You gotta be kidding!!!!

[busybody..]

This one is impossible to believe.


REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of PanAm Flight 103!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the military barracks in Saudi Arabia!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001!

REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!

Now the United States Postal Service REMEMBERS and HONORS the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a commemorative first class holiday postage stamp.

REMEMBER to adamantly and vocally BOYCOTT this stamp when purchasing your stamps at the post office.

To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.

 

[Linedrive]

I share some of your pro-American thoughts Busybody, but I can't condemn every Muslim for the actions of terrorist. Let me know when they go to print the Bin Laden or Zawahiri stamp and I'll get on board.

 

[busybody..]

Good point, but

The mainstream Muslims DONT do anything to repudiate the bad guys.......

Can you differentiate between the good and bad ones???????

The bad guys call ALL OF US their enemies.......We have to treat them as they treat us.....

Otherwise we are vulnerable..........

 

[Linedrive]

Re: Good point, but

I would definately like to have seen more condemnation of Al-Qaeda and terrorist in general from the Muslim world and their leaders...I give you that. Many of the governments in that part of the world on the surface appear to not be cooperating (for obvious reasons), but behind close doors are playing an active role in shutting these activities down.

 

[busybody..]

I agree with your post........except for this..........but behind close doors are playing an active role in shutting these activities down.

 

[phrodeau]

Boycott a stamp design - that'll make a BIG difference in national interfaith relations.

 

[Cuckolded_BlK_Male]

I'll be sure to buy a few books just as soon as they're available.

 

[Lost Cause]

On the other side........

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Lt. Hussain M. Shaikh, a Muslim chaplain assigned to Commander, Amphibious Group 3, recently deployed to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and the global war on terror.

Shaikh is one of only three Navy chaplains to wear the Islamic crescent moon pin on his left collar tip. His primary mission is to minister and provide spiritual care for all religious faiths in the fleet. As an Imam (leader or guide), Shaikh leads Islamic prayers, counsels Sailors and serves as an interpreter of the Koran, Islam's holy book.

In 1996, the Navy commissioned its first Muslim chaplain after recognizing an increase in the number of Muslims in the fleet. "The Navy, like America is no longer a melting pot, it's a salad bowl," said Shaikh. "Nearly 4,000 Sailors in the Navy are Muslim, and the Navy has recognized that there is a need to produce Muslim chaplains to minister to those Sailors."

Shaikh, a native of Pakistan, joined the Navy in 1992 and attended basic training in Orlando, Fla. "As I adjusted to the routine of boot camp, I noticed there were small gaps of time during the day in which I could devote to prayer," said Shaikh. "My shipmates in boot camp had little understanding of my faith or why I was praying. So, from the start of my Navy career, I recognized there was a need to bridge the gap of understanding concerning my faith.”

After basic training, Shaikh served as an Air Traffic Controller at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Fla., and aboard USS Kearsarge (LHD 3). He transferred from active duty to the Navy Reserves in 1997. After completing graduate studies in Islamic and Social Sciences, Shaikh received his commission in 1999.

"Sailors often look at my uniform and wonder what it is I do," said Shaikh. "Sometimes to break the ice, I tell them I am a banana farmer," - pointing to his collar device. "That usually gets a laugh out of them."

For Shaikh, understanding among faiths is one of the greatest challenges in the world today, and he believes that part of his job is to facilitate understanding. “World events are forcing us to grow and expand our horizons and many religious faiths are only beginning to understand one another," Shaikh said.

Differences within the Islamic community have divided the religion; just as subtle differences have divided every major religion. But, Shaikh said, "true Islam teaches peace."

The term "jihad" or “holy war” is an internal struggle for peace within Islam, not a crusade to justify violence or war. “Those who commit acts of terrorism are not true believers in Islam. They have strayed so far from Islamic teachings that they have made the religion unrecognizable," said Shaikh.

One of the things Shaikh said he hopes to accomplish during his deployment is to continue to deliver life-transforming services throughout and beyond the sea services, as well as to advise Sailors in moral and ethical issues.

"We all work together as a team in the Chaplain Corps. As a flexible asset, I may be doing a lot of traveling and working with other chaplains and RPs (Religious Program Specialists), and I am looking forward to that."

 

[LadyDarkFire]

I'll be sure to buy a few books just as soon as they're available.

With Cuckolded on this one.

 

[busybody..]

on the other hand

Peaceful Religion Watch

Once again we take a whirlwind tour of the delusional hate speech (khutba) that continues to spew from the wacked-out imams and shrieking sheikhs of the most holy mosques in the Arab world—some of them in countries that are touted as “moderates” or “allies.”

The sheikhs of Saudi Arabia seem to be suffering from Hajj exhaustion; all they can come up with is a plea for Allah to help them excel in archery:

"O God, whoever wishes us, Islam, and Muslims evil, busy him with himself and make his plot backfire on him." He also prays: "O God, support the mujahidin who elevate your word everywhere. O God, make them steadfast. O God, direct their arrows. O God, give them victory over your enemy and their enemy."
That’s a new one: direct their arrows. An oblique reference to Israel’s Arrow missile defense system?

