Islamic terrorists continue attacks on West, its values
By Victor Davis Hanson
Do we still need to fight a war on terror?
The answer seems to be "no" for an increasing number in the West who are weary over Afghanistan and Iraq or complacent from the absence of a major attack on the scale of Sept. 11.
The British Foreign Office has scrapped the phrase "war on terror" as inexact, inflammatory and counterproductive. U.S. Central Command has just dropped the term "long war" to describe the fight against radical Islam.
An influential book making the rounds - "Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them" - argues that the threat from Al-Qaida is vastly exaggerated.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, goes further, assuring us that we are terrorized mostly by the false idea of a war on terror - not the jihadists themselves.
Even onetime neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, who in 1998 called for the pre-emptive removal of Saddam Hussein, believes "war" is the "wrong metaphor" for our struggle against the terrorists.
Others point out that motley Islamic terrorists lack the resources of the Nazi Wehrmacht or the Soviet Union.
This thinking may seem understandable given the inability of Al-Qaida to kill many Americans after Sept. 11. Or it may also reflect hopes that if we only leave Iraq, radical Islam will wither away. But it is dead wrong for a number of reasons.
...
Read the rest...As always V.D.H. is da man...
Pertinent Links:
1) Islamic Terrorists Continue Attacks on West, Its Values
2) Victor Davis Hanson
Showing posts with label v.d.h.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label v.d.h.. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
V.D.H.: ANY IRAQ EXIT STRATEGY MUST RECOGNIZE THE PERVASIVENESS OF ISLAMIST EXTREMISM
Any Iraq exit strategy must recognize the pervasiveness of Islamist extremism
By Victor Davis Hanson
The threat from radical Islamist terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008.
...
Depending on how we leave Iraq, this global war against radical Islamist terrorism will either wax or wane. But it will hardly end.
Pertinent Links:
1) Any Iraq exit strategy must recognize the pervasiveness of Islamist extremism
By Victor Davis Hanson
The threat from radical Islamist terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008.
...
Depending on how we leave Iraq, this global war against radical Islamist terrorism will either wax or wane. But it will hardly end.
Pertinent Links:
1) Any Iraq exit strategy must recognize the pervasiveness of Islamist extremism
Thursday, March 22, 2007
V.D.H.: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON COMMENTS (AGAIN) ON THE FILM "300"
Fact or Fiction?
300 gets the big ideas right.
By Victor Davis Hanson
...
The film has actually been banned in Iran as hurtful American propaganda, as the theocracy suddenly is reclaiming its “infidel” ancient past.
But that good/bad contrast comes not from the director or Frank Miller, but is based on accounts from the Greeks themselves, who saw their own society as antithetical to the monarchy of imperial Persia.
True, 2,500 years ago, almost every society in the ancient Mediterranean world had slaves. And all relegated women to a relatively inferior position. Sparta turned the entire region of Messenia into a dependent serf state.
But in the Greek polis alone, there were elected governments, ranging from the constitutional oligarchy at Sparta to much broader-based voting in states like Athens and Thespiae.
Most importantly, only in Greece was there a constant tradition of unfettered expression and self-criticism. Aristophanes, Sophocles and Plato questioned the subordinate position of women. Alcidamas lamented the notion of slavery.
Such openness was found nowhere else in the ancient Mediterranean world. That freedom of expression explains why we rightly consider the ancient Greeks as the founders of our present Western civilization — and, as millions of moviegoers seem to sense, far more like us than the enemy who ultimately failed to conquer them.
You know that the movie hits on the truth when you have Iran squealing like a stuck pig...
Pertinent Links:
1) Fact or Fiction? 300 gets the big ideas right.
300 gets the big ideas right.
By Victor Davis Hanson
...
The film has actually been banned in Iran as hurtful American propaganda, as the theocracy suddenly is reclaiming its “infidel” ancient past.
But that good/bad contrast comes not from the director or Frank Miller, but is based on accounts from the Greeks themselves, who saw their own society as antithetical to the monarchy of imperial Persia.
True, 2,500 years ago, almost every society in the ancient Mediterranean world had slaves. And all relegated women to a relatively inferior position. Sparta turned the entire region of Messenia into a dependent serf state.
But in the Greek polis alone, there were elected governments, ranging from the constitutional oligarchy at Sparta to much broader-based voting in states like Athens and Thespiae.
Most importantly, only in Greece was there a constant tradition of unfettered expression and self-criticism. Aristophanes, Sophocles and Plato questioned the subordinate position of women. Alcidamas lamented the notion of slavery.
Such openness was found nowhere else in the ancient Mediterranean world. That freedom of expression explains why we rightly consider the ancient Greeks as the founders of our present Western civilization — and, as millions of moviegoers seem to sense, far more like us than the enemy who ultimately failed to conquer them.
