Rules are sometimes difficult to follow. I’ve broken my share and I’ve been everything from ashamed and embarrassed to humiliated for doing so. But, you live and learn. Or so, that’s the plan.
What would your life be like and what would the ultimate penalty be if , for some reason, you just couldn’t play by the rules? You just couldn’t go along with the program? Just weren’t able to color inside the lines? Just plain refused to submit to authority?
The obvious answer would be in prison or dead. That seems to be the remedy that’s universal, either lock ‘em up or you die at the hand of the state executioner, a fellow law-breaker or your own. Not a lot of other options that I can see.
But, what if you were convinced that whatever action you decided upon had the express approval of your friends, associates, family and God himself? What if there were no need to fear death? What if a violent death was the first step on the road to paradise, the beginning of an eternity full of pleasure and joy you can only imagine, one of total satisfaction, delectation and contentment?
What if your memory would be preserved and you were given a holy status among those you left behind, and the assurance that others whom you knew would be joining you soon? What if ridding the world of those who are enemies of your faith, and killing as many of them as you could when you go, would guarantee the highest reward available? Hey, it’s all right there in the book!
How could you resist? How could you put off such bliss?
How could you be so stupid? Who would believe your own death helped anyone else? Who would rather die than live? Who would even think this kind of fairy tale was real? More importantly, who would brainwash a young man or woman to believe, and act, on this chicanery? Who would ask their child to die for a political cause dressed up as a religious one? Well, no need to look very far.
One thing this world has is a vast surplus of warm bodies that believe Islam is to dominate and be spread throughout the world and if that means they must die to give that idea life, they will.
No amount of force, threat, promise or pander will dissuade the zealous. They are on a mission, a mission that may take a long, long time. One thing fundamentalist jihadis have is time, and in general, are a very youthful group replenished at a thriving rate.
And most important, they have the will.
It seems there are those in America who would shoot the nation in the foot while an effort is being made to reduce this threat. There are those that seek to prevent the full measure of force from being brought to bear. There are those who would run, hide and pretend things will work out happily ever after if we only dodge the issue or blame someone else because they haven’t solved the problem. There are an even larger group of Americans who imagine that this isn’t a problem at all.
When you don’t know what to do, and you do nothing, you invite others to make decisions for you.
The others in this case would end your need to decide for yourself forever.
February 8, 2007 at 6:25 am
“No amount of force, threat, promise or pander will dissuade the zealous.” I’m reminded of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan debacle in U.S. ice skating…Tonya ended up being despised and ostracized…Kerrigan became “America’s Sweetheart.”
We may not want to be the world’s sweetheart…but if we stoop to the same tactics as terrorists (kidnapping, torture, executions without meting justice in a humane and fitting manner) how are we any better than them?
It is the duty of a warrior to conquer his enemies while maintaining his honor, or else each victory attained on the battlefield will invariably be followed by long-term defeat through the revelations of misconduct in the reflections of the peace afterward.
Stalin is remembered most for his treachery and disdain for his population, even in wartime, and not for defeating the Nazis or saving Russia from certain doom.
February 8, 2007 at 8:46 am
Stalin killed some ten million people (at least) in his gulags. That’s a far, far cry from anything the US is doing or will ever do.
One of the many problems with Islam is that it encourages jihad by removing earthly pleasures. Women are in burquas; alcohol is forbidden; generally, being a Muslim is not a good time. By making Earth a deprived place and creating a very sensual paradise, Muslilms recruit suicide bombers (and others) by making it the ONLY road to a physically satisfying existance. In Paradise, the ban on alcohol is lifted and those who die for Allah receive their 72 virgins.
(I know that people will say that Christians do the same thing – but there is no alcohol ban in most sects of Christianity and physical pleasure is considered to be an integral part of marriage. One need not die for the Lord to obtain it.)
This is really one of the few times that Western debauchery could be a good thing for a culture.
February 8, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Greetings
I’m surprised at your stance on this issue. You just don’t understand the plight of the downtrodden you insensitive brute. Don’t you know that Muslims deserve to take any land they want if for no other reason than the intolerance and discrimination that they have suffer… Don’t you ever watch Oprah??? :-)
Sorry, just kidding. What I really wanted to address is the statement by Jeremiasx about how we should not stoop to the same level as the terrorist or we would be no better than them. The luxury of this type of thinking is easy in the privacy and safety of your home, but if you had to actually face the threat in person I’m sure you would stoop to any level necessary to avoid being the one carried off in a body bag.
