All posts by Tanstaafl

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Getting Warmer

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President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.
October 6, 2005

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus — and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.

Congratulations! We’ve finally officially identified the enemy. Now maybe we can work on understanding what really motivates them. For instance, the Jihadis are not the ones distorting the idea of Jihad. That would be the work of the apologists for Islam and the willfully ignorant multiculturalists who pretend Jihad is nothing more than soul searching or defensive war.

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It All Depends What You Mean By Peace

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Mark Steyn: Islamist way or no way
October 04, 2005

I found myself behind a car in Vermont, in the US, the other day; it had a one-word bumper sticker with the injunction “COEXIST”. It’s one of those sentiments beloved of Western progressives, one designed principally to flatter their sense of moral superiority. The C was the Islamic crescent, the O was the hippie peace sign, the X was the Star of David and the T was the Christian cross. Very nice, hard to argue with. But the reality is, it’s the first of those symbols that has a problem with coexistence. Take the crescent out of the equation and you wouldn’t need a bumper sticker at all. Indeed, coexistence is what the Islamists are at war with; or, if you prefer, pluralism, the idea that different groups can rub along together within the same general neighbourhood. There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it’s easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one’s views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact.
. . .
As Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Gottingen University in Germany, said in an interesting speech a few months after September 11, “Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms, these mean different things to each of them. The word peace, for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam — or House of Islam — to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought. Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or House of Peace.”

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The Legacy of Jihad

The Forbidden History
A Review of The Legacy of Jihad. Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims edited by Andrew G. Bostom.
Bruce Thornton

Attempts to reformulate the doctrine of jihad have been going on for a century, but with scant success, for such redefinitions fly in the face of centuries of orthodoxy. On this issue, the words of Clement Huart, though written in 1907, are still pertinent today: “The reformers of Islam may be right [that jihad is not holy war]. The intention of Mohammed, in what he said of jihad, may have been misunderstood and misrepresented. But into this question we do not desire to go. For what we are considering is, what Mohammedanism is and has been –– that is, what orthodox Mohammedanism teaches concerning jihad, founding its doctrine of a certain definite interpretation of those passages in the Koran which speak of jihad. Until the newer conceptions, as to what the Koran teaches as to the duty of the believer towards non-believers, have spread further and have more generally leavened the mass of Moslem belief and opinion, it is the older and orthodox standpoint on this question which must be regarded by non-Moslems as representing Mohammedan teaching and as guiding Mohammedan action.” The widespread support among Islamic peoples everywhere for terrorist jihad shows that Huart’s comments are as true today as they were in 1907. The Islamists are not “distorting” Islam, but rather the reformers and so-called “moderates” are.

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Outfoxed: Unfair and Unbalanced

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Say you think Fox News is politically biased and uses slick techniques to hoodwink viewers. They have the gall to call it "news". What do you do? Robert Greenwald interviewed some politically biased friends and used slick techniques to hoodwink viewers. He has the gall to call it a "documentary".

The interviewees include Noam Chomsky acolyte Jeff Cohen, leftist media reform champion Bob McChesney, The Nation correspondent John Nichols, socialist politician Bernie Sanders, Democrat politician Chellie Pingree, former TV newsman and left-wing blogger Walter Cronkite, ex-Fox employee and left-wing blogger Clara Frenk, and ex-Fox employee and Bush-bashing Iraq War critic Larry Johnson.

Of course Greenwald doesn’t come right out reveal this bias. Instead he leads his viewers to believe he sought out concerned professionals and neutral media experts. Bernie Sanders “independent Congressman”. HAHAHAHAHA! After a bit of research on the internet it’s obvious these people are so left of center that their opinion about Fox is about as predictable, and as useful, as a Muslim’s opinion of the Crusades.

And couldn’t they find even one ex-employee with some really juicy dirt? All we get is some whining about how out of place the poor partisans (who, other than Johnson, don’t reveal their partisanship) felt at Fox. That and a couple of emails similar to what anybody who gets email from their boss sees every day. Examples of Fox employees fired for their political views: zero. Fox’s real crime? Pinko McLefty gets a bad vibe, she’s not used to having her ideas challenged by Righty, and you know, like there’s a lot of pressure to do work and stuff.

Throughout the movie we hear the occasional anonymous voice, disguised by the same distortion effect almost 40 years of 60 Minutes has conditioned viewers to associate with the testimony of really serious whistle blowers. You might assume these would-be Deep Throats have substantial accusations to make. Nope, it’s just another slick gimmick.

If you thought the film’s subtitle, Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, meant you’d see some examples of, say, Rupert Murdoch waging war on journalism, guess again. But we do get to play name the zillionaire media mogul who created a cable news network, forbade the use of certain phrases, used innovative special effects, and blurred the line between news and entertainment. Hmmmm, "proud internationalist" Ted Turner? NNNNNNNNNNNNTTT! Sorry, you are politically incorrect. Ted came first, but he’s a liberal so he doesn’t count.

