Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 7:08 AM CST

interesting times ahead

By which you mean another Thirty Years War, an experience that had a lot to do with burning out that "original awe." As Madison noted, "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

As I read this tortured response to Kennicott's piece, it comes through fairly clearly that what upsets you is that he has blasphemed against the clash of civilizations. It's not enough that Kennicott points out that political cartoons in the ME are routinely anti-American and anti-Semitic and violently hostile. It's that he does so for the wrong reasons thus diluting their venom, that he suggests some moral equivalence, and above all that he refuses to enter the holy war against the Submitters. "Let them be confronted," as you childishly suggest.

The "moronic Guardsmen" didn't "decide" to abuse prisoners on their own. Even moronic Guardsmen, particularly moronic Guardsmen, don't decide to do things on their own. They were implementing policies if not orders that were authorized at the very highest levels of the chain of command. It was nothing comparable to the beheadings which followed in response, of course, but it did come from Rumsfeld himself and we thought we were better than that.

The concept of jihad, btw, is derived directly or indirectly from the Old Testament concept of herem ("the ban"), so an inter-textual battle between Quran and Bible (as proxy for a war between Islam and "Judaeo-Christianity") on that particular issue ends in a standoff.

In your thinking, we supposedly come into this clash of civilizations because we are engaged in a global war on terror which in essence is a titanic battle against radical Islam, as Bush called it in the SOTUS. Our children's and grand-children's security depends on how successful we are in eliminating radical Islam from the face of the planet, in your view. This is a greater danger to the United States than the nuclear threat from N. Korea or Iran, as were the WMD supposedly in Iraq.

This is pure hogwash. For one thing, Al Qaeda consists of about 1,500 to 2,000 well-financed whackos. The financing needs to be cut off, but also the other thing that pours gasoline on their fiery fundamentalist rhetoric: our policies in the ME and, in particular, our occupation of Muslim territory. As Paul Craig Roberts put it, "95% of the Muslim terorists in the world today were created in the last three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq."

And as Prof. Robert Pape (Univ. of Chicago) put it in American Conservative Magazine

"Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled...The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack."

Your gasoline-on-the-fire national security plan comes down to continuing the policies and childishly inflammatory rhetoric that will insure that the next 9/11 takes place sooner rather than later. I guess that really means you are not afraid Muslims will harm us, or that perhaps that is your objective. (BTW, weren't you one of those condemning Sy Hersh and the New Yorker for exercising their right to publish the story of the Abu Ghraib story on the grounds that it would inflame our enemies and thus endanger our troops?)

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 8:25 AM CST

Interesting piece in the Toronto Globe & Mail I read in Free Republic:

It is commonplace in the Islamic countries to blame the West for nearly everything that goes wrong, from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to the wealth gap between Muslim and Western countries. Anti-Americanism is rife, anti-Semitism all too common. When Iran's President called the Holocaust a myth, many people in Arab countries quietly nodded in agreement. Bernard Lewis, a British scholar of Islamic history, calls this "a twilight world of neurotic fantasies, conspiracy theories, scapegoating and so on."

In truth, most of the Islamic world's problems -- from economic stagnation to political paralysis, from the oppression of women to the poor level of education -- are homegrown. By and large, these societies have failed to come to grips with the modern world and as a result have fallen far behind much of the rest of the planet. Out of this failure to keep up springs a keen sense of grievance that does nothing to help them progress.

As Prof. Lewis has written, "If the peoples of the Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression." But "if they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences, and join their talents, energies, and resources in a common creative endeavour, then they can once again make the Middle East, in modern times as it was in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, a major centre of civilization."

The choice, says Prof. Lewis, is theirs alone.

source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1571649/posts

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 8:54 AM CST

Thanks for the clip, Brent. We don't hear enough from Bernard Lewis. We just get Christiane Amanpour instead.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:08 AM CST

For another view of Prof. Lewis, read this review of his book, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response.

"Once Western Europe began to make the transition from a feudal-agrarian to a capitalist-industrial society, starting in the sixteenth century, the millennial balance of power among the world's major civilizations shifted inexorably in favor of Western Europe. A society that was shifting to a capitalist-industrial base, capable of cumulative growth, commanded greater social power than slow-growing societies still operating on feudal-agrarian foundations. Under the circumstances, it was unlikely that non-Western societies could simultaneously alter the foundations of their societies while also fending off attacks from Western states whose social power was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Even as these feudal-agrarian societies sought to reorganize their economies and institutions, Western onslaughts against them deepened, and this made their reorganization increasingly difficult. It is scarcely surprising that the growing asymmetry between the two sides eventually led to the eclipse, decline, or subjugation of nearly all non-Western societies."

