Light Posting Today

 
Dymphna is down with bronchitis or something similar, and I have to take her to the doctor this morning.

We’re not sure when anyone will be here manning the Gates, but keep checking back. Or read some of the comments: Mussolini and El Jefe Maximo had some interesting conversations last night.

Or check some of our blogroll. For military affairs, see
Air Force Family, The Adventures of Chester, and ThreatsWatch.

For anti-jihad, see Counterterrorism Blog, CDR Salamander, Cuanas, Always on Watch, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, Liberty and Culture , and Northern Virginiastan.

Neo-neocon is always worth a visit.

For shrinks, see Shrinkwrapped, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, and Dr. Sanity.

And for the real news, see Florida Cracker.

Strategic Planning for the Eschaton

I won’t argue with Wretchard.

I don’t generally argue with Wretchard, because a close reading of any Belmont Club post shows that Wretchard is almost always right. So anything I say here will be mainly a shift in emphasis.

In his post on Saturday, Wretchard compared the period between 9-11 and the Mohammed Cartoon Crisis with the “Phoney War”, the period between Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September of 1939 and the onset of actual warfare in May of the following year. The appeasement that led up to the war was a strategic calculation by the West, designed to push Hitler eastward and cause the two great dictators to destroy each other. The failure of this French and British strategy left the West relatively undefended, and brought on the great conflagration that followed.

It is an old and familiar story which bears repeating because it illustrates how far leaders can be trapped by webs of their own making. Like the politicians of the 1930s the leaders of the West after September 11 each made their own calculation. In America’s case it took the shape of thinking that it could make common cause with the most enlightened elements of Islamic civilization against fundamentalist extremists who were vying for Islam’s soul. The strategy for achieving this goal, though reviled as simplistic, was anything but: America would not pick a fight with Islam itself. Rather it would make itself Islam’s friend, ally with its most moderate elements, overthrow its worst oppressors and enlist the aid of the Muslim everyman against the Osama Bin Ladens of the world. In practice it would build a web of relationships with intelligence services, soldiers, intellectuals and politicians in Islamic countries who would provide the information and in cases the manpower to hunt down fundamentalist villains. The War on Terror would be to wars what Smart Bombs were to bombs. It would destroy the miscreants while leaving the surrounding structure untouched. It may be that Europe’s calculation was more cynical. But it was equally sophisticated. It would pursue a policy of Appeasement which like Chamberlain’s was calculated to drive one nuisance against another, pitting America against Islamic fundamentalism in the hopes that one would wear the other out. And the key to Europe’s establishing its bona fides with Islamic countries was to make nice at every opportunity; avoid giving offense; be lavish with aid; open to immigration and obstructive to America at every turn. Like the appeasers of the 1930s it paid for its diplomatic strategy by systematically weakening itself.

The crisis over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed has ironically struck the weakest point of both strategies. At present the crisis is not a danger to the grand strategies of either. But as the days pass the danger grows that it may get out of hand; that some Islamic cell may detonate a bomb in Europe or some skinhead burn a mosque. And then the consequences may incalculable. For America an open antipathy between the West and Islam would destroy its carefully crafted attempt to ally itself with the Muslim street. It would place Washington in the intolerable position of having to choose between its old European allies and its newfound friends in the Middle East and Central Asia. For Europe the consequences would be no less disastrous because in following the policy of Appeasement its leaders have risked falling so far behind their publics that they now find themselves unable to steer the course of popular events. Europe is angry and Chirac, like Chamberlain after the Sudeten crisis, is too far behind the curve of popular opinion to seize its leadership. Chamberlain understood it and brought Churchill into his cabinet to bolster his credentials when he himself had none.

If you read closely, you’ll notice that Wretchard describes the American strategy, but he does not venture an opinion on the wisdom of it. So I’ll go out on a limb and venture one myself.

The American strategy – to make alliances with “moderate” Islamic states and organizations against the extremist ones – was an absolute necessity at the start of this war. Even if our leaders were willing to take action over the objections of all the other nations of the West, our operations would have been impaired by our lack of actionable intelligence. With almost no speakers of Arabic or Pashtun in our intelligence stable, the two landmark victories in Afghanistan in Iraq would have taken years longer, and cost many more American lives. Thus it was necessary to co-opt the locals in the initial phase of the “Long War”.

But we may have already reached the point of diminishing returns. People in Iraq and Afghanistan, egged on by their religious leaders, are rioting against freedom of speech in Denmark. Is it really possible to make common cause with these countries for any length of time?

We can hope that the democratic institutions we have planted there will take root and grow, and that someday, maybe in our great-grandchildren’s time, Iraq and Afghanistan may join the civilized world.

But in the meantime, it behooves us to consider the people we’re dealing with. Iran, sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan, is undeterred by the presence of the American military on two of its borders. Its leader is a madman acting under the mandate of Allah, charged by the Divine to foment violence and increase chaos on this earth so as to immanentize the eschaton.

Hitler was a madman, too, but his deranged appetite longed for satisfaction in this world, not the next. Ahmadinejad is of a different breed – when our enemy cannot be counted on to act rationally in his own interests, the conflict we face is indeed apocalyptic.

But never mind our enemies – what about our allies?

