Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Uncle Joe Redux

I’ve been in a surprising place for the last few days, taking a lot of flak from other branches of the Counterjihad. A reader wrote this morning in an email that he was “shocked to see how many people there are getting on your butt… for not being Islamophobic enough.”

It is hard to get used to, especially when I’ve been the Islamophobe-in-Chief for so long.

My heresy has been to point out the strategic utility of forging alliances with Muslim groups that are demonstrably non-violent and tolerant of other religions. This position violates the pure ideology of confrontation with Islam, which must be opposed in all its manifestations, radical or “moderate”, observant or secular.

Mind you, I’m not arguing the case that Islam is not evil. I’m not saying that innumerable passages in the Koran don’t command violence against all infidels.

Those issues are, for my purposes here, simply not useful to consider.

I am only arguing for the strategic necessity of working with truly dissident Muslim groups, in order to divide and conquer. Some of these groups may be repugnant in many ways, and some may be very temporary allies, but that does not argue against an alliance with them per se.

Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a.k.a. StalinIf you want a parallel, consider our nation’s alliance with Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, also known as Stalin, or — from 1941 to 1945 — “Uncle Joe”.

Stalin was as repugnant as a human being can get, and reigned as the supreme autocrat in what proved to be the most loathsome, tyrannical, brutal, and murderous regime in history. Yet the United States and Britain found it prudent to ally with him against Hitler, and chose to overlook the nature of his rule during the course of the war.
- - - - - - - - - -
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Teheran Cobnference in 1943After the war we had to deal with the Soviets, and spent another forty-five years coping with the aftermath of our alliance with Stalin. But in 1942 and 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt considered it absolutely necessary to maintain an alliance with the Soviet Union.

There were purists on the Right who argued against any kind of alliance with the communists, under any circumstances. But can you imagine what would have happened to Britain if there had been no Eastern Front? Would life under a Nazi occupation have been preferable to the abandonment of ideological purity? Some may have welcomed such an outcome, but the average Briton did not.

In a similar vein, the purists on the Left wanted no truck with any right-wing dictatorship whatsoever during the struggle against Communism in the Cold War. Pinochet and Franco were out of the question, and there were many on the Left who would have been content to see Communism triumph across the globe rather than abandon the righteousness of their position.

People who argue for these ideologically pure stances are refusing to take practical strategy into consideration. During the course of a long war, their purity of resolve can translate into hundreds of thousands of additional dead Americans, whether among the best and the brightest from our military, or ordinary civilians who happen to be downtown when the next Mohammed Atta gets past Homeland Security to do his dirty work against us.

To make the matter more compelling, our potential allies in this war are much more palatable than ol’ Uncle Joe. Daniel Pipes, who is no apologist for the Great Jihad, has this to say:

Of particular note are the American Muslims who reject CAIR’s claim to speak on their behalf. The late Seifeldin Ashmawy, publisher of the New Jersey-based Voice of Peace, called CAIR the champion of “extremists whose views do not represent Islam.”Jamal Hasan of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance explains that CAIR’s goal is to spread “Islamic hegemony the world over by hook or by crook.” Kamal Nawash, head of Free Muslims Against Terrorism, finds that CAIR and similar groups condemn terrorism on the surface while endorsing an ideology that helps foster extremism, adding that “almost all of their members are theocratic Muslims who reject secularism and want to establish Islamic states.”Tashbih Sayyed of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance calls CAIR “the most accomplished fifth column” in the United States. And Stephen Schwartz of the Center on Islamic Pluralism writes that “CAIR should be considered a foreign-based subversive organization, comparable in the Islamist field to the Soviet-controlled Communist Party, USA.”

You don’t hear about these people from the MSM — they don’t fit the preferred storyline — but they are going on the record against the violent radicals, and risking their lives by doing so.

And then there’s this one:

A collective statement by Muslim bloggers to the Iranian regime about its Holocaust denial conference

We the following Muslim bloggers hereby affirm that the Holocaust did happen because, not only are we quite capable of understanding overwhelming historical evidence, we also refuse to allow Muslim leaders to twist history for cruel, personal and selfish gains — thereby reflecting negatively upon us and the message of Islam — without confronting their actions with the hammer of righteous indignation. For religious, moral, and historical reasons, we repudiate and spit upon the Holocaust deniers conference now taking place in Iran, and stand in solidarity with student, and other, anti-fascists in that great nation, along with the victims of the Holocaust itself.