In Yemen, the sheikh identifies the enemy:

"O God, support our brother mujahidin in Palestine, Iraq, and everywhere. O God, support them with Your angels, strengthen their hearts, and give them victory over their enemies. O God, deal with the aggressor Zionists and the arrogant Americans, as they are within Your power."
In Jordan, Dr. Mahmud al-Awatili (he’s an imam and a doctor!) gives us a brief glimpse at the latest Arab conspiracy hallucination; that the space shuttle was being used for Zionist Espionage:

Turning to current events, the imam says he hopes that in their upcoming summit the Arab leaders would close their ranks in order to spare their countries and peoples of all evil. He also appeals to "peace-loving" world leaders "to deter the arrogant ones, who have been blinded by their love for bloodshed, and make them keep their fleets off Muslim shores and go back safely to their homes before God's anger befalls them," as it has befallen the "espionage shuttle."
Here’s a shocker. In Gaza the Palestinian sheikh actually seems to be backing away from the violence:

In the second sermon the imam turns to current developments. He appeals to Palestinian leaders saying that while he appreciates their resistance against the enemy in defense of national territory and honor, they must assess every phase of the struggle. He says: "we must assess every phase of our legitimate struggle. We must also assess every means we use for jihad and struggle against our enemies. If the phase demands an offensive means, then we should use it, and if it demands a political means, then we should use it also. Moreover, we must also insure a recess [Mewnews- not clear] for our mujahidin."
Losing our taste for the intifada, are we?

In Ramallah, the imam’s still deep into that Arab conspiracy thing:

the imam says that the United States and Britain have completed the deployment of their forces for an attack against Iraq. Turkey, he adds, has declared support for the United States, Iraq's Arab neighbors have opened their air bases to "enemy" planes and soldiers, and the US secretary of state has openly declared US intention to change the map of the region after the overthrow of the Iraqi regime. It is a dual plot against our Palestinian people and steadfast Iraqi people, and our Arab and Islamic governments are waiting until the enemy has pounced on our Muslim Iraqi people, he says. Would there be a courageous Islamic Arab awakening to disappoint the aggressors?, he asks.
Allow me to answer this poignant question, your sheikhness, sir.

No.

Syria’s main talking point lately has been: Israel has weapons of mass destruction! Why do the infidels not invade the Zionist entity? And Shaykh Sulayman al-Afandi toes the party line in a sermon broadcast over official Syrian radio:

"Today, O faithful," the imam says, "we hear the beat of war drums and the sound of danger alarms. We hear threats by the United States against Iraq and its besieged people. The United States is furious about the so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but silent about the huge arsenal of nuclear, biological, chemical, and other weapons of mass destruction in Israel. This confirms the vicious imperialist intentions and premeditated hostile plans against everything Arab and Muslim. Syria has rejected aggression against oppressed people in any country."

The imam devotes the second sermon to a general prayer for Islamic victory. He prays: "O God, whoever wishes Islam and Muslim goodness make him successful, and whoever wishes them otherwise deal with him with the sword of Your vengeance."
Allah has a “sword of vengeance?” Who knew? But guess what, Shaykh. America has a sword of vengeance too.

But Iraq (unsurprisingly) wins the prize this week for rabid lunacy, soon to be revealed as empty blustering:

"I warn you, O United States, O Britain, and O you Jews, sons of apes and pigs. You, Jews, are behind sedition on earth. God has chosen us to chop off your filthy heads, and we will chop them off." The imam reiterates that sedition on earth "takes place with the funds and media intrigues of criminal Jews." "It is very regrettable and shameful that the United States and Britain bow to Jewish tyrants," he says.

The imam makes an emotional appeal, saying Iraqis are ready to respond to the call of the prophet. They are ready to die and meet their God, he says. "We are ready, O Muhammad," he cries out, "we yearn for you and God. We can't stand this world and its corrupt dens, which contain these people, these murderers of the prophets, who kill our children and women daily and destroy and level lands." "O God," the imam cries out again, rousing the congregation, "give us a chance for martyrdom. We are coming. Here are Iraqis waiting for the hour to meet you. Permits us to be among the supporters of Muhammad and Islam. O God Almighty honor us with the call of the Koran: "To those against whom war is made, permission is given to fight, because they are wronged, and verily Allah is most powerful for their aid." [Koranic verse] This brought out deafening cries of "Allahu Akbar" from the congregation.

By this moment, the whole atmosphere in the mosque is charged with strong emotion, while the imam continues to invoke Islam's great saints, many of whom are buried in Iraq, including Imam Al-Husayn, grandson of the prophet and symbol of jihad and martyrdom, especially for the Shiites. "Allahu Akbar," the imam cries out echoed by the congregation. The words of "Allahu Akbar" ricochet within the walls of the mosque. "Allahu Akbar," the imam goes on, "and victory for Iraqis, Allahu Akbar and victory for us with God's might, Allahu Akbar and victory for us with the blessings of the prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him. God is our best supporter."