Until the Danish cartoons created the current crisis, it was not clear how closely the religious ideology of the “moderates” matched that of the “extremists”. Now the glass has lost some of its darkness. The “moderates” have taken to the streets to proclaim their duties against the defamers of Islam, no matter their location. If these are our friends…

All right then, forget the Arab street. What about its palaces? When we look to our “friends” the Saudis, we find one of the most repressive and dictatorial regimes on the face of this Earth.

And can it truly be said of King Abdullah that “he may be a thug, but at least he’s our thug”? Like the late Yasser Arafat, the king has one thing to say in English when he talks to the Western press and holds hands with our President, and another in Arabic when he’s at home making nice with his imams and keeping the women down. Of how much utility is this kind of “friendship”?

And then there are the Palestinian “moderates” with whom Secretary Rice is so avid to engage in the “dialogue of peace”. How many of them can you find? And when you do, how many of those will survive the first six months of a Hamas government?

It’s time to assess realistically the strategic calculation of our current policies.

Our enemies may be comparable to Hitler, but then our allies would have to be compared with Stalin. Communism was an insane ideology, and Stalin was ruthless, cruel, calculating, and evil, but his eye was always for the main chance.

The Millennium announced by the Communists was to be realized right here in this world, here in the “old chaos of the sun”. When it came down to it, the Soviet leader, the Soviet soldier, and the Soviet peasant all wanted to live.

I’m not so sure the same can be said for all our current allies. How many of them share the same dream of entering the afterlife while killing as many infidels as possible?

And how much are we prepared to risk in order to maintain this alliance? Do we want the Danes to back down and surrender a portion of their freedom of speech to appease the Umma? And will we ask the same of Americans?

That would be the equivalent of throwing Poland off the boat in 1939, of saying to Hitler, “Go on, you can have it. Those Poles mean nothing to us.”

Will we surrender what we’re fighting for to appease the millenialists of Islam?

What kind of strategy would that be?

Beware The Ides of March: It May Be Radioactive

 
Iran is getting ready to blow.

For starters, the Clerics in Charge arranged for the Danish embassy to be trashed by thugs brought into Tehran especially for the occasion. They threw petrol bombs while chanting “Death to Denmark.”

Then, according to Iranian Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi, because of those “satirical cartoons” all Danish imports will be turned back at custom, and in addition they have cut diplomatic relations with Denmark — now wasn’t that a handy excuse?

Most importantly, Iran has booted out the IAEA and told them to take their monitoring equipment while they’re at it. They’ve got till mid-February to be out of Dodge.

If this were a movie, there would be lots of fast cuts as equipment was loaded onto trucks and moved across the border. Faces would be grim and half-lit in the grainy black and white moments of expulsion.

Does any of this sound familiar? How about the part where the UN impotently stomps its foot? If ever there were a product made for an organization it’s Viagra for the UN. What a large waste of hands fluttering and spokespersons stuttering over their canned remarks to the press while Iran proceeds apace with its plans.

The Officers Club says this is grave news for Israel, which has to make some plans of their own and firm them up real soon in the face of Iran’s ongoing Manhattan Project:

Even the United States may not be able to muscle the political maneuvering room to launch the kind of attack on Iran that would be necessary to knock out its reactors. This crisis comes down to how long Israel feels it can wait for Iran to acquire its WMD and delivery capability.

This timeline may be running out more quickly than people realize. If state-sponsored uranium enrichment has truly begun in earnest, and delivery capability is being researched, Israel may be forced to act sooner rather than later.

The attack would definitely be a single, massive air strike the likes of which the MidEast has never seen.

The post at O.C. goes into great detail regarding strategy and objectives (aside from the obvious one of shutting down Iran’s Manhattan Project). They have drawn out Israel’s options specifically and they make their case for a strike convincingly.

The only thing no one has addressed, that I know of, is the fallout — the literal fallout, this time — for Palestine and Jordan (just to name two countries with some concerns about becoming radioactive). While the goal of obliterating Israel is a top priority for countries in the Middle East, it doesn’t seem as though they, or anyone else, has been willing to discuss how they are going to handle the thousands and thousands of radioactive and sick Muslims who will be the “collateral damage” of Iran’s Annihilation Project.

Or perhaps they don’t care? Maybe the erasure of Israel is worth the death, illness, and genetic mutation of thousands of Arabs?

Is there something here I’ve overlooked?

Suggestions are welcome.

Theodore Dalrymple Looks at Old Europe

 
In a thoughtful and elegiac essay for the Cato Institute, Theodore Dalrymple describes the pall which hangs over Europe. Like much that has happened in the last decades — say, since the Berlin Wall crumbled under the weight of history — Europe’s current condition could not have been predicted. Or rather, those in charge of which messages get out were not sending us any warnings about Europe’s sad decline.

And though Mr. Dalrymple doesn’t mention Donald Rumsfeld’s infelicitous remark about “Old” Europe, it seemed as though once that phrase escaped his lips, Europe appeared to shrivel and age in front of our eyes.

Why is this? What has happened to this group of nations which previously jockeyed furiously among one another for supremacy? Perhaps those hundreds of years of sending off her best and brightest to be slaughtered has left Europe without much of a “bench” — not many in reserve for the tough times. The remaining DNA is thin gruel for the future.