We further castigate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an egomaniacal sociopath and incompetent world leader who has embarrassed the reputation and spiritual world of Islam with his political falsifications and distortions. His attempts to infiltrate the realm of Holocaust studies in order to focus on changing the situations of foreign nations while many of his people go hungry and are unemployed, is obviously a deranged policy.

They’ve got a petition for people to sign.

It’s not for us to figure out how the Koran can be reconciled with non-violence and religious tolerance. If the Free Muslims can manage to square that particular circle, then more power to them.

These good people may be in a tiny minority among Muslims, and they may be doomed in any case. But it’s important for us to support them, because what they stand for is what we stand for.

Besides that, we need them.

They’re going to open up an Eastern Front.

33 comments:

Eric said...

I've got to say I'm with you on this one, Baron. Most of my friends and relatives get everything they know about Islam and the "war on terror" from the MSM.

I try and explain that while we're not in a war against Islam, we are in a war against Islamism...then I have to explain the difference...*sigh*

It's an uphill battle, but I think your idea can make it a little easier.

Dymphna said...

If we wait until the Koran is made palatable, we'll be waiting forever. There are many parts of Jewish and Christian scripture that don't bear close examination, either.

And not so long ago, Italy and Ireland -- among others -- were de facto theocraceis. This is within living memory. The people under the thumb of the cardinals and archbishops had their free will nullified.

And just ask the Irish about the pressure of tribalism...

The grassroots movement to push the church back behind the altar rail -- where it rightfully belonged -- gave Ireland a prosperity it had never known before...

The toxic adrenaline cocktail of theocracy and violence has a long, sad history. Those Muslims trying to break free of that deserve our compassion, and in our own self-interest, they deserve our help.

This really is a case of hanging together or surely hanging separately.

I don't know the Koran, but from my own experience in stepping through the minefield of Christian scripture to find a spirituality that was integral to my life was a damn hard trip. And despite St. Paul's advice, I'll never shut up in church...not unless the Baron puts his hand over my mouth.

The people-in-charge, be they imams or bishops, will have to be left behind by the average Muslim family if there is to be progress. And no doubt, there will be many mis-steps along the way.

Practically speaking, Islam ought to be busy about the business of reformation and reconciliation. The various sects who want to kill each other will have to come to terms because they'll all be armed with nuclear weapons == that's one problem.

The other is the matter of time. Eventually oil runs out and/or is replaced by something cleaner and less expensive. Oil will become obsolescent and the desert will be stilled again.

If Islam can leave tribalism, and if its followers can stop killing one another, it has a chance of surviving in the modern world. Fortunately, most Muslims I know are materialists and can see their own self-interest.

But that is here, in the US. In the Middle East there is no structure for the average joe to hold onto. Survival lies with the tribe, with the neighborhood party boss.

Had it not been for 9/11 I wouldn't know Sunni from Shi'ite. I would still be ignorant of the bloody borders of Islam, of its smothering influence. But 9/11 happened and I woke up. Now I playing catch-up in my history lessons...and by any standard they are not pretty stories.

9/ll radically changed the way some of us live our daily lives...like hours in front of this screen. It also changed the content of my thoughts, as I consider worst-case scenario on any number of fronts.

I am sure it is the same for many of you, also. But we are a small minority. Leaving the extremists aside, many people go on with their daily lives as though nothing had happened. They get their news from television and that's enough, thank you very much.

Here's an experiment I do, that you might find interesting to perform: when you're out and about, talking to salespeople, or those waiting in line with you, ask the person next to you what a blog is, or what a web log is. I did this yesterday while looking at carpeting. The owner of the store doesn't "have time for all that stuff."

OTOH, we had a nice chat about his Polish father and his Italian mother, and how sad it is when the old ways disappear. He doesn't go "home" anymore because everyone is dead or gone. Looking at his watch he said, "in the old days, I'd have been leaving in 48 hours for home and the Christmas celebration..."

