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| Iraq-Jordan |
| "The Mirror of Fallujah" |
| 2004-04-05 |
| Victor David Hansen is always good, but really hits his stride in this. The essence is that the emperor has no clothes. Itâs worth reading. "No more passes and excuses for the Middle East" What are we to make of scenes from the eighth-century in Fallujah? Random murder, mutilation of the dead, dismemberment, televised gore, and pride in stringing up the charred corpses of those who sought to bring food to the hungry? .... I fear that we have not seen anything new. ...the hourly killing is perhaps not merely the wages of autocracy, but part of a larger grotesquery of Islamic fundamentalism on display.... The Middle-East coffee houses cry about the creation of Israel and the refugees on the West Bank only to snicker that almost 1,000,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. I am sorry, but these toxic fumes of the Dark-Ages permeate everywhere. It wonât do any more simply to repeat quite logical exegeses.... No, there is something peculiar to the Middle East that worries the world. The Arab world for years has promulgated a quite successful media image as perennial victimsâproud folks, suffering under a series of foreign burdens, while nobly maintaining their grace and hospitality. .... But the curtain has been lifted since 9-11 and the picture we see hourly now is not pretty.... And then there is the asymmetry of it all. Walk in hushed tones by a mosque in Iraq, yet storm and desecrate the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank with impunity. Blow up and assassinate Westerners with unconcern; yet scream that Muslims are being questioned about immigration status in New York. Damn the West as you try to immigrate there; try to give the Middle East a fair shake while you prefer never to visit such a place. Threaten with death and fatwa any speaker or writer who âimpugnsâ Islam, demand from Western intellectuals condemnation of any Christians who speak blasphemously of the Koran. Yet it is not just the violence, the boring threats, the constant televised hatred, the temper-tantrums of fake intellectuals on televisions, the hypocrisy of anti-Western Arabs haranguing America and Europe from London or Boston, or even the pathetic shouting and fist-shaking of the ubiquitous Arab street. Rather the global village is beginning to see that the violence of the Middle East is not aberrant, but logical. Its misery is not a result of exploitation or colonialism, but self-induced. Its fundamentalism ... an altogether different and much fouler brand.... If we are to try to bring some good to the Middle East, then we must first have the intellectual courage to confess that for the most part the pathologies embedded there are not merely the work of corrupt leaders but often the very people who put them in place and allowed them to continue their ruin. |
| Posted by:RWV |
| #3 The pisser is that if the Tight Turbanned Islamocrazies would just sell us the black stuff we need, and stop blowing us up, the West wouldn't care if they hunkered down by themselves, to bask in the sun of Lallah Land 'til Kingdom come... just seems to be in their blood to blow things up and screech real loud.. |
| Posted by: Hyper 2004-04-05 9:22:14 PM |
| #2 To see a country such as Morocco falling into the abyss is shocking. 25 years ago when I was standing in front of teenagers (some older!), both male and female in the same class trying to do my damndest to figure out this teaching thing. 10 years before Hendrix, Morrison, and Brian Jones and countless other wanderers spent time on the beach in Essouira, soaking it up. The Moroccans got a kick out of it too, believe it or not. We called it Peace Corps-Europe, so close to the continent and because we had running water and electricity, no comparison to Mali, Niger, etc. Seemed so up to date on a relative scale. And friendly, hospitable folks to the Nth degree. I could literally be stuck in a small town and ask someone where a hotel was and know ahead of time that I'd spend the night at that person's house. No frivolity or ostentation. Sure, Israel and the US have never been that popular there, I could go on, but at no time did I ever get the feeling that the place wanted to emulate Saddam/Assad/Nasser and the other bums. OTOH, they didn't want a caliphate either. Now? Moroccans blowing up selves and others? For what? Sure the majority disagree with these actions, but what the hell are the people, not Moroccan Surete Nationale, doing about it? Not a damn thing, unfortunately, but grouse about how they're being misjudged by the rest of the world. I'm going to start perusing the Moroccan press to see if there are articles along the lines of Why do they hate us? (The Spanish) and how has our society made our countrymen go out and kill. After many years of assuming our problems with others rested with us totally, I've come to the conclusion that the others need to check the mirror before I start criticizing my own country. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-04-05 4:28:44 PM |
| #1 Another gem from VDH. It makes you wonder -- is this a society even worth saving? Is it the people of the Middle East, is it Islam, or is it both? Islam is so pernicious it scarcely bears the term "religion." About a week ago, Hanson posted an essay where he said we're winning. I have to agree with a few other posters to this site. I think we're just at the beginning of the struggle, and I think it's going to go on for a long time. I also believe that the real prize for Islam is Europe. They've tried to conquer Europe before. Each time, they were stopped -- but just barely. This time, they may succeed. If they do, they can enter upon the Islamists' favorite pastime -- obliterating civilization. |
| Posted by: Infidel Bob 2004-04-05 11:50:24 AM |