You know that the movie hits on the truth when you have Iran squealing like a stuck pig...
Pertinent Links:
1) Fact or Fiction? 300 gets the big ideas right.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
V.D.H.: BLOOD & OIL
Blood and Oil
By Victor Davis Hanson
With the gruesome killing of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Vladimir Putin's Russia stands accused of poisoning yet another critic.
Meanwhile, Syria continues to mastermind the murders of Lebanese democrats. Israeli-free Gaza is as violent as ever. Hezbollah is busy replenishing its stock of Iranian missiles. The theocracy in Iran keeps promising an end to Israel. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is slowly strangling democracy in Latin America in a manner that an impoverished Fidel Castro never could.
And then, of course, there's Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's easy to think that all of this violent instability across the globe is unconnected. But, in fact, in one way or another, oil and its huge profits are at the bottom of a lot of it.
Islamic jihadists, fed from petrodollar wealth of the Middle East, have the cash to arm and plan operations from Baghdad and Kabul to Madrid and London. Thanks to oil, unhinged leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Chavez in Venezuela can stay in power (and demand the world's attention) despite policies that ultimately harm their people, ruin their economies and imperil their neighbors.
Russia, meanwhile, is essentially threatening Eastern Europe with energy cutbacks and reviving the old Soviet nuclear and arms industries. It's stirring up an already volatile Middle East by selling radical Islamists everything from nuclear reactors to high-tech anti-tank guns. President Bush may have seen, as he attests, something reassuring in the heart of President Putin. But Russia's new oil riches offer a fast track back to superpower status -- which we're already seeing them use to silence critics at home and abroad.
Furthermore, the global thirst for oil distorts interstate relations. Take the case of China. Its amoral foreign policy is aimed mostly at securing petroleum. Because Beijing is involved in long-term oil deals with Sudan, it's reluctant to join the West in pressuring the corrupt Sudanese government to cease the genocide in Darfur. (Of course, the West, beholden to China for economic reasons, is in turn reluctant to pressure China.) Similarly, China worries far more about getting its hands on Iran's oil than stopping its nuclear proliferation.
The U.S. is often subject to the same blackmail. Take away its need for imported oil and American officials long ago would have ceased visiting Saudi Arabia -- a monarchy based on sharia law and the cash nexus for Islamist madrassas and Wahhabi terrorism. Rather than appeasing a few hundred sheiks in the Gulf, American presidents -- both Democratic and Republican -- might have instead worried more about the poor millions slaughtered in Chad, Darfur, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
High-priced oil also warps the entire world's limited attention span. We hear daily about Israeli "occupation" in the Middle East because the oil-rich patrons of the Palestinians have sent their terrorists ample subsidies and in the past leveled oil embargoes to punish those sympathetic to Israel. Yet millions more people the world over have also lost land. We don't televise daily refugees from, say, Tibet or Cyprus, since their patrons have no ability to shut down global commerce.
The distortions caused by abrupt influxes of oil wealth have nearly turned upside down the once traditional and tribal Middle East. Sudden oil revenues prop up inefficient state-run economies, while ensuring that profits go to the few. Without democracy and free markets, the majority of impoverished Arabs lack access to their nation's treasure -- and blame foreigners for dealing only with their own elite who control the oil spigots and purse strings.
What money that does trickle down has been used for conspicuous consumption, not national investment -- as monarchs and dictators import consumer toys to pacify the disenchanted. In other societies, modernity came at a measured pace, but in the Middle East nomads and peasants have skipped the telegraph and headed straight to the camera cell phone. Of course, the poor "Arab street," tuned into satellite TV, blames the postmodern West for titillating its newfound appetites.
To remedy this mess, a good start would be to lower our own oil consumption, expand American production and diversify our energy sources with solar, nuclear and ethanol power and coal gasification. Only by taking these steps can America -- the most desperate of all oilaholics -- collapse the world price and thus erode the assets of our adversaries.
With a divided U.S. government and a slight dip in world prices, there is a window of opportunity. Democrats can ask for more mandated conservation and alternate energy; in exchange, Republicans can bargain for more drilling and nuclear power.
In World War II, an energy-independent United States bombed the oil fields of the Third Reich to stop Hitler's killing. Today a wartime but energy-hungry America is daily enriching our worst enemies.
Pertinent Links:
1) Blood & Oil
By Victor Davis Hanson
With the gruesome killing of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Vladimir Putin's Russia stands accused of poisoning yet another critic.
Meanwhile, Syria continues to mastermind the murders of Lebanese democrats. Israeli-free Gaza is as violent as ever. Hezbollah is busy replenishing its stock of Iranian missiles. The theocracy in Iran keeps promising an end to Israel. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is slowly strangling democracy in Latin America in a manner that an impoverished Fidel Castro never could.