February 8, 2007 at 1:58 pm
What you said is true. The problem with the majority of present day Muslims is that they are divided into different sects and Sunni Shias are the main factions.
The problem is these people who wanted to implemented their version of Islam are following the hearsay interpreting the Qur’an message with man written book which are called Hadiths (sayings of Prophet Muhammad) exactly same as Talmud of Judaism.
There are many Scholars who are trying to bring back these Sunni Shia to the message of Qur’an which has become so difficult task because these Hadiths are so deeply rooted from last 1200 years that it has become the mandatory part of religion instead of following the simple message of peace and tolerance.
There is no such command in Qur’an where it says to implement Islamic system by force. There are very clear commands where Muslims are instructed to respect all the other religious beliefs and that there is no compulsion in religion.
The problem I face when talking to most learned scholars is that they ignore these clear commands by brining up some fabricated hadith.
The process for change is already started which will take a very long time when it started showing up in Sunni Shias sectarian groups.
The other problem is that Bush is fighting his “war on terror” with very wrong approach. This will not work. It is creating more “terrorists” and given new heights of popularity to Osama Bin Laden.
February 8, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Perhaps you are refering to the terrorists?
Or perhaps you are advocating passing out brown shirts, identifying the evil amoung us with arm bands – or chip implants, rounding up the anti-christs in camps, using all full force and measures to exterminate the threat,
It is not 2007 it is 1984.
It is not 1984 it is 1933.
and you will tell us what to believe?
February 8, 2007 at 4:00 pm
http://afterechoes.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/the-israel-enigma/
February 8, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Hi Jeremias,
It’s true.
Equaling the treachery and barbarism of the enemy seperates us from the illusion of being the good guys, at least to a degree.
Thanks.
February 8, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Hi Bromo,
Excellent point. An often neglected component of creating willing suicide bombers is the excedingly sexual motivation and the seriously penalized participation in worldly pleasures. Deprivation is a great tool.
Christians, on the other hand, are admonished to forego anything that would reflect poorly on Christ and the gospel or damage the body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
A fair bit of difference I think between the two.
Thanks!
February 8, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Hi LC,
Point taken.
I would probably, in an instant, disregard a lifetime of learning and attempting to practice civility and sacrifice for others and save my own skin before another could put a hole in mine.
And I keep in the front of my mind that I’m priveleged to be able to sit in comfort and make my views known with this wonderful medium. I’m learning both to enjoy the experience and that most peole don’t care what I think, so lighten up.
Thanks for stopping by..
February 8, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Hi QB,
I hadn’t realized that your something of an apologist for Islam and that “moderate” muslims had your full support.
Although I see the details differently, it would be a great thing if there were Imams around the globe who could reel in terror cells, “civil liberty” organizations and fellow Imams who incite violence and indiscriminate murder worldwide.
I don’t think the extreme level of death and destruction committed by muslims around the globe were directed to do this damage by a private interpretation of the Quran. Mohammed himself commanded military attacks on unbelievers and participated in leading some battles as well. The historical evidence prevents me from accepting the “religion of peace” label.
I agree that an anachronistic military solution to a fundamentalist religio/political threat, willing to commit suicide to reach it’s ends, probably won’t work.
Believing that whatever happens in this world, God either makes it happen or allows it to happen allows me to have a little peace of mind.
Thanks for your views, please feel free to comment anytime.
February 8, 2007 at 5:43 pm
LOL. Apologist for Islam. Thanks for giving this new label. Speaking truth is the only way I know without any spin. You really did not understand my comments at all.
Have a nice day!!! Am out.
February 8, 2007 at 6:04 pm
QB,
I think I understood every point you made, I just think there’s a high level of wishful thinking that accompanys your effort to bring muslims to their senses. Maybe apologist was the wrong word to use.
I also am unable to boil down Islam to simply a tolerant and peaceful religion that’s been hijacked by extremists or subverted by using supplemental ahistorical documents. The Hadith is indispensible in understanding an often incoherent Quran.
Surely you know that because of your study.
Sorry If I offended you. That was not my intention.
February 9, 2007 at 12:21 am
Christians are also not tempted with Paradise, if you will. It’s not like they get pleasures in Heaven (or are allowed to desecrate their bodies) in ways that they cannot on earth.
