I’ve got a lot on my plate today, so I’ll direct you to some items you may not have seen. (Thanks again, to all those readers who send me tips – it’s impossible to use all but a few, but I do appreciate your effort).
A good clean piece by Charles Krauthammer, The Neoconservative Convergence;
The post-Cold War era has seen a remarkable ideological experiment: Over the past 15 years, each of the three major American schools of foreign policy–realism, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism– has taken its turn at running things. (A fourth school, isolationism, has a long pedigree, but has yet to recover from Pearl Harbor and probably never will; it remains a minor source of dissidence with no chance of becoming a governing ideology.) There is much to be learned from this unusual and unplanned experiment.
A must read, especially for those who have learned everything they know about “neo-conservativism” at the feet of Jon Stewart.
From Victor Davis Hanson, to those who think the west is “our own worst enemy”. You’re wrong – but we certainly are our own worst accomplice.
When the killer of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh confessed last week, he boasted, “I can assure you that one day, should I be set free, I would do exactly the same.”
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If many progressives in the Netherlands expected the Dutch-Moroccan Mohammed Bouyeri would cite past ill- treatment by Westerners, they were sorely disappointed.
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Instead, the psychopath icily advised the mother of the murdered van Gogh: “I have to admit I do not feel for you, I do not feel your pain” and “I cannot feel for you. … because I believe you are an infidel.”
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Thousands of innocent civilians such as van Gogh have been murdered by Islamic extremists — in Darfur, Gaza, India, Israel, Lebanon, London, Madrid, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States. The carnage gives credence to the adage that while the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of global terrorists most certainly are Muslims.
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The killers always allege particular gripes — Australian troops in Iraq, Christian proselytizing, Hindu intolerance, occupation of the West Bank, theft of Arab petroleum, the Jews, attacks on the Taliban, the 15th-century reconquest of Spain, and, of course, the Crusades.
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But in most cases — from Mohamed Atta, who crashed into the World Trade Center, to Ahmed Sheik, the former London School of Economics student who planned the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar, the suspected American-educated bomb-maker in London — the common bond is not poverty, a lack of education or legitimate grievance. Instead it is blind hatred instilled by militant Islam.
Switching gears, Publius extends stats posted yesterday on crime in Canada, by placing them in the context of First Nations population. (In a comment that jumps head first into parody, a self-described “Indian activist” chastizes him for not writing letters to the government and the CBC.)
What isn’t factored into his simple chart is the skewing of crime figures through the phenomenon of organized aboriginal youth gangs. Taking on names like “Crazy Cree” and “Indian Posse” – the clear message is that membership is race based, so those who wish to protest the characterization can take it up with them. I suspect much of the violent crime reported in Saskatoon and Regina is directly related to gang involvement in drugs and prostitution, turf warfare, initiation rites. (There are reportedly 13 or 14 such gangs in Saskatoon.)
Exacerbated by the absurdly lenient Youth Criminal Justice Act which recycles so-called “young offenders” back onto the streets faster than police can apprehend them, the situation is especially maddening at a time when so many First Nations kids are finally making their way into the work force through traditional entry level positions in the private sector.
Darcey has thoughts on this, too.
That’s all for a while. Discuss, if you wish, and feel free to add your own links. Sort of an open thread.
Violent gangs are unacceptable, independent of their genetic or any other historic makeup (or their age, for that matter). If we could only eliminate collateral damage, we could solve the problem by giving violent gangs just the weapons they need to wipe each other out. But we can’t.
Meanwhile, there are individual humans of every stripe who are striving to accomplish something useful, and they are being thwarted left and right by ambulance chasers from one paleolithic ideology to another.
Prejudice means to judge before the evidence. Discriminate means to judge after the evidence. The former is bad for you. The latter is good for you.
Take care that you judge each individual on their measured merit; fall foul not of any sort of claim to collective righteousness.
