annihilation."

Of course, others on the set didn't see it the same way. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, wore a "No Blood for Oil" T-shirt during a promotional interview for the movie on Charlie Rose's PBS show.

Ironically, Mortensen's character in the movies is a military leader. And many have drawn parallels between the conflict in The Lord of the Rings with the war on terror. With a twinkle in his eye, Rhys-Davies confides that a friend whispered to him while watching Mortensen in The Return of the King, "Does he realize he's George Bush?"

Conservatives indeed are scarce in Hollywood. "You introduce a Republican to another in Hollywood, it's like a meeting between two Christians in Caligula's Rome," he observes.

Rhys-Davies does not appreciate the images of President Bush and America broadcast by Western media. "When Hollywood constantly projects that the West is weak, the military is corrupt, that big business is corrupt, it has to have an influence on Muslims," he says.

Rhys-Davies used to be a radical leftist, as a university student in the '60s. He first started to come around when he went to the local hall to hear a young local member of parliament by the name of Margaret Thatcher. "I went to heckle her," Rhys-Davies says. "She shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that I decided I ought for once to shut up and listen."

It was the beginning of his eventual transformation into a conservative. Rhys-Davies's father was a colonial officer, but from a poor "working-class socialist" background, which Rhys-Davies absorbed into his bloodstream. He spent a large portion of his childhood in Tanzania, where his father was posted.

He says, "As a child, my father showed me a dhow in the harbor at Dar es Salaam and said, 'You see that dhow? Twice a year it comes down from Aden filled with boxes of goods. On the way back up it's got two or three black boys on it. Those boys are slaves. And the U.N. won't let me do a thing about it.'"

Rhys-Davies says that his father predicted our current state of affairs, once telling his son, "The next world war will be between Islam and the West. And it will happen in your lifetime."

— Andrew Leigh is a screenwriter based in Los Angeles.

* * *

TheFuture of Islam, Part Two.

John B at http://jihadwatch.org put this article up for us recently, and here we pass it on to others. Due to the length of the following we'll keep our editorial comments to a minimum-- this time.

The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization

Lieutenant Colonel James G. Lacey, U.S. Army Reserve

Proceedings, September 2005

Slender minarets with muezzins calling the faithful to prayer symbolize the stability and timelessness of the Muslim world. This one in Rabi'ah, a small town on the Iraqi-Syrian border, is a classic—and the Muslim faith is flourishing. Arabs, however, most of whom are Muslims, are not.

COMBAT CAMERA ATLANTIC (ROBERT M. SCHALK)

If a country wants to be on the winning side of history it first and foremost must get its grand strategy right. With that done, it can make any number of operational mistakes and weather many a setback and still walk away a winner. In the Cold War, our grand strategy of containing the Soviet Union eventually won the day despite many tribulations over the fifty years it was in place. Diplomat George Kennan's famous "X Article," anonymously published in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947, became the conceptual pillar of Cold War strategy and withstood a decades-long assault by critics until eventually vindicated by the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Was the containment theory hurt by the vitriol of its critics? I would argue the opposite is true. Criticism forced the supporters of containment theory to examine and hone their arguments. In order to properly answer their critics, supporters of containment were forced to continually evaluate their strategic models under regularly changing conditions. The end result was a strategy that proved adaptable to shifting circumstances and able to garner the support of the bulk of public opinion.

Today, however, more and more of our strategic judgments are being built upon the untested edifice of two books: Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror and Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order . While there have been a few critical reviews of both works, for the most part they have become the basic canon of 21st century strategic thought with very little serious negative commentary. In military publications and briefings these works are now cited repeatedly and uncritically as authoritative support for developing strategic concepts.

Both books paint a dismal global picture. Huntington argues that for centuries civilizations have been kept apart by distance and serious geographical obstacles. However, modern technologies are eroding these obstacles and as civilizations begin to interact on a more regular basis they will find each other so repugnant they will be unable to resist trying to slaughter one another. Bernard Lewis is not as pessimistic about the global environment. Rather, he focuses his dire warnings on just the Muslim world, which appears to him on an irreversible road to doom.