Calming down a bit, the imam says: "Look, O world, this is how Iraqis are. This is their nobility and honor. Their honor is from God and his prophet. It is their souls that speak not tongues. God is our best supporter."

The imam devotes the second sermon to a deep, emotional prayer to God for salvation. He warns: "The traitors and the unjust; the renegade agents and covetous criminals will see what their end would be."

The imam concludes with a deep, emotional prayer for martyrdom that brings out a solemn "Amen' from the congregation. He prays: "O God, deal with the United States, Britain, and Zionism, as they are within Your power. O God, shake the ground under their feet. O God, defeat them and make them booty for Muslims. O God, show our revenge on them." He also prays: "O God, deal with the tyrant of the age, Bush the criminal, Sharon, and his followers." "O God, whoever wishes us, our country, leader, Arabs and Muslims evil, make the cycle of evil turn against him. Turn his plot against him until he butchers himself with his own hands. O God, turn the infidels against one another. Busy them with themselves. O God, freeze the blood in their veins and make their plots destroy them. O God, defeat their soldiers, split their ranks, and turn Your torture on them." The imam prays for Saddam's victory for the sake of Islam and Muslims.
“God has chosen us to chop off your filthy heads, and we will chop them off.”

 

[badasschick]

I'm calling you out Busy....



You're a Dick!!!

 

[busybody..]

I'm calling you out Busy....



You're a Dick!!!

Yes, I am.....amd I admit to being any negative appelation you may hurl at me.......

It doesnt negate the force and veracity of my arguments!

 

[LadyDarkFire]

Unfortunately, it also doesn't shut you up!

 

[QuickDuck]

Unfortunately, it also doesn't shut you up!

LDF: He is abusing his right to be a fucktard.

LC: nice post.

BusyRyan: Just once, have an original thought rather than a cut and paste job.

 

[badasschick]

Yes, I am.....amd I admit to being any negative appelation you may hurl at me.......

It doesnt negate the force and veracity of my arguments!

Well Shoot Busy,

Can I petition to change the namesakes of Columbus?

Cause he was the catalyst for genocide in the western hemisphere. A pioneer amongst Terrorists. Am I not correct?


Or Screw that, let's throw a low blow....Tear down the Menorah on the Miracle Mile during chanukah, let's not encourage the JDL to plot any more bombings against Arab city councilmen.

 

[busybody..]

Yes the JDL.........3 guys.......doing nuthin, but planning and getting caught........even if succesfull.......

Im sure it equates with the Muslim/Arab killings......

Ah yes, MORAL EQUIVELENCE

 

[badasschick]

Yes the JDL.........3 guys.......doing nuthin, but planning and getting caught........even if succesfull.......

Im sure it equates with the Muslim/Arab killings......

Ah yes, MORAL EQUIVELENCE

Should I ask that you should be gagged indefinitely because it was a closed minded dipshit who harassed my young neighbor into seclusion?

How do you feel now that I say it was YOU who crushed a young boy's faith in the human condition? You're just as bad as the ass fucks who actually did it to him.


The JDL are Jewish, you're Jewish...I could very well lump you in with those terrorists, can't I according to your fucked up logic.

 

[Bent]

Do they have a Catholic stamp?

 

[busybody..]

Black Bitch

Yes you could.......

Tell that little psycho kid.......that its the JEWS that will blow things up.........his school......bus.......pizza shops.......Tell him that!

And its the JEWS that blew up Bali and WTC and Kenya and Cole

and Kasmir and its the JEWS that have called a HOLY WAR on that little shithead!

 

[badasschick]

Re: Black Bitch

Yes you could.......

Tell that little psycho kid.......that its the JESW that will blow things up.........his school......bus.......pizza shops.......Tell him that!

So I get to call you out now?


That kid never did anything to anyone. But it is your atittude that will make him angry when he's older....things stick with you.

You don't feel anything do you?

or

is it the fact you don't have the capacity to?

Who the fuck taught you to hate Busy?

Why do you want the world to conform to your standards?

Do you just want to get involved in a war so you can feel affirmation in your convictions? Feel like a hero indirectly, since you missed out on your chance before? Be part of some twisted fraternity in hatred?


You're not as dumb as you seem.


Stop the fucking around, and be human for once...you know I can shut you down anyday, if I choose to go there.


Be a fucking man!!!

 

[busybody..]

Re: Re: Black Bitch

So I get to call you out now?


* You can call me anything you wish

That kid never did anything to anyone. But it is your atittude that will make him angry when he's older....things stick with you.

* When I was about 15 or so, I was beaten up by Italian kids because I was a JEW.......I got over it.....no hatred for them at all......My biz partner is an Italian.......oh, and my other one is BLACK!

You don't feel anything do you?

* Yes, I do......GET OVER IT.......if you cant, you got a problem....YOU not ME!

or

is it the fact you don't have the capacity to?

*Yes, I do!

Who the fuck taught you to hate Busy?

* I hate those that will hurt us....those that have DONE so, those that have said they WILL CONTINUE to do so.....I see no problem with that!

Why do you want the world to conform to your standards?