And then, of course, there's Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's easy to think that all of this violent instability across the globe is unconnected. But, in fact, in one way or another, oil and its huge profits are at the bottom of a lot of it.
Islamic jihadists, fed from petrodollar wealth of the Middle East, have the cash to arm and plan operations from Baghdad and Kabul to Madrid and London. Thanks to oil, unhinged leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Chavez in Venezuela can stay in power (and demand the world's attention) despite policies that ultimately harm their people, ruin their economies and imperil their neighbors.
Russia, meanwhile, is essentially threatening Eastern Europe with energy cutbacks and reviving the old Soviet nuclear and arms industries. It's stirring up an already volatile Middle East by selling radical Islamists everything from nuclear reactors to high-tech anti-tank guns. President Bush may have seen, as he attests, something reassuring in the heart of President Putin. But Russia's new oil riches offer a fast track back to superpower status -- which we're already seeing them use to silence critics at home and abroad.
Furthermore, the global thirst for oil distorts interstate relations. Take the case of China. Its amoral foreign policy is aimed mostly at securing petroleum. Because Beijing is involved in long-term oil deals with Sudan, it's reluctant to join the West in pressuring the corrupt Sudanese government to cease the genocide in Darfur. (Of course, the West, beholden to China for economic reasons, is in turn reluctant to pressure China.) Similarly, China worries far more about getting its hands on Iran's oil than stopping its nuclear proliferation.
The U.S. is often subject to the same blackmail. Take away its need for imported oil and American officials long ago would have ceased visiting Saudi Arabia -- a monarchy based on sharia law and the cash nexus for Islamist madrassas and Wahhabi terrorism. Rather than appeasing a few hundred sheiks in the Gulf, American presidents -- both Democratic and Republican -- might have instead worried more about the poor millions slaughtered in Chad, Darfur, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
High-priced oil also warps the entire world's limited attention span. We hear daily about Israeli "occupation" in the Middle East because the oil-rich patrons of the Palestinians have sent their terrorists ample subsidies and in the past leveled oil embargoes to punish those sympathetic to Israel. Yet millions more people the world over have also lost land. We don't televise daily refugees from, say, Tibet or Cyprus, since their patrons have no ability to shut down global commerce.
The distortions caused by abrupt influxes of oil wealth have nearly turned upside down the once traditional and tribal Middle East. Sudden oil revenues prop up inefficient state-run economies, while ensuring that profits go to the few. Without democracy and free markets, the majority of impoverished Arabs lack access to their nation's treasure -- and blame foreigners for dealing only with their own elite who control the oil spigots and purse strings.
What money that does trickle down has been used for conspicuous consumption, not national investment -- as monarchs and dictators import consumer toys to pacify the disenchanted. In other societies, modernity came at a measured pace, but in the Middle East nomads and peasants have skipped the telegraph and headed straight to the camera cell phone. Of course, the poor "Arab street," tuned into satellite TV, blames the postmodern West for titillating its newfound appetites.
To remedy this mess, a good start would be to lower our own oil consumption, expand American production and diversify our energy sources with solar, nuclear and ethanol power and coal gasification. Only by taking these steps can America -- the most desperate of all oilaholics -- collapse the world price and thus erode the assets of our adversaries.
With a divided U.S. government and a slight dip in world prices, there is a window of opportunity. Democrats can ask for more mandated conservation and alternate energy; in exchange, Republicans can bargain for more drilling and nuclear power.
In World War II, an energy-independent United States bombed the oil fields of the Third Reich to stop Hitler's killing. Today a wartime but energy-hungry America is daily enriching our worst enemies.
Pertinent Links:
1) Blood & Oil
V.D.H.: NEVER WAS ENLIGHTENMENT SOLD OUT SO CHEAPLY
Losing the Enlightenment A civilization that has lost confidence in itself cannot confront the Islamists.
by Victor Davis Hanson
Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.
But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.
No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.
What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking--won at such a great personal cost--to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism?
Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats--and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge--although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.
And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires.
...
We on this side of Atlantic also are showing different symptoms of this same Western malaise, but more likely through heated rhetoric than complacent indifference--given the events of September 11 that galvanized many, while disappointing liberals that past appeasement had created monsters rather than mere confused, if not dangerous rivals. The war on terror has turned out to be the torn scab that has exposed a deep wound beneath, of an endemic Western self-loathing--and near mania that our own superior education and material wealth have not eliminated altogether the need for force and coercion.
Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians of the Democratic Party. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller insists that the world would be better off if Saddam were still running Iraq. Congressman John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, rushed to announce that our Marines were guilty of killing Iraqis in "cold blood" before they were tried. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has compared our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and mass murderers, while Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said our soldiers have "terrorized" Iraqi women and children. The same John Kerry warned young Americans to study or they would end up in the volunteer army in Iraq--even though today's soldiers have higher educational levels than does the general public. But furor as well as fear, not logic, drives us in West to seek blame among the humane among us rather than the savagery of our enemies.
Billionaire leftist philanthropists seem to be confused about the nature of American society and politics that gave them everything they so sumptuously enjoy. Ted Turner of CNN fame and fortune said he resented President Bush asking Americans, after 9/11, to take sides in our war against Islamic terrorists. George Soros claimed that President Bush had improved on Nazi propaganda methods. Dreaming of killing an elected president, not a mass-murdering Osama Bin Laden, is a new national pastime. That is the theme of both a recent docudrama film and an Alfred Knopf book.
What are the proximate causes here in America that send liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria? Is it only that George Bush is a singular polarizing figure of Christian and Texan demeanor? Or is the current left-wing savagery also a legacy of the tribal 1960s, when out-of-power protestors felt that expressions of speaking bluntly, even crudely, were at least preferable to "artificial" cultural restraint?
Or does the anger stem from the fact, that until last week, the Democrats had not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration--that without scandal or an unpopular war they cannot so easily gain a national majority based on European-based beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism--these liberal issues, at least for the moment, still don't tend to resonate with most Americans and so must be masked by opponents' scandals or overshadowed by a controversial war.
Just as the Europeans are stunned that their heaven on earth has left them weak and afraid, so too millions of Americans on the Left are angry that their own promised moral utopia is not so welcomed by the supposedly less educated and bright among them. But still, what drives Westerners, here and in Europe, to demand that we must be perfect rather than merely good, and to lament that if we are not perfect we are then abjectly bad--and always to be so unable to define and then defend their civilization against its most elemental enemies?
There has of course always been a utopian strain in both Western thought from the time of Plato's "Republic" and the practice of state socialism. But the technological explosion of the last 20 years has made life so long and so good, that many now believe our mastery of nature must extend to human nature as well. A society that can call anywhere in the world on a cell phone, must just as easily end war, poverty, or unhappiness, as if these pathologies are strictly materially caused, not impoverishments of the soul, and thus can be materially treated.
Second, education must now be, like our machines, ever more ambitious, teaching us not merely facts of the past, science of the future, and the tools to question, and discover truth, but rather a particular, a right way of thinking, as money and learning are pledged to change human nature itself. In such a world, mere ignorance has replaced evil as our challenge, and thus the bad can at last be taught away rather than confronted and destroyed.
Third, there has always been a cynical strain as well, as one can read in Petronius's "Satyricon" or Voltaire's "Candide." But our loss of faith in ourselves is now more nihilistic than sarcastic or skeptical, once the restraints of family, religion, popular culture, and public shame disappear. Ever more insulated by our material things from danger, we lack all appreciation of the eternal thin veneer of civilization.
We especially ignore among us those who work each day to keep nature and the darker angels of our own nature at bay. This new obtuseness revolves around a certain mocking by elites of why we have what we have. Instead of appreciating that millions get up at 5 a.m., work at rote jobs, and live proverbial lives of quiet desperation, we tend to laugh at the schlock of Wal-Mart, not admire its amazing ability to bring the veneer of real material prosperity to the poor.
We can praise the architect for our necessary bridge, but demonize the franchise that sold fast and safe food to the harried workers who built it. We hear about a necessary hearing aid, but despise the art of the glossy advertisement that gives the information to purchase it. And we think the soldier funny in his desert camouflage and Kevlar, a loser who drew poorly in the American lottery and so ended up in Iraq--our most privileged never acknowledging that such men with guns are the only bulwark between us and the present day forces of the Dark Ages with their Kalashnikovs and suicide belts.
So we are on dangerous ground. History gives evidence of no civilization that survived long as purely secular and without a god, that put its trust in reason alone, and believed human nature was subject to radical improvement given enough capital and learning invested in the endeavor. The failure of our elites to amplify their traditions they received, and to believe them to be not merely different but far better than the alternatives, is also a symptom of crisis in all societies of the past, whether Demosthenes' Athens, late imperial Rome, 18th-century France, or Western Europe of the 1920s. Nothing is worse that an elite that demands egalitarianism for others but ensures privilege for itself. And rarely, we know, are civilization's suicides a result of the influence of too many of the poor rather than of the wealthy.
...
So let me quote Winston Churchill of old about the gift of our present ordeal:
"These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived."
Pertinent Links:
1) Losing the Enlightenment
by Victor Davis Hanson
Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.
But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.
No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.
What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking--won at such a great personal cost--to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism?
Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats--and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge--although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.
And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires.
...