There is a man that 9/11 seems to have left untouched. But he mourns the changes he sees coming, even if he can't articulate them.

IOW, we're a tiny minority here...not just bloggers on the right, but those on the left, too.

Eric said...

Don't feel bad, Dymphna. Sylvestre Reyes doesn't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite, either.

The biggest impediment to Islamic reform, as I see it, is the lack of any hierarchy or centralization. There's nothing in Islam similar to the Vatican or the Pope.

It seems that any Ahmed who can read can memorize the Koran, grow a beard, then rent a store front in a strip mall and call it a mosque. At that point he's free to whip his congregation into a frenzy every Friday.

How do you reform that?

kepiblanc said...

The Evangelical Church of Germany today released official guidelines about how to deal with Muslims :

Religous Dialogue .

In short : Europeans must demand Muslims to respect certain values. Schoolteachers wearing head scarves are unfit to teach. Jewish and Christian symbols can be displayed in schools, because they don't conflict with the values in Germany's constitution. Nuns who teach can wear their order's dress if they so prefer. Oppression of women, honor killings, female genital mutilation and forced marriages are unacceptable and can not be tolerated in a democratic society. No person can claim cultural identity as an excuse for violating human rights.
And so on and so forth....

The Muslims in Germany aren't happy.

ziontruth said...

That's the dilemma I have regarding such groups as the British National Party and Vlaams Belang.

They, having the reputation of racist (in the true, original sense, not the CAIR sense) and anti-Semitic, have called for the remaining Jews of Europe to join them in the fight against the Islamization of the continent. For that purpose, Nick Griffin of the BNP even repeatedly said he disavowed anti-Semitism entirely.

Even supposing they're not anti-Semitic anymore, I don't agree with them ideologically. They oppose multiculturalism even when well-implemented. I mean multiculturalism that doesn't extend to the PC sense of "inequality before the law". There's that kind of multiculturalism, which means a cannibal could be exculpated because "it's his culture". That's bad and I oppose it wholeheartedly. But there's multiculturalism in the sense of "apolitical cultural diversity", such that you can have a Japanese theater next to the Berlin Opera. That's fine, that's multiculturalism in a good sense, and it has always worked. In fact, pretty much the only immigrants to Europe who stand in the way of that kind of multiculturalism are the Muslim ones. The Hindus, Sikhs and all the rest are good citizens of their host countries.

But the BNP and Vlaams Belang aim for total cultural purity--they'd push to prevent a Japanese theater from being in vicinity to the Berlin Opera. This opposition to multiculturalism is hardly the enlightened stance of Sir Charles Napier. It's more like the policy of dark regimes from the not-so-far past (banning "degenerate art" and the like).

And yet... with the rampant dhimmitude in Europe, those parties are among the few left that hold their ground against the Muslims. For the wrong reasons, in my opinion, but they hold their ground. If things get too desperate, there might be no choice but support them, just as with Stalin. But at the moment I don't like that idea at all.

antithaca said...

Just as 'The Force of Reason', to borrow a phrase, leads us to this conclusion (in terms of allying with outspoken, moderate Muslims) it also leads us to ally ourselves with those who have a very black and while view of the world (if you take my meaning).

Just because we ally ourselves with one group or another doesn't mean we must adopt their ideology.

There is a difference between opposing a group of people because of their ideas and opposing them because of who they "are".

Horatius said...

Baron,

Nice job of pointing out that there ARE Muslims out there opposed to the Islamofascists. I suspect they represent a larger group than the MSM will ever admit (as do WE). Since they're getting about as much airtime from the legacy media as this blog, maybe we've found common cause.

And if not, a little realpolitic never hurts!

"the enemy of my enemy is my friend"

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

Opposing the islamists while residing in the west is a possible but often dangerous option. For the plight of those unfortunate enough to live in a Muslim country go to: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD139206 for a short list of the happenings since 1925 of oppression at the hands of the "religion of peace". One must also consider the Muslim admonition of "Al-Taqiyah" (lying to infiltrate) when they are dealing with infidels. I have acquaintances who are Muslim but I would NEVER trust them.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!!

Frank said...