There were many trivial points. Like, some people say certain common phrases are a nefarious attempt to editorialize. Then again, some people say you can find such phrases just about anywhere you care to look for them.

Did you know Bill O’Reilly tells his guests to shut up alot? You would have learned that former Democratic speech writer Chris Matthews bullies people too, if only Outfoxed had been a truly objective documentary concerning abusive interview techniques.

Watch Outfoxed closely and you’ll notice the interviews have been cut up and glued back together with very subtle crossfades. Greenwald didn’t provide any examples of Fox News using this sneaky trick.

A central theme of the film is that Fox cheerleads for Bush and the RNC. This reflects a paranoia amongst leftists that says more about how out of touch with history and reality they are and how much they hate Bush than it does about Fox. To make their point Outfoxed reveals that Fox follows the president everywhere and reports his statements. Oh the humanity! You’d never guess there was a time, not long ago, when every news organization reported what the president said and did. Back then it was called "reporting". Nowadays reporters brazenly try to influence elections, back then they sometimes kept a secret or two to avoid hurting their president or country. The standards are different today. Any news outlet that doesn’t inject snide anti-American comments into their reports is ipso facto a right-wing mouthpiece.

Back in the day the press fawned over FDR and Kennedy even while they pretended to be above politics. Disgust over Vietnam and hatred of Nixon flushed out Cronkite (making his moralizing in this film more than a little ironic). Shortly afterward Dan Rather followed his mentor’s lead. By the early 70’s the charade of objective TV news was over. For several decades thereafter anyone looking for TV news that didn’t have an anti-corporate, anti-military, anti-conservative, homophilic, pro-feminist, multiculturalist, evironmental alarmist bias had a hard time finding it. For leftists it was the Golden Age of Journalism. Until Fox News came along.

Outfoxed would have you believe that Fox uses dirty tricks to get high ratings, and their viewers are gullible misinformed rubes. Poll statistics show Fox viewers think differently than NPR listeners. QED. It apparently never occurs to leftists that anyone but them is intelligent enough to discern a political tilt in their TV news, or that Fox’s popularity may result from supplying a legitimate demand for news that simply isn’t tilted leftward. They seem similarly dumbfounded by the failure of left-wing talk radio, in spite of the use of real dirty tricks.

Clearly Outfoxed is full of gaffes. But the piece de resistance is the deliberately misleading portrayal of Bush’s cousin’s role in the 2000 election. Greenwald made a documentary dedicated to this very subject so he should know the facts. How then can he imply Bush’s cousin, who worked at Fox, called Florida for Bush? Is Greenwald from some alternate universe where documentaries about bias repeat demonstrable canards? This more complete account makes it clear that all the networks, based on information from VNS, announced Gore the winner before the polls had even closed. Obviously this earlier call, which Outfoxed never mentions, had more impact on the vote than the call for Bush later in the night – and contrary to what Outfoxed implies, in no case was any call unilaterally made by Bush’s cousin. You’d have to be unfair and unbalanced to argue otherwise.

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The West’s Last Chance

The Noble Cause miserable traitors can’t see, and more, in three parts: An Islamist threat like the Nazis, Needed: Old war spirit in a new war, and At war with an enemy of an unspoken name.

By Tony Blankley
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 12, 2005

Europe’s effort at cultural tolerance since World War II slowly morphed into a surprisingly deep self-loathing of Western culture that denied the instinct for cultural and national self-defense.

If Europe doesn’t rise to the challenge, Eurabia will come to pass. Then Europe will cease to be an American ally and instead become a base of operations (as she already is to a small degree) against us.

. . .

World War II was good, despite the millions of deaths, the limitations on daily lives, the encroachment on peacetime liberties and the arduousness of wartime life. The war was good because the sacrifice was for a noble cause, for the perpetuation of America and the American way of life.

The struggle against Islamist terrorism is an equally good war — and for the same reasons. We have just as great a responsibility to win our struggle against insurgent Islamist aggression as our parents and grandparents had to win World War II.

There is no other cause so urgent. If we do not pay with our sacrifices now, we (and our children) will pay in greater losses later. We must be prepared to be just as ruthless and rational as the “greatest generation” was in defeating fascism.

. . .

Up until now, we have never accurately named the enemy or the danger. If the government can’t speak the real name and nature of the enemy, it becomes impossible to explain, or even design, a policy for victory.

This is why Mr. Bush — who has tried to talk around the problem of radical Islam — has seemed (to his critics) foolish or deceitful, neither of which he is.
What we need is a clear congressional declaration of war, as prescribed by the Constitution.

Congress should declare war on the Islamist jihadists.
Naming the formal enemy limits the focus of our war effort to the militant Islamists who have declared jihad against the West. There are many terrorist groups in the world. Many are no threat to the United States. The current danger is the Islamist one.