We on this side of Atlantic also are showing different symptoms of this same Western malaise, but more likely through heated rhetoric than complacent indifference--given the events of September 11 that galvanized many, while disappointing liberals that past appeasement had created monsters rather than mere confused, if not dangerous rivals. The war on terror has turned out to be the torn scab that has exposed a deep wound beneath, of an endemic Western self-loathing--and near mania that our own superior education and material wealth have not eliminated altogether the need for force and coercion.
Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians of the Democratic Party. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller insists that the world would be better off if Saddam were still running Iraq. Congressman John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, rushed to announce that our Marines were guilty of killing Iraqis in "cold blood" before they were tried. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has compared our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and mass murderers, while Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said our soldiers have "terrorized" Iraqi women and children. The same John Kerry warned young Americans to study or they would end up in the volunteer army in Iraq--even though today's soldiers have higher educational levels than does the general public. But furor as well as fear, not logic, drives us in West to seek blame among the humane among us rather than the savagery of our enemies.
Billionaire leftist philanthropists seem to be confused about the nature of American society and politics that gave them everything they so sumptuously enjoy. Ted Turner of CNN fame and fortune said he resented President Bush asking Americans, after 9/11, to take sides in our war against Islamic terrorists. George Soros claimed that President Bush had improved on Nazi propaganda methods. Dreaming of killing an elected president, not a mass-murdering Osama Bin Laden, is a new national pastime. That is the theme of both a recent docudrama film and an Alfred Knopf book.
What are the proximate causes here in America that send liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria? Is it only that George Bush is a singular polarizing figure of Christian and Texan demeanor? Or is the current left-wing savagery also a legacy of the tribal 1960s, when out-of-power protestors felt that expressions of speaking bluntly, even crudely, were at least preferable to "artificial" cultural restraint?
Or does the anger stem from the fact, that until last week, the Democrats had not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration--that without scandal or an unpopular war they cannot so easily gain a national majority based on European-based beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism--these liberal issues, at least for the moment, still don't tend to resonate with most Americans and so must be masked by opponents' scandals or overshadowed by a controversial war.
Just as the Europeans are stunned that their heaven on earth has left them weak and afraid, so too millions of Americans on the Left are angry that their own promised moral utopia is not so welcomed by the supposedly less educated and bright among them. But still, what drives Westerners, here and in Europe, to demand that we must be perfect rather than merely good, and to lament that if we are not perfect we are then abjectly bad--and always to be so unable to define and then defend their civilization against its most elemental enemies?
There has of course always been a utopian strain in both Western thought from the time of Plato's "Republic" and the practice of state socialism. But the technological explosion of the last 20 years has made life so long and so good, that many now believe our mastery of nature must extend to human nature as well. A society that can call anywhere in the world on a cell phone, must just as easily end war, poverty, or unhappiness, as if these pathologies are strictly materially caused, not impoverishments of the soul, and thus can be materially treated.
Second, education must now be, like our machines, ever more ambitious, teaching us not merely facts of the past, science of the future, and the tools to question, and discover truth, but rather a particular, a right way of thinking, as money and learning are pledged to change human nature itself. In such a world, mere ignorance has replaced evil as our challenge, and thus the bad can at last be taught away rather than confronted and destroyed.
Third, there has always been a cynical strain as well, as one can read in Petronius's "Satyricon" or Voltaire's "Candide." But our loss of faith in ourselves is now more nihilistic than sarcastic or skeptical, once the restraints of family, religion, popular culture, and public shame disappear. Ever more insulated by our material things from danger, we lack all appreciation of the eternal thin veneer of civilization.
We especially ignore among us those who work each day to keep nature and the darker angels of our own nature at bay. This new obtuseness revolves around a certain mocking by elites of why we have what we have. Instead of appreciating that millions get up at 5 a.m., work at rote jobs, and live proverbial lives of quiet desperation, we tend to laugh at the schlock of Wal-Mart, not admire its amazing ability to bring the veneer of real material prosperity to the poor.
We can praise the architect for our necessary bridge, but demonize the franchise that sold fast and safe food to the harried workers who built it. We hear about a necessary hearing aid, but despise the art of the glossy advertisement that gives the information to purchase it. And we think the soldier funny in his desert camouflage and Kevlar, a loser who drew poorly in the American lottery and so ended up in Iraq--our most privileged never acknowledging that such men with guns are the only bulwark between us and the present day forces of the Dark Ages with their Kalashnikovs and suicide belts.