If it were as simple as temporarly embracing the devil for strategic reasons, I would agree that we ought to sidle up to poorly practising Muslims for a time, but its not that simple.

A while ago I wrote an article involving heuristics; the human tendency to simplify and condense complex matters to a manageable size in order to grasp them. It applies here too.

The battle we are fighting will...must...take on a distilled black/white, good/evil starkness, or else we are simply going to lose. We are already fighting from a philosophical disadvantage in that we are no longer defending a western credo, we are simply defending a poorly understood set of 'freedoms' that really equate to nihilism in the context of western liberalism today. That, unfortunately, is all we have left of the spirit that drove the west to outperform every other society in the world for centuries.

The enemy on the other hand knows precisely what it is fighting for, and it knows that ironically there are many in the west who yearn for the security of a belief system that no longer exists in the west. So-called "moderate" Muslims supply for those people a happy middle road; one that doesn't seek to kill people, yet, but one that takes up the baton of right and wrong from the rotting remains of so-called "mainstream" Christianity.

An alliance with allegedly moderate Muslims will be creating a 5th column right in our midst. If a Muslim is a properly practising Muslim, then he is our enemy. If he does not properly practise Islam, then he is not a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, then why is he pretending to be a Muslim?

Its easy to dismiss an alliance as temporary and strategic, to be gotten rid of at some point in the ill defined future, but how exactly is that going to work without revamping an entire belief system within our own ranks?

The proper analogy is not a Churchillian/Stalinist alliance of convenience. To get a true historical analogy of a proposed current alliance with Muslims, one would more profitably look at the late Roman empire and its embrace of foreign cults, immigrating tribes, and concurrent social decay.

The denizens of the post-Claudian empire were but pale shadows of the stern soldier-citizens of the earlier Republic, who knew why they fought and for what. When the western Roman Empire went some 5 centuries beyond the republic, it didn't "fall" so much as fade away, and it slipped into history precisely because it began to take the easy way out and ally with its former enemy. Hiring German mercenaries to fight German tribesmen just doesn't work. It didn't work then and I doubt it'll work now.

It is impossible to sustain the Virtus of one group if it becomes a Virtu to merge with a group that has one foot in the enemy's camp. Tolerance is a sword with two edges, one shiny and one dripping with blood.

But, if the 910 group decides to go in that direction, I'll trot along beside it as long as it manages to maintain meaning. I have not the slightest doubt that those who want an alliance have the best interests of the west at heart.

anti said...

Please don't say that Franco was of the right. Franco was a fascist and therefore he belongs to the socialist.

Baron Bodissey said...

anti --

That's the way Franco was characterized by the media, which is what is significant here.

All fascists, Hitler included, were socialists. I'm well aware of that.

Papa Ray said...

ScottSA: "We are already fighting from a philosophical disadvantage in that we are no longer defending a western credo, we are simply defending a poorly understood set of 'freedoms' that really equate to nihilism in the context of western liberalism today. That, unfortunately, is all we have left of the spirit that drove the west to outperform every other society in the world for centuries."

I have to admit with my poor education that the above doesn't make much sense to me. I had to look up the word nihilism and even after doing that, I'm not sure what ScottSA means in the context of "freedoms", "western liberalism today" and something about that is all we have left.

I don't think that ScottSA has ever met people like my friends and me.

Because we haven't lost one damn thing when it comes to what drove America to become the Greatest Nation on this planet, and in case you think otherwise, this Republic is still the Greatest Nation ever on this planet and will continue to be for as long as there are people like us.

You must be taking about those damn liberal socialists, cause your not talking about us.

If you don't believe me, come ask some of my buds over at RednecksRevenge.

We ain't giving up, cause we ain't losing, we are just getting warmed up. We haven't lost anything, but we are getting pissed.

nihilism my ass.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

Subvet said...

Aligning ourselves with moderate Muslims is only commonsense. Yes, we may find ourselves fighting them further down the road but that isn't carved in stone.

For some reason the disdain voiced in associating in any manner with a Muslim reminds me of the morally righteous of the 70's who curtailed the "blackbox" activities of our intelligence services. Prior to that agencies such as the CIA enjoyed a bit of respect in the world, not much perhaps (I think of trying to send Castro exploding cigars) but a sight more than nowadays. These days the CIA and it's cronies are viewed as completely ineffective.