Lewis is not just "a British scholar of Islamic history." He has been for fifty years the leading figure in Zionist Orientalism, an Islamic scholar who has devoted his very long career to discrediting Islam and Arabs, "to paint Islam and Islamic societies as innately hostile to the West, modernism, democracy, tolerance, scientific advance, and women's rights." He is an aggressive ideologue and a blindly-pro-Israel partisan, the arch-philosopher of neoconservative ME policy.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 12:29 PM CST

Bull.

Even that Zionist bastion of the UN, in it's Arab Human Development Reports series, written by Arabs, 'paints' the faults plainly on the Arabs. A gross domestic product of 600 million, less than Spain. A whopping 50 books a year, total, world wide, translated into Arabic (of course the Jews control publishing.) Not one, in any way, in any subject, world class university. Literacy rates of mid-evil Europe. Not one world class manufactured product. Non existent property rights, no religious freedom.

Yep, it’s whiteys fault.

Thirty years ago, you could of gotten away with low rent mau-mauing. Not any more.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 12:41 PM CST

This argument that our troubles with Islamofascism can be boiled down to a few thousand psychopaths is laughably wrong. You don't see that because you have further predicated it upon the idea that the general Muslim populations are innocent of the hideous choices they make as societies. But Osama is idolized throughout the Muslim world. Like Jesse Fucking James, cubed. He is, like Mohammed, seen as a messenger and a harbinger and an exemplar to the masses. But he is idolized. How is that permissible? Sounds like nonsense that we Westerners are obligated by political correctness to abide. Oh, so they want to depict and worship this mass murderer as the face of jihad? Mohammed is jihad. Allah told him and now he's telling them through Osama to go murder the infidels, starting at the Danish embassy in Damascus.

Look, all I'm trying to say is that I wish the Joint Chiefs weren't trying to crush dissent in Amerikkka by having Tom Toles jailed.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 12:44 PM CST

You should listen to Paul from Florida, Rider. He's wanting someone to make judgements, too.

How dare he!

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 2:31 PM CST

I'm hoping that the government of Denmark will show the backbone that Jimmy Carter did not, back when the Iranians violated the sovereignty of the US embassy in Tehran.

Attacking an embassy is an act of war. Denmark should immediately declare war on Syria, detain all Syrian nationals, freeze all Syrian assets, and insist that their allies in NATO honor their alliance. The fascist government in Syria has been allowed to exist for far too long.

-jcr

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 2:44 PM CST

So, you don't like their choices. BFD. It's nothing to keep wetting the bed over, boys.

Insofar as the security of the U.S. homeland is concerned, it can be boiled down to a few thousand psychos. And any way you slice it, they do not pose an existential threat to the United States. Take the proper defensive measure. Get American boots off of Muslim soil as soon as possible consistent with safety. Stop creating new terrorists for Osama. Quit poking them in the eye to enrage them. We can handle it. Soon Osama will have the recruiting problem instead of Uncle Sam.

So put a rubber mattress cover under the sheets and be sure to pee before you go to bed. Nothing to drink after 9:00 PM. I'm sure the bed-wetting will gradually go away and you will feel a lot more grown up when it does.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 3:01 PM CST

How typical to condemn a profoundly well-educated and evenhanded scholar like Bernard Lewis as some kind of arch-conservative Israeli-loving kook. How about reading his book, instead of some stupid-ass review of it, Rider? Is 200 pages too long for you?

After you finish, perhaps you could explain for us all how his central thesis, namely that the Islamic world has allowed itself to be seduced by radical clerics in partnership with authoritarian regimes whose leadership has had the intentional or unintentional effect of pulling it back towards the Dark Ages.

After that you can explain why the entire Islamic world produces fewer patents than Denmark. And why Arab countries to this day outsource practically all of the engineering of their oil production facilities to foreigners. And why, despite all their natural resources, the average Arab lives in poverty.

The fact of the matter is that the Islamic world, however it is defined, is a mess. And one of the main reasons it is such a mess is that countries such as Saudi Arabia have successfully exported their domestic problems to the West. This is a profound problem that has absolutely zippo to do with cartoons, or Abu Ghraib or Mickey Mouse or George Bush. It has do with a cynical, shortsighted attempt to stay in power through repression in the name of Allah. It is not only wrong, it is antithetical to everything the West stands for. And that is the core of the problem that you blithely dismiss but do not address with your calumnies of Professor Lewis.

You may not agree with Lewis, but smearing him in this way is not only unfair, it says more about you than about him.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 3:22 PM CST

Paul that canard about the translations is so old I think I saw it on Antiques Road Show the other night. Besides your facts are wrong.

The UN report said it was not 50 but 330 per year. Is that evidence of cultural backwardness and isolation? Then we are more backward than they are. Another study showed that of 10,000 works of fiction and poetry published in the U.S. in 1999, only 300 were translated from other languages.