It amazes me that Huntington's theory of civilizational war ever gained the traction it did. I had always assumed that everyone would awake one day and discover Hindus were not planning the annihilation of the Mongols, that Africans were incapable of getting together to fight anyone, and that Europeans have lost the will to fight about anything. Maybe, just maybe, some Arabs would like to take on their neighbors. But let's assume for a moment that all twenty-two Arab nations put aside their considerable differences and raise a military force to take on the world, what would that force look like? Well, with a combined GDP a bit less than Spain's, it probably would not amount to much. The combined conventional military power of a united Arab world is not likely to keep Pentagon planners up at night. Lewis, on the other hand, makes a good argument for the collapse of the Islamic world. Unfortunately, by accepting his thesis the United States is put in the unenviable position of confronting a religion in what may be a prolonged conflict-prone situation. Do we really want to make war on a religion? The major flaw in Lewis's argument, though, is in the title of his book. Islam is not in fact in a crisis state. From a purely religious point of view things have not looked this good for the Muslim faith in hundreds of years. Mosques are full, new adherents are pouring in, and the cash coffers are being filled with donations. If this is a religious crisis it is one most of the world's other faiths would envy.

A more accurate understanding of events leads to the conclusion that Arab, not Muslim, civilization is in a state of collapse, and it just happens that most Arabs are Muslims. In this regard, the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a collapse of Western Europe and not a crisis of Christianity. The next question is, how could the world have missed an entire civilization collapsing before its eyes? The simple answer is that no one alive today has ever seen it happen before. Well within living memory we have seen empires collapse and nation-state failure has become a regular occurrence, but no one in the West has witnessed the collapse of a civilization since the Dark Ages. Civilizational collapses take a long time to unfold and are easy to miss in the welter of daily events.

Interestingly, on the Arab League's website there is a paper that details all of the contributions made by Arab civilization. It is a long and impressive list, which unfortunately marks 1406 as the last year a significant contribution was made. That makes next year the 600th anniversary of the beginning of a prolonged stagnation, which began a dive into the abyss with the end of the Ottoman Empire. Final collapse has been staved off only by the cash coming in from a sea of oil and because of a few bright spots of modernity that have resisted the general failure.

Statistics tell an ugly story about the state of Arab civilization. According to the U.N.'s Arab Human Development Report:

There are 18 computers per 1000 citizens compared to a global average of 78.3.

Only 1.6% of the population has Internet access.

Less than one book a year is translated into Arabic per million people, compared to over 1000 per million for developed countries.

Arabs publish only 1.1% of books globally, despite making up over 5% of global population, with religious books dominating the market.

Average R&D expenditures on a per capita basis is one-sixth of Cuba's and less than one-fifteenth of Japan's.

The Arab world is embarking upon the new century burdened by 60 million illiterate adults (the majority are women) and a declining education system, which is failing to properly prepare regional youth for the challenges of a globalized economy. Educational quality is also being eroded by the growing pervasiveness of religion at all levels of the system. In Saudi Arabia over a quarter of all university degrees are in Islamic studies. In many other nations primary education is accomplished through Saudi-financed madrassas, which have filled the void left by government's abdication of its duty to educate the young.

In economic terms we have already commented that the combined weight of the Arab states is less than that of Spain. Strip oil out of Mideast exports and the entire region exports less than Finland. According to the transnational Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regional economic growth is burdened by declining rates of investment in fixed capital structure, an inability to attract substantial foreign direct investment, and declining productivity — the economic trinity of disaster.

Economic stagnation coupled with rapid population growth is reducing living standards throughout the region, both comparatively and in real terms. In the heady days of the late 1970s oil boom, annual per-capita GDP growth of over 5% fueled high levels of expectations. GDP per-capita grew from $1,845 to $2,300. Today, after adjusting for inflation, it stands at $1,500, reflecting an overall decline in living standards over 30 years. Only sub-Saharan Africa has done worse. If oil wealth is subtracted from the calculations the economic picture for the mass of Arab citizens becomes dire.

Things are indeed bad in the Arab world and will get much worse.