My point support of the Baron is this; if we're going to win in this fight we'd better toss out any "Marquis of Queensbury" style of thinking and get ready to be down and dirty. That includes aligning ourselves with moderate followers of Islam.

Frank said...

subvet: My objection is not because of some misguided idea of fighting fair. If you're talking about me, its just a blatant misrepresentation of what I said. I another post I suggested that Faluja ought to have been leveled and salt sown on the ruins, so I'm hardly tiptoing through the tulips over social niceties.

papa ray: I meant no disrespect, any more than I do when I mock my fellow Canadians for the limpwristed anti-militaristic attitude we displayed for decades under a socialist-leaning government. But you know what? The people who are about to be running your country have no backbone nor moral compass, and have proven themselves more interested in intern's skirts and pragmatism than fighting to keep on top.

I will take issue with the idea that the US is the be all and end all...when I'm talking about the west, I'm talking about Europe too...whatever you might think of Europe now, they were ruling the seas and conquering the known world while the US was still in short pants, and the US can be damned thankful its made up of Europeans. May God keep it that way for a while.

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

Hmmm, I must say the alliance with Stalin analogy doesn't wash for several reasons :

- Stalin's USSR was a very great power indeed, while moderate muslims are of little real influence.
- Stalin's USSR was a very real and implacable enemy of the axis powers when the alliance formed (1941 on), as opposed to moderate muslims, who when it comes to the crunch may well find more common ground with their overzealous co-religionists and ethnic brethren than us reasonable white heathens.
- the alliance with Stalin was in the middle of a shooting war, not an extended hostile peace

A better analogy would be the cold war. Communism had its splinter groups like the Trotskyites. Like the moderate muslims, while they were opposed to the path of their fellow travellers - to the point of bitterness and violence - they were largely irrelevant. And, in the end when all is said and done, they were commies too. The west never went overboard cultivating communist factions during thr cold war, and rightly so. There is little point cultivating powerless moderate muslims, doubly so since they are almost impossible to truely distinguish from the non-moderates.

If one wants Stalin analogies, how about an alliance with the otherwise abhorrent communist China against the clear and present threat - muslims?

Historiker said...

IMHO, the coddling of Stalin unnecessarily emboldened both his odious regime and his fellow travelers in both the Americas and Western Europe.

Our wartime propaganda echoed the Soviet party line instead of honestly stating that we had chosen sides in a clash of monstrous socialist tyrants.

The wartime acceptance of "Uncle Joe" legitimated the intellectual and ideological movements most responsible for the current trends of political correctness and cultural equivalence I find corrosive; by developing these memes as linear developments of Soviet themes aimed at diminishing the success and value of pre Marxist-Leninist political and economic philosophies in the development of Western civilization.

The same reluctance to speak honestly to the citizens of the great Western Republics is again evidenced in the WOT, as it was in hesitancy to openly address the proclaimed goals of national socialists in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

The underlying socialist ideologies upon which the Soviet Union and the PRC relied envisioned the attainments of their utopian states were evolutionary and not apoptotic. Even de Gaulle assumed that the potential deaths of enough socialists (80 million?) were an absolute deterrent. Because of their underlying ideologies, open and total warfare was not inevitable with these utopians.

Therefore, I contend that compromise with the utopian socialist ideologies that developed from the German philosopher of Trier, while debilitating, did not pose an existential threat to Western civilis in and of itself.

Arguably, however, compromise with the utopian socialist ideology developed by the Austrian corporal of Braunau am Inn did pose such an existential threat, because the attainment of its utopia did encompass, or at least accept an apoptotic vision. (Probably nascent to the philosophical worldview, based on the Zweites Buch) Because of the underlying ideologies, open and total warfare was inevitable with these utopians.

For the same reasons, compromise with the utopian ideology at war with us today poses an existential threat to our continued existence as a free people. An apoptotic vision is nascent within the motivating ideology. Open and total warfare is inevitable with these utopians. In fact, they are already waging it.

Redneck Texan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Redneck Texan said...