~Bridget
February 9, 2007 at 1:40 am
Yet another post and thread that has disolved into a religious justification for war, carnage, hypocracy and nonsense. The U.S. initiated this war and occupation to protect and control oil interests. Not to induce religious ferment here in the west or the east. Blood hungry religious-incensed extremists (on both sides) are directing America away from the real issue.
How about cutting through the bull, getting to the point and declaring a war on big-oil? Or are we all too worried about our precious S.U.V.s?
I guess “we” enjoy the role of sunday afternoon quarter back while relaxing in the warmth of our oil heated homes too much to get to the real issue. How long will it take us to see the truth?
We are getting much too far away from the issue. We are playing into the hands of big-oil and their interests. Can’t we stop arguing with each other and get on with solving the real problem – an addiction to oil that is causing unjustifiable murder on both sides. There is no time like the present.
February 9, 2007 at 2:13 am
Ah, Lone Ranger, always with the oil. I drive a Honda Civic (35 mpg – woo hoo!), so am I a good guy or a bad guy in your book?
Seriously, how do you feel about nuclear energy? Seems like the next best thing, unless you want a world dictator forcing people to use less oil.
That is an interesting take on Muslim’s pent-up desires, as well as the incongruity of things being evil and this life yet good in the next. Christianity is certainly more consistent in that respect.
February 9, 2007 at 3:00 am
Neil- No good guys or bad guys in my opinion Neil. Just public advocation or acquiescence. You for instance, with your passion, intelligence and ability to see many sides of issues make a great advocate.
All I am saying is we should leave religion to the scholars and leave it out of this war. It has no place here. I feel as though religion is being misconstrude and misinterpreted where it need not be.
But just for your info. I sold the car and started walking two years ago. lol
Nuclear is an option. I tend to advocate hydro and tidal for the big production though. They could do just as much and more than nuclear ever could and you don’t have to worry about dealing with the spent fuel.
And sure, what’s wrong with electing an enviro-despot for a couple terms and then kicking the green/socialist bah-stad out of office when we’re through with ‘em?
February 9, 2007 at 3:06 am
They hydro seems like a cool solution (I’ve wondered about that when admiring the power of the ocean), but I’ve never read anything about how it could be put into practice.
No vehicle?! Good for you. Do you live in a big city?
February 9, 2007 at 3:21 am
Neil, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power
The provence of New Brunswick has plans to construct a tidal dam in the Bay of Fundy.
I was lucky to enough to get a job in the small city of Halifax where I can walk to work and pretty much everywhere else I need to go. But I made the choice of accepting a job here. And the ability to use bi-pedal locomotion instead of the mazada for everyday movement was a major factor in that decision.
February 9, 2007 at 4:04 am
Cool, thanks!
That’s got to save some big $$$ not having a car.
February 9, 2007 at 6:17 am
Well, icps, it’s a nice surprise to find you talking some solid good sense on your own site, instead of hurling cheap semi-literate abuse at us poor benighted Europeans over on Jose’s.
Of course something drastic has to be done about militant Islam – a primitive, anti-modern throwback to the dark ages. The trouble is, Bush & Co. decided to do THE WRONG THING, and have made matters much worse globally than they were before. As is clear from earlier comments on this post, neither domestic nor overseas critics of US policy are “anti-American”: they are desperate to get the USA back on-side and stop blundering around the Middle East like a half-demented pitbull. You can’t export democracy at the end of a gun. It’s a daft idea.
February 9, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Hi anti,
I prefer to think of my commentary as “petulant sulking” rather than “cheap semi-literate abuse”.
Nothing can be done about Islam.
Islam isn’t in the middle east anymore, it’s in London, Paris, Brussels, Chicago, Miami and New York.
A fundamentalist Islamist is never more than a few hundred dollars and a matter of hours from any terror cell in the world.
On any given day,Mohammed Ra could strap on his suicide belt, make his way to a local restaraunt, take out a few dozen infidels and himself,then have his way with a couple of virgins by lunch.
And with muslim migration worldwide, there’s pleanty of muslim activity to blend into.
Couple that with government capitulation, the total assimiliation of western PC manipulation including victim hood, “islamophobia”, “discrimination”, “civil liberties”, these people learned to get over using the system pretty damned fast.
The Islamic “reformatiion” has happened, and it is jihad, allowed by weak socialized nanny states and gutless politicians.
At least Bush wanted to go down fighting.
Get the women in your life burqas. There gonna need ‘em.
I suppose you and your pals, using the French model of negotiation, are proud of calling for total abdication to medieval psychotics.
I,for one, am not.
