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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2018 at 2:02 am
There is a famous joke about racial profiling that’s long made the rounds of the Internet. It appears in the guise of a “history test,” and offers such multiple-choice questions as:
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
- Olga Korbut
- Sitting Bull
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
- Lost Norwegians
- Elvis
- A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
- John Dillinger
- The King of Sweden
- The Boy Scouts
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
- A pizza delivery boy
- Pee Wee Herman
- Geraldo Rivera
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked. Two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Center; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
- Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
- The Supreme Court of Florida
- Mr. Bean
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
* * * * *
It’s well to remember the bitter truth behind this joke, especially in light of comments by Arthur M. Cummings, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security.
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” in referring to terrorism. Nor does he shrink from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly. “I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here [Washington, D.C.]. And he said ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom are seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish. It’s not the French. It’s not the Catholics. It’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
One man who did foresee the present conflicts with stunning clarity—and had the courage to say what has since become Politically Incorrect—was Samuel P. Huntington.
Samuel P. Huntington
A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962). He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.
The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most influential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.
Among the points he makes:
- Modernization does not mean Westernization.
- Economic progress has come with a revival of religion.
- Post-Cold War politics emphasize ethnic nationalism over ideology.
- Civilizations are fundamentally differentiated from each other by centuries-old history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion.
- As the world becomes smaller, different civilizations increasingly interact. These intensify civilization consciousness and the awareness of differences between civilizations.
- Economic modernization and social change separate people from age-old identities (such as hometowns and familiar neighbors). Religion has replaced this gap, providing a basis for identity, socialization and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.
- The West, at the peak of its power, is confronting non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, will and resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
- Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
The most controversial part of The Clash of Civilizations focuses on Islam. Huntington points out, for example, that Muslim countries are involved in far more inter-group violence than others.
And he warns that the West’s future conflicts with Islamic nations will be rooted in the Islamic religion:
“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
Huntington argues that civilizational conflicts are “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims.” Among the reasons for these conflicts: Both Islam and Christianity have similarities which heighten conflicts between their followers:
- Both seek to convert others.
- Both are “all-or-nothing” religions; each side believes that only its faith is the correct one.
- The followers of both Islam and Christianity believe that people who violate the base principles of their religion are idolators and thus damned.
Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:
- The Islamic revival, which began in the 1970s and is manifested in greater religious piety and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture, values, dress, separation of the sexes, speech and media censorship.
- Western universalism—the belief that all civilizations should adopt Western values—infuriates Islamic fundamentalists.
These are not differences that will disappear—overnight or even over the span of several centuries. Nor will they be sweet-talked away by Politically Correct politicians, however well-meaning.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2017 at 12:10 am
Contrary to the propaganda of Republican militarists and Democratic do-gooders, Americans should be thrilled at the mutual destruction of their most dedicated enemies. Such as is now taking place in Syria.
And yet, faced with an unprecedented threat to their security, many Western leaders refuse to publicly acknowledge this fundamental truth.
One man who predicted the ongoing Islamic-vs.-West conflicts with stunning clarity was Samuel P. Huntington.
A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962). He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.
The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most influential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.
Huntington warned that the West’s future conflicts with Islamic nations would be rooted in the Islamic religion:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
Among his assertions:
- Western nations should distance themselves from Islamic ones. The more both civilizations interact, the greater tensions between them will be.
- Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims have been marked by Islamic antagonism and violence.
- A fundamental clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is inevitable.
- Even if Arab dictatorships fall, the new regimes won’t modernize along Western lines.
- When the Muslim world conflicts with other civilizations, tensions and wars result.
- Their primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state.
- Islamic civilization do not share the general ideals of the Western world–such as individualism and democracy.
Despite such realities, both Democratic and Republican politicians insist on constantly intervening in Middle East conflicts–such as the one in Syria.
In Part One of this series, five reasons were given for why the United States should not intervene in the Syrian conflict. Here are the remaining five.
Sixth, intervening in Syria could lead to Syrian attacks against Israel.
An accidental or deliberate American military strike on Syrian government forces could lead the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to attack Israel–perhaps even with chemical weapons.
If that happened, the Islamic world would rally to Syria against the United States, Israel’s chief ally.
Seventh, committing American ground forces to Syria or just continuing to bomb targets there could lead to Islamic terrorism against the United States–at home or abroad.
Terrorists have already targeted Russia–which, on September 30, 2015, began bombing airstrikes on forces trying to overthrow Assad.
On October 31, Airbus A321, a Russian airliner, broke up in mid-air, then crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. In Egypt, a militant group affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed it had brought down the plane “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.”
Airbus A321
The same fate could well befall American civilians and/or soldiers.
Eighth, China and Russia are supporting the Assad dictatorship–and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens.