The Arabs are busy publishing books in English meanwhile. American University in Cairo publishes one of the largest collections of Arabic literature in English in the world. The books are in great demand and include international bestsellers. Fifty percent of translated books published world-wide are translations into English. That's because the huge American market drives the publishing industry. The Arab publishers are following the profits. Many kids in secondary schools and virtually every college student in the Arab world studies and learns to speak English. They can read the foreign books in English without having to rely on translations. I would bet that's the same situation with foreign books translated into Hebrew: the market is not there, because like the Arabs, the Israelis are perfectly capable of reading the books in English. It is American readers and American students who are linguistically isolated. We are confirmed monolinguals not interested in knowing any language but English. ("If somebody has something to say to us, then by God them sumbitches can damn well say it in English.")

The main thing I would point out to you, which was discussed in the review I cited, is that the asymmetry you describe in development, gross national product, etc. is true of the entire third world. Poverty and illiteracy are not distributed exclusively to the Islamic countries of the world. If that were so, all we would have to do to solve the problems of poverty, disease, and illiteracy is change the religion. And inasmuch as the Republicans are busy turning the United States into a third world country, maybe it's time you got familiar with exactly what a third world country is: a two-class society with a very small, very wealthy upper class and a vast and deeply impoverished lower class. And yes in societies like that, literacy rates are very low. And don't look now, but our literacy rates in the lower socio-economic sector are comparable to literacy rates in the third world. Trailer Park America is what you have when the government is "so small you can drown it in the bathtub" and the infrastructure goes to hell. Heckuva job, Brownie.

Prof. Lewis has spent fifty years devoted to demonstrating that most Arab societies are third world countries and that they have the characteristics of third world countries. Duh. What a stupid sonofabitch! Ray Charles coulda seen that.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 3:32 PM CST

It's no smear. Lewis would agree with my characterization of him. He's an ardent Zionist. That's where he's coming from. Other than that, he's an old poop with a big ego and a giant chip on his shoulder.

After that you can explain why the entire Islamic world produces fewer patents than Denmark.

Just did. Message: The Arab countries are t-h-i-r-d w-o-r-l-d countries. Got it? Denmark is not a third world country. Now, go read about third world countries and see what they are like. You will find that the Arab countries have the same characteristics and problems that all other third world countries have. That's why people include most Arab countries in the list of third world countries. Duh.

If you find any more characteristics of third world countries that are shared by Arab countries, be sure to post them.

Now, if you are a follower of Lewis you will insinuate that a racial-ethnic inferiority lies at the root of these characteristics of the backward Islamic countries. That's why it's no big deal if we push them off their land. It's progress. They are backward people. (This was the same excuse we made in this country to genocide Native Americans and rob them of their land). I'm sure by now you've heard such things being said. Lewis may not say this himself, but you hear it in the circle that follows his writings.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 3:36 PM CST

Attacking an embassy is an act of war.

Piffle. Happens all the time, all around the world. If it was an act of war, we'd have to quit having embassies because we'd constantly be at war.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 5:01 PM CST

Hey Rider, you might want to put on some rubber pants yourself: not too many people -- Zionists, fans of Lewis, or not -- are demanding that Arabs be pushed off their land. And I love the explanation that the reason the Arab world -- with land spanning three continents and a wealth of oil resources -- lives only slightly better than the average African banana republic, your explanation is that -- hold on, now! -- they are t-h-i-r-d w-o-r-l-d countries. This is an utterly ingenious explanation, I must say; a little like explaining that metal transmits electricity because it is a c-o-n-d-u-c-t-o-r. Duh.

Yes, the Arab countries are "third world," and yes, they have many problems. And by definition, the Arabs are the source of the problems. This has nothing to do with "racial-ethnic inferiority" (please, spare us the strawmen, ok?), and quite a bit to do with societal arrangements. And Islam heavily influences those very societal arrangements, which is why Saudi Arabia is one of the least functional societies in the Gulf, despite having the most oil.

See, you have to at least have a basic comprehension of Lewis's thesis before you make a laughable attempt to refute it. Some understanding of logic (check out "circular reasoning") wouldn't hurt, either.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 5:06 PM CST

Sure, "a few thousand psychos." Never mind the enormous oil wealth coming to the region, or the state resources being put to production of WMD in Iran, or religious zeal that has the gall to demand veto power over what is published in Denmark. Yes, by all means, let's just leave them all alone and walk on eggshells around these barbarians -- surely they'll return the favor and leave us alone as well.

After all, it has worked out so well for Europe. Both in the 1930s and now.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 5:29 PM CST

Wow, Rider, the straw is really flying from you today, isn't it? At what point did Lewis ever claim that poverty and illiteracy are exclusive problems of Islamic countries? Lewis, like the intelligent man he is and you aren't, tried to give an explanation for how the Islamic world went from being a cultural, intellectual, and political powerhouse a few centuries ago, to the backwards misogynist corrupt hellhole it is today.