So we are on dangerous ground. History gives evidence of no civilization that survived long as purely secular and without a god, that put its trust in reason alone, and believed human nature was subject to radical improvement given enough capital and learning invested in the endeavor. The failure of our elites to amplify their traditions they received, and to believe them to be not merely different but far better than the alternatives, is also a symptom of crisis in all societies of the past, whether Demosthenes' Athens, late imperial Rome, 18th-century France, or Western Europe of the 1920s. Nothing is worse that an elite that demands egalitarianism for others but ensures privilege for itself. And rarely, we know, are civilization's suicides a result of the influence of too many of the poor rather than of the wealthy.
...
So let me quote Winston Churchill of old about the gift of our present ordeal:
"These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived."
Pertinent Links:
1) Losing the Enlightenment
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
V.D.H.: EUROPE IS FAILING
Losing the Enlightenment
by Victor Davis Hanson
Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.
But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.
No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.
What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking--won at such a great personal cost--to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism?
Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats--and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge--although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.
And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) Losing the Enlightenment
by Victor Davis Hanson
Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium.
But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse.
No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East.
What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking--won at such a great personal cost--to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism?
Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats--and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge--although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.
And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) Losing the Enlightenment
Saturday, October 14, 2006
V.D.H.: OUR STRATEGY v THE ENEMIES' STRATEGY
Do We Have a Strategy in the War?
Yes, and a multifaceted one, at that.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Against the terrorists, our strategy is a six-pronged approach:
1. Beef up security to such a degree at home that it would require far more training and expertise to penetrate our defenses than what was necessary for the September 11 attacks;
2. Arrest, imprison, and kill enough Islamic terrorists in the United States and abroad to make it nearly impossible for them to carry off another September 11-like attack;
3. Take out the worst authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that sponsored terrorism and attacked their neighbors, while pressuring others like a Saudi Arabia and Egypt to cease funding terrorists;
4. Support the creation of democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon to offer Muslims choices other than autocracy or Islamic radicalism, while trying to encourage reform in the Middle East at large;
5. Wage a worldwide war of ideas that frames the struggle as the freedom of the individual, liberal values, and Western economic prosperity against the Dark-Age nihilism of the world of the caliphate and Sharia law;
6. Hope that while our enemies’ world is static, ours is not. In other words, while they endlessly redefine the 7th century, we use reason and science to wean us off dependency on their oil, seek sophisticated missile-defense systems, and hope instant global communications (which also facilitate their televised beheadings) can undermine their entire hierarchical society of imams and patriarchs.
...
But what of our enemies’ present strategy?
Since they cannot defeat Western forces directly, nor offer anyone the prosperity or freedom of the West, they have been reduced to essentially two approaches: first, on the frontlines, make life miserable for all Muslim civilians and third parties to this war, so that, in their exasperation, our newfound democratic friends in Kabul and Baghdad might ask us to give up, and leave things as they once were before the latest round of violence.
Second, recycle the arguments of global critics to demoralize the Western public into thinking that their own governments are worse than the radical Islamists, and hence they should quit the struggle.
...
our enemies likewise see a war of ideas. In the infomercials of bin Laden and Zawahiri, as well as other Islamists who use the Middle East media, both the Arab and Western world are reminded of America’s sins. And our errors are not just fighting Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq, or supporting Israel, but include, according to the al Qaeda communiqués, everything from not signing the Kyoto accords to the lack of campaign finance reform, East Timor, the Patriot Act, Halliburton, and the usual generic charges of racism and imperialism.
That these ostensibly leftist critiques are mouthed by Middle East fascists, and are made from the shamelessly recycled material of a Michael Moore or a Noam Chomsky, matters little, since the aim is not really conversion of Westerners to Islam, but an insidious weakening of the Western spirit of resistance.
...
So the uncertainty is not whether the United States has a sound strategy in this long struggle against savage enemies of the Dark Ages — we have many wise ones — but rather whether we still have the will or the desire to see the war through to the bitter end.
Pertinent Links:
1) Do We Have a Strategy in the War?
Yes, and a multifaceted one, at that.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Against the terrorists, our strategy is a six-pronged approach:
1. Beef up security to such a degree at home that it would require far more training and expertise to penetrate our defenses than what was necessary for the September 11 attacks;
2. Arrest, imprison, and kill enough Islamic terrorists in the United States and abroad to make it nearly impossible for them to carry off another September 11-like attack;
3. Take out the worst authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that sponsored terrorism and attacked their neighbors, while pressuring others like a Saudi Arabia and Egypt to cease funding terrorists;
4. Support the creation of democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon to offer Muslims choices other than autocracy or Islamic radicalism, while trying to encourage reform in the Middle East at large;
5. Wage a worldwide war of ideas that frames the struggle as the freedom of the individual, liberal values, and Western economic prosperity against the Dark-Age nihilism of the world of the caliphate and Sharia law;
6. Hope that while our enemies’ world is static, ours is not. In other words, while they endlessly redefine the 7th century, we use reason and science to wean us off dependency on their oil, seek sophisticated missile-defense systems, and hope instant global communications (which also facilitate their televised beheadings) can undermine their entire hierarchical society of imams and patriarchs.