This statement should not be read as mere opinion. While predictions of the future are usually fraught with peril, those based on demographics are, barring some unforeseen plague or truly catastrophic war, uncannily accurate. Using even the most optimistic assumption—that fertility rates drop by fifty percent in a generation—the respected Population Resource Center, based in Princeton, New Jersey, expects Arab populations to grow from 280 million to almost 460 million by 2020 and to over 600 million a generation later. On the face of it the Arab world is staring political and economic disaster in the face. Arab governments and institutions are already failing to meet basic human needs in many Arab countries. It is hard to imagine how they will cope with the stress of such a massive population increase.

The percentage of the population under age 15 is double that of Western Europe and those under age 24 make up 50% to 65% of Middle East countries—an astonishingly young population. This youth bulge is already beginning to rock the foundations of Islamic society. Upheaval and revolution are the likely results of a massive number of youth confronted by stagnating or collapsing economies as they enter adulthood.

The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization

A youth bulge has always correlated strongly with increased levels of violence within a society, from terrorism to war. Massive youth violence is predictably more likely when lack of economic opportunity stunts ambitions for a satisfying job, a good marriage, and a home. A 2004 study by The World Bank calls this combination of a youth bulge coupled with poor economic performance an "explosive combination." In socially and politically repressive societies, found throughout the Middle East, there are very few outlets for pent-up frustrations except for violence or immersion into religion—a combustible mixture. In the Middle East, it is evident that terrorism and especially suicide operations are a phenomenon closely associated with youth. Youthful involvement in terrorism can be viewed as the extreme end of a broader youthful attraction to violence more generally. Additionally, this attraction is being reinforced within a generation that is being radicalized by an environment featuring high levels of violence, radical religious ideology, and growing anti-Americanism.

One serious question that requires an answer is why youth are attracted to Islamic organizations, which to Western eyes appear to be extremely repressive to many of the aspirations and desires of typical young men and women? In a 2003 Brookings Institution paper, Graham Fuller, a senior resident consultant at the RAND Corporation, provides this answer:

. . . the religious activism of Islamism in the Muslim world is not politically conservative at all: it calls for change to the status quo that is broadly hated. Much of the youthful spirit of rebellion against the status quo can thus be readily harnessed by the Islamist movement, both violent and non-violent. They provide a channel for the expression of discontent, blessed and legitimized by powerful religious tradition that incorporates nationalist impulses as well. It is noteworthy that Islamism serves as a vehicle of protest everywhere except where it is in power, such as Iran and Sudan. It is the status quo that is the major target of anger. (Author's emphasis)

A youth bulge is always destabilizing, but it can often be managed if a society is able to properly educate its youth and provide them with adequate economic opportunities at the end of the education process. Arab nations are failing in both areas.

As I see it, the overarching cause of civilizational collapse is that culture and institutions of that civilization can no longer adapt to external stresses. This assertion is grounded in my interpretation of the writings of Will Durant, Story of Civilization, John Roberts' The Rise of the West, and Fernand Braudel's A History of Civilizations. The tyrants and dictators who have long ruled the Arab world have proven unable to implement the changes required to reverse the trends of collapse. Unable to reverse economic and societal ills, and unresponsive to the mass of the Arab population, these rulers instituted polices of strong internal oppression, which further closed off Arab society from the adoption of new ideas and methods.

Populations that were unable to influence their governments found that some methods of expression were still allowed within the context of Islam. Working within this framework radicals found that they could shelter their activities within a religious infrastructure, while at the same time religious leaders realized that they were gaining enough strength to make a grasp for secular power. This was a struggle that went on in the West for a thousand years after the fall of Rome until finally won by secular authority during what is now called the Age of Reason.

Still, Islam is not the root cause of collapse. For instance, it has not stood in the way of economic advancement and societal adaptation in Asia. It is more accurate to say that fundamental failure of Arab culture is causing people to begin looking backwards at the golden age of their civilization. Two things ring out to them from those past centuries: Arabs were powerful when they were united and when their faith was new, vital, and fundamental.

