The Queen made a famous remark about a year in her life, describing it as a horrible year. I am sure that Mr. Mugabe will say the same thing about 2006.
Isolated and ignored by the world community, increasingly ostracized by African leaders and now under real pressure by the region, Mugabe is isolated and alone. His Party has fractured into three or four factions, each of whom is striving for ascendancy and there is nothing but bad news from the economy.
Finally poor old Robert started to receive widespread reports of preparations for mass action against his regime. The MDC has virtually rebuilt itself around new leadership and is increasingly effective on the ground. It has taken several new initiatives the development of a comprehensive Road Map describing how we can get back on our feet, it has also developed a Democracy Charter that spells out what the MDC stands for and it has crafted a national alliance with all the minor opposition Parties, Civil Society and the Churches.
Intelligence is also reaching the authorities that the MDC is talking to the leadership of the Police, Army and Air Force. This is the final bastion of power for Zanu PF and they know that the day that the Broad Alliance goes onto the street in numbers and the security forces stand by and do nothing, that is the day that Zanu PF begins to run out of options and its final demise looms.
On Friday last week the entire National Executive of the MDC marched from our Party Headquarters to Parliament and presented a copy of the road map to the Speaker. They then marched back to the HQ and disbanded it took about an hour. The Police simply stood by and watched. We did not know what to expect and the center of the City came to a halt for that short period of time. We hear that Mr. Mugabe was furious.
But the reality lies in a single incident last weekend when a senior Zanu PF leader met one of our leaders at a function. When are you guys going to do something? he asked plaintively. We (in Zanu PF) can do nothing we are paralysed and the Old Man just refuses to go. Its up to you.
It demonstrates the reality that change is on its way here in one form or another and that the long night of Zanu PF monopoly of power is almost at an end. Mr. Mugabe knows that and I am sure has difficulty sleeping these days, hated at home and despised abroad, 2006 is proving to be his Waterloo in many different ways.
#1
"Isolated and ignored by the world community, increasingly ostracized by African leaders and now under real pressure by the region, Mugabe is isolated and alone. His Party has fractured into three or four factions, each of whom is striving for ascendancy and there is nothing but bad news from the economy.
Finally poor old Robert started to receive widespread reports of preparations for mass action against his regime."
And we're somehow supposed to have sympathy for the murdering POS?
Why is he still stealing oxygen?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 17:18 Comments ||
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#2
My prediction is he'll go down hard, screaming bloody murder with an assegai in his murderous hand. He's got the support of Thabo Mbeki and every other tribal leader on the continent. Question is, how many thounsands will he take with him when he finally goes down?
#3
excellent post Pappy. I only hope it's widely true. The beginning of the end when teh regime members see the future and decide not to hand with the rest? It won't be complete without the public grisly deaths of Bob and Grace. All avenues of escape (heelllloooo France!) must be shut off.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 18:00 Comments ||
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#4
Barb - the author is in the MDC; the 'poor Robert' was sarcasm.
The opposition has decided to eschew violence. I hope they're sucessful, but the cynical part of me thinks I should've put a picture of Pollyanna in the article.
SIX YEARS into the Bush administration, are there any new lows to which the Bush-haters can sink?
George W. Bush has been smeared by the left with every insult imaginable. He has been called a segregationist who yearns to revive Jim Crow and compared ad nauseam to Adolf Hitler. His detractors have accused him of being financially entwined with Osama bin Laden. Of presiding over an American gulag. Of being a latter-day Mussolini. Howard Dean has proffered the ``interesting theory" that the Saudis tipped off Bush in advance about 9/11. One US senator (Ted Kennedy) has called the war in Iraq a ``fraud" that Bush ``cooked up in Texas" for political gain; another ( Vermont independent James Jeffords) has charged him with planning a war in Iran as a strategy to put his brother in the White House. Cindy Sheehan has called him a ``lying bastard," a ``filth spewer," an ``evil maniac," a ``fuehrer," and a ``terrorist" guilty of ``blatant genocide" -- and been rewarded for her invective with oceans of media attention.
What else can they say about Bush? That they want him killed? They already say it.
On Air America, talk show host Randi Rhodes recommended doing to Bush what Michael Corleone, in ``The Godfather, Part II," does to his brother. ``Like Fredo," she said, ``somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw!" -- then imitated the sound of a gunshot. In the Guardian, a leading British daily, columnist Charlie Brooker issued a plea: ``John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?"
For the more literary Bush-hater, there is ``Checkpoint," a novel by Nicholson Baker in which two characters discuss the wisdom of shooting the president. ``I'm going to kill that bastard," one character fumes. Some Bush-hatred masquerades as art: At Chicago's Columbia College, a curated exhibit included a sheet of mock postage stamps bearing the words ``Patriot Act" and depicting President Bush with a gun to his head. There are even Bush-assassination fashion statements, such as the ``KILL BUSH" T-shirts that were on offer last year at CafePress, an online retailer.
Lurid political libels have a long history in American life. The lies told about John Adams in the campaign of 1800 were vile enough, his wife Abigail lamented, ``to ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world." But has there ever been a president so hated by his enemies that they lusted openly for his death? Or tried to gratify that lust with such political pornography?