What's interesting now is that the same backwards misogynist corrupt hellhole is now presuming to tell civilized nations what may or may not appear in their press. And then there's you, of course, advising us to just keep our heads down and not offend these third-worlders, lest they create more 9/11s. Because, you know, the way a society prospers is by acquiescing to every retrograde nut on the planet.

Very clever little riff on Republicans trying to turn the U.S. into a "third world country" -- yes, definitely, the main problem with Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia is that their governments are not intrusive enough into people's everyday lives. "So small you can drown it in the bathtub" -- that's the Assad regime. Something to consider: the literacy rate in Saudi Arabia is something like 50%. 33% for women. Trailer Park America (wow, you're elitist as well as stupid? what a combination!) -- anyway, Trailer Park America would be a major improvement relative to most of the Arab world.

The Republicans may be turning the U.S. into a third-world nation, but at least they aren't trying to subjugate it to other third-world nations. And Americans may not be interested in knowing any language but English (though it'd be nice if you were to kindly speak for yourself), but you seem uninterested in knowing anything other than the disjointed ramblings that pass for thought inside your own head. As a not-very-wise man said earlier, what a stupid sonofabitch.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 5:37 PM CST

Rider, you are aware that an embassy is considered part of the ambassador's country's territory, and incursion into that territory is the same as an invasion across the border, right?

Didn't you ever wonder why police can't pursue someone into an embassy?

Attacks on embassies do happen, but if the attack is government-sponsored, then it's an act of war (and no "demonstration" happens in Syria without support of the government).

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 6:16 PM CST

poverty and illiteracy are exclusive problems of Islamic countries

That implication is the basis of his entire argument. It does not work without it.

You are correct that his argument is completely circular, but it is Lewis's; not mine: The Arab countries have terrible problems of poverty, disease, and illiteracy which are typically associated with third world countries because the Arab countries are third world countries. That's what his career is all about; not mine.

Hold off on the ad hominem abuse (argumentum ad personam). Detracts from the blog, doncha know. Freeperville rules of engagement don't apply here, in my observation. Toby and I don't insult each other's intelligence, except perhaps in joking. If you want to, you can show the other person to be stupid, or let himself do that; you don't call him stupid. (Otherwise, I will just say, "I'm rubber, you're glue. Your words bounce off me and stick on you" Childish, no?).

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 6:28 PM CST

Rider--

Yes, they are third-world countries. The questions are (1) Why is that so? and (2) Why, in spite of all their un-third-world-like petrodollars, do they remain in such a horrible condition? (As to their publishing, piffle to you too. Compared with the West, the Islamic world translates virtually nothing from other languages. And the amount of serious literature Islamic authors turn out wouldn't fill one row on my bookshelf.)

Bernard Lewis has laid out the answers to both of these questions in his book in a powerful and convincing fashion. He is not an Israeli kook, and he is extraordinarily sympathetic to the plight of Muslims--as you would see if you read his damn book instead of making stuff up about it.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 7:38 PM CST

Reading all this is like listening to the voices of my conscience battle it out. I love it.

All I can say is this: aside from Al-Gebra and Al-Chemy, I haven't seen anything useful from civilization's cradle in a few thousand years.

long live the freethinking cartoonists of the world. Joint chiefs and "carswarmers" can suck it.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 7:46 PM CST

I never said he was an Israeli kook. That's your term; your straw man.

I guess you didn't see it, but I pointed out that the Arab countries translate more books per year into Arabic than the United States translates into English.

Lewis's proposed answers to the two questions are meaningless unless they explain why all third world countries are third world countries, which is not his objective of course. He tries to argue Islamic societies as though they were a special case, when in fact their problems are typical of all third world countries. Why single them out, unless you have a special agenda? There is really nothing that he or you can point to in those societies (including appalling asymmetries in the distribution of wealth based on oil / gold / diamonds / uranium / coffee / fruit / etc.) which is not typical of the entire category: Third World Countries.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 7:55 PM CST

Thanks for the comments, Fresh Air.

Lewis is definitely undervalued.

The Saudis have stayed in business long past their expiration date by funding and tolerating these Wahhabist idiots, trying to stay one step ahead of revolution. But we haven't seen that chickenshit come home to roost just yet.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 7:55 PM CST

"not too many people -- Zionists, fans of Lewis, or not -- are demanding that Arabs be pushed off their land."

The Palestinians will be gratified to hear this. I'm not sure they will believe it, but it will be welcome news. You should probably check with the Zionist "settlers," however. What exactly do you think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about if not the Land? You do realize the Palestinians were the ones displaced from their land when the modern state of Israel was created and Palestine was partitioned in 1948, right?

