Caveman Quote of the Day
Binny boy is grunting and throwing his feces again. This excerpt from his latest ‘ape on tape’ series really shows what these Neanderthals think is important.
In the audiotape, the voice believed to be bin Laden’s describes attacks by Europeans, saying “it grieves us that you targeted our villages with your bombardments, these villages built of mud, collapsed on our women and children.”
But he said these “paled (in comparison) when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings, this is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous.”
Yeah, screw women and children dying, cartoons are the real suck.
Hurry up natural selection.
So, the fact that he gives different priorities to the “wrongs” committed by the west is worse than the fact that the west did in fact commit those wrongs?
Granted, one of those “wrongs” was not actually a bad thing, but starting a war in Iraq that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions certain was wrong.
I mean, when you say hurry up natural selection are you speaking about OSL or Krystol and Chenny?
Comment by daveg — 3/20/2008 @ 3:36 am
What percentage of those “hundreds of thousands” were terrorists? Moreover, what percentage of those who were killed were killed by their own countrymen?
Comment by James — 3/20/2008 @ 9:44 am
Presumably, not many of those hundreds of thousands were terrorists. If the forces of Islamic fundamentalism were to be able to generate hundreds of thousands of terrorists, we’d be in very deep shit indeed.
Comment by Brad — 3/20/2008 @ 4:28 pm
Good morning, want a cup of coffee?
Comment by James — 3/20/2008 @ 5:45 pm
Trust me, if a pissant country like Iraq were able to generate terrorists in the hundreds of thousands—which would likely mean radical Islam generally would have millions and millions ready to walk into any public place on earth and blow us up—you wouldn’t have the luxury or ability to sit around sipping your latte and thinking yourself at the intellectual frontline of your imaginary neocon survivalist scenario.
Comment by Brad — 3/20/2008 @ 5:51 pm
Of course, you probably just take “terrorist” to mean “anybody who is anti-American, brown, and willing to work against American interests”. In which case your numbers are probably right (indeed, you could probably count a good sixth of the world’s population in that category), but everything else about your worldview is wrong.
I take terrorist to mean “anybody who is willing, able, and likely to engage in the tactics of terrorism (or who has already done so)”. Which is, non-conservatively, maybe half of one percent of muslims worldwide? Probably not even in the double digits among radical Islamic extremists? Trust me, if that number even broached 1% of the former category, we’d be in a lot deeper shit than the perfectly manageable levels of terrorism we see today. Living in suburban New Jersey would be like living on the West Bank.
Comment by Brad — 3/20/2008 @ 5:55 pm
If it was as many as one-half of one percent of moslems worldwide, we’re probably screwed. I doubt it’s even close. That one half of one percent is five million.
Comment by Adam — 3/20/2008 @ 6:01 pm
It must be almost comforting to think we live in the midst of some kind of cosmic never-before-seen war between good and evil, and all we’re required to do is listen to Sean Hannity, read the Weekly Standard, and make fun of liberals, and know that we’re practically there on the frontlines.
Comment by Brad — 3/20/2008 @ 9:04 pm
Adam illustrates my point, Brad. And I agree with your definition of terrorist in most respects. However, being a terrorist is not confined to just blowing yourself up in a crowded marketplace. After all, Bin Laden hasn’t blown himself up, has he. No, my definition of being a terrorist is directly supporting, planning, or carrying out an act of terrorism. So even if Adam’s percentage is reduced by 70%, that is a lot of people. I think for now the thing that reduces the threat is that there seems to be no great organization among the Islamic terrorist groups and their supporters. Hopefully we can keep it that way.
Comment by James — 3/21/2008 @ 2:52 pm
James, do you believe that America at any time within the last decade faced a mortal threat from Islamic terrorists? I know that you and I differ on our evaluation of the severity posed, but I’ve never been really clear on how much separation there is between our positions.
Comment by tessellated — 3/21/2008 @ 3:18 pm
In the last decade? Certainly not. The concern is where things go in the future. There is this lofty notion that fundamentalists are the fringe within Islam, but that flies in the face of reality. In any fundamentalist religion (Christianity for example) fundamentalism is the core and moderation is the fringe. Over time, like Christianity, the moderate forces hopefully prevail and reverse the dynamic, pushing the fundamentalists to the fringe. That WILL happen with Islam, but it isn’t happening anytime soon. In the meantime, you have a religion that is every bit as evangelical as Christianity with a whole lot of latitude in the methods employed to convert. You can call me what you want, but to ignore the existence of these dynamics within Islam just to feel good is a mistake I think.
Having said that, I don’t have the answers. It is all well and good to say that we can improve things by offering friendship and cozying up, but that ignores the fact that we are considered Infidels. Until that changes, nothing else will. It is going to be a long road and, as I have said before, it is could get very messy along the way. A very cynical view, I know, but also quite realistic I think. Will Islam “take over the world”? No more than Roman Catholicism did before it calmed down. At the end of the day, we are gonna be ok. It is just getting to that twilight that may prove interesting.
Comment by James — 3/21/2008 @ 7:40 pm
If we take it as a given that your perception of the potential future Islamic threat is accurate (a big given), the perhaps we as a nation should take on a set of policies that might reduce the incentives towards radicalization.
Alternatively, we could just continue the policies of the last six years, and hope for the best.
Comment by Jack — 3/22/2008 @ 12:36 am
I agree that our foreign policy needs to change, Jack. However,there are deeper problems at work here than just “blow back”. Take the reaction to the Danish cartoons for example. This is a religion where you are either in, or you are out. If you are out, then you are, by nature an enemy of Allah and thus Islam. Can enemies talk with one another? Sure. Can enemies become friends? Sometimes, yes. Can they become friends if such a friendship is forbidden by one’s god? Sure, on the surface. This is all my own opinion, but just as the Catholic Church had to dispense with the term “heretic”, at least as a policy driver, so must Islam dispense with the notion of “infidel”. The only way that is going to happen is long-term exposure to stimuli generated by non-crazy and more fully-evolved people. It’ll happen.
Comment by James — 3/22/2008 @ 2:26 pm