* I dont want, nor need,nor can make anyone conform to my way of thinking.....Heck, my 18 yr old son thinks Im carzy......My 20 yr old doesnt.......I state my views,based on my intelligence.....I believe I am MORE right then wrong!

Do you just want to get involved in a war so you can feel affirmation in your convictions? Feel like a hero indirectly, since you missed out on your chance before? Be part of some twisted fraternity in hatred?

*No, I want to eliminate those that can and will and have the capacity to hurt us.


You're not as dumb as you seem.


Stop the fucking around, and be human for once...you know I can shut you down anyday, if I choose to go there.

* Shut me down if it makes you happy......You want me to be human? My son is in Israel, studying! He is in the path of WAR with Iraq......I am as human as can be.

I have NO TOLERANCE for those that will can HURT MY country.......USA and ISRAEL......


Be a fucking man!!!

 

[badasschick]

Re: Re: Re: Black Bitch

Your hate betrays you, busy.
Why else would you call me a black bitch instead of just bitch?
You want it to sting, don't you?

Someone hurt you, busy.
But you take it out on those in the like who never hurt you.
Your wounds will never heal, if you continue to pick at the scab.
Sounds like you're the one who needs to get over it.

You never answered my question, busy.
Who taught you to hate? Who taught you to blanket a people like you do?


Your views do not reflect intelligence...just your ignorance.
You don't realize I can see right through you. You've cloistered yourself dude.

 

[busybody..]

I disagree.......with your entire post.

I shoulda written Nasty Bitch.......

I mistook the name.......Sorry!

Freudian slip? Dunno.......

Sorry

 

[eagleyez]

Re: Re: Re: Black Bitch

what a cheap and lazy ploy, to misappropriate the quotes of historical figures to push your drivel

my guess is you have a dick the size of my little toe...



ha ha ha...

pipsqueak dickie...

on a porn board...

tee hee...

 

[busybody..]

Stardate 20020918.1329

Why Islam is the enemy.........it is obtuse to believe otherwise.........ignore it at your own doom


Aziz H. Poonawalla writes:

Your essays are probably the most exhaustively argued, for the pro-attack camp. But, they are spread out all over the place. Is it possible to simply list in 4 or 5 numbered points the reasons why you favor attack in Iraq? as best as I can tell, they seem to be:

1. Iraq has WMD
2. Iraq will get WMD
3. Iraq will give WMD to terrorists
4. Iraq has used WMD against his own people
5. Iraq is not deterrable
6. ???

are these accurate? oversimplified?

And is your support of attacking Iraq contingent on all of these, or just a majority? how many would have to be false for you to change your opinion?

And as I read this, yet another letter from Hesiod arrived, which made clear that a lot of my disagreement with him on strategy and tactics comes from a completely different perception of just what this war is about.

I can't explain the reasons for attacking Iraq in a vacuum because Iraq is part of a bigger picture, and the attack there will be one battle in a much longer war. Trying to understand one particular battle without the context of the larger war is an exercise in futility. (By analogy: what excuse is there in 1942 for the US to attack Vichy France in Morocco? Vichy France wasn't our enemy; Germany and Italy were. Taken out of the context of the larger war, the Torch landings in Africa make little sense. It's only when you look at the bigger picture of the whole war that you can understand them.)

We must attack Iraq. We must totally conquer the nation. Saddam must be removed from power, and killed if possible, and the Baath party must be shattered.

But Saddam isn't our enemy. bin Laden (may he burn in hell) is not our enemy. Iraq isn't our enemy. al Qaeda isn't our enemy. The Taliban weren't our enemies.

In most wars, there's a government or core organization which you can identify as the enemy. It isn't always a single person; in World War II it was Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, but it wasn't Tojo in Japan. Tojo was deposed in 1944, but the war went on. It also wasn't Hirohito; he mostly kept his hands off of policy. Still, it was the Japanese government, and that could still be understood.

But in this war there is no single government or small group of them, no man, no organization. Our enemy is a culture which is deeply diseased.

It's really difficult to exactly delineate who our enemies are, but they number in millions. They're Arab and Muslim, but not every Arab is among them, and most Muslims are not.

But even to discuss it in these terms is to cross the boundaries of political correctness. Not that I care, but it isn't politically possible for our leaders to say things like these, which makes the political wrangling all the more difficult. I think that they know what I'm about to say, and I at least am free to say what I believe whether others find it offensive or racist.

Islam is larger than greater Arabia, and the majority of Muslims are not Arab. But in the beginning, Islam was both a religion and a political movement. The Qur'an is a source of moral teachings for everyday life, telling people how to live and how to act towards one another. But it's also a manual for conquest, describing how to face enemies, how to fight, how to treat those who have been conquered, how to treat prisoners, how to treat enemy soldiers.

It lays a dual obligation on Muslims: to live a good life, and to spread Islam to the entire world, by any means necessary. All successful widespread religions are evangelistic to a greater or lesser extent (with Judaism being the notable exception), but I know of no other major religion whose holy teachings include instructions for how to go to war to spread the faith.