As with other kinds of porn, even the most graphic expressions of Bush-hatred tend to jade those who gorge on it, so that they crave ever more explicit material to achieve the same effect.
Which brings us to ``Death of a President," a new movie about the assassination of George W. Bush. Written and directed by British filmmaker Gabriel Range, the movie premieres today at the Toronto Film Festival and will air next month on Britain's Channel 4. Shot in the style of a documentary, the movie opens with what looks like actual footage of Bush being gunned down by a sniper as he leaves a Chicago hotel in October 2007. Through the use of digital special effects, the film superimposes the president's face onto the body of the actor playing him, so that the mortally wounded man collapsing on the screen will seem, all too vividly, to be Bush himself.
This is Bush-hatred as a snuff film. The fantasies it feeds are grotesque and obscene; to pander to such fantasies is to rip at boundary-markers that are indispensable to civilized society. That such a movie could not only be made but lionized at an international film festival is a mark not of sophistication, but of a sickness in modern life that should alarm conservatives and liberals alike.
Naturally that's not how the film's promoters see it. Noah Cowan, one of the Toronto festival's codirectors, high-mindedly describes ``Death of a President" as ``a classic cautionary tale." Well, yes, Bush's assassination is ``harrowing," he says, but what the film is really about is ``how the Patriot Act, especially, and how Bush's divisive partisanship and race-baiting has forever altered America."
I can't help wondering, though, whether some of those who see this film will take away rather a different message. John Hinckley, in his derangement, had the idea that shooting the president was the way to impress a movie star. After seeing ``Death of a President," the next Hinckley may get a more grandiose idea: Shooting the president is the way to become a movie star.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 10:54 ||
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#1
"SIX YEARS into the Bush administration, are there any new lows to which the Bush-haters can sink?"
Unfortunately, yes. :-(
What are these clowns going to do on January 21, 2009?
Oh, yeah - that's right. They'll transfer their BDS to whatever Republican is elected the next President.
Assuming some jihadi (whom they love and wax poetic about now) hasn't killed them first.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 11:35 Comments ||
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#2
I'm sorry Barb, he continues to ride his bicycle backwards! I scorn the haters, but I'm out of sympathy for him, fresh out.
#3
Meh. Confirms what I thought about you Besoeker
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 11:45 Comments ||
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#4
I still support the man Frank, and the office. I'm just sick and tired of stupidity, like this reported military mission and $ 30m to Lebanon. WTFO ?
#5
#2 - this crap isn't really about Bush, it's about the survival of America in any form that we know it.
Do you really want the nutroots clowns dictating policy to the government? They will if the Dems get back in power, because all the Dems care about is power - theirs. And they'll do anything to get and keep it. (Not to mention that they've noticed the country is becoming more conservative, and if they don't get back in power now and change laws and rules to help them keep that power, they'll never get it again on a national scale.)
Do you really want a political party in charge of this country that will threaten to pull a broadcaster's license for merely telling the truth that the Dems don't want you to know, or remember? And that's when they're not in power. I have no doubt they'll follow through if they ever get power again.
There are some things I admire about President Bush, and some things I'd like to slap him upside the head with a Cluebat™ for. But this foolish, all-consuming hatred is not really about him per se - it's about whiney-assed LLL's who will help the jihadis destroy this country if it means hurting a President who can't even run for another term (and who doesn't give a rat's ass about his own "legacy"), while trying to push pretty lies about the "legacy" of the previous administration who pretty much fucked up every opportunity presented to them to effectively attack the radical moslems who have publicly stated for years that they intend to destroy this country and its people - all because they wanted to look good to, and be "liked" by, the world. (And guess what? The "world" still didn't like us - except for a few days after 9/11 when they saw us as powerless victims, just like most of them are.)
Here's an idea: Take their ranting and name-calling about President Bush out of the equation entirely. Have the Bush-hating lefties got any other message? And is it a message of hope?
(As in hope for our country, and for the world - not hope they get back in power so they can cover up their screw-ups with the collusion of the MSM and pretend their bankrupt lack of ideas are somehow important again.)
Don't worry about Bush - he's an adult and can take care of himself. Worry rather about America - and where the raving, insane Left wants to drive take us.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 12:31 Comments ||
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#6
Spot on Barb. Excellent comments, quite accurate.
#7
What else can they say about Bush? That they want him killed? They already say it.
Like a group of primitive warriors team talking itself up for an event, they're just setting the atmosphere of hate and loathing, sorta like that Julius Streicher fellow and jews to carry through with the act. That'll be the sound of the gun signal to start the American Civil War, Part Deux. More like Bleeding Kansas than Sumter.
#8
The donks think they have the november elections in the bag. I wonder if they really think they can pull a majority out of their asses? What would they do if they actually lost seats? I think at this point that may be a real possibility, are we looking at mass lib suicide?
#10
This is Bush-hatred as a snuff film. The fantasies it feeds are grotesque and obscene; to pander to such fantasies is to rip at boundary-markers that are indispensable to civilized society. That such a movie could not only be made but lionized at an international film festival is a mark not of sophistication, but of a sickness in modern life that should alarm conservatives and liberals alike.
Bottom line. Treason is being made palatable and few have the courage to spit it out for the poison it is. This film is made from pure polymerized Kool-Aid.