This reflects badly on them–not the United States. And any move by the United States to directly attack the Assad regime could ignite an all-out war with Russia and/or China.
What happens if a case of “friendly fire” leads Russian and American forces to start trading salvos? Or if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an attack on America’s ally, Israel, in return for some perceived American slight of Russia’s ally, Syria?
It was exactly that scenario–Great Powers going to war over conflicts between their small-state allies–that triggered World War I.
Ninth, the United States cannot defeat ISIS in Syria through air power alone–thus making commitment of ground troops inevitable.
President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against ISIS in September, 2014. The United States Air Force has since dropped thousands of bombs on ISIS convoys. This has not destroyed ISIS.
And its failure to do so has only led to demands by hawkish Republicans and Democrats for “boots on the ground.”
Tenth–and most importantly: While Islamic nations like Syria, Iraq and Egypt wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources–and incentive–to attack the United States.
Every dead Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and ISIS member makes the United States that much safer. So does the death of every sympathizer of Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
When Al-Qaeda blows up civilians in Beirut, their relatives will urge Hezbollah to take brutal revenge. And Hezbollah will do so.
Al Qaeda terrorists–taking aim at Hezbollah terrorists
Similarly, when Hezbollah does, those who support Al-Qaeda will demand even more brutal reprisals against Hezbollah.
If the West is lucky, this conflict could easily become the Islamic equivalent of “the Hundred Years War” that raged from 1337 to 1453 between England and France.
When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, then-Senator Harry S. Truman said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis–and vice versa.”
That should be America’s position whenever its sworn enemies start killing off each other. Americans should welcome such self-slaughters, not become entrapped in them.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 6, 2017 at 2:15 am
“Yesterday’s chemical attack, a chemical attack that was so horrific in Syria against innocent people, including women, small children and even beautiful little babies, their deaths were an affront to humanity.”
So spoke President Donald J. Trump at an April 5 press conference in the White House Rose Garden.
He was referring to an April 4 chemical weapons attack in northwestern Syria that had killed scores of civilians.
The bombing was carried out by the Syrian Air Force in an effort to put down a six-year civil war.
The Syrian conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Since then, the fighting has reportedly taken the lives of 470,000 men, women and children.
Bashar al-Assad
Yet, despite Trump’s rhetoric, there is an optimistic way to view this incident–and the Syrian conflict generally: As a win for the United States.
Consider:
- As many as 470,000 actual or potential enemies of Western civilization–and especially the United States–have chosen to slaughter one another.
- Additional thousands are certain to follow their example.
- The United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.
- And Russia–which openly supports the brutal Assad dictatorship–daily earns the hatred of the Islamic world.
Yet, Left-wing do-gooders and Right-wing militarists demand that the United States thrust itself into a conflict that doesn’t threaten America in any way.
In fact, it’s in America’s best interests that this conflict last as long as possible and spread as widely as possible throughout the Islamic community.
Here’s why:
First, in Syria, two of America’s most deadly enemies are waging war on each other.
Yes, it’s Hezbollah (Party of God) vs. Al-Qaeda (The Base). Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims. A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.
Flag of Hezbollah
Al Qaeda, on the other hand, is made up of Sunni Muslims. It is intolerant of Shiites and has instigated violence against them. It denounces them as takfirs–“apostates”–and thus worthy of extermination.
Flag of Al-Qaeda
Al Qaeda has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shiites, Suffis and other non-Sunnis. Examples of sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
On one side of this conflict is the Ba’ath regime of Bashar al-Assad, whose allies include Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and elements of the Iraqi government.
On the other side are a host of Syrians and thousands of foreign Sunni fighters, some of whom are affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Second, the United States has been at war in the Middle East for 15 years–since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
In October, 2001, America first committed its forces to Afghanistan, in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind. Failing to find him, its forces nevertheless stayed on in that country, hoping–and failing–to bring civilization to its barbaric population.
Then, in March, 2003, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq to settle a personal score with its dictator, Saddam Hussein.
After Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, launched the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein had had the bad grace to not topple from power. When the elder Bush lost a second term as President to Bill Clinton in 1992, his son blamed Hussein.
By contrast: America entered World War 1 in 1917–and wrapped up its fighting in Europe in 1918. Similarly, the United States first committed forces in World War II in 1942–and saw an end to that conflict in 1945.
Even the Vietnam war–far more divisive for Americans than either World War 1 or II–ended after eight years of fighting (1965-1973.
Third, the United States is still fighting a brutal war in Afghanistan.
America originally intended to withdraw all but a small embassy-based force of 1,000 troops by the end of 2016.