A lot of the evidence that Huntington presents for his theory of civilizational war makes more sense when viewed through the prism of the collapse of Arab civilization. Global maneuvering that Huntington interprets as preparations for a new round of world conflict are in reality the spontaneous adjustments that other societies are making in reaction to the collapse of a neighboring civilization. By accepting that we are facing the collapse of Arab civilization we can, for the first time, create a grand strategic concept for success. We no longer have to engage in a war against terrorism, which is a method of fighting and not an enemy. Additionally, we now have a strategic explanation for what is going on that does not make Islam the culprit. Hence we do not have to fight a religious war to win.

The grand strategic concept that provides the best chance of success is the one that served us so well in the Cold War—containment. No matter what else we do we must position ourselves to contain the effects of the complete collapse of Arab civilization. Already 10 percent of the French population is from Muslim North Africa. Europe's ability to assimilate a larger flood of economic refugees is questionable. And mass migration is just one effect a total collapse will have. Containment will mean adopting and maintaining difficult policy choices, which include:

• Working closely with the European nations to defend their southern border against the mass migration of tens of millions of destitute Arabs as well as armed confrontations with failing Arab states.
• Renewing our close ties with Turkey and making that nation a bulwark against the effects of collapse.
• Working to help modernize and integrate the Russian military into an enhanced European defense structure.
• Ensuring China is a partner in this containment effort.
• Propping up weak border states that are already dealing with the spillover effects of Arab collapse—such as Pakistan and the new Caucasus states.
• Assisting the Iranian popular will to establish a government not based on a religious oligarchy. The Persian people may form an eastern bulwark against collapse.
• Plan for the security of critical resources even during possible upheavals and regional turmoil.
• Spillover effects such as terrorist groups already evident in places like Indonesia and the Philippines must be eradicated or reversed.
• We need to be clear that this is not a failure of Islam. In this regard we must help Muslims outside of the Arab world find their own interpretations of their faith and not fall prey to those being espoused by the Arab world—Wahhabism.

None of the above policy prescriptions will be easy, nor can they be achieved overnight. Most of them require the support of other nations, which may be problematic. Many of these nations have not recognized the risks they face from Arab collapse and see no reason to take preemptive measures. It is easy to say that we need to work closely with Europe to secure its southern border. In reality, that task will be devilishly hard, not least because the Europeans appear very reluctant to take any measures to protect themselves that might give even a whiff of intolerance. Furthermore, American diplomacy, as of recent decades, has not shown it is up to accomplishing many of the recommended tasks. For instance, all attempts to engage Iran since the fall of the Shah have been a debacle. Unfortunately, as the Iranian nuclear crisis unfolds there is no indication we have gotten any better at it. Do we have the wherewithal to engender a democratic society in Iran and then to engage its support in our common interests? Can we deal with an increasingly autocratic and threatening Russia? Can we manage China's emergence as a superpower so that it can be peacefully integrated into the global political system? The answers to these questions are still unknown. However, because containment of a civilizational collapse cannot be done by the United States alone finding the right answers is critical.

By accepting that we need to contain the effects of a failing Arab civilization we are then free to adopt one of three basic approaches:

1. Attempt to accelerate the collapse and pick up the pieces, akin to letting an alcoholic hit bottom.
2. To contain the effects, but not to interfere with the fall for good or bad.
3. Reverse the tide when and where we can.

For a number of ethical and practical reasons the third choice is the one that should and is most likely to be adopted, keeping in mind that resisting the macro-forces of historical change will not be easy.

By adopting the third option we can craft policies to improve economic conditions and help specific regions within the Arab world adapt to encroaching modernity. The United States must be able to spot shining lights in the Arab world and work to protect them even as we help to expand their influence. Discarding the theories of two men as eminent as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis is not a matter to take lightly. History may even prove both men right and my analysis to be well off the mark. However, the almost blind acceptance now being given to these men's ideas is a dangerous trend. As military leaders build the strategic plans and policies that will guide our forces for a generation or more it is best to be skeptical of all underlying assumptions. This article is designed to strike at the foundation of the two most widely accepted arguments in the current forum of ideas. If they are correct and sturdy then my position will not topple them. In fact, like Kennan's X article they will be made stronger by having to defend themselves against criticism. If they are weak, then it is best to discard them now.