Until Mohammed, the Arab tribes were divided and spent most of their time fighting one another. The great achievement of Mohammed was to unite the Arabs and face them outwards, strengthened and given will by his new religion. And for two hundred years, nothing could stand in their way; they created one of the great empires in the history of the world which was bounded on the south by the Sahara, on the west by the Atlantic ocean, on the north by Christendom, and on the east by the Hindu nations. Extending from Spain to Iran, from Turkey to Egypt it was much larger and more powerful than was the Roman Empire before it, and it lasted longer. Within its borders art and science and poetry and architecture flourished.

But like all empires, it eventually fell. Unlike other empires, this was against the word of God, for the Qur'an says that Islam will eventually dominate the entire world. In reality, it's been in retreat for more than three hundred years, and its decline became far more precipitous with the collapse of the Ottomans. Once-great Arab nations became little more than colonies for heathen Europeans, or economic dependents of America.

Our enemy is those who inherit the culture and heritage of that empire. Not everyone within the empire's physical realm now partakes of that culture, but many do.

I am having a difficult time coming up with a pithy term for our enemy. It's hard. It isn't really greater Arabia. It certainly isn't Islam. Islamic fundamentalism is a symptom of it, not the core. Arab nationalism and imperialism is also a symptom of it, not the core. Each of those can and does exist without the other, but they're both expressions of the real enemy we face, something deeper than that.

To refer to it as Arab nostalgia is wrong, for many of those within the body of our enemy inherit the beliefs and dogma which make them our enemies without knowing where they came from. They aren't necessarily traditionalists, for the same reason, though that's perhaps closer.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to use the partly-fallacious term "Arab culture", accepting that not all Arab culture is our enemy and not all Arabs are among our enemies.

Our enemy holds to a traditional belief, a traditional culture. Islam is a core piece of that, but it isn't the whole thing, and not everyone who believes in Islam is part of the enemy. Our enemy is the majority of the people who live in what we think of as the large Arab nations, plus certain other groups. Our enemy is concentrated in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, plus the Palestinians are part of it. There are lesser concentrations of our enemy in Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Oman and (non-Arab) Pakistan.

And Iran is, as usual, a complicated aspect of it. While not being Arab, it is closer culturally to the Arabs, and to a great extent our enemy also hold sway there. The traditionalists and theocrats in Iran are part of our enemy, even though not being Arab, because Persian Iran was a key part of the original Arab/Islamic empire, and still retains much of that culture.

The problem with our enemy's culture is that in the 20th century it was revealed as being an abject failure. By any rational calculation, it could not compete, and not simply because the deck was stacked against it. The problem was more fundamental; the culture itself contained the elements of its own failure.

The only Arab nations which have prospered have done so entirely because of the accident of mineral wealth. Using money from export of oil, they imported a high tech infrastructure. They drive western cars. They use western cell phones. They built western high-rise steel frame buildings. They created superhighways and in every way implemented the trappings of western prosperity.

Or rather, they paid westerners to create all those things for them. They didn't build or create any of it themselves. It's all parasitic. And they also buy the technical skill to keep it running. The technological infrastructure of Saudi Arabia (to take an example) is run by a small army of western engineers and technicians and managers who are paid well, and who live in isolation, and who keep it all working. If they all leave, the infrastructure will collapse. Saudi Arabia does not have the technical skill to run it, or the ability to produce the replacement parts which would be needed. It's all a sham, and they know it. Everything they have which looks like modern culture was purchased. They themselves do not have the ability to produce, or even to operate, any of it.

The diseased culture of our enemy suffers from all seven of the deep flaws Ralph Peters identifies as condemning nations to failure in the modern world. Peters makes a convincing case that there is a correlation approaching unity between the extent to which a nation or culture suffers from these flaws and its inability to succeed in the 21st century.

He lists them as follows:

Restrictions on the free flow of information.
The subjugation of women.
Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
Domination by a restrictive religion.
A low valuation of education.
Low prestige assigned to work.
And carrying all seven of these, our enemy is trying to compete in the 21st century footrace with both feet cast into buckets of concrete. They are profoundly handicapped by the very values that they hold most dear and that they believe make them what they are.

The nations and the peoples within the zone of our enemy's culture are complete failures. Their economies are disasters. They make no contribution to the advance of science or engineering. They make no contribution to art or culture. They have no important diplomatic power. They are not respected. Most of their people are impoverished and miserable and filled with resentment, and those who are not impoverished are living a lie.

They hate us. They hate us because our culture is everything theirs is not. Our culture is vibrant and fecund; our economies are successful. Our achievements are magnificent. Our engineering and science are advancing at breathtaking speed. Our people are fat and happy (relatively speaking). We are influential, we are powerful, we are wealthy. "We" are the western democracies, but in particular "we" are the United States, which is the most successful of the western democracies by a long margin. America is the most successful nation in the history of the world, economically and technologically and militarily and even culturally.

Our culture as exported is condemned as being lowbrow in many places, but it's hard to deny how pervasive and influential it is. Baywatch was total dreck, but it was also the most successful syndicated television program around the world in history, racking up truly massive audiences each week.

Our culture is seductive on every level; those elsewhere who are exposed to it find it attractive. It isn't always "high culture"; but some of it is, and with the world revolution in telecommunications it's impossible for anyone in the world to avoid seeing it and being exposed to it.