#11
"...all because they wanted to look good too, and be "liked" by, the world."
There it is, they want to be liked. 7th and 8th grade mentalities writ large on the international political landscape. Nothing more than a personality contest and a naked desire for power.
I'm past fed up with the moonbats. What the hell is wrong with them?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 21:44 Comments ||
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#14
what is wrong with the moonbats?
I think one reason is that they see that civilization is in danger from Islam but they haven't the guts to criticize Islam so they criticize a fellow who won't hurt them but they pretend Bush is dangerous so that they can feel themselves as bravely fighting the good fight.
In a letter to ABC's chief Bob Iger, Clinton's attorney, Bruce Lindsey, alleges that the network's program, The Path to 9/11 is "factually and incontrovertibly" inaccurate in suggesting that the Clinton administration let Usama bin Laden slip through its fingers. Clinton's defenders, from their high horses, arrogantly have demand that the program be edited to their satisfaction, or be pulled entirely.
Bristling at evidence that Clinton and his administration were wavering and indecisive, the letter asserted that the president aggressively tried to "take a shot at Bin Laden." It cites the 9/11 Commission Report for supposedly giving credit to Clinton for approving "every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
This is close enough to the truth to make the "I-didn't-inhale" and "I-didn't-have-sex-with-that-woman" Clinton think he can get away with it. But it is far enough away from the truth to be classified as, if not a bold lie, an artless equivocation.
As usual, Clinton figures that the rest of us are too stupid or lazy to look it up for ourselves. And having read the complete report when it came out more than two years ago, I think it is an inescapable fact that a vacillating, equivocating administration had more than one opportunity to take out terrorist mastermind bin Laden, but blew it.
A good place to look is the report's "Chapter 4: Responses to Al Qaeda's initial assaults," Section 4.5, "Searching for Fresh Options." There you have details of how bin Laden was ready to be plucked, but someone in the administration either ignored or nixed it. Or put it on an endless "you-decide, not-me" merry-go-round.
For example, the report said the CIA was receiving "reliable" reports that bin Laden would be in the Sheikh Ali hunting camp in the Afghan desert south of Kandahar until at least midmorning of Feb. 11, 1999. The military was targeting him for a hit with cruise missiles, and only needed a green light. Yet, no missiles were launched, to the disappointment of field agents and the CIA's "Bin Laden" unit. By Feb. 12, Bin Laden had moved on, and the golden opportunity passed.
Still, the CIA hoped that bin Laden would return to the popular camp, but Richard Clarke, the nation's counterterrorism chief, may have blown it by calling the United Arab Emirates to express his concern about the their officials associating with bin Laden at the hunting camp. Being no fools, the terrorists within a week had "hurriedly dismantled" and deserted the camp, the report said.
In May, 1999, the report said, the administration may have missed the best and last opportunity to hit bin Laden with cruise missiles as he was moving in and around Kandahar. "It was a fat pitch, a home run," a senior military official told the commission, confident of the intelligence and the possibility of minimal "collateral damage." The report picks up the story:
"He expected the missiles to fly. When the decision came back that they should stand down, not shoot, the officer said, 'We all just slumped.' He told [the commission] he knew of no one at the Pentagon or the CIA who thought it was a bad game. Bin Laden 'should have been a dead man' that night, he said."
From there, the story gets cloudy. Some told the commission that former CIA Director George Tenet nixed the strike, believing the chance of the intelligence being accurate was only 50-50. (He may have been the only one who thought the odds were that bad.) Tenet told the commission he didn't remember the details. Berger's memory at this historic moment also turned sketchy. "Berger remembered only that in all such cases, the call had been Tenet's. Berger felt sure that Tenet was eager to get bin Laden. In his view, Tenet did his job responsibly," the report said. It quoted Berger: "George would call and say, 'We just don't have it.'"
Judge for yourself, but to me this sounds like Berger tying to "pin the tail on Tenet."
The report added this tidbit about the administration's inaction: "Replying to a frustrated colleague in the field, the [CIA's] Bin Ladin unit chief wrote: '...having a chance to get [bin Laden] three times in 36 hours, and foregoing the chance each time has made me a bit angry.'" [Emphasis added.] The field officer opined that it was Tenet who was pushing for an attack, but was standing alone, with Berger adopting the cover-your-ass attitude that it was Tenet's decision, and "we'd go along" with whatever it was.
To be sure, the administration's approach was hesitant, if not overly cautious. Why? They were reflecting Clinton's policy, put into writing in several Memoranda of Notification that he wanted bin Laden captured and treated humanely, but not killed, unless it was in the process of capture. He even personally edited one memorandum, making it more "ambiguous," the report said. "...[I]t is possible to understand how the former White House officials and the CIA officials might disagree as to whether the CIA was ever authorized by the President to kill Bin Laden."
There should be no disagreement on this: Lindsey's letter to ABC is mere word play. It is couched in equivocations such as Clinton "authorized the use of force" and that the president and Berger had authorized Tenet to "get" bin Laden. None of it means that Tenet was ordered to kill bin Laden when he had a chance.