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 8:29 PM CST

Rider--

I will agree there are some similarities to other third-world countries--chiefly those in Africa run by despotic strongmen, but the similarities are superficial and in no way indicative of the causes of the 300-year decline of Islamic civilization.

In fact, Lewis does not apply universal arguments to the Islamic world. He points out a multiplicity of ways in which the Islamic world owes its difficulties to problems that are uniquely its own making.

One of these is that there is no concept of separation between church and state. In Islamic countries, even Turkey, the church represents the highest law and cannot be subordinate to any other. This creates profound problems when those running the place (e.g. Iran) choose to invoke their interpretation of Islamic law in contravention of accepted, universal principles of human rights and personal freedom. In their countries, that is their right, of course. But it is an impediment to joining the modern world just the same.

Another problem that is unique to the oil-producing states is that they have turned the notion of taxation without representation on its head. In the Gulf States you have representation without taxation. Thus can the rulers sweep problems under the rug, and stifle dissent with an array of modern surveillance funded by their oil revenues. It's a fool's bargain, and it requires, as I pointed out earlier, the exportation of troubles to other countries. This is why the Arab propaganda machine is so vital to these regimes' continued existence, and why we must continually highlight its double standard regarding freedom to criticize other religions.

Their appalling treatment of women is another very significant factor in their failure, representing as it does, the disregarding of half the population as useful to their economies. There are many other points made in the book that show why the very core of Islam is in fact the problem. You should read it.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:08 PM CST

Which means that when Osama bombed two of our embassies in East Africa (during the glory days of the Clinton interregnum), we should have shrugged our shoulders?

You know, he killed a lot of people that day. Surely enough to justify something more than Clinton's near-impotent response.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:27 PM CST

No, of course, the bombings in E. Africa were well beyond demonstrations! Clinton responded with Cruise missle attacks aimed at Osama.

What do you think he should have done? Invade Afghanistan at that point?

(So far as I'm aware, apart from routing the Taliban, Bush's response to Osama has been precisely the same as Clinton's or less, i.e. missle attacks, in Bush's case from Predator drones. If Bush thought invasion of Afghanistan was the proper response, he should have done so as soon as he took office. Apparently, he under-estimated the threat. The 9/11 attacks took place after Bush returned from a month-long vacation.)

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:35 PM CST

Rider, Lewis's thesis works perfectly well without assuming that only Islamic societies have third-world problems. He specifically seeks to explain why the Islamic world went from being a genuienly accomplished and relatively tolerant and cosmopolitan driver of civilization, to becoming a backwards theocratic hellhole with no modern contributions to society that do not involve the use of explosives on civilians. Being "third world" is not some kind of divinely assigned natural state: it's the result of thoughts, attitudes, and actions taken by the society, and it's these that Lewis analyzes to construct an explanation for the Muslim world's degeneration. You are either too stupid to understand that, or too dogmatic to acknowledge it -- neither of which is Lewis's problem.

And you can stop your whining about being insulted. You're the one who set the tone with implications about bedwetting (are these childhood issues we should know about?), not to mention calling a respected scholar "a stupid sonofabitch." So, in fact, you've already demonstrated pretty well your own rather unimpressive level of rhetorical skill and intelligence -- I merely acknowledged the obvious.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:36 PM CST

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that we've already assumed that anywhere Arabs have ever been is "their land," from North Africa to Spain.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:41 PM CST

"One of these is that there is no concept of separation between church and state."

You are describing here the situation in much of modern Europe. In England, the monarch is the supreme Governor of the Church of England ("Defender of the Faith") and the protector of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Anglican bishops are automatically members of the House of Lords (which is why they are addressed as Lord Bishop). The C of E is a national church partly supported by royal grants. Religion must be taught in State schools. Both Anglicans and Catholics operate tax-funded schools in England. I dare say there is more separation of church and state in Turkey than there is in England.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:45 PM CST

E., you must also remember that it's a tenet of anti-imperialist Leftism that indigenous peoples should not be subject to the loss of territory just because they lose a war. Never mind that millennia of human history teach us otherwise; just know that the Israelis are all conniving thieves.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 9:50 PM CST

Bush should have invaded Afghanistan in January 2001? Sure. I don't see how any of his pathologically embittered opponents would have objected to that.

Not incidentally, we have a lot of Special Operations forces throughout Afghanistan right now. That is something more than what Clinton would ever have dreamed of doing.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:01 PM CST

First of all, the bedwetting thing was extremely funny. If you want to be insulting you have to be extremely funny when you are doing it. Secondly, the old poop is not here or I would be more respectful. I haven't called you a stupid sonofabitch, for example. I have been perfectly truthful about Lewis. He masquerades as an objective historian, when in fact he is notoriously tendentious and biased. Lewis was in fact the principle person Edward Said had in mind when he wrote his famous book on Orientalism. He would be proud that I called him an ardent Zionist. I'm not whining. That's a frequent ad hominem tack among rightwingers. Schoolyard stuff. Denigrating your opponent's "rhetorical skill and intelligence" is another ad hominem and ad hominem arguments are automatically fallacious, although sometimes they can be funny. I realize you are frustrated and out of ammunition, but you really look bad if you keep resorting to ad hominems.