Meanwhile, Europe has become obsessively avoidant of anything resembling tough times. Everyone gets a share of a pie that no one is willing to risk making larger or livelier. What the United States has done in her mistakes with the underclass, Europe has done to itself. All anyone understands or wants to hear about is their entitlement. “Social security” is neither very socially nor voluntarily inclined nor is it terribly secure. Having left America to do the military heavy lifting without much response in the way of gratitude, and having imported foreigners to do the work no Europeans were unwilling to perform, the mandarins are decadent and weak.

Oh, the elites are still in place, and they still mouth the same pieties — carefully shorn of any higher meaning or any notion of sacrifice on the part of its citizenry. But the pieties are now nothing more than a façade, and everyone can mouth the lines silently while their leaders speak the same old bromides. The average person has long since memorized the dialogue monologue of the state. Of statism.

Mr. Dalrymple believes this:

the principal motor of Europe’s current decline is…its obsession with social security which has created rigid social and economic systems…extremely resistant to change. And this obsession…is in turn connected with a fear of the future: for the future has now brought Europe catastrophe and relative decline for more than a century.

Imagine living ashamed of the past and fearful of the future! It is not only foreign to our American way of being in the world, it is also foreign to human nature. Man lives with “an eye to the future and an ear to the past,” to paraphrase Robert Hunter. But Europeans have become afraid. They banded together as best they could with their sad “European Union” but it has come to nothing because its creators do not understand human longing and aspiration. Human beings are always a particular people of a particular place. One of the best things in human nature is our celebration of identity. But the EU/Communist/statist utopian ideal of a glossed-over global reach is turning out to be pathetic in reality. Rather like the Shakers, the rules by which they live will force Europeans to simply fade out. Neither a whimper nor a bang. Merely silence.

Mr. Dalrymple uses Britain’s sad case as an example:

Since coming to power, the current British government has increased public expenditure enormously, such that the British tax burden now exceeds that of Germany, which itself is a very heavily taxed economy. The ostensible purpose of this expenditure has been to improve public services while serving the cause of social justice, a rhetoric that the public has hitherto believed; the hidden purpose, or at least effect, has been to create administrative jobs on an unprecedented scale, whose principle function consists of obstruction of other people as they try to create wealth, and to bring into being a political clientele dependent upon government ‘largesse’ (half the British population is now in receipt of government subventions as part or the whole of their incomes)…

As Dalrymple points out, Europe has created a bureaucratic monster. Thus it seems that Kafka and Weber were prescient in their quite differing depictions of the horrors of bureaucracy.

Not that we can say America has escaped unscathed. One has only to visit the Division of Motor Vehicles in Washington, D.C., or any large publicly-funded university to understand the dangers in such edifices.

When Mr. Dalrymple describes so mordantly:

the miserabilist view of the European past, in which achievement on a truly stupendous scale is disregarded in favor of massacre, oppression and injustice

we know we are in the presence of the mandarin viewpoint, one which flourishes at the margins of America in academia, politics and the press. So far the old man's sclerosis, which has ossified Europe, exists only at the edges here. The rationalist, scientist world view prevalent in Europe, the one which thuggishly proclaims that this is all there is, this is the cosmology which is responsible for the sclerosis in Europe. Here, is it still peripheral.

What Mr. Dalrymple calls Europe’s sense of doom is really despair. It is the foreclosure of hope and vitality. Deadness spreads from one limb to another and it remains to be seen if the involvement of vital organs have passed the point of return to life.

Who knows? Perhaps the frenzied attack on Denmark will rouse the Europeans before it is too late. The cause of Islam’s hysteria is so patently trivial that even the elites must see through the ruse. If such is the result, then this bears consideration: one Danish newspaper’s decision to test the waters of freedom of speech may well have opened the floodgates. Europe may be roused to start caring for itself robustly, with firmness and a strong sense of pride and identity. The despair may be drowned by the living waters of hope. Even its immigrants may be drawn in by the vision of something greater than themselves, something more important than their grievances.

Before you shake your head in discouraged disbelief, remember the Berlin Wall. Did you predict its passing?

Just One More Shining Council Week

 
New Sisyphus is an excellent essayist. I’ve probably already told you that. However, it is one of the privileges of age to repeat oneself with impunity.

This week he took first place for “ Our Liberties are Our Liberties, Even If, and Especially if, That Pisses Mohammed Off.” Already you can tell you’re going to like this one, huh? Me, too.

This is a fascinating account of a man’s conversion from his inherited forms of thinking to his differentiated, adult thought. All too often, this painful journey is foreclosed. However, Sisyphus remembers distinctly when the road forked, where he went one way and his friends went another. And all because of Salman Rushdie:

This was in 1989…

… To the extent I thought about Islam at all, it was in the context of the Iranian Revolution. At that time I saw myself as a staunch democratic socialist, a secularist, a member of Michael Harrington's DSA and very much the model of a liberal.

Which is why, looking back, my reaction to the news of the Ayatollah's fatwa [against Salman Rushdie] was so odd. In its essence my reaction was: "well now, buddy, I'm sure your religion is important to you, but you don't have the right to declare death sentences on British citizens. Our belief in freedom of speech and our liberty is as important to us as your Koran is to you and you won't find us bending in to threats like this so easily. Who does this pipsqueak priest think he is?!? This guy has seriously over-stepped his bounds and is in for a terrible thumping, both culturally and probably militarily as well."