Ahmed Shah Massoud, an Afghanistan Northern Alliance commander who offered to kill Bin Laden for the United States, put the capture-not-kill-decision more succinctly: "You guys are crazy." Lt. Gen William Boykin, a founding member of the elite Delta Force, told the commission, "...opportunities were missed because of an unwillingness to take risks and a lack of vision and understanding."
If they weren't describing the Clinton administration, then who?
A full reading of the report makes clear that the Clinton administration understood the seriousness of the bin Laden threat, but failed to act decisively. In this, when ABC said "general indecisiveness" allowed the 9/11 attacks, it was correct to include the Clinton administration.
And why the indecisiveness? Rack it up to the idea that he need to prosecute, not kill, terrorists; that someone who has literally declared war on us should be tried with all the rights of American citizens. Maybe we should have tried negotiations instead.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/10/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
So the ABC scene is a composite and not correct, just like the Dems said. But alas, the Dems only stated half the truth. If it was factually correct the whole damn movie would be decision after decision not to strike UBL and the movie would be called Groung Hog Day!!!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2006 8:55 Comments ||
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#2
It's not a 'protest', it is now censorship. Welcome to 1984 care of the Donks.
#3
This is about more than Clinton's legacy, or whether his "law enforcement approach" to terrorism was flawed: what it's about is that the Democrats want to return to those flawed, ineffectual policies that encouraged the 9/11 attacks.
If the Dems retake the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, only three questions remain: How many of our cities will get nuked? Which ones? And when?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/10/2006 9:46 Comments ||
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#4
DD - AND the scuttling of the Hildabeast's POTUS run
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/10/2006 10:35 Comments ||
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#5
Yeah, it's definitely about that, too!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/10/2006 10:48 Comments ||
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#6
Redstate is showing clips of the "disputed" scenes. Worth a look (even tho I'm in the middle of the Cowboy's game, well I did look at them before the game started)
http://www.redstate.com/911clips
#9
I saw those clips at Redstate last night, and I can certainly understand why the Clintonistas went ballistic-- especially Madeleine Albright. I plan on watching the whole thing tonight, and I'll be paying attention to whether ABC has redacted any of that stuff to appease the Clinton crowd.
But it's not about who was wrong about terrorism, back then; it's about who would still be wrong about terrorism now, if they were allowed back in power.
Never again.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/10/2006 17:36 Comments ||
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#10
Oh, by the way. I think that Bill Clinton was the most corrupt and dishonest President we have ever suffered through in this country during my lifetime. If I had to say something nice about him I would say that he is more honest than his wife, and cuter. Well, that's something, I guess.
#11
America will change because of this. When you can't be there, modern film making can put everyone in the action and cause a group think like never before. This will do it. First, Clinton and the donks will become more insignificant. Bush and Rummy should get some brass out of it, and the people should become more focused. I truely hope that ABC does not edit out any of these facts. It's not time yet, but it is time to prepare.
We just may see a republican landslied in November.
#12
Richard Clarke, may have blown it by calling the United Arab Emirates to express his concern
Hollywood is a friend of the Clintons. So I can't help wondering why they would allow this to air. Could it be that even more damaging information is destined to come to light and the real purpose of this show is to get this watered down version into the public conscious before a more damaging truth comes out? One need not stretch too far to wonder if Richard Clarke or Sandy Berger are on a par with George Galloway.
Most likely, Washington incompetencet was indeed the path to 911. But if we get more damaging information about key players in the near future - I will think that the purpose of this show was not to indict the Clinton Administration, but rather to provide it cover by getting this story line into the national conscious first.
And why did Sandy stuff those docs into his pants?
#13
in fact the more I think about this, the more I realize we are being played for fools. How exactly I'm not sure. But does anyone here really think that the scenes cut matter in any way? Then why bother to cut them? Maybe it was all just hype - or maybe the cut something else and then played the bloggers for fools by providing them with the "cut scenes". Charles Johnson and all of the other bloggers would not have the cut scenes unless ABC allowed them to. Nobody would dare take on the copyright lawyers at ABC.
Like I said, maybe it was all just manufactured hype - but come on - the cut scenes don't matter. So one way or another - ABC is playing us for fools.
What is needed to fight this war on the Islamists and the ideas behind this war is moral clarity - not moral relativism and a widespread cynicism about political motives
WE'VE been watching again, these past days, those images from the day the world changed. We've seen again the towers crumbling, the people running, the ash raining, the bodies falling. We've watched the people standing in the streets, staring in horrified fascination, their hands over their mouths. And we realise that while we are watching them watching, our hands are covering our mouths, too. What is this hand-over-mouth thing humans do?
The reason we feel this horror watching is that as human beings we empathise with the suffering of other human beings. Nearly all people have this empathetic response, according to psychologists. Those who don't are psychopaths, and they make up only one or two per cent of the population.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2006 11:10 ||
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Spare me the maudlin observances of the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, the ringing bells and the weeping widows.
The most meaningful way to mark the date is with a national renewal of our commitment to confront and wipe out the evil ideology that spawned the attacks....I'd rather see us honor the anniversary by watching the powerful documentary "Obsession," an expose of the jihadist culture's true aims...The primary message of the movie is to stop ignoring what the jihadists are saying.
Jihadists mean what they say
"Death to America" really does mean that they want to destroy the United States. "Wipe Israel off the map" isn't just fiery rhetoric; it's a promise they hope to keep...