The uncle Joe analogy, while it does highlight our need to jump in bed with evil to defeat a greater? evil, is not entirely applicable to your underlying point.

First off, Russia could have probably defeated Germany without our help. But more specifically we were not asking the Russians to help us defeat the "Bad Russians". We were not asking the Russians to help us kill their relatives and neighbors in WW2...that was an earlier war, that didn't work out so well.

What your doing is asking us to team up with and share our strategy with, what you have determined to be, the "Good Nazis". I dont think there was any historical example of that happening during WW2.

I am all for "opening up an eastern front", it's just hard to tell whether or not you have a winning hand when apparently you are holding cards you're not showing.

I am not particularly well suited to making leaps of faith, especially one that requires me to trust muslims, but once I see movement along the eastern front.......

Eric said...

Appropriate to this discussion, maybe, are some definitions:

Islamist: One who wants to force you to convert to Islam or lop off your head.

Moderate Muslim: One who supports the Islamist, but is content to sit back and watch.

So, it's really the non-political Muslims we want, those who observe the religious practices only, and want no part of living under Shari'a rule. Of course, the true believers consider them apostates, but that's their problem. I actually know at least one guy who falls in that last category.

Anonymous said...

I don't think anyone here understands that this battle with the Salafi terrorists or qutbist terrorists is a war that has been and will be fought by Muslims. Your role is not to be panicky by interfering and strengthening the terrorists with your misguided rhetoric and policies.

It is not helpful if Muslims have to defend themselves from two fronts-one against the terrorists, one against you!

Liberals seem to understand that, why can you?!!

Baron Bodissey said...

Redneck,

If I controlled government policy, I’d be throwing massive (public and private) support behind the opposition groups in Iran. But, no, our government wants to talk to the mullahs instead, or let the EU do the talking by proxy.

The anti-regime movement in Iran is large and broad-based, and would get a real boost from public American support.

But, as I’ve said, that won’t happen, and we anti-jihad people are going to have no influence on the process.

The citizen-based movements like 910 are going to have to build coalitions slowly with groups in Iran, and extend what aid and support they can. This will take much longer than if the State Department and the CIA were doing the same thing.

Some of the anti-mullah groups will be secular; a few will be “moderate” Islamic. But all could be useful to us in overthrowing the Islamic Republic.

Frank said...

Zenobia said: "I don't think anyone here understands that this battle with the Salafi terrorists or qutbist terrorists is a war that has been and will be fought by Muslims. Your role is not to be panicky by interfering and strengthening the terrorists with your misguided rhetoric and policies."

I don't think you understand that the Wahabis seem to have won whatever inter-religious war you claim to be fighting.

When Islamic terrorists confine themselves to killing other Muslims instead of flying airplanes into non-Muslim buildings, I'm sure we'll all gladly turn away and mind our own business. Until then, you'll just have to get used to the interference and "misguided" rhetoric.

In effect, you are standing in October 1939 Berlin telling Poland to butt out of the invasion that Hitler just launched against it, because its really an internal German issue and one that Germans have to work out on their own without Polish interference and misguided rhetoric. That's just silly.

Anonymous said...

A reader wrote this morning in an email that he was “shocked to see how many people there are getting on your butt… for not being Islamophobic enough.”

I'd like to challenge that reader to find even one tiny example on this site of something that can correctly be classified as an instance of the psychiatric disorder named Islamophobia. He would of course be unable to come up with any valid examples.

As for Baron Bodissey's "Allegiance of Infidels & Apostates", or whatever it should be called, I must admit I'm skeptical. I mean, where are you going to find "Muslim [sic] groups that are demonstrably non-violent and tolerant of other religions"? Can this ever be more than just wishful thinking?

Redneck Texan said...

I caution you not to put too much faith in the Iranian opposition Baron.

My past research has shown that a lot of the regime change "activists" are actually fronts funded by Reza Pahlavi. The Persian equivalent to Ahmed Chalabi.

I think of them similar to way the way I think of the activist Berkeley students here. They share many similarities. If all you knew about American public opinion was what you heard from them it would give you a completely misleading picture.

I think the Mullahs have a lot more popular support than we are led to believe.