Which just goes to show you how much Conservatism is actually a question of temperament. Here I was, Mr. Berkeley Radical, just assuming that Tehran was in a heap of trouble with the U.K. and the U.S. for presuming to usurp its most cherished rights.

Sisyphus learned real quick that not everyone felt the same way. Many of his friends thought Rushdie had no one to blame but himself. And then…

When Cody's, the famous Berkeley bookstore, was fire-bombed for carrying The Satanic Verses, the reaction was not what I would have then expected, yet another nail in the coffin of my leftism. I tried to imagine if the muted reaction would have been the same if a militant Christian sect had bombed the store for carrying Chomsky and found myself laughing at the very thought.

Sisyphus recalls how weak were our responses, how blind we were to how we appeared to the Islamists:

And, so, the famous Bin Laden Myth of the Paper Tiger was born. Kill their soldiers, bomb their diplomats, blow holes in their warships, demand that they kow-tow to our beliefs, craft respect for the Islamist political programme as an issue of "civil rights," murder their men while they are bringing food to a starving Muslim nation, murder sailors during hijackings, use any counter-reaction by Westerners as a ploy for international sympathy…

Chillling isn’t it? Reading his words, you understand how destructive the MSM had been to the fabric of our culture when they sold us the bill of goods known as “Vietnam is the First War America Lost.” Even more chilling was the way we walked off and left millions to die at the hands of tyrants.


It took the full alarm of 9/11 to wake us up from the drugged state we’d been living. Coming back to life after so many years is painful indeed.

Go read the rest of the essay, all the way down to Clinton’s appalling betrayal. If it’s any comfort at least now we sometimes know when we’re being had.


Dr. Sanity was in second place with her sardonic monologue, written in response to Juan Cole’s snippy rhetorical question: “How do you like your democracy now, Mr. President?” (Personally, were I Bush, I’d have emailed him in reply to say “Why, thanks for asking, Juan, boy. I kinda like ’em over easy with grits on the side” ~!D. But I’m not as busy as he is).

Dr. Sanity gives ol’ Cole a tongue-lashing that you’ll be glad not to have aimed in your personal direction. That woman knows how to tell a person where to go and what to do when they get there. Whowee.

Guess what? I understand that you live in some ivory tower somewhere, Professor, but I choose to live in the real world. That means, among other things that things do not go perfectly all the time; nor do they go the way I (or Mr. Bush) might happen to want them to go.

I don't get into a snit about it like some, because I recognize that simple truth.

Democracy never promises perfection. Democracy has never promised anything--except choice. NEWSFLASH. People make bad choices. They make bad choices all the time. They don't even (gasp!) act in what is obviously their best interest an awful lot of the time. This is frequently referred to as "human nature".

Welcome to reality. There is no "stunning contradiction or hypocrisy" involved here--except perhaps on your part. The decades-long self-brainwashing of the Palestinian people is hardly likely to evaporate instantaneously. They will cling to their role as Islamic victim poster children for a quite a while, I suspect. They're comfortable in this role because it explains their pathetic situation. They are comfortable in this role because people like you have encouraged them in this role and have nodded knowingly as they blame the Jews; or the Americans; or just about anyone--rather than take responsibility for their own plight. It was people like you who supported Yasser Arafat and his brand of thugs for all these years.

So the Palestinians voted for a bunch of murderous thugs in their first free election in decades. Their choice was between two groups of them, in fact--one marginally less suicidal and homicidal than the other. What did you expect?

It would be nice to think Dr. Sanity’s ideas penetrated Dr. Cole’s kryptonite liberalism, but don’t bet money on it. Liberalism has made itself deaf, dumb and blind to reason. That’s why it’s not able to come up with any new ideas. Liberals know what they know and that’s that. Impenetrable.


The first place non-council winner, Neo neocon, parallels in some ways the ideas in the first place council post. For some time now, Neo has been writing about her change in direction and the many perturbations in her life that have been caused by the change in her political thinking. Each of these essays has been fascinating, and each has drawn a number of readers who have experienced similar dramas on their road to change.

For Sisyphus, Salman Rushdie’s treatment was a turning point. But for Neo, it didn’t begin for real until 9/11:

For me, that shock was just the beginning--the catalyst, as it were--of a slow process of change that took several years to complete and probably isn't over yet. It unfolded in a manner that was mostly solitary and internal; involving watching, listening, reading, and thinking.

Looking back, I realize that two elements were absolutely necessary for this to occur: a powerful motivation, and access to information.

She nails it right there. Both are necessary, and neither is sufficient on its own:

The access was provided by the internet. The worldwide media was newly at my fingertips. Without it, I would never have encountered the varied sources that led me down the path of change, but would instead have stuck with the old tried and true--the Times, the Globe, the New Yorker, Nightline, and NPR--and I am certain I would not be sitting here today, writing this blog.