#3
It is up to Islam to declare a fatwa on terrorism. Until Islam is the principal foe of terrorism, it is nothing more than a corrupt and bankrupt political ideology masquerading as a religion.
The West is not obliged to solve Islam's failings. All we owe ourselves is to exterminate Islam should it fail to reform itself. All indications are that Islam refuses to reform itself. It it up to us to have the moral fiber to take the next step.
This is a not-so-short excerpt from a very long essay which is well worth the time, even if you find parts of it more than a little infuriating. This part concerns the spiritual founder of Islamofascism, Sayyid Qtub, and his 1949 trip to the USA.
He didn't like New York: materialistic, mechanistic, trivial, idolatrous, wanton, depraved, and so on and so forth. Washington was a little better. But here, sickly Sayyid (lungs) was hospitalised, introducing him to another dire hazard that he wouldn't have faced at home: female nurses. One of them, tricked out with 'thirsty lips, bulging breasts, smooth legs' and a coquettish manner ('the calling eye, the provocative laugh'), regaled him with her wish-list of endowments for the ideal lover. But 'the father of Islamism', as he is often called, remained calm, later developing the incident into a diatribe against Arab men who succumb to the allure of American women. In an extraordinary burst of mendacity or delusion, Sayyid claimed that the medical staff heartlessly exulted at the news of the assassination, back in Egypt, of Hasan al-Banna. We may wonder how likely it is that any American would have heard of al-Banna, or indeed of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he founded. When Sayyid was discharged from George Washington University Hospital, he probably thought the worst was behind him. But now he proceeded to the cauldron - to the pullulating hellhouse - of Greeley, Colorado.
During his six months at the Colorado State College of Education (and thereafter in California), Sayyid's hungry disapproval found a variety of targets. American lawns (a distressing example of selfishness and atomism), American conversation ('money, movie stars and models of cars'), American jazz ('a type of music invented by Blacks to please their primitive tendencies - their desire for noise and their appetite for sexual arousal'), and, of course, American women: here another one pops up, telling Sayyid that sex is merely a physical function, untrammelled by morality. American places of worship he also detests (they are like cinemas or amusement arcades), but by now he is pining for Cairo, and for company, and he does something rash. Qutb joins a club - where an epiphany awaits him. 'The dance is inflamed by the notes of the gramophone,' he wrote; 'the dance-hall becomes a whirl of heels and thighs, arms enfold hips, lips and breasts meet, and the air is full of lust.' You'd think that the father of Islamism had exposed himself to an early version of Studio 54 or even Plato's Retreat. But no: the club he joined was run by the church, and what he is describing, here, is a chapel hop in Greeley, Colorado. And Greeley, Colorado, in 1949, was dry
'And the air is full of lust.' 'Lust' is Bernard Lewis's translation, but several other writers prefer the word 'love'. And while lust has greater immediate impact, love may in the end be more resonant. Why should Qutb mind if the air is full of love? We are forced to wonder whether love can be said to exist, as we understand it, in the ferocious patriarchy of Islamism. If death and hate are the twin opposites of love, then it may not be merely whimsical and mawkish to suggest that the terrorist, the bringer of death and hate, the death-hate cultist, is in essence the enemy of love. Qutb:
A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid, but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume but flesh, only flesh.
. . . any voyage taken with Sayyid Qutb is doomed to a leaden-witted circularity. The emptiness, the mere iteration, at the heart of his philosophy is steadily colonised by a vast entanglement of bitternesses; and here, too, we detect the presence of that peculiarly Islamist triumvirate (codified early on by Christopher Hitchens) of self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred - the self-righteousness dating from the seventh century, the self-pity from the 13th (when the 'last' Caliph was kicked to death in Baghdad by the Mongol warlord Hulagu), and the self-hatred from the 20th. And most astounding of all, in Qutb, is the level of self-awareness, which is less than zero. It is as if the very act of self-examination were something unmanly or profane: something unrighteous, in a word.
Still, one way or the other, Qutb is the father of Islamism. Here are the chief tenets he inspired: that America, and its clients, are jahiliyya (the word classically applied to pre-Muhammadan Arabia - barbarous and benighted); that America is controlled by Jews; that Americans are infidels, that they are animals, and, worse, arrogant animals, and are unworthy of life; that America promotes pride and promiscuity in the service of human degradation; that America seeks to 'exterminate' Islam - and that it will accomplish this not by conquest, not by colonial annexation, but by example. As Bernard Lewis puts it in The Crisis of Islam
This is what is meant by the term the Great Satan, applied to the United States by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Satan as depicted in the Qur'an is neither an imperialist nor an exploiter. He is a seducer, 'the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men' (Qur'an, CXIV, 4, 5).
Lewis might have added that these are the closing words of the Koran. So they echo.
The West isn't being seductive, of course; all the West is being is attractive. But the Islamist's paranoia extends to a kind of thwarted narcissism. We think again of Qutb's buxom, smooth-legged nurse, supposedly smacking her thirsty lips at the news of the death of Hasan al-Banna. Far from wanting or trying to exterminate it, the West had no views whatever about Islam per se before 11 September 2001. Of course, views were then formulated, and very soon the bestseller list was a column of primers on Islam. Some things take longer to sink in than others, true; but now we know. In the West we had brought into being a society whose main purpose, whose raison d'etre, was the tantalisation of good Muslims.