I really don't think there is any way around the fact that Lewis is arguing that Islam produces inferior societies, inferior cultures, and inferior civilizations because it is, in his view, an inferior religion. I don't think most Arabs feel he thinks too highly of them either. That's why people like Toby and other Islamophobes like to quote him, for petessake. Anyway, it all comes down to a kind of racist argument, although tarted up a little and thinly disguised as an ethno-relgious argument. That's my reading of it.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:04 PM CST

So that's what he was doing in Crawford for the entire month of August, 2001? Preparing to invade Afghanistan? Or had he decided the Cruise missle attack was sufficient recompense for the embassy bombings?

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:11 PM CST

"they have turned the notion of taxation without representation on its head."

Congratulations. You have found yet another characteristic typical of third world countries. The very core of Islam is the problem? This has nothing whatever to do with Islam. It's the way the system works in third world countries. I hope you don't think Israel, for example, is free of corruption!

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:17 PM CST

"Extremely funny" is in the eye of the audience, not the wannabe humorist, Rider. Thanks for demonstrating your lack of understanding of this basic principle as well.

And really, these lectures on proper argument etiquette from someone who lacks the capability to even understand Lewis's basic thesis (most likely because he only knows it secondhand from some review) are overloading my irony meter. Sort of like denigrating the accomplishments of Bernard Lewis (a genuinely respected Arab historian) because what he said bothered Edward Said (a professor of English Literature with no particular expertise in Lewis's field). The addition of Lewis considering Islam an "inferior religion" is your own invention, and I'm sure you'll be slaying that strawman with all the valor you've demonstrated so far.

Thanks for playing -- no doubt you'll come back with more juvenile rhetoric and body-function metaphors, which you are sure to find "extremely funny." So will the rest of us, for an entirely different reason.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:18 PM CST

I always forget that. Thanks, Toby.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:18 PM CST

"Their appalling treatment of women..."

Spoken like a true Feminazi, a dhimmi Feminazi at that. Yep. Life in the third world is not pretty. Has nothing to do with Islam. In fact, if you talk to Arab women, they almost universally prefer the way they are treated at home to the way we treat women in our society. I'm not saying they are happy with everything, but they say they are happier at home. Women always have ways of coping that make men look like perfect idiots!

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:25 PM CST

I'm not sure if you knew this or not, but wherever the President of the United States goes, there goes all the power in the world. He is never not the President and he is never unable to project the power of this nation at a moment's notice. This crap about him vacationing in Crawford is a minor device used by classists to make him out to be a decadent king. He is able to communicate and make his orders anywhere on Earth.

The President is the Telecommuter in Chief, you may be sure.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:28 PM CST

Thanks for the interesting pile of trivia, but you have no way addressed Fresh Air's point. He said there is no concept of the separation of church and state.

That concept is very much alive in the UK, where society generally does not accept Church intrusion into their everyday lives. The separation is not on the level that the ACLU would approve, but no one in Britain thinks that the Archbishop of Canterbury writes policy, or should do so. This is in direct contrast to most Muslim societies.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:31 PM CST

Hell I know that. But a vacation is a vacation. He spends much of the day biking and clearing brush and not talking to Cindy Sheehan. He has spent a whole year of his presidency there on vacation at last count.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:41 PM CST

No, in fact the situation in most Muslim countries is virtually identical to modern European states and to the whole history of modern Europe except where crown and church have been separated through violent revolution, as in our own case and that of France. The pope still thinks that was a big mistake and the principal reason for the moral decadence of France. It varies, of course. In Bavaria, where the current pope is from, until very recently every classroom in state schools had a crucifix on the wall. The leading opposition parties in the Arab world are Islamist fundamentalists. What they oppose is the secularism you say is not there. So that would be news to them. The autocratic states in the ME are all secularist in nature, in fact.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:47 PM CST

Rider:

The autocratic states in the ME are all secularist in nature, in fact.

Were those secular Muslims in autocratic Syria burning down the Danish Embassy yesterday?

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:47 PM CST

The Third World is pretty big. Where else do we find women forced to endure clitorectomies, beaten with chains for accidentally showing an ankle, sentenced to gang rapes or killed outright to protect family "honor," disallowed to drive, required to always have a close relative escort them when walking down the street, and subject to being tossed out the door by a husband who merely says "I divorce you" three times in a row? The Taliban and the Saudi Wahabbists would certainly disagree that restrictions on women have "nothing to do with Islam." Are you now an Islamic scholar, too, Rider?