...
But what of our enemies’ present strategy?
Since they cannot defeat Western forces directly, nor offer anyone the prosperity or freedom of the West, they have been reduced to essentially two approaches: first, on the frontlines, make life miserable for all Muslim civilians and third parties to this war, so that, in their exasperation, our newfound democratic friends in Kabul and Baghdad might ask us to give up, and leave things as they once were before the latest round of violence.
Second, recycle the arguments of global critics to demoralize the Western public into thinking that their own governments are worse than the radical Islamists, and hence they should quit the struggle.
...
our enemies likewise see a war of ideas. In the infomercials of bin Laden and Zawahiri, as well as other Islamists who use the Middle East media, both the Arab and Western world are reminded of America’s sins. And our errors are not just fighting Muslims in Afghanistan or Iraq, or supporting Israel, but include, according to the al Qaeda communiqués, everything from not signing the Kyoto accords to the lack of campaign finance reform, East Timor, the Patriot Act, Halliburton, and the usual generic charges of racism and imperialism.
That these ostensibly leftist critiques are mouthed by Middle East fascists, and are made from the shamelessly recycled material of a Michael Moore or a Noam Chomsky, matters little, since the aim is not really conversion of Westerners to Islam, but an insidious weakening of the Western spirit of resistance.
...
So the uncertainty is not whether the United States has a sound strategy in this long struggle against savage enemies of the Dark Ages — we have many wise ones — but rather whether we still have the will or the desire to see the war through to the bitter end.
Pertinent Links:
1) Do We Have a Strategy in the War?
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
VDH: A NEW ANTI-SEMITISM
Anti-Semitism fueled by radical Islamists, Western indifference
by Victor Davis Hanson
Hating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.
Anti-Semitism, after World War II, often avoided the burning crosses and Nazi ranting. It often appeared as a more subtle animosity, fueled by envy of successful Jews in the West. ''The good people, the nice people'' often were the culprits, according to a character in the 1947 film ''Gentleman's Agreement,'' which dealt with the American aristocracy's social shunning of Jews.
A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners.
Those who randomly shoot Jews for being Jews - whether at a Jewish center in Seattle or at synagogues in Istanbul - are for the large part Muslim zealots. Most in the West explain away the violence. They chalk it up to anger over the endless tit-for-tat in the Middle East. Yet privately they know that we do not see violent Jews shooting Muslims in the United States or Europe.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) Anti-Semitism fueled by radical Islamists, Western indifference
by Victor Davis Hanson
Hating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.
Anti-Semitism, after World War II, often avoided the burning crosses and Nazi ranting. It often appeared as a more subtle animosity, fueled by envy of successful Jews in the West. ''The good people, the nice people'' often were the culprits, according to a character in the 1947 film ''Gentleman's Agreement,'' which dealt with the American aristocracy's social shunning of Jews.
A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners.
Those who randomly shoot Jews for being Jews - whether at a Jewish center in Seattle or at synagogues in Istanbul - are for the large part Muslim zealots. Most in the West explain away the violence. They chalk it up to anger over the endless tit-for-tat in the Middle East. Yet privately they know that we do not see violent Jews shooting Muslims in the United States or Europe.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) Anti-Semitism fueled by radical Islamists, Western indifference
Friday, September 08, 2006
V.D.H.: ISLAMIC FASCISM, YES IT IS ISLAMIC FASCISM.
It's Fascism -- And It's Islamic
By Victor Davis Hanson
"George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive.
…
Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to kill any American they could find, and then tried to fulfill that vow on Sept. 11. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah bragged that "the Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them" - and then started a war. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promises to "wipe out" Israel, and is seeking the nuclear means to do so.
Sharia law and dreams of pan-Islamic global rule fuel their ambitions.
…
Islamic fascism is also anti-democratic and characteristically reactionary.
…
Anti-Semitism is a tenet of fascism, then and now. But so is a generic hatred for unbelievers, homosexuals and blacks. The latter are slurred in the Arab media, while homosexuals were rounded up under the Taliban and the Iranian mullacracy.
"Mein Kampf" sells well under its translated title "Jihadi."
…
The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam.
…
the fuzzy "war on terror" is the real inexact usage. The United States has never fought against an enemy's tools - such as German submarines or the Soviet KGB - but only against those who employ them. Other groups today use terror - like narco-dealers and Basque separatists - but this war at this time is not against them.
The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies."