Prior to this, I'd been neither a news junkie nor a history buff. My consumption of such things seems to have been about average: the usual cursory high school history courses plus one or two in college; the quick reading of a daily newspaper and a weekly periodical; and the viewing of the nightly news on TV, background noise while I concentrated on cooking dinner or tending to the family.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I didn't have a clue that my online reading and increased interest in news, history, and politics would lead to any sort of mind- or life-changing experience…

Neo is an excellent memorist. Rather than excerpt any more of her story, I urge you to go to the post and read for yourself how she smooths the wrinkles of change, how she works her way to a new perspective about herself and the world.

Unfortunately for Dr. Cole, locked away in his tower of tenure, he will not have the opportunity to experience what Neo did. Given how difficult her journey was, you have to wonder if Cole’s refusal is more a failure of nerve than anything else.


Second place was taken by Villainous Company (The Baron always likes it when she gets nominated. He has an excuse to look at that great illustration). I grew up with kids like V.C. She’s a military brat and I lived in a military town and played with children whose fathers were often transferred. So I understand her disgust with Joel Stein’s facile article recently. The one where he claimed some kind of moral courage for saying out loud that he didn’t support the troops. Reading him, you got the sense he thought this was a stance to take pride in. As V.C. puts it:

Reading Joel Stein… in the LA Times a few days ago, it was hard to know how to react.

For someone like me who grew up in a Navy family and married a Marine, it's always tempting not to take that sort of thing seriously. To dismiss him as the kind of overprivileged, airy-fairy dilettante my father's and husband's service make possible. Annoying, but in the end insubstantial. It's tempting to think of men like Stein as the noxious by-products of freedom, like exhaust from an automobile: just hold your nose, wave your hand about rapidly, and try not to inhale until the odor dissipates.

I could see Mr. Stein was, possibly, trying to be amusing with his little japes about how it wasn't "safe" not to support the troops. You see, they might beat him up. The joke fell a bit flat with me, though, because the men he doesn't support are currently far too busy to beat up snivelling West Coast reporters who can't name a single military person of their acquaintance and admittedly know nothing about any of the wars their own country has fought. Of course, ignorance doesn't keep him from bloviating.

Go to her post to find out who Mr. Stein “might” support.

Great essay.

And so aren’t they all. The Watcher has them in a tidy bunch, right here.

Using Children To Promote Killing

 
This picture is so disheartening. Especially when you combine it with the story out of Iraq today about Danish soldiers being fired upon when they were trying to help some kids:

Danish soldiers on patrol in southern Iraq came under attack but escaped unharmed, the Danish military headquarters said.

Iraqis shot at the patrol on Sunday as the Danish soldiers gave first aid to a group of children injured in a traffic accident south of Al-Qurnah, it said.

“They were shot at as they tried to help the children,” Colonel Henrik Sommer said.

The soldiers shot back, withdrew from the area and took several of the children to hospital, he said.

Meanwhile, thousands of Iraqis marched to demand a fatwa calling for the murder of those infamous Danish cartoonists. However:

Danish Defence Minister Soeren Gade told Danish television DR1 that Denmark had increased security around its troops in Iraq.

Good thing, too, since there is now a fatwa against the Danish soldiers themselves:

A fatwa appears to have been issued against Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq, the Danish Defence Ministry said yesterday.

“I can confirm that we've heard about the fatwa from a reliable source in Iraq ... so we believe it's true,” said Defence Minister Soeren Gade's spokesman Jacob Winther.

Since there are only about five hundred Danish soldiers serving in Iraq, I hope the Alliance does the right thing and sends them home a few months early. At least some of the Iraqis have proved they don’t deserve Danish help. Besides, it's for damn sure the Danish don’t need any more grief from medievalists bent on turning the world clock back a millennium using Denmark as their lever.

This whole bloody thing is so obviously orchestrated. The Arab Street has been proved to be what everyone but the MSM always thought it was: mindless automatons who do the master’s bidding. The thugs in charge of this global display could’ve taught the old ward bosses in New York City or Boston a thing or do about manipulating people.

In the final analysis, you can only scratch your head in puzzlement. “What th’-!? Why Denmark of all places? Are you people insane?”

Oops. We're talking ME Islam here. Definitely makes the question rhetorical, doesn't it?

By the way, look back at that picture of the child with the sign. Does he or she look old enough to read?

Anne Frank and Hitler, Reclining

Finally. While looking on the Hy Science blog to see if they had any information on the avian flu death in Lithuania (they didn’t) I came upon something equally compelling. The picture, which I was unable to find last night, is now posted right there at Hy Science. They put up the lovely comic depiction of Anne Frank and Hitler’s post-coital conversation that’s been making the blogorounds. This sort of satiric “art” ought to be seen far and wide, along with "Piss Christ" and the Virgin Mary in horse manure and other “avant-garde” philistinism that plagues much of government-subsidized art work.

It ought to be seen so that we have a full understanding of what it means to be tolerant. In this case, it means I am free to be offended, and Mr. Serrano is free to work out his problems in public. In the West, we don’t find it necessary to blow people up, burn their flags, or otherwise put them in harm’s way because they create offensive pieces and call them art.

In fact, we don’t even find it worthwhile to issue fatwahs on the “art critics” and “experts” who encourage such trash. We are able to differentiate enough to simply enjoy the phantasy of offing the “artists” and those critics who love them. We are mature enough to put down the pistol even when some mandarin blathers on predictably about “cutting edge transgressive art.” You hear that phrase and you know that The Vagina Monologues is coming to a university theatre near you real soon.

