more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated

[busybody..]

more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand

MOOSEFUCKS ARE ASSHOLE DUMMIES, CRAZED KILLERS

and

SHOULD BE EXTERMINATED

 

[busybody..]

The Torch Has Been Passed to a New Generation

December 21, 2011 10:04 A.M.

By Mark Steyn






In Egypt, the short version of the Arab Spring is that after 60 years the Nasser/Mubarak military has decided to throw its lot in with the Muslim Brotherhood. Given that for three decades the army was largely funded and its senior officers trained by the United States, at least we won’t have to waste a lot of time on “Who lost Egypt?” analyses.

The consequences for Copts, women, Israeli Embassy staff, etc, have been clear for some time. But just as important over the long run may be the loss of historical memory. A few days ago, during the recent military crackdown, the Institut d’Egypte was burned to the ground — mainly because young soldiers either joined in the gleeful savagery or declined to prevent it. Millions of manuscripts were lost.

This blogger (politically correct enough to use the terms “BCE” and “CE” rather than “BC and “AD”) compares it to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. But I’d put it in the context of the Muslim world’s more recent retreat into ignorance represented by the Brotherhood, the Wahhabists, the Ayatollahs et al. The famous statistic from a 2002 UN report — that more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand — suggests at the very minimum an extraordinarily closed society. Such openness to the world as exists was (as at the Institut d’Egypt) facilitated by the West. The journey from, say, Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, set in the ramshackle but pluralistic Egypt of Farouk’s day, to the city in recent years is a descent into ever more malign parochialism.

If you’re going to turn your country into a squat of theocratic totalitarianism, a stupid population is indispensable. Washington’s most basic problem in Afghanistan, for example, is that most of its upcountry villagers are too ill educated even to be aware of the existence of countries such as the United States. When, after 9/11, a bunch of guys in the full Robocop showed up and started blowing stuff up, your average rural Pushtun simply had no more idea who they were or where they came from than the Americans vis a vis the space aliens in Independence Day.

Egypt is now falling into the hands of men who revel in Taliban-scale parochial stupidity and are bent on imposing it. From 1922 to 2011, the country got worse. It’s now getting worser.

 

[busybody..]

The ‘Few Extremists’ Keep Winning Elections

December 21, 2011 12:58 P.M.

By David French






Mark, your depressing news from Egypt merely underscores the reality that the democracy unleashed during the Arab Spring is revealing a culture far more troubled than most Americans ever realized. It’s become almost an article of faith amongst Western apologists that our perceptions of the Middle East have been ruined by the “few extremists” and that painting contemporary Islam with a broad, jihadist brush is the essence of “Islamophobia.” But now that those few extremists seem to be in the habit of winning landslide elections, the new tactic appears to be casting the Muslim Brotherhood as “moderate.”

Of course, if we’re willing to constantly redefine the term “moderate,” then the apologists can never be wrong. After all, you can always find ever-greater shades of extremism in the Middle East. But the fact remains that the Muslim Brotherhood has a worldview that is not only incompatible with Western civilization, but so alien to the contemporary American experience that it’s often incomprehensible to our fellow citizens. If you catch an Iraq or Afghan vet in an unguarded moment — particularly if they were “outside the wire” and living close to the population for any extended period of time — the stories of local depravity, brutality, and hate (sometimes even from small children) are beyond shocking. And in those regions where we’ve defeated the jihadists, the system that replaces jihad is one that no American would enjoy.

To be perfectly clear, the only thing that prevents yet another force-on-force war of extermination against the Jews is the military weakness of Israel’s enemies. If Egypt were stronger — or Israel weaker — we would see another Yom Kippur War. The “Arab Street” would demand nothing less.

 

[phrodeau]

If you’re going to turn your country into a squat of theocratic totalitarianism, a stupid population is indispensable.

See that? You're indispensable to Israel.

 

[busybody..]