But as the Taliban re-emerged as a threat, President Barack Obama announced he would maintain 9,800 troops there for most of 2016. Those troops are still stationed there–some of them advising local Afghan troops, others locked in deadly combat with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
American soldiers in Afghanistan
Fourth, since 1979, Syria has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a sponsor of terrorism.
Among the terrorist groups it supports: Hezbollah and Hamas. For many years, Syria provided a safe-house in Damascus for Illich Ramirez Sanchez–the notorious international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
Fifth, the United States had no part in creating or supporting the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad regime–which has long been hostile to America.
After a long series of political maneuverings, Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 and was proclaimed “president” next year. With aid from the Soviet Union, he built up the Syrian army. Using arrest, torture and execution, he ruled Syria as a dictator until he died in 2000.
His son, Bashar, then took command of Syria. Like his father, he has supported Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups. And, like his father, he continues to receive financial and military support from the successor to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation.
Thus, America has no moral obligation of any kind to Syria–or Syrians.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 29, 2016 at 12:01 am
Even at the height of World War II, citizens of the United States could take comfort in the following:
- Nazi Germany had a capitol–Berlin–and a single, all-powerful leader–Adolf Hitler. Once Berlin was occupied and Hitler dead or captured, the war would be over.
- And, for all their ferocity, German soldiers were easy to recognize: They wore gray uniforms, spoke German and waved flags emblazoned with swastikas or imperial eagles.
Wehrmacht soldiers marching through conquered France
Today, Western nations under attack by Islamic “holy warriors” face none of those advantages. Islam has no single capitol city–or leader.
Nor do Islam’s jihadist legions wear uniforms. Many of them don’t speak Arabic or wear clothing associated with Arabs, such as flowing robes and headdresses.
More ominously, millions of Islam’s potential “warriors” live within the very Western nations they despise. They can get all the instruction and inspiration they need to wreck havoc simply by going to the Internet.
Or, if they have the money, by traveling overseas to such terrorist-recruiting centers as Syria or Afghanistan.
And yet, faced with an unprecedented threat to their security, many Western leaders refuse to publicly acknowledge this fundamental truth:
Even if the West isn’t at war with Islam, Islam is at war with the West.
Leaders like President Barack Obama, who insisted, at a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February, 2015: “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
David Cameron
And leaders like British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said on August 29, 2014: “Islam is a religion observed peacefully by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a poisonous ideology observed by a minority.”
On June 20, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a censored version of gunman Omar Mateen’s call to a 9-1-1 operator. While taking a break from slaughtering 49 defenseless men and women and wounding another 53, Mateen pledged his loyalty to ISIS.
Fortunately for the United States, the Bureau hasn’t always been so craven.
Ronald Kessler, author of the 2011 book, The Secrets of the FBI, quotes Arthur M. Cummings, the Bureau’s then-executive assistant director for national security:
“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in [Washington] D.C. And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
Occasionally, Muslims will condemn Al Qaeda. But “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about,’” said Cummings.
“They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community. Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everybody already knows it. The horse has left the barn.”
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” to refer to terrorism. Nor does he shy away from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.
In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship. And he posed the question: “How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”
He has a point–and a highly legitimate one.
Imagine the United States fighting World War II–and President Franklin Roosevelt banning the use of “fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.
Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Then consider these Islamic terrorist outrages of our own time:
- The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., which snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans.
- The 2004 bombing of Madrid’s commuter train system.
- The attack on the London subway in 2005.
- The killing of 13 U.S. Army personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, by a Muslim army major in 2009.
- The bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
- The kidnapping of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014.
- The slaughter of 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed in 2015.
- The murders of more than 100 people in ISIS attacks across Paris in 2015.
- A series of deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, killing 31 and injuring 270 in 2016.
In every one of these attacks, the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington, the noted political scientist at Harvard University, noted:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
The West may not be at war with Islam–as countless Western politicians repeatedly assert. But Islamics have no qualms about declaring that they are at war with the West.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2016 at 12:06 am
On June 12, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old former security guard, slaughtered 49 men and women and injured 53 more inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Mateen was then shot to death by Orlando police after a three-hour standoff.
Omar Mateen
It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history–and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
The massacre was widely decried as an act of Islamic terrorism. But many others insisted it was simply a hate crime.
Among those opting for the latter: Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
This despite the fact that:
- Mateen, born in New York in 1986 to Afghan parents, praised the highjackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks that slaughtered 3,000 Americans. At the time, he was attending an alternative high school for problem students.
- He also said that Osama bin Laden was his uncle who had taught him how to shoot an AK-47–this while it was not known that bin Laden had masterminded the attacks.
- During the night of the Orlando massacre, Mateen stopped killing long enough to call 9-1-1, take responsibility for the attack and pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In releasing a transcript of the 9-1-1 call, the Justice Department claimed that it would withhold some details to avoid putting the victims through any more pain–and to not further the propaganda efforts of ISIS.