In fact, if you talk to Arab women, they almost universally prefer the way they are treated at home to the way we treat women in our society.

This is the best example of left-wing apologies for Islamic misogyny I've seen in a long time. In case anyone wonders how a couple hundred years ago people could insist that Blacks were happy enslaved on plantations, now we have a modern equivalent.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 10:49 PM CST

That is pretty rank, Rider.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 11:10 PM CST

The Middle East is Big. Syria is more secular. Saudi Arabia and Iran are decidedly not secular. All are autocratic.

It's true that those states that are secular are also generally dictatorships. You can't do otherwise, since Islamist parties get into power -- precisely because the notion of separation of Church and State has not caught on in the populace. This is exactly the problem Fresh Air was referring to. We've seen evidence in Turkey, Iraq, and the PA, both of which became more theocratic as they became more democratic.

But even those allegedly "secular" dictatorships tolerate and encourage religious intrusion into everyday life that goes far beyond symbols in European classrooms. To compare levels of religious ideology between Islam and the West in this way betrays a lack of perspective that is at once mind-boggling and highly revealing.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 11:34 PM CST

The only people who were insisting a hundred and fifty years ago that darkies were happy and carefree down on the ol' plantation were white people; not slaves. I'm talking about what Arab women will tell you over a cup of coffee in Starbucks or sitting next to one on an airplane; not what their husband or father or brother tells you.

Most Muslims do not practice clitorectomy. It preceded Islam. It is has been practiced in many cultures in the third world by members of all religions, animists, Christians, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc.

The other things you describe are typical of the treatment of women in the culture of the Ancient Near East long, long before Islam or even Christianity existed. Just skim through Genesis some time and you will find similar incidents. Why do you think Jesus said that it was unlawful for a man to divorce his wife other than for unfaithfulness? Because men were able to do exactly as you said in Judaism ("I cut you from me" three times) but women were not.

I am no Islamic scholar, but I know that you are talking about things of which you do not have any knowledge to speak of. You sound like someone who is in culture shock, just discovering that there are people and cultures out there very different from yours. I think it would really open your eyes to talk with some Arab or Muslim women some time, for example.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 11:37 PM CST

The question is non-sensical. What the hell is a secular Muslim? "Secular" is a term descriptive of societies and forms of government; not individuals. Syria is a secular autocracy operating as a closed democracy. The individuals who burned the embassy were religious zealots.

Saturday, 4 February 2006 - 11:50 PM CST

Saudi Arabia is "decidedly not secular"? All power is in the hands of the Saud royal family. Maybe you mean decidedly fundamentalist. Yes, certainly. They are wahabis and archly-puritanical. England had Puritans and we had Puritans for a while too, btw. But Saudi Arabia is no mullahocracy like Iran, or like the new Iraq may be headed for. We certainly don't have to go to Bavaria to look for religious intrusions into everyday life, do we? Isn't that what Bush's base is so worked up about, that we don't have enough religious intrusions into public classrooms? Aren't they encouraging religious intrusion into everyday life? Sounded like it to me. Don't let your mind be so easily-boggled.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 11:18 AM CST

Uhh, sure, Rider. OK, Saudi Arabia is secular. We have to completely alter the definition of secular to permit religious police enforcing every two-bit rule supported by a fatwa somewhere, but hey, anything to let you make your point. We can also call Syria free, since it's not like there's a Department of Crushing Freedom or anything.

And yes, this is exactly what Bush's base is trying to create. I knew eventually we'd get to these facile comparisons, so congratulations on managing to control that particular left-wing reflex for as long as you have.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 11:47 AM CST

Wow, so Arab women who are allowed to converse with strange men at Starbucks and while traveling on planes will tell you that they are OK with their treatment? Well, I'm sure they are -- that doesn't sound so bad. Or will they tell you that the Arab women locked away in their homes and whose husbands are allowed by law to beat them are also happy with their treatment? And I presume the genius who posted this is not himself an Arab woman? That would make this your happy-darkie moment, Rider.

And really, you can quit using the third world as some kind of security blanket. Like I said earlier, it's not some kind of naturally or devinely bestowed state. Islamic countries are third-world countries for a reason.

I'm not sure why the fact that clitorectomies are not universally practiced in Islamic countries is relevant. The fact is, they are practiced in many places, and where they do exist, they exist with support from the clergy. No other faith tolerates this behavior anymore. No non-Islamic country permits divorces that are this trivial.

We're all fully aware that all our histories are filled with ugly treatment of women, foreigners, unbelievers, etc. But only the Islamic world has those things in such abundance. Are they driven by Islam, or by the indigenous culture? That's a distinction without a difference -- Islam itself is part and parcel of the indigenous culture, and has introduced elements of Arab culture into the mix.

