Opening statement: religious wackos of any stripe are intolerant idiots, and Terry Jones of Gainesville Florida certainly fits the bill. He has also however proved the point he was trying to make more perfectly than I could have planned.
His point is that Islam is evil and violent. One would hope that "The Religion of Peace" would step up and prove him wrong, but again it shows its' true colours. The plan (Jones') is to burn a crapload of Korans on Sept 11 2010 in memory of the people killed in the 9/11 attacks, and all sorts of people are running for cover because of what enraged Muslims will do in response.
General Petraeus has caved to these terrorists previously, throwing Israel to the wolves and blaming them for getting Americans killed, so it's no stretch that he's running scared again. Yes, I said the hero of Iraq is a coward and I'd say it to his face about this subject. If Muslims attack American troops because of this burning thing, there will be no blood on Terry Jones' hands. I can't say as much for Gen. Petraeus as he continues to embolden people to make intemperate demands about how us infidels should behave toward our Muslim betters.
The traditional word is "appeasement", and ask the Czechs in 1938 and the rest of Europe a few years later how well that played with the Nazis. Books are cheap and readily available, so burning them is no crime against humanity, merely stupid and inflammatory (literally and figuratively). Jones and his minuscule flock (c. 30 people) will not harm a hair on anyone's head unless they get too close to the bonfire.
Sure they'll piss people off, but they have a legal right (for the moment) to do that in their country. They have threatened no violence to anyone, let alone Muslims worldwide. I see video of the usual rent-a-crowd in Muslim countries protesting and burning American flags and effigies, and that's a proportional response, if you feel you must make one. On the gripping hand, saying over and over again that you'll kill Americans wherever you find them is a strong argument for Jones' postulate that "Islam is of the Devil", because we all know that they mean what they say.
This is international news, caused by a tiny Church and a Facebook page that at this writing had 12,484 "likes". If this was an Info Op to expose an entire religion as spawning dangerous lunatics it would be a brilliant success. I'm pretty sure this latest black eye for Islam is a by-product of a small group of yahoos in the Bible Belt, but yahoos or not, they're on to something here.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Friday 3 September 2010
You broke it, you bought it.
This looks like "pick on Slate week", but it's just a coincidence that they're posting stuff that pushes my buttons. Unlike the last thing I wrote about, William Saletan is not being an idiot, it's the subject itself which catches a particular part of the zeitgeist.
The Ground Zero Mosque has been exceptionally polarizing, but most of the energy being expended is negative. To re-cap for posterity (e.g. the future when the links I might put in now won't work), a Muslim community centre/mosque is planned for a property a couple of blocks from the 9/11 attacks in NYC. For a lot of people, this is much too close.
I am one of them, but not from blind xenophobia; indeed, I know the significance to Islam of putting a mosque on conquered territory. A lot of other people feel the same way about it even if they know less history than I do, and this is the part which is increasingly being picked up by the media. To say that some of them (mainstream at least) are shocked by this is accurate, though "perplexed" is likely a better word. Politicians however make their livings by being in touch with public opinion, and more of them in the US particularly are coming down hard against this plan.
Saletan has this to say as his conclusion:
Ground Zero was just the beginning. The case against a mosque there has shifted from extremism to Islam. Now Republicans say their no-mosque rule extends only to Ground Zero, or three blocks from Ground Zero, or whatever exclusion zone the majority feels is appropriate. But the fire of enmity has already spread from terrorism to religion. I don't think New York can contain it.
This is true, and my amazement is that it's taken this long. Apologists keep prating that Islam is not to blame for things done in its' name, but it's no longer just cranks like me who aren't buying it. If Christianity still has to wear the Crusades and the Inquisition (and that's just a start), then Islam will have to work and mature to wash away the stain of violent jihad that is associated with it today. I would argue however that it is fundamentally damaged and this will not be possible.
There is NO separating a belief from the things done in the name of it, particularly if those things are written right into the book. Islamic terrorism isn't a few anti-abortion protesters; the Salafist inspired terrorism and oppression that troubles so much of the world, well, it troubles much of the world. This isn't a tiny radical fringe, this is a violent minority with influential religious opinion underpinning and the support of a sizable number of coreligionists.
The problem really is ideology of any stripe, but Islam is a big target because of what it inspires. Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, and the same place (modern version under the House of Saud) exports its' repressive Wahhabi doctrine throughout the world. (I will insert this for the sake of balance and an attempt at accuracy in terminology, but it changes the end results not one whit) As the keepers of the holiest sites in Islam, they are exceptionally influential morally, and due to all their oil money, in practical doctrinal terms.
Even the very name of the religion (see http://www.submission.org/islam/ ) tells you what it's all about. It has a DEATH SENTENCE for leaving it (apostasy), which should answer any remaining questions you have about why people are touchy about putting a mosque anywhere near where (muslim) religious idiots killed thousands of Americans and others.
The Ground Zero Mosque has been exceptionally polarizing, but most of the energy being expended is negative. To re-cap for posterity (e.g. the future when the links I might put in now won't work), a Muslim community centre/mosque is planned for a property a couple of blocks from the 9/11 attacks in NYC. For a lot of people, this is much too close.