These views are NOT extreme, unless he is saying that the Qur'an is itself extreme, because what the terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Nasrallah & Ahmadinejad (amongst others) are saying/espousing is not contrary to the Qur'an/Sunnah/Hadiths…
The terrorist themselves are yet the best & most accurate emulators of the prophet (if & that is a gianormous IF he was actually a prophet and not a murderous pedophile, rapist, child abuser, devil & rock god worshipper) mohammad.
VDH is correct in saying that the "war on terror" is inaccurate and that terror itself is a tool.
To this day the United States of America has failed to properly identify the enemy. Let me state here, now and explicitly:
THE ENEMY IS ISLAM, MOSLEMS ARE ITS AGENTS
But out of the entire article, what he says in the last paragraph is more right then it is wrong:
The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies.
He is right, this reaction demonstrates the WEAKNESS OF THE WEST…
OUR WEAKNESS = THE ENEMIES STRENGTH
"Shari`ah
The Arabic word shari`ah refers to the laws and way of life prescribed by Allah (SWT) for his servants. The shari`ah deals with the ideology and faith; behavior and manners; and practical daily matters. "To each among you, we have prescribed a law and a clear way. (Qur 'an 5:48) Shari`ah includes the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saas). The Qur'an is the direct word of Allah (SWT), and is the first most important source of guidance and rulings. The Sunnah of the Prophet (saas) is the second source of guidance and rulings. The sunnah is an inspiration from Allah (SWT), but relayed to us through the words and actions of the Prophet (saas), and his concurrence with others' actions. The sunnah confirmed the rulings of the Qur'an; detailed some of the concepts, laws and practical matters which are briefly stated in the Qur'an (e.g. definition of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan, details of salah, types of usury); and gave some rulings regarding matters not explicitly stated in the Qur'an (e.g. wearing silk clothes for men)."
Pertinent Links:
1) It's Fascism -- And It's Islamic
2) Introduction to Shari'ah
By Victor Davis Hanson
"George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive.
…
Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to kill any American they could find, and then tried to fulfill that vow on Sept. 11. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah bragged that "the Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them" - and then started a war. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promises to "wipe out" Israel, and is seeking the nuclear means to do so.
Sharia law and dreams of pan-Islamic global rule fuel their ambitions.
…
Islamic fascism is also anti-democratic and characteristically reactionary.
…
Anti-Semitism is a tenet of fascism, then and now. But so is a generic hatred for unbelievers, homosexuals and blacks. The latter are slurred in the Arab media, while homosexuals were rounded up under the Taliban and the Iranian mullacracy.
"Mein Kampf" sells well under its translated title "Jihadi."
…
The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam.
…
the fuzzy "war on terror" is the real inexact usage. The United States has never fought against an enemy's tools - such as German submarines or the Soviet KGB - but only against those who employ them. Other groups today use terror - like narco-dealers and Basque separatists - but this war at this time is not against them.
The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies."
Once again VDH hits a homerun, but I do disagree with VDH when he makes the following statement:
The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam.
These views are NOT extreme, unless he is saying that the Qur'an is itself extreme, because what the terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Nasrallah & Ahmadinejad (amongst others) are saying/espousing is not contrary to the Qur'an/Sunnah/Hadiths…
The terrorist themselves are yet the best & most accurate emulators of the prophet (if & that is a gianormous IF he was actually a prophet and not a murderous pedophile, rapist, child abuser, devil & rock god worshipper) mohammad.
VDH is correct in saying that the "war on terror" is inaccurate and that terror itself is a tool.
To this day the United States of America has failed to properly identify the enemy. Let me state here, now and explicitly:
THE ENEMY IS ISLAM, MOSLEMS ARE ITS AGENTS
But out of the entire article, what he says in the last paragraph is more right then it is wrong:
The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies.
He is right, this reaction demonstrates the WEAKNESS OF THE WEST…
OUR WEAKNESS = THE ENEMIES STRENGTH
"Shari`ah
The Arabic word shari`ah refers to the laws and way of life prescribed by Allah (SWT) for his servants. The shari`ah deals with the ideology and faith; behavior and manners; and practical daily matters. "To each among you, we have prescribed a law and a clear way. (Qur 'an 5:48) Shari`ah includes the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saas). The Qur'an is the direct word of Allah (SWT), and is the first most important source of guidance and rulings. The Sunnah of the Prophet (saas) is the second source of guidance and rulings. The sunnah is an inspiration from Allah (SWT), but relayed to us through the words and actions of the Prophet (saas), and his concurrence with others' actions. The sunnah confirmed the rulings of the Qur'an; detailed some of the concepts, laws and practical matters which are briefly stated in the Qur'an (e.g. definition of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan, details of salah, types of usury); and gave some rulings regarding matters not explicitly stated in the Qur'an (e.g. wearing silk clothes for men)."
Pertinent Links:
1) It's Fascism -- And It's Islamic
2) Introduction to Shari'ah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