Lieutenant Colonel Lacey is a Washington-based writer focusing on defense and international affairs issues. He was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division during the war in Iraq. He served on active duty for a number of years and later edited journals on international finance.

http://www.navalinstitute.org
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Dhimmi Nation Poll

This link should take you to a poll in which you can vote for the dhimmi nation of your choice. Who's the biggest dhimmi of them all? You decide.

http://uppompeii.blogspot.com/

Rape Culture

Islam is a rape culture. When cultures segregate and dehumanize women the result is rape. When women are treated like chattel instead of autonomous beings with recognized rights as equals no different from men, the result is rape, slavery, torture, and murder. When chattel slavery is enshrined as culture, then rape is a result, obviously so to anyone who cares to read even the two articles below, not to mention the myriad others available to those who care to pursue the inquiry further.

We take issue with the privileging of culture over the individual. Why, we ask, is culture valued at all? Social cohesion is some benefit? To what end are people cohesive? And if for some reason, by some wild lucky chance one can make a coherent argument that culture is a benefit because it creates social cohesion, then will one go further and claim that social cohesion is better than atomic individuality? Is the collective good better than the good of the collection of individuals pursuing their own happiness? Should the state prevail over the individual? Is the greater number better prepared to express the truth than the smaller? Or is the smaller group of perhaps Philosopher Kings better informed, nobler, wiser than the great unwashed? Should there be, regardless, a perfect monoculture? Should we all subsume our interests to the ummah?

Perhaps Islam is a great thing that all should follow. If Islam segregates women, and if from that women are property to be used and traded like any other commodity, if, in short, Islam is a good thing and women should be raped if they can be, and if culture is supreme, then all women should be raped if they are outside the protective boundaries of their protecting family males. There should be no law preventing or even discouraging the cultural Islamic practice of raping women-- or boys for that matter.

Ah, but culture is distinct, an organic outgrowth of social conditions applicable only to those within a specific group, that group based on language perhaps, or religion, or the shape of the head, the size of the nose. Rather than atomic individuals we have instead atomic cultures. Islam, having its own cultures, privileges rape. Who are we to judge if we allow the concept of particularism? If there is multi-culture, then we must allow rape as a cultural expression if that is indeed part of authentic cultural expression. Forget the individual. Think in terms of the benefits of social cohesion.

Or, take a brick to the face of anyone who suggests that culture is anything other than fascism writ big, red, and evil.

Below we have two pieces on rape in Pakistan. Rape is culture. Rape is Islamic culture. If we accept the dominance of culture we must accept the rape that goes with it as policy. Culture is for those who refuse to think for themselves. They rape if they're Muslims. No, not all Muslims. But for those who do it's culture. It's ok. Not for us, those of us with a different culture, but it's ok for Muslims. Too bad for the women, but hey, culture is supreme for those who think culture is supreme.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) -- Outrage mounted in Pakistan and abroad on Friday over President Pervez Musharraf's comment that many Pakistanis felt that crying rape was an easy way to make money and move to Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has already condemned the remarks made by Musharraf, who is in the United States having addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.

London-based rights group Amnesty International said Musharraf should apologize, and newspapers back home decried their leader's attitude.

Musharraf told the Washington Post in an interview published on Tuesday that Pakistan should not be singled out on rape issues as other countries had the same problems.

"You must understand the environment in Pakistan ... This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped," the Post quoted Musharraf as saying.

Dawn, Pakistan's leading English-language daily, rounded on Musharraf in an editorial headlined "Wrong thing to say".

"If this attitude, of blaming rape and other crimes against women on women themselves and ridiculing NGOs (non-government organizations) that take up such issues, begins to travel upward from ignorant mullahs and male chauvinists to permeate the higher echelons of the administration, then God help us," it said.

Amnesty International said it was outraged at the remarks by Musharraf, who is due to address an audience of Pakistani-American women in New York on Saturday.