Nor can anyone ignore our technology, which is definitely not lowbrow, nor our scientific achievements.

We're everything that they think they should be, everything they once were, and by our power and success we throw their modern failure into stark contrast, especially because we've gotten to where we are by doing everything their religion says is wrong. We've deeply sinned, and yet we've won. They are forced to compare their own accomplishments to ours because we are the standard of success, and in every important way they come up badly short. In most of the contests it's not just that our score is higher, it's that their score is zero.

They have nothing whatever they can point to that can save face and preserve their egos. In every practical objective way we are better than they are, and they know it.

And since this is a "face" culture, one driven by pride and shame, that is intolerable. Nor is it something we can easily redress. The oft-proposed idea of increasing aid and attempting to eliminate poverty may well help in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, but it will not defuse the hatred of our Arab/Islamic enemies, for it is our success that they hate, not the fruits of that success.

It isn't that they also want to be rich. Indeed, the majority of the most militant members of al Qaeda came from Saudi Arabia, out of comfortable existence. What they want is to stay with their traditional culture and for it to be successful, and that isn't possible. We can make them rich through aid, but we can't make them successful because their failure is not caused by us, but by the deep flaws in their culture. Their culture cannot succeed. It is too deeply and fundamentally crippled.

Everything they think they know says that they should be successful. They once were successful, creating and ruling a great empire, with a rich culture. God says they will be successful; it's right there in the Qur'an. God lays on them the duty to dominate the world, but they can't even dominate their own lands any longer. They face a profound crisis of faith, and it can only resolve one of three ways.

First, the status quo can continue. They can continue to fail, sit in their nations, and accept their plight. By clinging to their culture and their religion they may be ideologically pure, but they will have to continue to live with the shame of being totally unable to compete. Solution one: they can stagnate.

The second thing they can do is to accept that their culture and their religion are actually the problem. They can recognize that they will have to liberalize their culture in order to begin to achieve. They can embrace the modern world, and embrace western ways at least in part. They can break the hold of Islamic teachings; discard Sharia; liberate their women; start to teach science and engineering in their schools instead of the study of the Qur'an; and secularize their societies. Solution two: they can reform.

Some Arab nations have begun to do this, and to the extent that they have they have also started to succeed. But this is unacceptable to the majority; it is literally sinful. It is heresy. What good does it do to succeed in the world if, by so doing, you condemn your soul to hell?

Which leaves only one other way: become relatively competitive by destroying all other cultures which are more capable. You level the playing field by tearing down all the mountains rather than filling in the valleys; you make yourself the tallest by shooting everyone taller than you are. Solution three: they can lash out, fight back.

It's vitally important to understand that this is the reason they're fighting back. It's not to gain revenge for some specific action in the past on our part. It isn't an attempt to influence our foreign policy. Their goal is our destruction, because they can't keep hold on what they have and still think of themselves as being successful as long as we exist and continue to outperform them.

al Qaeda grew out of this deepening resentment and frustration within the failed Arab culture. It is the first manifestation of solution three, but as long as the deep disease continues in the culture of our enemy, it won't be the last. Its initial demands to the US were a bit surprising, and not very well known. (And obscured by the fact that as their struggle continued recently, they kept changing their stated demands in hopes of attracting allies from elsewhere in the Arab sphere.)

The original demand was for a complete cessation of contact between America and Arabia. Not just a pullout of our soldiers from holy Arab soil, but total isolation so that the people of greater Arabia would no longer be exposed in any way to us or our culture or our values. No television, no radio, no music, no magazines and books, no movies. No internet. And that isn't possible; you can't go backward that way.

But it's interesting that this shows their real concern. If they're no longer exposed to us, they are no longer shamed by comparing their failure to our success, and no longer seduced by it and tempted to discard their own culture and adopt ours.

Solution three manifests, and will continue to manifest, in many ways. Another way it manifests is in a new Arab imperialism, an ambition in some quarters to recreate the Arab empire and by so doing to regain political greatness. Arab nationalism doesn't directly spring from Islam, but it does spring from this deep frustration and resentment caused by the abject failure of the enemy culture, and it's most prominent practitioner is Saddam Hussein.

Both al Qaeda's terrorist attacks, and Saddam's attempts to incorporate other Arab nations into Iraq, spring from the same deep cause. But when I say that al Qaeda and Saddam are not the real enemy, it's because they both arise due to a deeper cause which is the true enemy. If we were to stamp out al Qaeda as a viable organization and reduce it to an occasional annoyance, and remove Saddam's WMDs no matter how, by conquest or inspections, someone else somewhere else would spring up and we would again be in peril. We cannot end this war by only treating the symptoms of al Qaeda and Saddam, though they must be dealt with as part of that process. This war is actually a war between the modern age and traditional Arab culture, and as long as they stagnated and felt resentment quietly, it wasn't our war.