I am one of them, but not from blind xenophobia; indeed, I know the significance to Islam of putting a mosque on conquered territory. A lot of other people feel the same way about it even if they know less history than I do, and this is the part which is increasingly being picked up by the media. To say that some of them (mainstream at least) are shocked by this is accurate, though "perplexed" is likely a better word. Politicians however make their livings by being in touch with public opinion, and more of them in the US particularly are coming down hard against this plan.
Saletan has this to say as his conclusion:
Ground Zero was just the beginning. The case against a mosque there has shifted from extremism to Islam. Now Republicans say their no-mosque rule extends only to Ground Zero, or three blocks from Ground Zero, or whatever exclusion zone the majority feels is appropriate. But the fire of enmity has already spread from terrorism to religion. I don't think New York can contain it.
This is true, and my amazement is that it's taken this long. Apologists keep prating that Islam is not to blame for things done in its' name, but it's no longer just cranks like me who aren't buying it. If Christianity still has to wear the Crusades and the Inquisition (and that's just a start), then Islam will have to work and mature to wash away the stain of violent jihad that is associated with it today. I would argue however that it is fundamentally damaged and this will not be possible.
There is NO separating a belief from the things done in the name of it, particularly if those things are written right into the book. Islamic terrorism isn't a few anti-abortion protesters; the Salafist inspired terrorism and oppression that troubles so much of the world, well, it troubles much of the world. This isn't a tiny radical fringe, this is a violent minority with influential religious opinion underpinning and the support of a sizable number of coreligionists.
The problem really is ideology of any stripe, but Islam is a big target because of what it inspires. Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, and the same place (modern version under the House of Saud) exports its' repressive Wahhabi doctrine throughout the world. (I will insert this for the sake of balance and an attempt at accuracy in terminology, but it changes the end results not one whit) As the keepers of the holiest sites in Islam, they are exceptionally influential morally, and due to all their oil money, in practical doctrinal terms.
Even the very name of the religion (see http://www.submission.org/islam/ ) tells you what it's all about. It has a DEATH SENTENCE for leaving it (apostasy), which should answer any remaining questions you have about why people are touchy about putting a mosque anywhere near where (muslim) religious idiots killed thousands of Americans and others.
Wednesday 1 September 2010
War Crimes: The Drone Wars
It's a very human failing to demonize your opponents whether in mortal or merely rhetorical combat. I have scathing things to say about all sorts of people here (and elsewhere), but the marvels of editing and hindsight (involving hopefully more editing) allow us to see when we are hectoring. The Slate article I have picked on here could have benefited from some of that. Case in point:
Are the masters of "drone porn" committing war crimes by remote control? It's a bit shocking that more people aren't asking this question. I have a feeling that many of us, particularly liberal Obama supporters (like myself, for instance), haven't wanted to look too closely at what is being done in his name, in our name, when these remote-controlled and often tragically inaccurate weapons of small-group slaughter incinerate innocents from the sky, in what are essentially video-game massacres in which real people die.
Now I will get into how differently I see the world than do these "liberal Obama supporters".
Firstly, the repeated use of some catch(y) phrase throughout your essay lowers the tone of it significantly. "Drone porn" is not inherently inaccurate as a description; it's like crack for senior officers and I've seen it in action. Things that shock lose their effectiveness though overuse (sort of like conventional porn), and beating me with that phrase 16 times in one article is really overdoing it.
That however is mostly a style thing. My second main point is the bandying about of the term "war crime". This sounds clinical, but the few collateral casualties involved in drone strikes is not in scale or intent a war crime. Sure you can play with legal definitions to label it that, but reducing it to this level makes it a meaningless shibboleth instead of an affront to civilization. Firestorming Dresden in '45 is arguably a war crime, as it generated mass casualties for negligible tactical or strategic effect. Taking out the family of some guy who wants to destroy your precious liberal civilization is collateral damage from a legitimate (or at least necessary) military target.
Here's a part where the author loses any semblance of connection with reality:
Are the drone strikes defensible at 4 percent murdered innocents but indefensible at 33 percent? There's no algorithm that synchs up the degree of target importance, the certainty of intelligence that's based on, and potential civilian casualties from the attack. It's a question that's impossible to answer with precision. Which suggests that when murdering civilians is involved, you don't do it at all.
It's revealing that the comments on this article in Slate (Slate, of all places) were overwhelmingly dismissive. He goes on to refer to these drone targets as "criminals", demanding that we cease military operations against them. That legalistic attitude has already cost us any chance of success in Afghanistan, we don't need more if it.
The key thing is that regardless of certain peoples' sensitivities, there is a war going on. It's ugly (as are they all) and mistakes will be made. More importantly than this understanding of mistakes is the concept that this is an ideological war, and the only way to stamp out an ideology is to kill enough of its' adherents that they can't trouble you too much.
This comes to my third point about this hack job of an article. There is a whole lot of "we create more terrorists than we kill with _" floating around, and a fair bit of it settled here. First, I don't buy that, at least as far as it makes things any worse for us. The kids of a jihadist are brainwashed from birth to despise us "kufr", so killing them is merely proactive counter terrorism, and pissing them off doesn't change their attitude. At least after we blow dad into a red mist they know that we can and will kill them, and that sort of lesson will take with at least a few of them. Overall: net gain to our side.