You're right, Rider -- you're no Islamic scholar, nor a scholar of anything else. You have plenty of interesting trivia to share, but you keep trying to fit square pegs into round holes as you reach for parallels between some obscure and often ancient Biblical aspect of Western society, and a very prominent, modern, and hideous feature of Muslim societies. (When you can't, you just file that under the heading of Third world, and consider the problem solved.) I'm not sure why you are so bent on being an apologist for Islam, but it seems like you just can't let go of your own belief that there is no culture clash, we are all one big family, everyone on earth is equally civilized, and if we just behave a little, we'll get along with the Muslim world just fine.

Too bad there are dead olympic athletes, maimed commuters, knifed movie directors, millions of oppressed women, mullahs in charge of Iran, and cartoonists in hiding in Denmark to dispute that happy little dogma. I'm guessing the culture shock is all on your end, and you're still in denial as to what you're really facing. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 11:53 AM CST

Actually, it's the reply that's nonsensical. Individuals can be secular in that they don't let religion permeate their life and drive their every decision, or expect their society to be run by religious law. Plenty of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and yes, Muslims are secular. But this is much more rare amongst Muslims (especially those not living in the West), because the culture is much more tightly integrated with Islam, and the line between being secular and being an apostate is thin. That's why in nominally secular Syria you find the religious nuts with enough power to burn down embassies. It's actually a problem thoughout much of the Muslim world, which is the point that you continually (and deliberately) miss.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 1:11 PM CST

Shalom, Eli -

came from LGF, bookmarked you, nice place you have.

must go toil for corporate overlords now, but will return to look around more

Kol Hakavod on your concise but engaging post here

6PO

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 5:17 PM CST

Easy on the rugs there. Chew on something else for a minute.

Yes, I should give "third world" a rest too. How about "developing nations" or "traditional societies."

Your problem is that you have no facts to back up your theories that Islamic societies are inferior and that their problems are in any way different from the problems typically found in all developing nations and traditional societies. What is your interest in demonizing Islamic societies?

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 6:33 PM CST

"Wow, so Arab women who are allowed to converse with strange men at Starbucks and while traveling on planes will tell you that they are OK with their treatment? Well, I'm sure they are -- that doesn't sound so bad. Or will they tell you that the Arab women locked away in their homes and whose husbands are allowed by law to beat them are also happy with their treatment? And I presume the genius who posted this is not himself an Arab woman?"

I almost think you are so determined to make gratuitously nasty ad hominem attacks on me that it prevents you from even hearing what I am saying. And don't bother telling me I'm whining. I'm sixty-one years old. I don't whine. Don't assume everyone you talk to is a junior high school student. Both my students and my patients normally address me as "Dr." Try not to be so unpleasant.

Look, I am talking about Arab women who now live and work in the United States and have done so for years, both single women and married. Of course they are happy with their careers and with the freedoms they enjoy living here. The surprising thing is that they almost uniformly will tell you that they still were happier with the way they were treated - the way women were treated - in their home countries, wearing traditional modest clothing, and so forth. We are talking about cultural differences here. We assume - as everyone does about their own culture - that ours is the best. What I am telling you is that if you talk to Arab women - say women who work at the same company you do - and you get to know them and ask about what they think of the way women were treated in Jordan or Saudi Arabia or wherever they are from compared to here, their answers will surprise you. It's not all black and white and the differences are not along the lines you are thinking as you look from our culture outward. I have heard it not just from one Arab woman working in the United States that she felt more respected as a woman or more loved, if you will, in her home society. Obviously, a woman working in the United States and talking with a male American co-worker is free to say what she thinks. It's not as though her husband is standing over her and threatening to beat her. If we were talking in the ME, I might think otherwise, of course.

No culture clash? That's not my argument. I don't think you understand Islam or Islamic culture. I don't think we are all one big happy family and that we don't need to do anything to protect ourselves. I think not enough is being done. But I don't accept the notion that this is a clash of civilizations. That's what OBL says in order to recruit. It's what Bernie Lewis says too. I don't buy it.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 9:41 PM CST

You're mighty patient to go wading through this silly Tripod commenting thing with a new window for every ten comments. Jeeze! I have GOT to switch to a better blogging host.

Thanks for the kind words, too.

Sunday, 5 February 2006 - 10:10 PM CST

This has been a truly entertaining episode of "When Brains Collide".

I still think any people who vandalize their own neighborhoods and fire their guns in the air and generally act like a bunch of methed-up soccer hooligans --all because of a freakin' cartoon---they deserve to be viewed as savages by the rest of the world.

I say we air-drop science books and comics that lampoon their silly-ass religion until they submit to rational thought. If it doesn't work, they're sure to be whipped into such a frenzy of religious hatred, they'll probably wipe out half of their own population in the street riot that ensues.

Rock the casbah!