It became our war when al Qaeda started bringing it to our nation. With a series of successively more deadly attacks culminating in the attacks in NYC and Washington last year, it became clear that we in the United States could no longer ignore it, and had to start working actively to remove the danger to us. We didn't pick this war, it picked us, but we can't turn away from it. If we ignore it, it will keep happening.

But the danger isn't al Qaeda as such, though that's the short term manifestation of the danger. This war will continue until the traditional crippled Arab culture is shattered. It won't end until they embrace reform or have it forced on them. Until a year ago, we were willing to be patient and let them embrace it slowly. Now we have no choice: we have to force them to reform because we cannot be safe until they do.

And by reform I mean culturally and not politically. The reform isn't just abjuration of weapons of mass destruction. It isn't just promising not to attack any longer. What they're going to have to do is to fix all seven of Ralph Peters' problems, and once they've done so, their nations won't be recognizable.

First, they will seem much more western. Second, they'll start to succeed, for as Peters notes, nations which fix these problems do become competitive. What he's describing isn't symptoms, it's deep causes.

We're facing a 14th century culture engaged in a 14th century war against us. The problem is that they are armed with 20th century weapons, which may eventually include nuclear weapons. And they embrace a culture which honors dying in a good cause, which means that deterrence can't be relied on if they get nuclear weapons.

Why is it that the US is concerned about Iraq getting nukes when we don't seem to be as concerned about Pakistan or India or Israel? Why are we willing to invade Iraq to prevent it from getting nukes, but not Pakistan to seize the ones it developed? It's because those nations don't embrace a warrior culture where suicide in a good cause, even mass death in a good cause, is considered acceptable. (Those kinds of things are present in Pakistan but don't rule there as yet.)

It's certainly not the case that the majority of those in the culture which is our enemy would gladly die. But many of those who make the decisions would be willing to sacrifice millions of their own in exchange for millions of ours, especially the religious zealots. If such people get their hands on nuclear weapons, then our threat of retaliation won't prevent them from using them against us, or threatening to do so. Which is why we can't let it happen. The chance of Israeli or Pakistani or Indian nukes being used against us is acceptably small. If Arabs get them, then eventually one will be used against us. It's impossible to predict who will do it, or when, or where, or what the proximate reason will be, but it's inevitable that it will happen. The only way to prevent it is to keep Arabs from getting nukes, and that is why Iraq is now critically important and why time is running out.

It's wrong to say that this would be "irrational" on their part. It is a reasoned decision based on an entirely different set of axioms, leading to a result totally unacceptable to us. But they're not insane or irrational. Even though they're totally rational, deterrence ultimately can't stop them from using nuclear weapons against us.

All major wars started by someone else that you eventually come to win start with a phase where you try to consolidate the situation, to stop the enemy's advance. Then you go onto the offensive, take the war to him, and finish it.

Afghanistan and Iraq are the two parts of the consolidation phase of this war. al Qaeda had to be crippled and Saddam has to be destroyed in order to gain us time and adequate safety to go onto the offensive, and to begin the process which will truly end this war: to destroy Wahhabism, to shatter Islamic fundamentalism, to completely break the will of the Arabs and to totally shame them.

Because they are a shame/pride culture, that latter may seem paradoxical. But the reality is that we cannot win this by making them proud, for they are not a stupid people and they actually have nothing to be proud of. We can't make them proud because we can't give them anything to be proud of; they need accomplishments of their own for pride, and their culture prevents that. The only hope here is to make them so ashamed that they finally face and accept the thing they are trying to hide from in choosing to fight back: their culture is a failure, and the only way they can succeed is to discard it and change.

It may sound strange to say, but what we have to do is to take the 14th century culture of our enemies and bring it into the 17th century. Once we've done that, then we can work on bringing them into the 21st century, but that will be much easier.

But they've got to accept their own failure, personally and nationally and culturally. That is the essential first step. They've got to accept that the cause of their failure is their own culture, and that we're not. And they've got to accept that the only way to succeed is to change. That will be a difficult fight, and it's going to take decades. Along the way it's going to be necessary to remove many governments which come to power and yet again try to embrace the past and become militant, nationalistic, fundamentalist, or again attempt to try to develop nuclear weapons.

Saddam has to go not merely because of his programs for development of WMDs. He also has to go because he manifests Arab nationalism and imperialism. Even if he actually consents to disarm, he and the Baathist party must be destroyed. The reason that Iraq's nuclear weapon program is critical is that it means we have to do so immediately; it makes it urgent. But removing their program to develop nuclear weapons doesn't remove the deeper reason to destroy Saddam and the Baathists, for they are part of the deeper pathology which must be excised.

After the consolidation phase of this war is complete, with the destruction of the Taliban and occupation and reform of Iraq, then we will go onto the offensive and begin to strike at the deeper core of the problem. Part of that will be to force reform on Saudi Arabia, through a combination of diplomacy, persuasion, subversion, propaganda and possibly even military force.

What this shows is just how deeply I disagree with many who oppose this war. I am forthrightly proposing what some might call cultural genocide, for example, which instantly puts me on the Pomo/Tranzi blacklist. The existing Arab culture which is the source of this war is a total loss. It must be shattered, annihilated, leaving behind no more traces in the Arab lands than the Samurai left in Japan or the mounted knights left in Europe.