I would rather have a loose cannon like Ahmadinejad in charge of Iran. He is easy to vilify, easy to justify bombing. If the theocracy falls so will all support to keep nuclear technology out of the, just as rabid, Persian nationalist's hands.

Our government, thanks in large part to Westinghouse's lobbying efforts actual started Iran down the road to nuclear weapons....because we trusted muslims.

I would rather the Mullahs stay in power until their nuclear program is in smoldering ruin. Because if the Mullahs were deposed tomorrow Persian nationalism would demand that the Nuclear program proceed, its not just the Islamist in Iran that want to dominate the region....and our leaders would be just stupid enough to assist them.

Then when they do have a stockpile it will always be at risk of falling into the hands of a resurgent Islamist movement.

El Jefe Maximo said...

Re the comment on Franco. I don't think he can be correctly placed on the Left, not was he overly concerned with theological niceties of that type. Franco shot or imprisoned all the Leftists he could get hold of.

As for your main point, Baron, you are absolutely correct. We are in a war, and the only thing that counts about wars is winning them, which Churchill and Roosevelt never forgot. No, we can't be picky about allies, and if we have other problems with them: time enough to fix them when Osama and his bad, and all their friends are dead, dead, dead, and Mad Jad is a bad memory.

As for the Iranians, I would argue that the thing for us to worry about is the nature of the regime, and not whether the regime is building weapons. The Persians are going to have nuclear weapons, one way or another: the desire for them is something all stripes of Iranian opinion agree on -- and short of turning the place into glass -- which we are not going to do, absent direct provocation, this outcome can be delayed, not stopped.

But the nature of the regime is another matter. If the Iranians keep their attempts to build imperial power within a respectable sphere of influence, and avoid conclusions with us, that is one thing, and I do not think most people here or elsewhere would consider our interference in that country legitimate. However, the problem with the Mullah regime (and with the Sunni wing of the Great Jihad, also) is its armed universalist aspirations and its unwillingness to allow others to live in security. Now maybe this is inherent in Islam. . .again, philosophy is one thing, the desire and ability to act on it...another.

theirritablearchitect said...

"Yet the United States and Britain...chose to overlook the nature of his rule during the course of the war."

I believe that Roosevelt did more than that, he was an active supporter, in his own country no-less, of many thoughts, principles and practices of the Red Foundation. It was he who came up with the ponzi SocSec scheme. It was he who devalued the dollar with the confiscation of gold certificates, and it was he who started the WPA and expanded government jobs.

I realize that my comment is taking a quote from your post to a rather extreme tangent here, but I think it worthy to comment, if for no reason other than to keep some historical perspective regarding how close to keep your enemies and allies.

As always, excellent post.

Jason Pappas said...

Disagreement is a healthy development. Everyone is learning about the Islamic threat just as we once had to learn about the Communist threat. Looking back, some silly things were said about communism due to the crash course that was needed after the shock of losing half of Europe after WWII (and subsequently China.) Likewise, 9/11 was a rude awakening. Let’s help each other to keep our heads while others are either losing them or have them buried in the sand. It takes time; painfully too much time; but that is human nature. Good discussion and comments!

Frank said...

Jason, your post seems to rather condescendingly suggest that this "alliance" with allegedly moderate Islam is a result of calmer, better thought out positions. If this is indeed your tack, its a cute spin to position yourself as the sober moderate and everyone on either side as either a hothead or an ostrich, but its fairly transparent.

Its cute to watch others hereabouts back off previously held convictions as well, squirming on the hook of their own previous statements and urging "moderation" towards "moderate" Islam.

In effect though, its giving in to the good cop of the good cop/bad cop routine we've been subjected to by Islam. Just because so-called moderates don't blow things up or stomp through the streets burning cars doesn't mean they lack common cause with the ultimate objectives of Jihad.

Consider this: You claim that silly things were said about communism at the beginning of the Cold War. Presumably you mean the "Red Menace" grandstanding. and you would evoke the McCarthyite "witch trials" as illustrative. But what was the result of backing away from those hard-held anti-communist positions?

In hindsight we can see what happened a decade or two later during the 60s, if we honestly look back at the phenomenon through unbiased eyes:

Remember the 60s? Remember the millions of dollars poured into the agitation industry from the USSR and even China? Backing away from the hardline positions we once held about communism left the US and the west susceptible to the agitprop that very nearly felled it in the late 60s and early 70s.

