Posts Tagged ‘THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS’
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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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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 9, 2015 at 1:10 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 the recent denial by President Barack Obama that America is at war with Islam.
On the contrary: Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been actively at war with Islamics for 14 years.
And, since the 1970s, America has been the target of repeated terrorist attacks by Islamics–as shown in the examples of the above “joke.”
Repeatedly, those who have committed atrocities against Americans have loudly proclaimed Islam as their reason for doing so.
Alone among the 2016 candidates for President, Trump has dared to say the unsayable: America is at war with Islam.
And he has called on his countrymen to see it–and wage it–as a war.
Donald Trump
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
Trump gave his speech on December 7–the day when many older Americans still observe the anniversary of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Only five days earlier, two Islamic terrorists had staged the worst Islamic attack on America since 9/11.
Using semi-automatic pistols and rifles, they had slaughtered 14 people and injured another 21 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.
“Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine,” Trump said to his enthusiastic audience in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”
Speaking on MSNBC on December 8, Trump followed up: “We have to get a hand around a very serious problem. And it’s getting worse. And you will have more World Trade Centers and you will have more, bigger than the World Trade Center, if we don’t toughen up, smarten up, and use our heads.”
Trump’s Republican competitors in the Presidential race–desperate to overtake him in the polls–quickly attacked him.
- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: “This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don’t know what they’re talking about. We do not need to endorse that type of activity, nor should we.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Donald Trump is unhinged. His ‘policy’ proposals are not serious.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “This is just more of the outrageous divisivenes that characterizes his every breath and another reason why he is entirely unsuited to lead the United States.”
- South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: “He’s putting at risk the lives of interpreters, American supporters, diplomats, & the troops in the region by making these bigoted comments.”
On December 6 President Barack Obama, speaking from the Oval Office, sought to comfort jittery Americans about the threat they faced from Islamic terrorism.
Among the proposals he laid out for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS):
“We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like [ISIS] want. [ISIS] does not speak for Islam.”
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: In the post-Cold War world, people’s cultural and religious identities would replace nationalistic ones as the primary sources of conflict.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on November 6, 2015 at 12:10 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.
The American occupation of Baghdad in 2003 triggered a nationwide insurgency. And deposing Saddam Hussein unleashed a religious war between Shia and Sunnis throughout Iraq.
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.
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.”
All-in-all, the future looks better for would-be Islamic conquerors than for those in the West awaiting the next Islamic atrocity.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AL QAEDA, ARTHUR M. CUMMINGS, BARACK OBAMA, BOKO HARAM, BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CNN, DAVID CAMERON, DENMARK, FACEBOOK, FBI, HATE CRIMES, INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT ON TERRORISM, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, MOHAMMED, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NIGER, PAKISTAN, RELIGION, SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, STEVEN EMERSON, TALIBAN, TERRORISM, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, THE INVESTIGATIVE PROUECT ON TERRORISM, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER, TWITTER, USA TODAY, VERA LYNN, WORLD TRADE CENTER, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2015 at 12:34 am
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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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: “Islam’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.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2015 at 12:11 am
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill, a seemingly failed politican, 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 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 controversey–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 were fragile and could be overturned by the masses of unemployed young men. But even if they fell, the new regimes would 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 achiveements 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.”
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.
9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING, CBS NEWS, CHRISTIANITY, CNN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, FACEBOOK, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, IRAN, ISLAM, LEBANON, MUNICH OLYMPICS MASSACRE, NBC NEWS, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, RACIAL PROFILING, RELIGION, SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON, TERRORISM, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE SPECTATOR, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, USA TODAY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2015 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 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 March 6, 2015 at 12:09 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.”
Click here: Vera Lynn: The White Cliffs of Dover – YouTube
The appeal of the song lay in its promise that, once Nazi Germany was defeated, peace and normality would return.
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.
The American occupation of Baghdad in 2003 triggered a nationwide insurgency. And deposing Saddam Hussein unleashed a religious war between Shia and Sunnis throughout Iraq.
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.
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: “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 snuffied 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 hacking of a British soldier to death on a London street in 2013.
- The bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
- The kidnapping of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014.
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.”