The theme of the 'tempter' can be taken a little further, in the case of Qutb. When the tempter is a temptress, and really wants you to sin, she needs to be both available and willing. And it is almost inconceivable that poor Sayyid, the frail, humourless civil servant, and turgid anti-semite (salting his talk with quotes from that long-exploded fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), ever encountered anything that resembled an offer. It is more pitiful than that. Seduction did not come his way, but it was coming the way of others, he sensed, and a part of him wanted it too. That desire made him very afraid, and also shamed him and dishonoured him, and turned his thoughts to murder. Then the thinkers of Islam took his books and did what they did to them; and Sayyid Qutb is now a part of our daily reality. We should understand that the Islamists' hatred of America is as much abstract as historical, and irrationally abstract, too; none of the usual things can be expected to appease it. The hatred contains much historical emotion, but it is their history, and not ours, that haunts them.
Qutb has perhaps a single parallel in world history. Another shambling invert, another sexual truant (not a virgin but a career cuckold), another marginal quack and dabbler (talentless but not philistine), he too wrote a book, in prison, that fell into the worst possible hands. His name was Nikolai Chernyshevsky; and his novel (What Is To Be Done?) was read five times by Vladimir Lenin in the course of a single summer. It was Chernyshevsky who determined, not the content, but the emotional dynamic of the Soviet experiment. The centennial of his birth was celebrated with much pomp in the USSR. That was in 1928. But Russia was too sad, and too busy, to do much about the centennial of his death, which passed quietly in 1989.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/10/2006 09:29 ||
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concerns the spiritual founder of Islamofascism, Sayyid Qtub
Qutbs writings prior to 1951 are more of a moralist. It was after he was introduced to Maududis ideas, especially his emphasis on Islam being a complete way of life, and establishment of Allahs order on earth as every Muslims primary responsibility that Qutb changed into a revolutionary. His two years sojourn (1948-1950) in the US opened his eyes to the malise of the western culture and non-Islamic ideologies.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2006 12:50 Comments ||
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#5
That clown was one sick MF.
A modern-day Puritan, with a twist. He was afraid that someone, somewhere, might be having fun - and they should be killed for it.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 13:07 Comments ||
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#6
It was Maududi who fused fascism and fundamentalist islam into the ideology of islamo-fascism
Islam wishes to do away with all states and governments which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of this ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of standard-bearer of Islam, and regardless of the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic state. Islam requires the earth not just a portion, but the entire planet not because the sovereignty over the earth should be wrested from one nation or group of nations and vested in any one particular nation, but because the whole of mankind should benefit from Islam, and its ideology and welfare programme.
It is to serve this end that Islam seeks to press into service all the forces which can bring about such a revolution. The term which covers the use of all these forces is Jihad. To alter peoples outlook and spark a mental and intellectual revolution is a form of Jihad. To change the old tyrannical system and establish a just new order by the power of the sword is also Jihad, as is spending wealth and undergoing physical exertion for this cause.
Sayyid Mawdudi in his book Jihad.
Posted by: john ||
09/10/2006 13:11 Comments ||
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#7
What Barbara said.
to the pullulating hellhouse - of Greeley, Colorado
How rich. Too bad some backwoods KKK type in 1949 Colorado didn't blow this smarmy turd's head clean off. Life would be a whole lot different right now.
LET US SUPPOSE, for the sake of argument, that the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists is under way. Let us further suppose that thousands of terrorist attacks carried out in Islams name during the past decades form part of this war; and that conflicts that have spread to 50 countries and more, taking the lives of millions including in inter-Muslim blood-shedding are the outcome of what Osama bin Laden has called conducting jihad for the sake of Allah.
If such war is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated in it.
1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. Some reject outright that there is a war at all; others agree with the assertion by the US President that the war we fight is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. Divided counsels have also dictated everything from dialogue to the use of nuclear weapons, and from reliance on public diplomacy to taking out Islamic sites, Mecca included. Adding to this incoherence has been the gulf between those bristling to take the fight to the terrorist and those who would impede such a fight, whether from domestic civil libertarian concerns or from rivalrous geopolitical calculation.
Continued at link; apparently baloney is still popular in Britain.
#1
@ssholes like David Selbourne need to live in a Muslim majority nation for a few years in order to cure this sort of self-hatred and correctly resettle it upon a more appropriate target.
#2
I don't know. Selbourne may be consumed by his verbal flatulence, but does anyone still feel as though we're winning this war? I used to, but I'm not sure I do anymore.
Posted by: Infidel Bob ||
09/10/2006 18:59 Comments ||
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#3
Well thought out & well written. I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher
#4
I don't agree with his conclusion that the West will lose, or is likely to lose the war ( and yes, Mr. Selbourne, it is a war). Having said that, the guy makes a good many points that many fine posters here at RB have made over the years.
I would have preferred if Selbourne entitled his work: "why it's gonna be damn hard to win the war on jihad".