One can apply the pendulum theory to the phenomenon and claim that the McCarthy era was one extreme and Che-worship another, but what is the middle ground we eventually arrived at?

The compromise is a sort of make-the-rich-pay egalitarian hegemony of thought that dominates economic discourse in the west today. Socially, we have been left with a wishy washy philosophical subtext that individually believes in everything and so collectively believes in nothing.

We backed off the absolutism of the 50s and into the radical tolerance of today, and because of it we have managed to leave ourselves open to totalitarianism.

Don't believe it? Take a close look at the intellectual and moral landscape of Weimar Germany. Without, I might add, paying undue attention to the economic climate of the 30s, which has always been historically emphasized far too much; The entire world suffered economically at the same time...parts of the US far worse...and yet Germany left itself philosophically open to the totalitarism of either nazism or communism. Which one finally won is more a function of organization and strategy than philosophy...as Hayek pointed out, socialists and Nazis have more in common with each other than either does with liberals...the relevant characteristic was that totalitarism would have won out either way. Sober moderation was swept away, not in spite of itself, but BECAUSE of itself.

I fear we are moving in that direction again. I fear that in an effort to be reasonable, we are giving up a forward line of defence that may well result in a rout.

Baron Bodissey said...

PD111,

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here.

First of all, I'm not talking about government policy. We don't have a chance to affect government policy. I tried to make that clear in my post.

I'm talking about the alliances that grassroots groups can make with other organizations that share the same goals and ideals.

Secondly, if we cannot ever cut deals with any Muslim groups under any circumstances, ever, we are, in effect, resigning ourselves to losing this war. Because we can't fight all the Muslims in the world. It's not going to happen.

What we can do is be absolutely firm on our principles: non-violence, representative government, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. Period, no exceptions.

Any Muslim group that shows by word and deed that they hold the same principles should be welcome in our alliance.

Any Muslim group that abandons any of these principles should be cast out, banned, shunned, ostracized and excoriated by us. We have to be firm and resolute in this regard.

No compromises. No giving in to sharia or "hate speech" demands.

If we hold fast to these core ideals, and remain true to them, we can make this work.

anti said...

"Re the comment on Franco. I don't think he can be correctly placed on the Left, not was he overly concerned with theological niceties of that type. Franco shot or imprisoned all the Leftists he could get hold of."

Being a socialist doesn't neccesarily preclude you from murdering other socialist.

Anonymous said...

Secondly, if we cannot ever cut deals with any Muslim groups under any circumstances, ever, we are, in effect, resigning ourselves to losing this war. Because we can't fight all the Muslims in the world. It's not going to happen.

Which is why the only option is to get rid of Islam from the West. And no, that does not mean to "nuke the ragheads", but to "cut deals" with Muslims and give them incentives to leave the West, and deport those "radicals" who do not wish to do so. Then Islam would no longer be relevant to the Western world, while Muslims could freely practice their "religion" in dar al-Islam.

Any Muslim group that shows by word and deed that they hold the same principles should be welcome in our alliance.

In other words, any Muslim group that isn't actually a Muslim group, or is a taqiyya-practicing one.

Baron Bodissey said...

Anonymous --

In other words, any Muslim group that isn't actually a Muslim group, or is a taqiyya-practicing one.

Note that I said "by word and deed". If a Muslim group behaves the way we want, it really doesn't matter whether or not it's taqiyyah. We need not trouble ourselves over their motives, any more than we need to worry about whether crimes are caused by "hate".

We watch them like hawks, and as soon as they depart from our principles, that's it -- they're out of the alliance.

And remember: I'm not talking about the government. The government is not our friend.

Baron Bodissey said...

PD 111,

Read my later post, "The Government is Not Your Friend", for detailed specifics.

Immigration is a government policy. We (you and I) cannot affect it if the electorate doesn't vote our way.

That doesn't mean we can't win; it means we will have to win without the government's help.

Read the later post.

And we can watch them, if our network is sophisticated enough. Why don't you join, contribute your talents, and see if I'm right?