Friday, December 29, 2006

Clarification time!

Yesterday, I wrote a post, saying there is a war right now of civilization v. barbarism. I want to clarify my position on people in the Middle East. This is copied and pasted off a reply I wrote on DKos. Read the Qu'ran. That's all I can say. The problem is religion itself. While Christianity has its problems, bibical literalism is generally a minority in the world, and we are long since past the days of stoning for adultery and killing for blasphemy. The Islamic world is not. The sooner people realize that, the better. Where are these moderate Muslims? They are very few and far between. They certainly are irrelevant in the Islamic world - please name a single democratic Islamic nation that is ruled by these Moderate Muslims. There is not a single one in existence. A true moderate Muslim knows that his/her main threat is from fellow co-religionists (more Muslims are killed by Muslims than by anyone else), and anything we do is not going to suddenly tip said person into Jihadi camp. [Make no mistake about it - I am not saying there are not 'moderate Muslims' out there - I am simply disputing the traditional definition of them!] The truth is that the vast majority of the Islamic world is NOT moderate. For example, in Iraq, when given the chance to elect a leader, they elected a parliament that said there is no higher law than Sharia law, and made it a crime to criticize the government. There were riots in Saudi Arabia when the king tried to pass a law allowing women to drive. There are riots in Pakistan concerning the passage of a law that says women do not need four witnesses to declare rape. There were widespread celebrations on the Arab street on 9/11. This all should tell you something about the "tiny minority of extremists." There's a tiny minority who are so insane that they are literally willing to blow themselves up. There is, however, a vast majority that supports THAT tiny minority ideologically and with money. The question then goes - what do we do to prevent people from becoming suicide bombers? However, someone who ever would become a suicide bomber would not have been a true "moderate" to begin with. This is stunningly obvious and yet regularly ignored. The only real solution is to forego any dreams of democracy in the Middle East. The only solution is to install a benevolent, King Hussein of Jordan-type dictator. Give these people democracy, and they will choose an Iran-style government. It's happening in Iraq, and will happen anywhere else we attempt this. It is certainly not politically correct to say all this, and yet it is also blindingly obvious, sadly.

6 comments:

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

I would agree with you, except for the sane voices and the amazing sacrifices being made by Iraqi's who are siding with us and risking all by doing it. Many in Iraq want and seem capable of having a republic. But to do it they have to first get damn brutal with those who put tribalism first.

Iranians would definately choose a better, more republican system if they had a chance as well.

But then to prove your point, we just have to look at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the idiotic, primative, self-destructive tribalism in Lebanon. Are they doomed to squabble amongst themselves forever, or is it really just Syrian and Iranian interference? The only way to find out is to clean both their clocks (Syria & Iran), and that is an experiment worth doing.

Anonymous said...

No, its not worth doing. Those sandtraps are filled with idiots who don't WANT a free society and its not worth our time or resources to try and help people who don't want help. Let them die. If they want to actually mess with us, then we should fight them to kill them, not to "liberate" them.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

Well, if we were to do it, we would first need to ban the treasonous press. Then go in a whip ass like the Etheopians did. We need to bomb all gatherings of our enemy as well, and accept that many of our enemy will wear civilian clothes and hide behind women and children. But we have to bomb them anyway. At this point, we could smash Iran, and with a US, non-insane government on both sides of it, the people could probably make things work.

But we cannot wait for iron clad, ACLU and French approved evidence that they are messing with us. We need to thump them. The problem is, once we thump a country, who will fill the vacuum? That needs to be planned. But thumping Iraq was not enough, the vacuum-filling neighbors need to be blasted into such weak positions that they cannot worry about infiltrating Iraq, but instead must worry about finding their own caves to hide in.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like mor trouble than its worth for a bunch of backwaters. Just sanction them like we did Iraq and starve them in to the stone age.

Mr. Smarterthanyou said...

Sanctions don't work when China, Russia, France, Germany and a bunch of others won't go along with it.

Preventing, by force, their export of oil, and preventing, by threat of sanctions/loss of business, banks from transferring money to Iran/Syria may work to put them back in the stone age. But that assumes you don't give a damn about putting 90% of the pain on 99% of the population. The best way is to put the pain on the leaders and the military, preferably the kind of pain that 1,000 gallons of antiseptic cream can't cure.

Red Tulips said...

I want to simply say this...

Sanctions don't work, as they are never completely fulfilled. They would be ideal if they could be enacted.

At this point, the only solution without bloodshed requires the sort of Western unity that does not exist, and may never will. Our stupidity may do us in.