Posted by: Mark Z ||
09/10/2006 19:08 Comments ||
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#5
From the article... 10) Finally, the West is convinced that its notions of technology-driven modernity and market-driven prog- ress are innately superior to the ideals of backward Islam. This is an old delusion. In 1899, Winston Churchill asserted that there was no stronger retrograde force in the world than Islam. More than a century later, it is fondly believed that sophisticated hardware and Star Wars defences will ensure Western mastery in this war, if it is a war.
Well Mr Selbourne, I have become utterly convinced that a lot of people know exactly what Islam is about, and those in power are trying to give it that final chance to be something that the West can co-exist with. To that end, modernity and progress are probably the best tools that can be used at the present time.
If that fails, there is no need for 'Star Wars defences', as there are a shedload of weapons in the Enduring Stockpile.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
09/10/2006 19:26 Comments ||
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#6
Selbourne mistakes the fecklessness of the elites with the totality of Western civilization.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 19:46 Comments ||
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#7
The question is not whether we will win. We will. The question is how many Mooselimbs we'll have to kill to win. I'd say the over/under is 1 million, but that's really up to them.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/10/2006 19:55 Comments ||
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#8
#2I don't know. Selbourne may be consumed by his verbal flatulence, but does anyone still feel as though we're winning this war? I used to, but I'm not sure I do anymore.
" I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the town of Florida, some twenty-five miles south of were we then were Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extended to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which was expected we could see Harris camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. I never forgot that lesson." Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
#9
#8, fine post. If you "turn the table around" it's hard to imagine that things look very bright from the jihadist point of view. The jihadi survivors of Operation Phantom Fury can't have gone home and delivered glowing reports of their battlefield experiences, at least not with a straight face.
"Back from the glorious struggle, Achmed? Where's Mahmoud? Where's Abdullah?"
"Little brother, it took me a week to comb Mahmoud and Abdullah out of my beard."
Posted by: Matt ||
09/10/2006 21:09 Comments ||
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#10
"I'd say the over/under is 1 million, but that's really up to them."
Six hundred million by 2020. That's my O/U.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/10/2006 23:15 Comments ||
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#11
The question is not whether we will win. We will. The question is how many Mooselimbs we'll have to kill to win. I'd say the over/under is 1 million, but that's really up to them.
ABC's "Path to 9/11," we're told, by those who want it yanked, portrays the Clinton adminstration making a strategic decision not to take out Bin Laden in a military attack. With hindsight, after 9/11, it's easy to say that was the wrong strategic decision. The question I want to raise is whether it's the wrong strategic decision to cry out about "The Path to 9/11" because of the way it portrays the Clinton administration. To say the portrayal is inaccurate is to focus everyone on the issue, to highlight how sensitive you are about it, and to set off a vigorous effort to show that it is accurate.
Perhaps we were leaving the past behind, saying things like "9/11 reset the clock for me," but now we're distracted -- distracted? like a President caught in a sex scandal... -- and we start wondering why they are making such a stink about this: Are they trying to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him?
No, no, no, the strategy is to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him, not to make you ask whether they are trying to do that and certainly not to encourage you to go rummaging through the old evidence -- what's left of it.
Now, why in hell did you look at that? Don't look at that! What repulsive right-wing prurient urge made you want to look at that Limbaugh-style political porn star... Tom Brokaw.
ADDED: And everybody also wants to look at the very parts of the show that most rile its opponents.
MORE: How insanely repressive. You know, mainstream politicians really should worry about bloggers. Ironically, the bad judgment shown by bloggers here is about wishing for hardcore repression of speech, but free speech is our lifeblood!
Clearly Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright and American Airlines have good cause to sue Disney/ABC, the BBC, Australian and New Zealand television, and any local affiliate that broadcasts the show. How can we further help their lawsuit? I think a first step is paying close attention in each country to how the show is being marketed. Get us copies of ads, promotions, etc. that show local broadcasters and others promoting the show as true and non-fiction. How else can we help their suit?
Oh, yeah, bloggers really ought to want to encourage lawsuits by public figures who think something inaccurate has been said about them. This is the worst case of myopia I've seen in my years of blogging. You guys are complete idiots.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/10/2006 12:05 ||
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"You guys are complete idiots."
That sums it up entirely.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 12:33 Comments ||
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#2
They're not idiots. They're fascists. There was a great comment on NRO in the last couple of weeks comparing the nutroots to the Nazis -- not necessarily in what they believe, but in how they believe.
Grandiose conspiracy theories? Check.
Insistence on ideological purity, on threat of ostracism and transformation into "one of THEM"? Check.
Threats and intimidation against "THEM"? Check.
If ABC doesn't do enough to satisfy the nutroots, what'll they do next?
And more importantly (IMHO), what do the rest of us do in reaction? Do we support the targets of the nutroots? Do we punish the people and companies who bow to the nutroots?
We can sure as hell hope that when -- no longer if, IMHO -- the nutroots head outside the law the authorities take it more seriously than they have in the past.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/10/2006 13:39 Comments ||
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Things must be pretty bad for a trip to the West Bank town of Ramallah to seem like a chance to get away from it all. But that is where British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- hounded at home by his own party -- headed this weekend.