The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice
“What we’re not going to do is further proclaim this man’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups and further his propaganda,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told moderator Chuck Todd on the June 19 edition of Meet the Press.
“We will hear him talk about some of these things, but we are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance.”
On the morning of June 20, the FBI released the following edited version of the transcript:
MATEEN: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OPERATOR: What’s your name?
MATEEN: My name is I pledge of allegiance to [omitted].
OPERATOR: OK, what’s your name?
MATEEN: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].
A firestorm of protest erupted from Republican Congressional leaders, most notably Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Since Mateen’s pledge to ISIS had become widely known, they demanded, what was the point of censoring it in the transcript of his phone call?
“We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS,” Ryan said in a statement. “We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, unredacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
An additional reason for the fury aimed at the Justice Department: On June 12, ISIS had claimed responsibility for the massacre:
“The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”
Flag of ISIS
Finally, buckling to pressure, on the afternoon of June 20, the FBI released the full, uncensored transcript of Mateen’s call to 9-1-1:
OPERATOR: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
MATEEN: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficent [Arabic]
OPERATOR: What?
MATEEN: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OPERATOR: What’s your name?
MATEEN: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.
OPERATOR: OK, what’s your name?
MATEEN: I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.
OPERATOR: Alright, where are you at?
MATEEN: In Orlando.
OPERATOR: Where in Orlando?
[End of call]
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department apologized for having censored the transcript.
“Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime,” both the DOJ and FBI said in a statement.
Since September 11, 2001, Americans have been actively at war with Islamic nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Yet high-ranking officials in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have repeatedly and loudly denied that America is at war with Islam.
Even if this is true, a large portion of the Islamic world is at war with the United States.
Only Donald Trump–alone of the 2016 Presidential candidates–has dared to say what the vast majority of Americans know: America is at war with Islamics who openly proclaim that their actions are motivated by their Islamic religious beliefs.
And it’s a major reason why Trump is about to receive the Republican nomination for President.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2016 at 12:11 am
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill, a seemingly failed politician, repeatedly warned his British countrymen against the growing menace of Nazi Germany.
The leaders of Britain and France–the two great victors of World War 1–hoped that if they simply ignored the increasingly aggressive behavior of German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, they could somehow escape catastrophe.
Winston Churchill
This aggressive behavior included:
- In the early 1930s, Hitler began re-building a powerful German army in open defiance of the Versallies Treaty that had ended World War 1.
- Hitler ordered his army to occupy his native Austria in 1938.
- In 1938, Hitler demanded that Czechoslavakia cede the Sudetenland, its northern, southwest and western regions, which were inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
- British Prime Minister Nveille Chamberlain surrendered to Hitler’s demands at the infamous “Munich conference.” Believing they had avoided war, his fellow Britons were ecstatic.
- In March, 1939, the German army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.
- Hitler next turned his attention to Poland–which he invaded on September 1.
- In doing so, he unintentionally triggered World War II.
Adolf Hitler
In time, historians and statesmen would agree: Trying to appease dictators is futile–and a guarantee for their further aggression.
It is a lesson that current world leaders have forgotten as Islamic fundamentalists increasingly flex their military and economic muscles–and demand that Western nations bow to their demands.
- In Iran, scientists continue to fashion a nuclear weapons program–while insisting they intend to use the atom only for “peaceful purposes.”
- In Pakistan–which has 90-110 nuclear warheads–Osama bin Laden lived less than a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy, the country’s West Point. So much for America’s “ally” in the “war on terror.”
- On January 7, 2015, the worst terrorist act in France since World War II occurred when three Islamics slaughtered 12 people at a satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Muhammed.
- The rising tide of Muslim population growth spells deadly challenges for non-Islamic nations.
Winston Churchill’s warnings were ignored by other world leaders–most notably Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin–until their countries became victims of unprovoked aggression.
So were the warnings of Harvard political science professor Samuel P. Huntington.
In 1993, he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “The Clash of Civilizations.” Its thesis: In the post-Cold War world, nationalism would decline and differing cultures and religions would emerge as the primary sources of conflict.
Huntington’s critique of Islamic civilizations ignited a firestorm of controversy–especially his statement: “Islam has bloody borders.”
In 1996, Huntington expanded his thesis into a book–called The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
Among his assertions:
- People are divided along religious and cultural lines.
- Islamic civilization do not share the general ideals of the Western world–such as individualism and democracy.
- Their primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state.
- When the Muslim world conflicts with other civilizations, tensions and wars result.
- Arab dictatorships are fragile and can be overturned by the masses of unemployed young men. But even if they fall, the new regimes will not modernize along Western lines.
- A fundamental clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is inevitable.
- Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims–such as Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews–have been marked by Islamic antagonism and violence.
- Western nations should distance themselves from Islamic ones. The more both civilizations interact, the greater tensions between them will be.
Huntington cited several reasons for an inevitable war between the West and Islam:
- Western secular vs. Islamic religious values.
- Past historical rivalry between Christianity and Islam.
- Jealousy of Western power by Islamic nations.
- Islamic resentments of Western domination during the post-colonial restructuring of the Middle East.
- Islamic bitterness and humiliation at the achievements of Western civilization over the last 200 years.
A point of Islamic irony:
Islamic terror groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS damn Western nations as havens of corrupt infidels. But it’s to Europe and the United States that tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis are now fleeing.
And they are fleeing to escape the barbaric slaughters of their fellow Islamics.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, a quasi-war developed between some Islamic nations and some Western ones.
On the Islamic side:
- Iran
- Sudan
- Iraq
- Libya
- Syria.
On the Western side:
- The United States
- Great Britain.
“In this quasi war,” wrote Huntington, “each side has capitalized on its own strengths and the other side’s weaknesses.” For example:
- Muslim terrorists exploited the openness of Western societies to plant car bombs at selected targets.
- Western powers used their superior air power to bomb selected targets in Islamic countries.
- Islamics plotted the assassination of Western leaders.
- The United States plotted the overthrow of hostile Islamic regimes.
Writing at a time before the United States directed its full military power at conquering Afghanistan and Iraq, Huntington ominously noted:
“During the 15 years between 1980 and 1995…the United States engaged in 17 military operations in the Middle East, all of them directed against Muslims. No comparable pattern of U.S. military operations occurred against the people of any other civilization.”
And that was before 9/11 plunged the United States into fullscale conflict with Afghanistan and iraq.
The war that Huntington warned was coming and was, in fact, already in progress, has since erupted into full-scale conflict, with no end in sight.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2016 at 12:01 am
There is a famous joke about racial profiling that’s long made the rounds of the Internet. It appears in the guise of a “history test,” and offers such multiple-choice questions as:
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
- Olga Korbut
- Sitting Bull
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
- Lost Norwegians
- Elvis
- A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
- John Dillinger
- The King of Sweden
- The Boy Scouts
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
- A pizza delivery boy
- Pee Wee Herman
- Geraldo Rivera
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked. Two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Center; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
- Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
- The Supreme Court of Florida
- Mr. Bean
- Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
* * * * *
It’s well to remember the bitter truth behind this joke, especially in light of such Islamic atrocities as:
- On April 15, 2013, two pressure-cooker bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring 264. The culprits: Two Muslim brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who had emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union.
- On May 22, 2013, two Islamic terrorists, wielding machetes and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is Great!”) hacked a British soldier to death on a London street.
- On January 7, 2015, 2015, the worst terrorist act in France since World War II occurred when three Islamics slaughtered 12 people at a satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Muhammed.
Writing in the British newspaper, The Spectator, Douglas Murray issued a warning to his fellow Britons: “Over recent years, those who have warned that such attacks would come here have been attacked as ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and, most commonly, ‘Islamophobes.’
“A refusal to recognise the actual threat (a growingly radicalised Islam) has dominated most of our media and nearly all our political class.”
One man who did foresee the present conflicts with stunning clarity–and had the courage to say what has since become Politically Incorrect–was Samuel P. Huntington.
Samuel P. Huntington
A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962). He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.
The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most influential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.
Among the points he makes:
- Modernization does not mean Westernization.
- Economic progress has come with a revival of religion.
- Post-Cold War politics emphasize ethnic nationalism over ideology.
- Civilizations are fundamentally differentiated from each other by centuries-old history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion.
- As the world becomes smaller, different civilizations increasingly interact. These intensify civilization consciousness and the awareness of differences between civilizations.
- Economic modernization and social change separate people from age-old identities (such as hometowns and familiar neighbors). Religion has replaced this gap, providing a basis for identity, socialization and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.
- The West, at the peak of its power, is confronting non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, will and resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
- Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
The most controversial part of The Clash of Civilizations focuses on Islam. Huntington points out, for example, that Muslim countries are involved in far more intergroup violence than others.
And he warns that the West’s future conflcts with Islamic nations will be rooted in the Islamic religion:
“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
Huntington argues that civilisztional conflicts are “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims.” Among the reasons for these conflicts: Both Islam and Christianity have similarities which heighten conflicts between their followers:
- Both seek to convert others.
- Both are “all-or-nothing” religions; each side believes that only its faith is the correct one.
- The followers of both Islam and Christianity believe that people who violate the base principles of their religion are idolators and thus damned.
Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:
- The Islamic revival, which began in the 1970s and is manifested in greater religious piety and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture, values, dress, separation of the sexes, speech and media censorship.