Oh... there is one stratum of our society that does indeed resemble the Muslim culture in their extreme reactive hostility to any criticism of their own particular sacred cows. People who appreciate The Vagina Monologues as art definitely do not appreciate those who stand in solidarity with them by attending the play in rented penis costumes. This ummm... vaginal group has been known to become violent at the notion of satire directed toward them. Perhaps this characterological trait is why you don’t see as much interest evoked in the leftist groups by the Muslim outrage. Leftists understand outrage; in fact some of them think they invented it in their Victimology Studies. Neither Muslim cultures nor leftist thinkers are known for their grasp of the longer view of history. Both appear to be so narrowly focused on their areas of expertise that they don’t have much room for secular conversation. That’s how it is with The Anointed.

Perhaps some of you know that the Baron is a landscape artist. He painted for more than twenty years — every darn cedar tree within easy commuting distance (before returning to the world of work when his Boy needed tuition money). During those years, any attempt to have him apply for a government “grant” fell on deaf ears. Art either sold itself or it didn’t, but having government officials involved was sure to make it corrupt, crony-ridden and debased.

Turns out he was right. The picture of the Blessed Mother in the manure was proof of all the things he’d said about artists supported by tax money. And given the large amounts of money paid for Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” one hopes there is enough cash left for several years of serious therapy for the umm... ”creator” of this fascinating work. Watching the crucifix floating in pee, one has to wonder about this boy’s toilet training traumas. They must’ve been horrendous; his “work of art” sure is.

Hy Science also has a link to another cartoon. It is rather large, so instead of showing it, here’s the link instead. Be sure to scroll down the page and read the... the poem which accompanies the image.

Rather edgy and explosive, wouldn’t you say?

Bird Flu Case In Lithuania?

 
The Lithuanian Ministry of Health has reported today that an Indian sailor died in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda. His death was due to the avian flu.

Hy-Science has no information posted on this case. If any of our readers do, please let us know.

Dymphna and Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse like to freak ourselves out over this, but others pooh-pooh the idea. Dymphna's internist rolls her eyes and makes reassuring noises about the Center for Disease Control. As though scientists from Atlanta are going to swarm in their white coats, waving their wands and spreading "save us" dust on everyone. Uh huh.

In an essay last month, "Bird Flu Targets Europe, Rick Moran said:

Professor John Oxford, an expert on flu at Queen Mary’s medical school, London, said the most worrying aspect of the deaths in Turkey was the large number of human cases resulting from exposure to a small number of birds.”

What we may be observing is a very small but significant change in the pathology of the disease – its ability to infect humans may be improving. While it still cannot be spread through the air via casual contact like sneezing or coughing, it may have mutated ever so slightly so that the virus can either trick our immune system long enough to become established or, more likely, replicate at a faster pace once inside the human body thus overwhelming our bodies’ natural defenses in a shorter period of time.

It's all a matter of wait-and-see. This is one case where I'd like to be wrong and have my internist's views on the ability of the CDC to do something effective be correct.

But I'm still worried. Hey, Rick -- what have you heard??


UPDATE: A reader sent this URL with maps that illustrate the spread of H5N1 in Europe and the world. Here is the world December map, but the rest of the site is equally interesting.

Tell Rick Moran if you see him.

We Are All Danes Now!

“Hold your ground, hold your ground. Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”


See Brussels Journal.

The Whole World Is Festering With Unhappy Souls

Amazing thing, the fact of human sensibility. One man’s offensive remark is another fellow’s howlingly funny joke. As Einstein said when the train went by, everything depends on where you’re standing, doesn’t it?

So on Saturday night there were these Syrians demonstrating in Damascus, see? And things kind of got out of hand. Next thing you know, there’s the Danish embassy, lit up like a Christmas tree. On thing led to another and kaboom! The Norwegian embassy was similarly enlightened.

Sunday came and Lebanon, not wanting to be left out, followed suit. CNN reported:

Thousands of protesters packed the streets of Beirut on Sunday, some clashing with security forces and setting the Danish Consulate on fire in anger over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

[…]

The protests soon escalated into fights between Muslims and Christians, and some protesters threw rocks at a Maronite Catholic church, bringing back memories of the civil war that once gripped the capital.

We’ve got a bad case of dissed Muslims and they want the world to know what they do when they’re dissed.

Turkey, not wanting to be left out, held their own celebrations demonstrations, complete with fire and ranting crowds:

Also Sunday some 300 Muslim Turks marched to the Danish consulate in Istanbul to protest caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad printed in European newspapers, lobbing eggs at the building.

In a separate incident in Istanbul some 2,000 Shi'ite Muslims gathered at a city square for a separate protest, chanted slogans and burned an effigy of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen before heeding police calls to disperse.

And no “we will not be dissed” demo would be complete without input from those loveable Palestinians. According toHaaretz everyone had a grand time:

… hundreds of Palestinians stormed European institutions and burned German and Danish flags in Gaza City.

About two dozen protesters stormed the German cultural center Saturday morning, smashing windows, breaking doors and burning the German flag. Down the street, about 30 Palestinians threw stones at the European Commission building, and replaced the EU flag with a Palestinian flag, before police brought them under control.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, about 50 Palestinians marched to the headquarters of the international observer mission there, burned a Danish flag, and demanded a boycott of Danish goods.