Not nice and certainly not "liberal", but when we forget the basics "The Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter return!" The (historic, not rosy-hindsight-noble-savage) North American aboriginal peoples knew the score: kids are future warriors and women can breed more of them; you want to remove a threat, you remove ALL of it.
The NA Indians were by no means alone in this appreciation of ugly reality, but I use this as contrast to what is actually occurring on the North West Frontier these days. The locals (mostly Pakistanis) are happy to get rid of these guys and if it takes American Hellfires to do it, so be it, and there is no wholesale slaughter of non-combatants. On the other side of the Durand Line the Afghans (still Pashtuns) are complaining that the new COIN ("don't break anything") doctrine is strengthening the Taliban and other bad actors by removing the only stick we could use against them.
The only thing which will create more terrorists (besides all that Saudi money bankrolling them) is weakness and encouragement from us. And don't even get me going on Mr Rosenbaum's assertion that "There are those who argue that even the threat of a nuclear strike is a war crime". How about this: retreat to your liberal la-la land with your fellow travelers and leave dealing with the messy real world to those of us who live here.
Are the masters of "drone porn" committing war crimes by remote control? It's a bit shocking that more people aren't asking this question. I have a feeling that many of us, particularly liberal Obama supporters (like myself, for instance), haven't wanted to look too closely at what is being done in his name, in our name, when these remote-controlled and often tragically inaccurate weapons of small-group slaughter incinerate innocents from the sky, in what are essentially video-game massacres in which real people die.
Now I will get into how differently I see the world than do these "liberal Obama supporters".
Firstly, the repeated use of some catch(y) phrase throughout your essay lowers the tone of it significantly. "Drone porn" is not inherently inaccurate as a description; it's like crack for senior officers and I've seen it in action. Things that shock lose their effectiveness though overuse (sort of like conventional porn), and beating me with that phrase 16 times in one article is really overdoing it.
That however is mostly a style thing. My second main point is the bandying about of the term "war crime". This sounds clinical, but the few collateral casualties involved in drone strikes is not in scale or intent a war crime. Sure you can play with legal definitions to label it that, but reducing it to this level makes it a meaningless shibboleth instead of an affront to civilization. Firestorming Dresden in '45 is arguably a war crime, as it generated mass casualties for negligible tactical or strategic effect. Taking out the family of some guy who wants to destroy your precious liberal civilization is collateral damage from a legitimate (or at least necessary) military target.
Here's a part where the author loses any semblance of connection with reality:
Are the drone strikes defensible at 4 percent murdered innocents but indefensible at 33 percent? There's no algorithm that synchs up the degree of target importance, the certainty of intelligence that's based on, and potential civilian casualties from the attack. It's a question that's impossible to answer with precision. Which suggests that when murdering civilians is involved, you don't do it at all.
It's revealing that the comments on this article in Slate (Slate, of all places) were overwhelmingly dismissive. He goes on to refer to these drone targets as "criminals", demanding that we cease military operations against them. That legalistic attitude has already cost us any chance of success in Afghanistan, we don't need more if it.
The key thing is that regardless of certain peoples' sensitivities, there is a war going on. It's ugly (as are they all) and mistakes will be made. More importantly than this understanding of mistakes is the concept that this is an ideological war, and the only way to stamp out an ideology is to kill enough of its' adherents that they can't trouble you too much.
This comes to my third point about this hack job of an article. There is a whole lot of "we create more terrorists than we kill with _" floating around, and a fair bit of it settled here. First, I don't buy that, at least as far as it makes things any worse for us. The kids of a jihadist are brainwashed from birth to despise us "kufr", so killing them is merely proactive counter terrorism, and pissing them off doesn't change their attitude. At least after we blow dad into a red mist they know that we can and will kill them, and that sort of lesson will take with at least a few of them. Overall: net gain to our side.
Not nice and certainly not "liberal", but when we forget the basics "The Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter return!" The (historic, not rosy-hindsight-noble-savage) North American aboriginal peoples knew the score: kids are future warriors and women can breed more of them; you want to remove a threat, you remove ALL of it.
The NA Indians were by no means alone in this appreciation of ugly reality, but I use this as contrast to what is actually occurring on the North West Frontier these days. The locals (mostly Pakistanis) are happy to get rid of these guys and if it takes American Hellfires to do it, so be it, and there is no wholesale slaughter of non-combatants. On the other side of the Durand Line the Afghans (still Pashtuns) are complaining that the new COIN ("don't break anything") doctrine is strengthening the Taliban and other bad actors by removing the only stick we could use against them.
The only thing which will create more terrorists (besides all that Saudi money bankrolling them) is weakness and encouragement from us. And don't even get me going on Mr Rosenbaum's assertion that "There are those who argue that even the threat of a nuclear strike is a war crime". How about this: retreat to your liberal la-la land with your fellow travelers and leave dealing with the messy real world to those of us who live here.
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