"This callous and insulting statement requires a public apology from President Musharraf to the women of Pakistan and especially to victims of rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence that are rampant with impunity in Pakistan," the group said in a statement issued on Thursday.

"His statement is an offence to women all over the world."

Musharraf, according to media reports, told a news conference in New York on Thursday that he had been expressing a commonly held opinion rather than his own.

Earlier, Canada's Martin said he had raised the matter with the Pakistani leader during a meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

"I stated unequivocally that comments such as that are not acceptable and that violence against women is also a blight that besmirches all humanity," Martin told a news conference.

Rape is prevalent particularly in rural areas of Pakistan, but local media have recently become more active in following up stories since a notorious gang rape generated massive publicity at home and abroad when the victim spoke out about her ordeal.

Mukhtaran Mai, now an icon for human rights in Pakistan, was gang-raped three years ago on the orders of a village council after her brother, then 12, was judged to have befriended a woman of a powerful clan.

Earlier this year Musharraf blocked Mai from traveling to the United States to attend a women's rights conference, but later lifted the ban after international criticism including from the U.S. government.

Mai told Reuters she was pained by Musharraf's comments in the United States.

"Nobody does it intentionally. A large number of women are molested and insulted in the country. How many of them have made money?," she said. "Such thinking about women is not good."

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ASI held in gang-r ape case, 3 cops absconding

By Munawer Azeem

ISLAMABAD, Sept 6: A police officer has been arrested in Rawalpindi and hunt for two others in a gang-rape case in the second case in a week, police sources told Dawn late on Tuesday.

A woman, resident of Dhok Choudhrian, lodged a complaint with the Airport police that an assistant sub-inspector, Ilyas Kalyar, two constables, Mohammad Sadiq and Bilal, gang-raped her in her house on Sunday.

On the directives of assistant superintendent of police,

Civil Lines, an FIR has been registered against the accused.

The medical test on the victim was done in the Rawalpindi General Hospital and the report is due to be released soon.

District Police Officer Saud Aziz told the BBC that three constables had absconded.

He said that a sub-inspector had been arrested in connection with the case.

The woman alleged that the police officials had arrested her husband and demanded a bribe of Rs100,000, a BBC website reported.

The victim said she paid the police Rs30,000 after which her husband was released but the officials continued demanding the remaining amount.

She accused the four officers of then barging into her house on Sunday and raping her after locking her husband and uncle in another room in the house.

The case comes after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered separate inquiries into the alleged rape of a woman in Faisalabad, BBC reports.

DAWN - the Internet Edition ***

The Future of Islam, Part One

There are two pleasures in life that we adore: one being the nurse who comes to feed us pudding, bending over just far enough that we can look down her blouse; and second, reading wonderfully smart essays.

Below we have two essays on the future of Islam, of Muslims. Both essays are large enough to warrant that we post one only today and the second tomorrow to keep our readers from fatigue. Hence, our clever editorial wil remain unwritten.

Please feel free to leave comments, keeping in mind that they are for your fellow readers and are not for us to critique or complain about, tempting sometimes as it is.
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http://www.atimes.com

The demographics of radical Islam
By Spengler

General staffs before World War I began war planning with demographic tables, calculating how many men of military age they might feed to the machine guns. France preferred an early war because its stagnant population would not produce enough soldiers a generation hence to fight Germany. Only Israel's general staff looks at demographic tables today, to draw prospective boundaries that will enclose a future Jewish majority.

Demographics still provide vital strategic information, albeit in quite a different fashion. Today's Islamists think like the French general staff in 1914. Islam has one generation in which to establish a global theocracy before hitting a demographic barrier. Islam has enough young men - the pool of unemployed Arabs is expected to reach 25 million by 2010 - to fight a war during the next 30 years. Because of mass migration to Western Europe, the worst of the war might be fought on European soil.

Although the Muslim birth rate today is the world's second highest (after sub-Saharan Africa), it is falling faster than the birth rate of any other culture. By 2050, according to the latest UN projections, the population growth rate of the Muslim world will converge on that of the United States (although it will be much higher than Europe's or China's).