I am forthrightly stating that it will be necessary to destabilize the entire middle east, which puts me exactly counter to European foreign policy. No bandaid will do. It isn't possible to patch things up with diplomacy because the rot runs too deep. Diplomacy now would be treating the symptoms and not the true disease.

I am forthrightly stating that no amount of aid to the poor will stop the aggression against us, which will anger liberals everywhere. It isn't our wealth they hate, it's our accomplishments. The only way we can appease them is to ourselves become failures, and that is a price I'm not willing to pay.

And I claim that the US bears essentially no blame for the fundamental source of their anger towards us. They don't hate us because of our foreign policy. They don't ultimately hate us because of past mistakes. They don't hate what we do or what we have done. They hate what we are, and what we show them that they are not. They hate our accomplishments and our capabilities because we force them to see their own lack of accomplishments and their incompetence and impotence.

And I'm saying that the US must do this, with help or without, because the US will be the continuing target of Arab solution number 3 as long as this resentment continues to boil, which it will do as long as Arab culture is not shattered and reformed. We will accept help from others if it's truly helpful, but we'll do it alone if we have to. (Or we will try and fail.)

We will be the primary target because we're the most successful. It's as simple as that. And that means that this ultimately will be a unilateral war by us; we're the ones with the most on the line. If the Arabs eventually do get nukes, the first one they use will either be against Israel or against us. It won't be against Europe, and if more conventional terrorist attacks continue, the most damaging ones will be directed against us. We will pay most of the price for this war, in staggering amounts of money, in losses on the field of battle, and in death and destruction at home, and therefore any talk of unified multilateral international action by a coalition of equals is nonsense. The other nations won't risk as much and won't pay as much and won't contribute as much and therefore deserve less say in what will happen.

In the mean time, now that al Qaeda has broken the ice, there will be further terrorist attacks against us as long as this war continues. They may be made by al Qaeda itself, or they may be made by other groups who will spring up. We can't totally prevent that until we've removed the true cause of those attacks: Arab cultural failure. Nothing short of that will stop the attacks. They're part of the setbacks which always accompany any major war. We'll do our best to foil such attacks, but inevitably some will succeed.

And those who don't understand the true issues will inevitably point to such attacks as proof that our campaign is a failure, that by our aggressiveness we raised further terrorist groups against us, that we should abandon the war and try appeasement, concession, aid, humanistic solutions.

And they'll be wrong, because they don't understand the real reason why we're being attacked and therefore why such approaches won't truly remove the source of the grievance..

They won't stop hating us until they become successful and begin to achieve on their own. We can't make them successful with material gifts, including aid to their poor. We can only make them successful with cultural changes, and they will resist that. Now that we've been attacked, we are ourselves compelled to force them to accept those cultural changes, because that is the only way short of actual genocide to remove the danger to ourselves. This war will end when they change, but not before.

Update: Hesiod writes:

It's time for an intervention. Take a day or two away from your blog.

Then go back and read your manifesto again. This time substitute the words "Jew" and "Jews" for the words "Arab" and "Muslim."

If it doesn't send a chill up and down your spine, check yourself into a mental hospital, or seek professional counseling.

And I'm not being sarcastic about this.

You accuse the Arabs of living in the 14th century. Arguably, your "solution" comes right out of the 20th. Roughly from the years between 1932 and 1945 to be precise.

It's not to late to wake up and re-think things.

Sorry, I'm not impressed. If I convert this from "Arab" into "Jew", the result is a non sequiter. The Jews are not failures. They are not sullen and resentful. They are not crippled by their own culture. Their religion doesn't mandate conquest. Israel only suffers slightly from only one of Peters' failures (there's a single religion but it isn't restrictive). They are not launching highly deadly terrorist attacks against us.

And let's make something crystal clear: I completely and totally reject the pomo idea that "cultural genocide" is a crime, or that it is actually ethically the same as true genocide. Destruction of a culture doesn't have to require mass murder of most of those in the culture, because people can change. It's not something one does lightly (or easily) but I do not consider it a crime when it's the only solution to a bigger problem.

What I'm advocating is something this nation has done before: conquer, pacify, convert, rebuild, withdraw. We did it in Japan, and in nearly every way the Japanese are the better for it, and I doubt you could find many in Japan who wish it hadn't happened. Now we have to do the same for the Arabs, and they too will, in the long run, be the better for it.

This is not even remotely the same as building death camps, and I am not advocating that or anything remotely resembling that.

By the way, I don't think that "Listen to yourself!! Do you realize what you just said???" is a useful response. I know full well what I wrote; it took me four hours to write it. And I knew it was "politically incorrect" when I wrote it; I said so. If you think there's a problem with this, tell me what it is. Respond on the merits. Deal with the issues I discuss. If you don't like my solution, propose another and explain why it's better, in execution or result. If you think my identification of the problem is wrong, explain why.

But don't bother trying to shame me into retracting it. Don't bother delivering that here; addressee unknown. I don't subscribe to postmodernist or transnational progressivist standards about what is right and wrong.