America's top defender abroad spent last week pulling knives out of his back, front and sides. Critics within his party insisted that he should announce the date of his resignation-- a move that would make Blair not just a lame duck but a legless one. His statement on Thursday that he would be gone by this time next year isn't enough: The rebels want a precise timetable. Even former Blair loyalists have collected signatures for letters imploring him to stand aside.
One small consolation for the prime minister: He won't be short of job offers once he takes early retirement. As long ago as 2001, the then-popular P.M. mused to the Sunday Telegraph about how "lucky" he was that he'll "get out before my working life is over. I'll have time to do something else."
That something else is likely to be on this side of the Atlantic, where Blair is in greater demand than back home and would probably earn more money -- a real concern for a man who likes the good life and must pay off a mortgage on a $6 million London townhouse. Indeed, if the London papers and rumor mills are to be believed, establishment Washington institutions such as the Carlyle Group or Georgetown University -- where Blair delivered a major foreign-policy speech in May -- could be seeking his services.
But American institutions should issue a moratorium -- a long one -- on hiring Blair. Yes, America's best friend has stood by the nation in times of war and controversy. But for that very reason, the U.S. national interest would be better served if Blair remained in Britain, where his reputation will steadily recover after he steps down, and where he could continue to make the case for the values that unite the two nations.
If Blair takes a big-bucks job over here, he will join a long line of world leaders whose support for American values has landed them in U.S. universities or think tanks. It must be nice to have friendly foreigners on hand to lionize U.S. virtues, but this pro-American brain drain is a luxury the United States can't afford as it wages a battle of ideas worldwide.
As Washington looks south at a rising tide of Hugo Chávez-led populism, it must rue the fact that two of Latin America's most high-profile supporters of free markets now reside at U.S. universities. Former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who tamed his country's inflation and transformed its economy, is now a professor at Brown University. And after serving as Mexico's budget secretary and president during the 1990s, U.S. ally Ernesto Zedillo returned to Yale, his alma mater, to direct its center on globalization. Similarly, as U.S. policymakers contemplate how India's intransigence contributed to the recent failure of the World Trade Organization to reduce trade barriers, they must wonder whether Indian free-trade guru and economist Jagdish Bhagwati could have tilted the balance back home if he still lectured at the Indian Statistical Institute or the Delhi School of Economics rather than Columbia University.
Consider the debate over Muslim radicalization in Europe. The Dutch-Somali politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- famous as a writer for the documentary "Submission," about the role of women in Islam -- was making the provocative but important argument that, in the Netherlands, Dutch values should trump Islamic ones when they come into conflict. But now she's at Washington's American Enterprise Institute. And former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar -- who sent his country's troops to Iraq despite deep resistance at home -- isn't spending his time in Europe debating the merits of U.S. policy; instead, he's a scholar at Georgetown and sits on the board of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Hiring friendly foreigners not only cuts them out of the debate in their own countries, but also taints their reputations back home, as former Harvard academic Michael Ignatieff is learning. Ignatieff is running for the Liberal Party leadership in his native Canada, where he supports involvement in the fight against terrorism and ridicules anti-Americanism as the "patriotism of fools." In short, Ignatieff is as good as Washington can get as the leader of Canada's left-wing party.
But his political opponents are using the time he spent south of the border against him. "Michael Ignatieff wants to be prime minister of our country," columnist Paul Wells wrote in the Canadian newsweekly Macleans last week. "And just in case I'm not being clear, I mean Canada ." The many years Ignatieff spent in England don't generate anywhere near as much attention as his five-year stint as a professor in Cambridge, Mass., illustrating people's sensitivity to the notion of their leaders being seduced by the Yankee dollar -- or corrupted by superpower values.
U.S. institutions should not, obviously, bar their doors to foreigners. American universities, in particular, generate goodwill toward the United States; those who spend a few years studying here are more likely to return home and foster empathy for the American predicament. In the short term, however, even the most precocious Fulbrighters are unlikely to reshape their countries' attitudes toward the United States. Leading pro-American politicians and intellectuals from abroad are a rare commodity -- one that shouldn't be wasted here on the homefront.
The United States must export more pro-Americans than it imports. Maybe it's time to round up all these sympathetic foreigners -- and send them home.
James Forsyth is an assistant editor at Foreign Policy magazine.
#2
If Blair takes a big-bucks job over here, he will join a long line of world leaders whose support for American values has landed them in U.S. universities or think tanks. It must be nice to have friendly foreigners on hand to lionize U.S. virtues, but this pro-American brain drain is a luxury the United States can't afford as it wages a battle of ideas worldwide.
Fine. Set up an American Relations Bureau in Britain and deputize Blair to direct it at mid to high six figures per annum.
#3
If the Donks weren't a party of egos and power mongers and self-worshippers and fifth columnist, they'd outsource Howard Dean's job to Tony. Unlike any in that crowd, Tony is held in pretty high esteem by most of America. He can do the job other [Donk] Americans cant. And he speaks proper English.
And for all his socialist faults, Tony Blair at least seems to understand the danger the West faces from the islamonazis. Especially in Great Britain itself.
So we admire him (and he does have a wonderful accent). Your mileage may vary.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2006 17:16 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Queen made a famous remark about a year in her life, describing it as a horrible year. I am sure that Mr. Mugabe will say the same thing about 2006.
David Selbourne