All-in-all, the future looks better for would-be Islamic conquerors than for those in the West awaiting the next Islamic atrocity.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 4, 2015 at 3:47 am
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 February 18–then went on to outline 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.”
And here was the day-by-day chronicle of slaughter:
Monday:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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 killing a private security guard.
Sunday:
- 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: “Islam’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.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on December 31, 2014 at 12:20 am
“In sha Allah a day will come when David Camerons head will be on a spike as he continues to wage war on the awilya of Allah.”
So tweeted a female jihadist from Britain, who goes by the Twitter handle @UmmKhattab, and is based in Raqqa, northeast Syria.
The threat to England’s prime minister, made on September 7, instantly caught the attention of British anti-terrorist authorities.
In August, the Islamic terror threat to Great Britain rose sharply.
Reports had surfaced that British-born female jihadis were running a religious police force that punished women for un-Islamic behaviour in territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Female ISIS fighters
British authorities fear that such women could return to the United Kingdom–singly or en masse–and launch terror attacks
As a result, on August 29, Prime Minister David Cameron announced at a press conference that United Kingdom authorities would soon begin revoking the passports of British citizens traveling to Syria.
David Cameron
At his press conference, Cameron repeatedly mouthed all the Politically Correct cliches about Islam being “a religion of peace.”
He blamed the “poisonous Islamist ideology,” not Islam, for the threat posed to Western civilization: “Islam is a religion observed peacefully by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a poisonous ideology observed by a minority.”
Meanwhile, in the United States….
“I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,” wrote Nidal Hasan in an undated letter addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.
Nidal Hassan
In 2009, Hassan fatally shot 13 U.S. Army personnel and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas.
The Defense Department, hewing to the Politically Correct line that Islam is “a religion of peace,” has labeled the massacre a case of “workplace violence.”
This despite overwhelming evidence that Hassan was motivated by Islamic religious beliefs to turn a FN Five-seven single-action semiautomatic pistol on his fellow soldiers.
Among that evidence: Hassan had shouted the Islamic battle cry, “Allah Akbar!” (“God is Great!”) before opening fire.
Convicted and sentenced to death, Hassan is incarcerated at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His case awaits review by appellate courts.
Yet his death row status didn’t prevent him from smuggling out a letter to the leader of ISIS.
“It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don’t compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers.”
The two-page letter was signed “SoA,” for “Soldier of Allah.”
In 1996, Samuel Huntington, then a political science professor at Harvard University, published his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations. In this, he 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.”
Backing up Huntington’s conclusion is a 2014 report on global terrorism by the Institute for Economics and Peace.
The institute bills itself as “an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.” It has offices in Sydney, New York and Oxford.
And, according to its report–“Global Terrorism Index”–religion has replaced politics as the motivator for terrorism among Middle East terrorist groups.
According to the study:
-
Religion as a driving ideology for terrorism has dramatically increased since 2000. Prior to 2000 nationalist separatist agendas were the biggest drivers of terrorist organisations.
- An estimated 17,958 people were killed in terrorist attacks in 2013, an increase of 61% more than in 2012, when 11,133 were killed.
- Eighty-two percent of all deaths from terrorist attack occur in just five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. Every one of these is an Islamic nation.
- In 2013, terrorism was dominated by four groups: the Taliban, Boko Haram, ISIL, and al Qaeda.
- All four groups are linked in their embrace of extremist Wahhabi Islam.
- More than 90% of all terrorist attacks occur in countries that have gross human rights violations.
- Since 2000, there has been over a fivefold increase in the number of people killed by terrorism.
-
In 2013 terrorist activity increased substantially with the total number of deaths rising from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013, a 61 per cent increase.
-
Thirteen countries are at risk of substantial increased terrorist activity from current levels: Angola, Bangladesh, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Iran, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Uganda.
- To counter the rise of religious extremism, moderate Sunni theologies must be cultivated by credible forces within Islam.
Liberals–and even conservatives like President George W. Bush–have refused to attribute religious motives to Islamic terrorists.
They have repeatedly attributed terrorist acts to the mentally ill. Or they have said that a minority of “Islamic extremists” are responsible–thus ignoring those passages in the Koran that justify the killing of “kaffirs,” or “unbelievers.”