- Western universalism–the belief that all civilizations should adopt Western values–infuriates Islamic fundamentalists.
These are not differences that will disappear–overnight or even over the span of several centuries. Nor will they be sweet-talked away by Politically Correct politicians, however well-meaning.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 29, 2016 at 12:08 am
During World War II, British singer Vera Lynn comforted her war-weary fellow citizens with a poignant rendition of “The White Cliffs of Dover.”
The appeal of the song lay in its promise that, once Nazi Germany was defeated, peace and normality would return.
Click here: Vera Lynn: The White Cliffs of Dover – YouTube
And despite being threatened with invasion in 1940 and devastated by massive bombing raids in 1940-41, citizens of Great Britain could take heart in the following:
- Nazi Germany had a capitol–Berlin–and a single, all-powerful leader–Adolf Hitler. Once Berlin was occupied and Hitler dead or captured, the war would be over.
- And, for all their ferocity, German soldiers were easy to recognize: They wore gray uniforms, spoke German and waved flags emblazoned with swastikas or imperial eagles.
Wehrmacht soldiers marching through conquered France
Today, Western nations under attack by Islamic “holy warriors” face none of those advantages. Islam has no single capitol city–or leader.
Nor do Islam’s jihadist legions wear uniforms. Many of them don’t speak Arabic or wear clothing associated with Arabs, such as flowing robes and headdresses.
More ominously, millions of Islam’s potential “warriors” live within the very Western nations they despise. They can get all the instruction and inspiration they need to wreck havoc simply by going to the Internet.
Or, if they have the money, by traveling overseas to such terrorist-recruiting centers as in Syria or Afghanistan.
And yet, faced with an unprecedented threat to their security, many Western leaders refuse to publicly acknowledge this fundamental truth:
Even if the West isn’t at war with Islam, Islam is at war with the West.
Leaders like President Barack Obama, who insisted, at a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February, 2015: “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
David Cameron
And leaders like British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said on August 29, 2014: “Islam is a religion observed peacefully by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a poisonous ideology observed by a minority.”
It was at this same press conference that Cameron announced that United Kingdom authorities would soon begin revoking the passports of British citizens traveling to Syria.
Arthur M. Cummings, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security, has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” to refer to terrorism. Nor does he shy away from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly.
In May, 2014, Steven Emerson, a nationally recognized expert on terrorism, posted an ad in The New York Times, warning about the dangers of PC-imposed censorship:
“Our nation’s security and its cherished value of free speech has been endangered by the bullying campaigns of radical Islamic groups, masquerading as ‘civil rights’ organizations, to remove any reference to the Islamist motivation behind Islamic terrorist attacks.
“These groups have pressured or otherwise colluded with Hollywood, the news media, museums, book publishers, law enforcement and the Obama Administration in censoring the words ‘Islamist’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘radical Islam’ and ‘jihad’ in discussing or referencing the threat and danger of Islamic terrorism.
“This is the new form of the jihadist threat we face. It’s an attack on one of our most sacred freedoms—free speech—and it endangers our very national security. How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”
He has a point–and a highly legitimate one.
Imagine the United States fighting World War II–and President Franklin Roosevelt banning the use of “fascist” in referring to Nazi Germany or “imperialist” in describing Imperial Japan.
Imagine CNN-like coverage of the Nazi extermination camps, with their piles of rotting corpses and smoking gas ovens, while a commentator reminds us that “Nazism is an ideology of peace.”
Then consider these Islamic terrorist outrages of our own time:
- The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., which snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans.
- The 2004 bombing of Madrid’s commuter train system.
- The attack on the London subway in 2005.
- The killing of 13 U.S. Army personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, by a Muslim army major in 2009.
- The bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
- The kidnapping of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014.
- The slaughter of 12 people at a Paris satirical magazine that had published cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed in 2015.
- The murders of more than 100 people in ISIS attacks across Paris in 2015.
- A series of deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, killing 31 and injuring 270 in 2016.
In every one of these attacks, the perpetrators openly announced that their actions had been motivated by their Islamic beliefs.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist at Harvard University, noted:
“The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
The West may not be at war with Islam–as countless Western politicians repeatedly assert. But Islamics have no qualms about declaring that they are at war with the West.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 27, 2016 at 11:58 pm
The headline on the CNN website said it all–or seemed to: “Religion’s Week From Hell.”
Then came the first paragraph: “Whether you believe that religious violence is fueled by faith or is a symptom of larger factors–political instability, poverty, cultural chaos–one thing seems clear: Last week was hellish for religion.”
The story–published on the CNN website on February 18, 2015–then outlined a series of atrocities committed in the name of religion:
“Across several continents, including North America, Europe, Central Asia and Africa, scores of religious believers suffered and died in brutal attacks over the past seven days.”