Those activist judges are at it again. They’re trying to destroy socialism by allowing an enterprising doctor to see more patients than her colleagues.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/07/22/cancer-quotas050722.html
The Quebec Superior Court has ordered a major Montreal hospital to suspend its quota system for cancer patients, a system that required doctors to treat an equal number of patients each week.
Edmund Burke on prejudice:
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“And Burke�s provocative defense, in this connection, of �prejudice� �by which he meant the set of beliefs and ideas that arise instinctively in social beings, and which reflect the root experiences of social life�was a revelation of something that until then I had entirely overlooked. Burke brought home to me that our most necessary beliefs may be both unjustified and unjustifiable from our own perspective, and that the attempt to justify them will lead merely to their loss. Replacing them with the abstract rational systems of the philosophers, we may think ourselves more rational and better equipped for life in the modern world. But in fact we are less well equipped, and our new beliefs are far less justified, for the very reason that they are justified by ourselves. The real justification for a prejudice is the one which justifies it as a prejudice, rather than as a rational conclusion of an argument. In other words it is a justification that cannot be conducted from our own perspective, but only from outside, as it were, as an anthropologist might justify the customs and rituals of an alien tribe.”
“Why I Became a Conservative” Roger Scruton.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm
Cognitive dissonance: Canada.com presents alternative views of Canadian reality (both CP stories today, July 22):
McLellan assures Canadians no threat here after second London bombing
http://www.canada.com/news/national/story.html?id=0b698899-853b-4532-87a7-405bc25cdb59
Toronto near top of global list for terror attack insurance coverage: expert
http://www.canada.com/components/printstory/printstory4.aspx?id=4660dcbb-43b1-41d9-a8fd-bb6b97e59b52
Mark
Ottawa
Major Terror Attack in Egypt
At least 43 dead in blasts in Egyptian Red Sea resorts.
Explosions in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in the early hours of Saturday morning killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 100, Egyptian official sources said.
�Many of the injuries are very serious and they are in critical condition,� said a doctor at Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital, who asked not to be named.
Police said the explosions were caused by at least four car bombs in Sharm el-Sheikh and the nearby resort of Naama Bay.
A police source said that the casualties in the attacks include Britons, Dutch, Qataris and Kuwaitis.>>>>>>>>>>>> LGF
One of these days we will witness the death of millions, probably on CNN. It will happen as soon as western democratic society comes to the realization that this is indeed a war to the death. Or it will come when a stupid, and I mean a really stupid, terrorist executes a WMD attack on the United States. Americans are slow to get riled but watch out when they do.
As for inner city gangs, it is important to remember how many of them there are. There are only about 1200 to 1500 Hell’s Angels in Canada. Many less in the US. As for street gangs I don’t have any numbers. But what we need are less lenient, left-wing judges and more hard, right wing judges. And we need some teeth in the laws that the RCMP and provincial police have to operate under.
Either that or we’ll start to see some people taking the law into their own hands. I expect to see a lot of problems over the next few years, both from terrorism and natural causes. I can see a situation arising where peaceable citizens will simply lose their patience with this scum when they’re facing a situation that affects directly the safety of their families.
Remember, there are a lot more of us that there are of them.
Can anyone explain to me why these terrorists are attacking and alienating some of the countries who have historically supported them? I know the reason they attack Iraqis are twofold; they are easier targets than the American soldiers and they want to see a civil war erupt in Iraq. But why Egypt? They do have some support in Egypt.
I agree John. The relentless march of human progress, always fixing the problems from yesterday’s solutions, and sometimes doing better, will prevail in the long run.
The question is, how many innocents will suffer under the delusion of those who don’t understand this, even as they are eventually defeated?
http://www.rightthinkingpeople.blogspot.com
John, take a look? May answer some of your questions.
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No claim of responsibility yet, but as with New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid, London, the Crusades, the Reconquista, and that bad case of piles Mohammed got from riding a short-legged camel, I�m certain our friends on the left will find some way to blame this one on Bush and Blair too.