"We will redeem our prophet, Mohammed, with our blood,' they chanted.

Ya gotta love these folks: “loyal and brave” doesn’t even begin to cover it…though perhaps “rigid and homicidal” would be a good start.

You could sympathize with these folks if they rendered the same respect to others that they demand for themselves. “Thou shalt not dis thy neighbor with cartoons” — or some such clever rallying cry. Unfortunately, however, these countries have some of the most bigoted people anywhere. And they don’t just hate the West with Big Satan and Little Satan lined up for target practice, they also have a thousand years of intramural fighting under their belts. Sunni, Shi’ite is just the big division…there are lots more with divisive murderous plans for their fellow Muslims should one group or another come to power. With Mohammed’s Boys, whenever two or three are gathered in his name, at least two are vying for power.

Islamists are expert and devoted haters. Perhaps it’s the desert air? Or the oligarchies they establish to run things? Or the permanent enslavement and degradation of half their population? At any rate, they love to dis the Jews. It’s probably their favorite target, even more so than the US. Where we talk assimilation, they practice obliteration.

And that’s not likely to change. For religious change, one needs a large change of heart, a metanoia. Islam simply isn’t structured to permit change. It’s their way or a one way ticket on the highway to hell. If you can’t change, you’re also unlikely to be a candidate for self-reflection. “Islam” doesn’t translate as “submission” for nothing.

Tom Gross keeps up some Arab cartoons just to demonstrate that — as usual — these people do not ever practice what they preach. No, their form of negotiation appears to be the fire and the sword.In this example of Palestinian satire, they manage to dis both the Americans and the Jews. Snakes are an ancient symbol for Jews, says Mr. Gross.

These Islamist fundamentalists don’t live, they fester. Never was the dictum that one ought to get a life more apropos than it is right now for all the hysterics in the Middle East. Their demonstrations demonstrate one thing clearly: Islam,in its current manifestation, is a degraded culture.

First Bombs, Now Ricin

 
Remember Chetanand “Ashley” Sewraz? The young fellow from Mauritius, now living in Chesterfield County, Virginia, whose dispute with his wife had escalated to bombs?

Well, thanks to The Richmond Times-Dispatch we now know that his middle name is “Kumar”.

And we also know that he was manufacturing ricin in his home in the suburbs of Richmond.

Ricin was found Jan. 20 in the home of Chetanand Kumar Sewraz in the 14000 block of Fortune Ridge Court in the Brandermill subdivision, police said yesterday.

Ricin, which has potential to be used as an agent of biological warfare, is widely available, easily produced and derived from the beans of the castor plant. Chesterfield police spokeswoman Ann P. Reid said the ricin found in the Brandermill home was in a semi-solid mash form and poses no threat to the public.

Police said a dispute between Sewraz and his estranged wife, Mariea Gamble, became public Dec. 13, when he swore out warrants charging her with making a threatening phone call to him and threatening to burn or destroy his house or vehicle. Gamble, 22, surrendered five days later and was released that day.

On Jan. 9, Chesterfield police charged Sewraz, 24, with abduction and domestic assault. He was jailed without bond.

The strangest part of the story is the following sentence:

Chesterfield County police say the discovery of the toxin ricin in a home is related to a domestic dispute.

A domestic dispute? That must have been a hell of a marriage! Never mind throwing the crockery; bombs and ricin were the weapons of choice. Do you think they’ll find a suitcase nuke from Tajikistan in the basement?

In my initial report last month, I said that there was no indication that this story was jihad-related, and the consensus of the commenters was that this was a marital battle, albeit a strange one.

But ricin?

And now I wonder about “Kumar” — I had thought that it was a Pakistani name, and not a Hindu one. Can any of our South Asian readers enlighten me on this?

The story concludes with:

The investigation is continuing.

Well, I hope so. I wish I could say the same for mine. But, except for the meager supply of RT-D stories, almost all the Google trails lead here to Gates of Vienna.

If anybody has any more tips, by all means send them in.


Hat tip: alert Reader J.S.

Sacred Cows: Rank Hath Its Privileges

 
In his Boston Globe column today, Jeff Jacoby compares the behavior of Muslims over the Great Cartoon Affair with the non-behavior of non-affronted Hindus vis-à-vis cows:

Hindus may consider it odious to use cows as food, but they do not resort to boycotts, threats, and violence when non-Hindus eat hamburger or steak. They do not demand that everyone abide by the strictures of Hinduism and avoid words and deeds that Hindus might find upsetting. The same is true of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Mormons: They don’t lash out in violence when their religious sensibilities are offended. They certainly don’t expect their beliefs to be immune from criticism, mockery, or dissent.

But radical Muslims do.

I hate to say it, but he’s a little late on the bandwagon. Regular Gates of Vienna readers will remember that I launched this particular wagon back in December, in a post called “Sacred Animal Farm”. In it I mentioned the Mohammed Cartoons (referencing the The Brussels Journal) long before they were even fashionable. I said:

For a counterpoint to all this, look at Christianity. Forget inadvertent offense: the examples of deliberate, calculated, and extreme attempts to offend Christians are legion within the popular culture. Even so, no Baptists are strapping on bomb belts and blowing themselves up in the Museum of Modern Art.