Click here: Religion’s week from hell – CNN.com
And here was the day-by-day chronicle of slaughter:
Monday–February 9:
- Boko Haram, the Islamic group based in Nigeria, attacked several towns in Cameroon, kidnapping 20 people. They also exploded a car bomb in Niger. At the time, the death toll was unclear.
Tuesday–February 10:
- Craig Hicks, an athiest who ranted against religion on the Internet, was charged with killing three young Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Wednesday–February 11:
- The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacked Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. At least 31 people were killed in Baghdad by ISIS bombs.
Thursday–February 12:
- Al Qaeda seized a key military base in Baihan, Yemen, killing four Yemeni soldiers. They then took control of the town’s weaponry.
- With the United States’ having already closed its embassy in Yemen, Italy, Germany and Saudi Arabia did the same.
Friday–February 13:
- Boko Haram killed 21 people in attacks on Mbuta and Akida villages in Nigeria.
- The Islamic terror group also killed four civilians and a soldier in neighboring Chad.
- In Peshawar, Pakistan, the Taliban attacked a Shia mosque, killing 19 and wounding dozens.
Saturday–February 14:
- In Copenhagen, Denmark, an Islamic gunman fired at attendees of a free-speech forum, where a Swedish cartoonist was scheduled to speak. His alleged crime: Depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Casualties: Three officers wounded and one 55-year-old man killed.
- Hours later, the same terrorist visited a Copenhagen synagogue. Opening fire, he wounded two officers and killed a private security guard.
Sunday–February 15:
- ISIS released a video showing its members beheading more than a dozen members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority on a Libyan beach.
So much for “religion’s week from hell.”
Except that the title of this story was completely misleading. It would have been more accurately entitled: “Islamic Religion’s Week of Hell.”
ISIS member beheading a helpless captive
Of the 13 atrocities detailed above, all but one showcased Islamics as the murderers.
The single exception was that of Craig Hicks, an athiest who was charged with shooting three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
It was this case–and not any of the others–that brought Muslims to demand “justice.” Muslims immediately urged the Obama administration to investigate the murders as a hate crime.
Suzanne Barakat, the sister of one of the victims, said the students had been murdered because they were Muslims. She said that the killings should be considered an act of terrorism: “It’s time people call it what it is.”
But getting Islamics to label other Islamics as terrorists is an entirely different matter.
According to author Ronald Kessler, this has caused serious problems for the FBI. In his 2011 book, The Secrets of the FBI, Kessler notes the refusal of the Islamic community to identify known or potential terrorists within its ranks.
Says Arthur M. Cummings, the Bureau’s executive assistant director for national security: “I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in [Washington] D.C. And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
Occasionally, Muslims will condemn Al Qaeda. But “rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about.’” said Cummings.
“They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community. Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everybody already knows it. The horse has left the barn.
“So there’s a lot of talk about engagement. But, realistically, we’ve got a long, long way to go.”
At one community meeting, an Islamic leader suggested to Cummings that then-FBI director Robert Meuller III should pose for a picture with his group’s members. The reason: To show that Islamics are partners in the “war on terror.”
“When you bring to my attention real extremists who are here to plan and do something, who are here supporting terrorism,” said Cummings, “then I promise you, I will have the director stand up on the stage with you.”
“That could never happen,” replied the Islamic leader. “We would lose our constituency. We could never admit to bringing someone to the FBI.”
Donald Trump–alone of the Republican and Democratic candidates for President–has dared to say the un-sayable: Islam is at war with us.
And this candor–coupled with repeated Islamic atrocities–has propelled him to the front of Republican candidates.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 10, 2015 at 12:30 am
One man who foresaw the present conflicts between America and the Islamic world was Samuel P. Huntington.
Most importantly, he had the courage to say what has since become Politically Incorrect.
Samuel P. Huntington
A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962). He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.
The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most influential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.
Among the points he makes:
- Modernization does not mean Westernization.
- Economic progress has come with a revival of religion.
- Post-Cold War politics emphasize ethnic nationalism over ideology.
- Civilizations are fundamentally differentiated from each other by centuries-old history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion.
- As the world becomes smaller, different civilizations increasingly interact. These intensify civilization consciousness and the awareness of differences between civilizations.
- Economic modernization and social change separate people from age-old identities (such as hometowns and familiar neighbors). Religion has replaced this gap, providing a basis for identity, socialization and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.
- The West, at the peak of its power, is confronting non-Western countries that increasingly have the desire, will and resources to shape the world in non-Western ways.
- Cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
The most controversial part of The Clash of Civilizations focuses on Islam. Huntington points out, for example, that Muslim countries are involved in far more intergroup violence than others.
