Category Archives: War Commentary

Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Mullah Ron Paul

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Thoughts on the congressman’s defense of Iran, from Spengler.

And thoughts on Ron Paul’s real racism from Roger Simon:

Paul’s racial bias is more complex and intense than what has already been alleged of his attitudes towards blacks and Jews. He thinks even less of Muslims. He treats the Islamic world as if they do not have views of their own, their own ideology. In essence, he does not take them seriously as people and claims their actions are largely a result of American (and presumably Western) imperialistic behavior.

In other words, Muslims are children who could not possibly have the beliefs they do of their own accord and choose to act on those beliefs. They only do what they do because of us.

Besides being ethnocentric in the extreme, this negates many centuries of history — the majority of which took place before the U.S. even existed — and an entire, highly evolved system of religious, philosophical, and social thought. Whether Paul does this out of ignorance or arrogance I am not sure, but his disregard of Islam as something to be taken seriously in and of itself is particularly stunning when that ideology is close to the most antithetical imaginable to Paul’s self-proclaimed libertarianism.

Yes, by denigrating the Muslims’ moral agency, he dehumanizes them.

[Update a few minutes later]

I should note that denying moral agency to Muslims is something that the left has been doing ever since 911.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

“Hamas Is Our Role Model”

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So says the Muslim Brotherhood.

This isn’t going to end well.

[Update a few minutes later]

Reflections on the wishful thinking about Egypt:

There are wolves all too ready to profit from the gamboling of the sheep. Indeed, they are even quite willing to put on a wool disguise to lull them further into daydreams. The French aristocrat who converted to Catholicism to be king said that Paris was well worth a mass. The Islamists think that Cairo is well worth inviting dumb American journalists to dinner and being hospitable to them.

It’s the same generally with the West, dreaming of a moderate Palestinian state at peace with Israel; of moderate Islamists happily preserving their religion of peace; of Middle Easterners expressing gratitude to those wonderful Westerners who stopped backing dictators and evil Zionists to support instead the masses’ legitimate aspirations; and all the rest of that man-made global balminess.

Try to explain your good intentions to the firing squad. Blindness and wishful thinking are traits one cannot afford in the Middle East because the price for them is going to be very, very high.

The old joke about denial not being a river in Egypt seems particularly apropo here.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, War Commentary

A Hitchens Roundup

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Thoughts from Nick Gillespie, Michelle Malkin, Wretchard, Rob Long, Lileks, Peter Robinson, Melissa Clouthier, John Podhoretz, James Fenton, Joy McCann, Jason Cowley, Doug Wilson, Simon Jenkins, and last but by no means least, his brother Peter.

I first recall being impressed with him in the nineties, in his fearless willingness to take on the lies of the Clintons. He was devastating, to anyone who paid attention.

[Update a while later]

The Atlantic remembers Hitchens, as does Michael Totten.

[Update late morning]

Here’s another from Pete Wehner.

[Almost noon]

And Ron Radosh weighs in.

[Early afternoon update]

David Corn: sharing an office with Hitch.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Willful Blindness

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Thoughts on the idiocy at the Obama Defense department:

It reflects the Obama philosophy that we cannot even hint that an interpretation of Islam — drawn literally from Islamic scriptures — is the force motivating our enemies. Even though this is unquestionably true, to say so, to acknowledge it in any way, would mean, according to administration thinking, that we are at war with Islam itself — with all 1.4 billion Muslims, including the hundreds of millions who do not subscribe to this interpretation. Unwilling to entertain the possibility that the enemy has a coherent, knowable doctrine — which is a powerful catalyst precisely because it draws credibly (not inarguably but credibly) on scripture — we have forfeited the natural right to defend ourselves and the troops who make it possible for us to live freely.

This is criminal recklessness. It is idiocy beyond description, so I should just stop trying to describe it. Watch it in all its jaw-dropping ignominy.

You can’t win a war when you pretend that you’re not in one.