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| 2004-09-07 |
| NYT: Cult of Death - By DAVID BROOKS Published: September 7, 2004 (Due to the fact that the article is behind registration required area, am posting in full.) We've been forced to witness the massacre of innocents. In New York, Madrid, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Baghdad and Bali, we have seen thousands of people destroyed while going about the daily activities of life. We've been forced to endure the massacre of children. Whether it's teenagers outside an Israeli disco or students in Beslan, Russia, we've seen kids singled out as special targets. |
| Posted by:Zarathustra |
| #8 How'd this sneak past the NYT's political kommisar? |
| Posted by: Anonymous6354 2004-09-07 6:55:24 PM |
| #7 Hmmm... Shoat or Sow? |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-09-07 6:25:31 PM |
| #6 The above article makes several false assumptions: We should by now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. Um ... no. Any sane person (operative word: sane) does not become enured or accustomed to pathological behavior. On ancient maps, as with those compartments of the mind, such regions are labeled, "Here be monsters." We should be used to this pathological mass movement by now. We should be able to talk about such things. Yet when you look at the Western reaction to the Beslan massacres, you see people quick to divert their attention away from the core horror of this act, as if to say: We don’t want to stare into this abyss. Again, there is nothing about terrorism to "be used to." Large populations of people capable of averting their collective gaze from close and careful examination of the horrorific core of these atrocities are known to terrorists as "targets." Think France. Three years after Sept. 11, too many people have become experts at averting their eyes. These people are known as "victims." They’re still victims of the delusion that Paul Berman diagnosed after Sept. 11: "It was the belief that, in the modern world, even the enemies of reason cannot be the enemies of reason. Even the unreasonable must be, in some fashion, reasonable." Throughout all of human history there have always been societies and religious groups, especially fundamentalist types, that defy normalcy or, frequently, even a reverence for life. Most of them are, per force, extinct. Think; Shakers, Thugees or the Pharonic dynasties. These various sects are self-limiting and were usually constrained to a somewhat localized effect on their environment. Advances in military technology have changed all this by facilitating the obsession so many of these groups have with forceful ideological conversion or simple domination. Reasonability often has little or nothing to do with their agendas and reason usually is a tool employed only by those who successfully resist or destroy such mindlessness. This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. While less cognizant people will commonly find this sort of irrationality "frightening," those who have the will and ability to properly defy such malign intent more typically view it as savagery and proceed to go about expunging it from reality. Despite periodic episodes of intense mass warfare (i.e., World Wars), industrialized Western society has largely been able to dispense with the sort of routine battles that plagued humans for most of early history. Being now unaccustomed to the necessity for vanquishing irrational or pathological members of the species, be it a farmer killing rabid animals or society imposing capital punishment upon violent criminals, many people no longer comprehend the true nature of or need for military might. The survival of liberty and open society depends upon the judicious administration of lethal force against those who would essentially impose slavery, be it to a religion or whatever political institution. People who think that love of life can exist without a concomitant willingness to bear arms for that same cause are not just foolish, they represent a distinct danger to those who correctly understand this equation. The only issue involved with attempting to view terrorism through the filter of Western rationality is overcoming any compunctions about the putative religious worth or cultural relevance of those who advocate such wanton brutality. If genuine rational analysis is incapable of detecting any validity within the terrorist frame of reference, it must be duly noted and all subsequent measures thereafter must be taken towards the end of exterminating such a malignancy. Terrorists always have the choice of abandoning such a faulty methodology. Those who wish to survive their sort of mindless viciousness must unhesitatingly prosecute such a murderous mentality. Negotiation and appeasement serve no purpose towards that purpose. Extinction does. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-07 12:57:36 PM |
| #5 I've noticed over the past year the Chi. Tribune Moscow correspondent, Rodriguez, never mentions a religious vein re these Chechen/Chechen allies terrorist scum. I can understand why he would not want to label or stereotype, but what's wrong with using Islamofascist. In fact, MSM outlets can explain to readers, viewers, and listeners, what an Islamofascist is as opposed to a peaceful Muslim. It's all about behavior. Brooks has made a pretty good definition. Now the behavior just needs to be labeled and used. But perhaps MSM hasn't decided our sensibilities are yet at that point. |
| Posted by: chicago mike 2004-09-07 12:01:24 PM |
| #4 ahhhhh. I hadn't seen this piece till later in my browsing (even tried posting it myself, but didn't know why it didn't make it -- now I know!). Glad it's here. Brooks sums up a key aspect of "why?" These people are NOT westerners. Yet we view their motives through western filters, which leads us to rationalize, explain or apologize. Just take a look at the paleos for the most aggregious examples. So long as we do that the west will never be of one mind, and therefore will never be completely successful, at stopping these pigs. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2004-09-07 11:41:16 AM |
| #3 This is an excellent piece by Brooks, and at some level has to be seen as a slap at his own newspaper's editorial stance, and by extension, the entire mainstream media. And Democrats, Anybody But Bush types, Hollywood, and academia. And these are all the same people that tolerate Brooks, and only Brooks, as the token conservative, because he doesn't tend to rub their noses in uncomfortable true facts. He sure does in this piece though. When even the Arab media starts to notice something you haven't yet noticed, it's well past time to take off the blinders. |
| Posted by: Jeff Brokaw 2004-09-07 11:08:27 AM |
| #2 Is in chilly in here or is it me? |
| Posted by: Mr Scratch 2004-09-07 10:06:19 AM |
| #1 It was the fact that a team of human beings could go into a school, live with hundreds of children for a few days, look them in the eyes and hear their cries, and then blow them up. That was the part of my world that changed on 9/11 - that these bastards could get on a plane, look around at passengers that included kids on the way to Disneyland or to see their family or whatever and think "praise Alla |
| Posted by: VAMark 2004-09-07 10:04:59 AM |