Falling fertility measures the growing influence of modernity upon the Muslim world. Literacy rates, especially female literacy, best explain the difference between the very high fertility rates of pre-modern society and the moderate fertility rates of industrial countries, as I showed in a recent study (Death by secularism: The statistical evidence, August 1, 2005).

This is clearly the case in the Muslim world where the lowest rates of adult literacy correspond to the highest population growth rate. Literacy alone explains 58% of the variation in birth rates among Muslim countries.

Urbanization, literacy, and openness to the modern world ultimately will suppress the Muslim womb, in the absence of radical measures. In a new volume of essays on modern Islamic thought, the Islamists Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer M Nafi observe, "Rather than being a development within cultural traditions that is internally generated, 20th century Islamic thought is constitutively responsive; it is substantially a reaction to extrinsic challenges." [1] The challenge stems from the transformation of Muslim life:

In the Middle East of 1900, for example, less than 10% of the inhabitants were city dwellers; by 1980, 47% were urban. In 1800, Cairo had a population of 250,000, rising to 600,000 by the beginning of the 20th century. The unprecedented influx of immigrants from rural areas brought the population of Cairo to almost 8 million by 1980. Massive urbanization altered patterns of living, of housing and architecture, of the human relation with space and land, of marketing, employment, and consumption, and the very structure of family and social hierarchy. [2]

The sharp fall in the Muslim population growth rate expresses the extreme fragility of traditional society. Translated into the Islamist vocabulary (citing again Taji-Farouki and Nafi), this means that:

A Muslim sense of vulnerability and outrage is further exacerbated by the seemingly unstoppable encroachment of American popular culture and modes of consumerism and the transparent hypocrisy of the American rhetoric of universal rights and liberties. It is also stoked by Western ambivalence towards economic disparities in the world. [3]

Rapid urbanization, to be sure, produced growing pains in every case on record. Britain transported its displaced population to America and then to Australia, including the "clearing" of entire Scots villages forced onto ships for Canada. But Britain's urbanization coincided with rapid economic growth and improving living standards. The Arab world's urbanization has only created a stagnant pool of urban poor. As the London Economist summarized in the United Nations Arab Development Report for 2002:

One in five Arabs still live on less than $2 a day. And over the past 20 years growth in income per head, at an annual rate of .5%, was lower than anywhere else in the world except sub-Saharan Africa. At this rate, says the report, it will take the average Arab 140 years to double his income, a target that some regions are set to reach in less than 10 years. Stagnant growth, together with a fast-rising population, means vanishing jobs. About 12 million people, or 15% of the labor force, are already unemployed, and on present trends the number could rise to 25 million by 2010. [4]

Excluding Indonesia, the Muslim's world literacy rate stands at only 53%, against 81% for China; Arab literacy is only 50%. Only 1% of the population owns a personal computer. It is delusional to believe that the Arab world, which now exports (net of oil) as much as Finland, might come to compete with China, India and the rest of Asia in the global market for goods and services.

Just as the Muslim population peaks, the one bounty that nature has bestowed upon the Arabs, namely oil, will begin to diminish. According to the US Department of Energy, conventional oil production will peak just before 2050 at the present 2% rate of production growth.

In short, the Muslim world half a century from now can expect the short end of the stick from the modern world. It has generated only two great surpluses, namely people and oil. By the middle of the century both of these will have begun to dwindle. But at the moment it has 25 million idle young men. No leader can remain in power who does not give them a destination to march to.

By no means does that imply that all of these 25 million will become suicide bombers, but a great many of them are likely to emigrate to Europe, including Eastern Europe, where populations are stagnant and about to decline. A Muslim takeover of Western Europe surely is a possible outcome.

Notes
[1] Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer M. Nafi, Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century (Tauris: London 2004), p 9
[2] Ibid, p 2
[3] Op cit, p 14
[4] Economist, July 4, 2002

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
***

On this topic we will return tomorrow with another perspective on the future of Ilam, which means the lives of people themselves, individuals who must concern us as our fellow men. Yes, even hate-filled ranting bigots that we are here we do still muster at times the pretense of humanity to try to fool some of the people some of the time, though there are those geniuses who see through us.

Damn!