Not to put too fine a point on it, folks, but Egypt is hip-deep in Islamofascists, and Mubarak hasn�t been all that assiduous about rooting them out (despite $2,000,000,000 in Yankee danegeld per annum). After all, the bad guys don�t have to find a way to slip through border security to get to you if you’re thoughtful enought to go to them.
It�s a rule of thumb, people � if the enemy knows where you are, don�t be there (I think Chris Rock said that in Dogma). Maybe if tourists stop patronizing these s**t-holes there�d be some incentive for the inhabitants to clean up their act vis-a-vis the whole martyrdom fad.
Some dark, atavistic little part of my soul thinks that if people were really clued in on this GWOT thing, the only Westerners in Egypt would be the guys (yes, GUYS) piloting the stealth bombers.
>>>>>>> War, indeed. Meanwhile, MinDefCan Willy Graham is on a svend-one-man mission north of Goose Bay threatening Denmark with ???? over a frozen rockpile. Dropped in by helicopter was he; a Sea King, perhaps not.
maz2. Thanks, I had read that earier. A good blog to keep an eye on. There’s so much I don’t know about the Middle East that I hate to make snap judgements. I do know a couple muslims though, one from South Aftica. He says that if he went to Saudi Arabia he’d be beheaded within a couple days. He’s dead set against terrorism, same as us. And he’s a professional and no dummy,
Why attack Egypt?
Previous attacks in Egyptian resorts have been aimed at vacationing Israelis or Western tourists. It’s not the country that is the target, but the outsiders. I’m not sure if this is the case this time, though.
Wow Kate, has MWW ever got the hots for you. 😉
She and several alter egos she travels the net with.
I notice that she made a lame attempt to attribute your quotes over at Gods, but still no hyperlinks. If she had provided them it would have become obvious that your comments were artfully clipped to make them look as bad as possible.
And now I’m a racist too. Imagine that.
Well, we’ve moved up in the world!
We’ren’t we all “genocidal fascists” at one point?
Yeh, well, I’m one up on you now. You’re just a racist. I’m a “mentally-ill” racist. Guess that means I’ve been promoted?
I wish that woman would buy a dictionary. I’m not a racist as I don’t give a damn what someone’s skin colour is. My particular prediliction is that I’m wont to call ‘bullshit’ when I get a fair whiff of it from certain cultures (both traditional and recently manufactured). The dictionary would classify me as a bigot.
So how is August looking for that road trip out to Delisle? I’ll bring my family and we can burn crosses on your front lawn after we persecute the local Muslim population. 😉
(I wonder how long it will be until I see MWW Google bombing that quote next to my name?) [grin]
As to the claim that “radical” Muslims are just a tiny minority, see this story in Daily Telegraph, July 23, ” One in four [British] Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5V55JEHITDNJ1QFIQMGSNAGAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2005/07/23/npoll23.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/23/ixnewstop.html
Mark
Ottawa
And see this in the Guardian, July 23, by Osama Saeed, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain: “Back to you, Mr Blair: It is wrong to put the onus on British Muslims to defeat terror”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1534715,00.html
Excerpts:
“Mr Blair has attacked the idea of the caliphate – the equivalent of criticising the Pope. He has also remained silent in the face of a rightwing smear campaign against such eminent scholars as Sheikh al-Qaradawi – a man who has worked hard to reconcile Islam with modern democracy. Such actions and omissions fuel the suspicion that we are witnessing a war on Islam itself.. .
“…apologies need to be extended to Britain’s explicit roles in creating the injustices in the Muslim world – from the mess that colonial masters left in Kashmir…”
So, the Caliphate is OK; Osama will appreciate that (there go Spain and Portugal I guess). And Kashmir (problem started in 1947) is added to the list of Muslim grievances against the West (odd that Indian killing of tens of thousands in Kashmir more recently is not mentioned). Where it will all end, knows Allah.
Mark
Ottawa