Not long ago, on my way towards the meat counter in a grocery store I passed a Hindu couple pushing their shopping cart up along the aisle. When I got to the beef section I noticed a little display sign showing a smiling cartoon cow holding up a steak on a platter and licking her chops in autophagous anticipation.

Surely, I thought, the Hindu couple must have found this display repugnant. The rows of raw red beef in packages might well have deeply disturbed their religious sensibilities. Yet there they were, calmly shopping!

No one was picketing the store. I didn’t have to pass through a metal detector to get in. Nobody firebombed the place the next day. No Hindu suicide bomber blew up the regional Food Lion headquarters.

So you heard it here first! But who gets the lead on Memeorandum? And just because he’s a big-shot MSM columnist! Rant! Rave! Seethe…

That crackling sound you hear is the slowly cooling embers of the late Baron Bodissey, recently consumed by envy.

Jihad For Fun and Prophet!

Announcing the Infidel Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest

Draw cartoons, or artistic depictions of Mohammed, and submit them to us here, by leaving a link in the comments section. Or email your URL to contest@chromatism.net.

Also, you can make your submissions at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance, or at Atlas Shrugs.

You don’t need to be mean, or pornographic. Just draw good ole Mo in everyday situations, like standing in line at Wal-Mart, or whatever comes to your mind.

Remember, Jihadis get angry at images of Piglet, so we don’t need to be extreme. The goal here is to show how many Muslims will get very angry at silly stuff.

(In many ways, the crazed reaction to silly cartoons has been a valuable lesson in the reality of Islamofascism for those of us here in the Western world.)

Therefore, think about it this way, the more artistic, the cuter, or sillier, the drawing of Mohammed, the better.

The contest will be judged by Pamela at Atlas Shrugs, and Dymphna and yours truly here at Gates of Vienna.

The winner will receive the Infidel Bloggers Alliance Golden Balls Award. Now, let’s be clear, this is a pseudo-Award (in other words, it doesn’t really exist), just an image of the Golden Balls Trophy posted here at IBA, but, as you know, it is a very prestigious pseudo-Award. ;-)

All submissions must be received by midnight 2-11-06. The Winner will be announced on 2-18-06. Let’s party like only Infidels can party.

Tigerhawk Likes Queen Margrethe, Too

In an email reference to his latest post about the Mohammed ’toons, Tigerhawk says that he’s “obsessed with this story.”

Isn’t everyone? Well, everyone center and right on the political spectrum, anyway. For some strange reason (you are free to discuss motivations here, class) the left doesn’t have much to say.

In “ The Conscience of the Queen,” Tigerhawk admits to having less than fond feelings for royalty. He links to an article from The Telegraph from back in April, when Queen Margrethe II published her biography. Tigerhawk thinks that while she hasn’t exactly redeemed royalty, he nonetheless admires her: “long may she reign.”

Margrethe published her book almost a year ago in celebration of her 65th birthday. This was five months or so before the Jyllens Posten decided to help the author who needed an illustrator of Mohammed. The frenzy against the newspaper which followed their appeal for artists was orchestrated long after the Queen faulted herself and her people for not demanding more of immigrants in the way of assimilation to Danish ways.

Gates of Vienna put up a post about her daring words back then. Here is the finish of my exposition on the eponymously titled Margrethe back in April:

Queen Margrethe, who professes a knowledge of Islam due to her interest in archaeology, said it was “natural that young Muslims would be attracted” to the faith’s absolute values and seek refuge in religion “as they are cut off from our community because of their lack of (Danish) language skills.”

“It’s not just a matter of speaking and understanding” Danish, she said, but also “understanding the language’s codes, and we have to help them.”

Good thing she has tenure in her present position. She sure wouldn’t be on track in any self-respecting American university. Or any American political seat, either. Imagine “helping” immigrants become Americanized. Berkeley would implode, Columbia would spontaneously combust. Hmmm…

Our Danish commenter Rune quickly responded with this comment:

Some twenty years ago she expressed the almost direct opposite opinion – that we should welcome the immigrants better and not criticise them. So her new sentiments actually represent a turn of mind. Though I’m not much for royalty in general I always respect a man (and woman) whom can change her mind after reconsideration – I did so myself, used to be found on the left-wing - and I have but the utmost respect for myself, I’m such a swell person. Really. ummm.. anyway, needless to say the Danish leftist like her even less now.

She married a French prince. But he’s not king since the Danish royal laws does not make the queen consort king. Pisses him off some too. They’ve got two children. The oldest just married an Australian girl, from Tasmania no less – but with English parents. I was in Copenhagen with my two daughters to watch them drive through town in their gilded horse carriage – the girls were overjoyed to learn there were other princesses than themselves. The youngest prince married a half-Chinese, half-English girl from Hong Kong - they’ve now got two small children.

So there you have it from one of her subjects. Not only is Margrethe an iconoclast, she's courageous enough to change her mind in public. I must tell Neo neocon about this.

Now, I just hope they’ll put her book out in English. A quick check of Amazon showed no English titles. Darn. Maybe I’ll write Spence Books and ask them to consider it. Remember them? They published Terror in the Skies by Annie Jacobsen.

Should I hear back from Spence, I’ll let you know.