February 10, 2007 at 7:51 am
I see you have deleted my post, which is not surprising really.
February 10, 2007 at 11:07 am
Pardon me. Being somewhat Roman by nature, I would prefer a noble suicide to submitting to Islamic dhimmitude – and that of a woman. No burqa necessary.
I also hope for poetic justice for suicide bombers – a Satre-esque afterlife with 72 virgins, all of whom are Andrea Dworkin. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
February 10, 2007 at 3:11 pm
“I suppose you and your pals, using the French model of negotiation, are proud of calling for total abdication to medieval psychotics.”
If you took the trouble to find out a bit more about us, you would realise how utterly ludicrous that remark is. Start with my blogsite, ‘anticant’s arena’.
“Nothing can be done about Islam.” Rubbish. Stop kow-towing to the Saudis because of your insatiable oil greed for a start.
See: http://comment.independent.co.u
k/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2248747.ece
February 10, 2007 at 5:16 pm
HiJose,
I do not delete comments, under any circumstances.
I’m aware of the effort to produce something pithy, pertinent and informed and understand the disappointment when another doesn’t respect that.
I have experienced some glitchy interference myself, where my own comments and the responses of/to others failed to appear.
Yesterday, I switched browsers to Mozilla/Firefox and that solved some problems, for instance I was able to fill out a blogroll where the links actually worked.
Your work should be available under comments, and if you feel like resubmitting them, please do.
Hank
February 10, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Bromo,
LMAO
If any culture doesn’t believe it’s worth defending, it just won’t.
America is suffering from war exhaustion, argument fatigue and self loathing. The average college grad denounces American ideals, supports the nanny state, scoffs at patriotism,and imagines worldwide cultural equality.
What’s there to fight for?
A shame, but the radical left is successfully producing multiculti PC advocates that would rather ponder gay marriage and the homeless than national defense and the need for self reliance in mankind.
They say Andrea Dworkin wasn’t a Democrat.
That’s probably true. 15 minutes of research will tell you she was off the chart left, and proud of it.
=;-)~
February 10, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Hi Anti,
I hear over and over that oil was the motivation for war in Iraq and oil profits drive it’s continuance.
Maybe, maybe not.
I’ll visit your site and comment in the future.
I no longer take out the trash. From now on, I’m taking out the rubbish.
February 10, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Hi Hank,
I never said that oil was the sole motivation for the Iraq war, but it sure was a salient factor. The motivations were obviously complex – a mix of PNAC chutzpah and unrealistic notions about what the Middle East is actually like, played a big part.
Surely it isn’t ‘anti-American’ to point out that your great nation has been led sadly astray by the self-deluded bunch of neo-Cons headed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies. The sooner you rid yourselves of this busted flush crowd the better for you and all of us.
I agree with about 95 per cent. of what you say. Look forward to seeing you in my arena. It’s new, so please read all my posts before slagging me off – I welcome FOCUSSED disagreement: as Churchill said, ‘Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War.’
What we all have to do together is to find solutions to the horrible mess the world is in.
Best wishes,
February 10, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Yes, Hank, the Darwinism of nations, if you will.
I know that Andrea Dworkin considered Democrats to be like Antonin Scalia, which is exactly why I think that the afterlife of a suicide bomber, who died so that women can be oppressed, with 72 of her clones would be so delicious.
As for modern colleges – I hear ya, having graduated from a super-liberal one four years ago (albeit with an engineering degree, so my profs were all conservative or moderate). Modern colleges are actually reducing the civic literacy of their students:
http://helvidiuspachyderm.wordpress.com/2006/10/02/isi-report-on-civic-literacy/
Modern feminists think that America, with men who beat their wives and are then punished, is the moral equivalent of Islam, with its honour killings and sharia law. Oh, yay. :(
February 11, 2007 at 7:10 am
Hi, Hank, thanks.
Reading what you write here and comparing it to what you did in my blog, I kind of think it hasn’t been written by the same person. Or was it you’d better prefer to have the comments here?
According to what I’ve read in forums, blogs and the independent media, it seems there were three reasons for the Iraq war: 1. Oil. 2. Threat from Iraq to abandon the Dollar as payment currency for oil. 3. Safeguard of Israel’s integrity.
I find it absurd that just to “chase” Osama bin Laden the US had to undertake a cruel war with scores of thousands of dead and the consequent destruction. I think the US are not governed by fools, but it does seem foolish to me to accept the explanations given in the run-up to the war as “the” reasons for that war.