Steven Emerson, publisher of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which investigates Islamic terrorist groups, puts it succinctly:
“How can we win the war against radical Islam if we can’t even name the enemy?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics on September 22, 2014 at 12:05 am
“In sha Allah a day will come when David Camerons head will be on a spike as he continues to wage war on the awilya of Allah.”
So tweeted a female jihadist from Britain, who goes by the Twitter handle @UmmKhattab, and is based in Raqqa, northeast Syria.
The threat to England’s prime minister, made on September 7, instantly caught the attention of British anti-terrorist authorities.
In August, the Islamic terror threat to Great Britain rose sharply.
Reports had surfaced that British-born female jihadis were running a religious police force that punished women for un-Islamic behaviour in territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Female ISIS fighters
British authorities fear that such women could return to the United Kingdom–singly or en masse–and launch terror attacks
As a result, on August 29, Prime Minister David Cameron announced at a press conference thatUnited Kingdom authorities would soon begin revoking the passports of British citizens traveling to Syria.
David Cameron
To which the female jihadist, believed to be 18, responded in another tweet:
“I really do not understand why Britain is threatening to remove our citizenship like we care lool its actually quiet laughable.”
Cameron gave his reply at a press conference:
“We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology. What we’re facing in Iraq and Syria now with [ISIS] is a deeper and greater threat to our security than we have ever known before.”
Among the steps being taken to combat the perceived threat:
- The terror threat level was increased to one below “critical,” the highest alert.
- British authorities will revoke the passports of British nationals returning from Syria who are believed to have trained in terror camps in preparation for a domestic terror attack.
- Foreign nationals who have traveled to Syria will be barred from entering the United Kingdom.
- Security will be increased throughout Britain, especially in its larger cities.
At his press conference, Cameron repeatedly mouthed all the Politically Correct cliches about Islam being “a religion of peace.”
He blamed the “poisonous Islamist ideology,” not Islam, for the threat posed to Western civilization: “Islam is a religion observed peacefully by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a poisonous ideology observed by a minority.”
This despite the contrary finding by Samuel Huntington, the late political scientist at Harvard University.
In his groundbreaking book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Huntington 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.”
Meanwhile, in the United States….
“I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,” wrote Nidal Hasan in an undated letter addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.
Nidal Hassan
In 2009, Hassan fatally shot 13 U.S. Army personnel and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas.
The Defense Department, hewing to the Politically Correct line that Islam is “a religion of peace,” has labeled the massacre a case of “workplace violence.”
This despite overwhelming evidence that Hassan was motivated by Islamic religious beliefs to turn a FN Five-seven single-action semiautomatic pistol on his fellow soldiers.
Among that evidence: Hassan had shouted the Islamic battle cry, “Allah Akbar!” (“God is Great!”) before opening fire.
Convicted and sentenced to death, Hassan is incarcerated at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His case awaits review by appellate courts.
Yet his death row status didn’t prevent him from smuggling out a letter to the then-head of ISIS.
“It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don’t compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers.”
The two-page letter was signed “SoA,” for “Soldier of Allah.”
Great Britain has dared to revoke passports of British citizens who have traveled to Syria. But the United States has yet to do so vis-a-vis its own citizens.
Meanwhile, the United States Congress has just voted $500 million in military aid to arm and train “moderate Syrian” rebels–who will supposedly fight ISIS on America’s behalf.
This totally ignores the blunt reality that, since 1979, Syria has been designated as a sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.
Among the terrorist groups it supports are Hizbollah and Hamas. For years, Syria provided a safe-house in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.
Syrians have never known any other form of government than absolute dictatorship. There are no “freedom-loving Syrians” for the United States to support–only murderers who have long served a tyrant and now wish to become the next tyrant.
All-in-all, the future looks better for would-be Islamic conquerors than for those in the United States awaiting the next 9/11.
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FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAMIC TERRORISM: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 10, 2015 at 12:30 amOne 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:
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:
Other reasons for the Western-Islamic clash are:
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:
On the Western side:
“In this quasi war,” wrote Huntington, “each side has capitalized on its own strengths and the other side’s weaknesses.” For example:
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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