And he warns that the West’s future conflcts with Islamic nations will be rooted in the Islamic religion:
“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
Huntington argues that civilizational conflicts are especially prevalent between Muslims and Christians. Among the reasons for these conflicts:
- Both seek to convert others.
- Both are “all-or-nothing” religions; each side believes that only its faith is the correct one.
- Both believe that people who violate the base principles of their religion are heretics and thus damned.
Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:
- Western secular values conflict with Islamic religious values.
- Past historical rivalry between Christianity and Islam.
- The jealousy of Western power by Islamic nations.
- Islamic resentments of Western domination during the post-colonial restructuring of the Middle East.
- Islamic bitterness and humiliation at the achievements of Western civilization over the last 200 years.
- The Islamic revival, which began in the 1970s and is manifested in greater religious piety and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture, values, dress, separation of the sexes, speech and media censorship.
- Western universalism–the belief that all civilizations should adopt Western values–infuriates Islamic fundamentalists.
- Islamic civilizations do not share the general ideals of the Western world–such as individualism and democracy.
- Islamics’ primary attachment is to their religion, not to their nation-state.
- When the Muslim world conflicts with other civilizations, tensions and wars result.
- Arab dictatorships are fragile and can be overturned by the masses of unemployed young men. But even if they fall, the new regimes will not modernize along Western lines.
- Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims–such as Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews–have been marked by Islamic antagonism and violence.
- Western nations should distance themselves from Islamic ones. The more both civilizations interact, the greater will be the tensions between them.
These differences will not disappear. Nor will they be sweet-talked away by Politically Correct politicians, however well-meaning.
The result: A fundamental clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is inevitable.
A point of Islamic irony: Islamic terror groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS damn Western nations as havens of corrupt infidels. But tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis are now fleeing to Europe and the United States–to escape the barbaric slaughters of their fellow Islamics.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, a quasi-war developed between some Islamic nations and some Western ones.
On the Islamic side:
- Iran
- Sudan
- Iraq
- Libya
- Syria
On the Western side:
- The United States
- Great Britain
“In this quasi war,” wrote Huntington, “each side has capitalized on its own strengths and the other side’s weaknesses.” For example:
- Muslim terrorists exploited the openness of Western societies to plant car bombs at selected targets.
- Western powers used their superior air power to bomb selected targets in Islamic countries.
- Islamics plotted the assassination of Western leaders.
- The United States plotted the overthrow of hostile Islamic regimes.
Writing at a time before the United States directed its full military power at conquering Afghanistan and Iraq, Huntington ominously noted:
“During the 15 years between 1980 and 1995…the United States engaged in 17 military operations in the Middle East, all of them directed against Muslims. No comparable pattern of U.S. military operations occurred against the people of any other civilization.”
The war that Huntington warned was coming and was, in fact, already in progress, has since erupted into full-scale conflict, with no end in sight.
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WHEN BITTER HUMOR BECOMES TERRORISM REALITY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2018 at 2:02 amThere is a famous joke about racial profiling that’s long made the rounds of the Internet. It appears in the guise of a “history test,” and offers such multiple-choice questions as:
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked. Two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Center; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
* * * * *
It’s well to remember the bitter truth behind this joke, especially in light of comments by Arthur M. Cummings, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security.
Cummings has no use for such Politically Correct terms as “man-caused disasters” in referring to terrorism. Nor does he shrink from terms such as “jihadists” or “Islamists.”
“Of course Islamists dominate the terrorism of today,” he says bluntly. “I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here [Washington, D.C.]. And he said ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’
“I can name the homegrown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom are seeking to kill Americans,” replied Cummings. “It’s not the Irish. It’s not the French. It’s not the Catholics. It’s not the Protestants. It’s the Muslims.”
One man who did foresee the present conflicts with stunning clarity—and had the courage to say what has since become Politically Incorrect—was Samuel P. Huntington.
Samuel P. Huntington
A political scientist, Huntington taught government at Harvard University (1950-1959, then at Columbia University (1959-1962). He returned to Harvard in 1963, and remained there until his death in 2008.
The author of nine books, in 1996 he published his most influential one: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Its thesis was that, in the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary sources of conflict.
Among the points he makes:
The most controversial part of The Clash of Civilizations focuses on Islam. Huntington points out, for example, that Muslim countries are involved in far more inter-group violence than others.
And he warns that the West’s future conflicts with Islamic nations will be rooted in the Islamic religion:
“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
Huntington argues that civilizational conflicts are “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims.” Among the reasons for these conflicts: Both Islam and Christianity have similarities which heighten conflicts between their followers:
Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:
These are not differences that will disappear—overnight or even over the span of several centuries. Nor will they be sweet-talked away by Politically Correct politicians, however well-meaning.
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