From the Horse’s (Jihadist’s) Mouth

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Here we go again I suppose.  I posted a few days ago that I wanted clarification of Ron Paul’s military and foreign policy.  No one offered any, but it sure provoked a storm of comments.  I asked in a comment on RP’s own web site, what he would suggest we do about small, rogue states that want to kill us, don’t yet have the means to do it, but are very active in working to attain the means and the allies to eventually kill us.  Not only did Ron Paul or his web site managers attempt an answer, none of his supporters offered any answers, AND there was an instant troll patrol mobilization that buried the discussion in an argument over the definition of Zion.

Strike One; No coherent position on his own web site.

Strike Two; No answers to a serious and level-headed series of questions.

Strike Three; He seems to have a troll patrol that can be dispatched on demand on short notice, to provide a smoke screen.  Whether they operate at his behest, or totally on their own, someone clearly sees a need to cover for Ron Paul’s foreign policy ideas, or lack thereof.

The primary response I get from those willing to talk, i.e. not Ron Paul, is; “Pfffft!  That little fly spec is no threat!” followed by a litany of sins committed by the U.S.

As for the first part– the “pfffft” part, it doesn’t take a super power to do a lot of serious damage.  As for the second part– it’s hard to square with the first part, unless I translate it as, “we don’t deserve to survive” or “we don’t deserve to take action against any but the most cataclysmic of threats, because that would be meddling and meddling is evil”.  Without that translation, the litany-of-sins part of argument is nothing but a change of subject in that it does not address the question of what we should do about specific current threats, or future threats as they might emerge.

There are plenty of threats in the world, and a few that wander in from the outer solar system once in a while, but jihad seems to be a popular one for discussion.  I’ve heard quite a few words from the jihadist’s mouths before, and Joe, years ago, posted a list of demands from Bin Laden.  From what I’ve actually seen and heard, The Reasons for jihadists hating us center around the basics of our culture and not our foreign policies of the past or present, except for our support of Israel, which is only sometimes mentioned.  Whole jihadist diatribes exist that don’t mention it at all.  You will also remember that Israel was not created by the U.S. and that the Soviets, the Germans and more recently the Chinese, have had their long and sometimes brutal fingers in the Mid East, and THEY are not “The Great Satan”.  We are.  The facts, as I understand them then, do not support, do not even suggest other than in the most ethereal way, the idea that they hate us enough to want to wipe us off the map simply because of our meddling foreign policy.

This recent explanation, from an actual “Sharia Shall be the Law of the World” jihadist, is right along the lines of everything else I’ve heard;

Aside from railing against democracy, he goes on to unabashedly claim that sharia is his ultimate goal. Further showcasing his view that “rule by the people” is completely unacceptable, he continues with the following:

“once Allah’s law is applied, the role of the people will end and Allah will reign supreme.”

I’ve heard that many times– “The Koran, God’s law, is the only law.  Man-made laws have no place in the world.  Rule by the People is rule by Satan.  Stuff like that.  Very common theme. And from the same report;

Shehato said that if the mujahideen came to power in Egypt, they would launch a campaign of Islamic conquests aimed at subjecting the entire world to Islamic rule. Muslim ambassadors would be appointed to each country, charged with calling upon them to join Islam willingly, but if the countries refused, war would be waged against them.

The Islamic state he’d like to see Egypt become is an equally concerning picture — a nation that would have no trade or cultural ties with non-Muslims. And because tourists “drink alcohol and fornicate,” all of the sites that have made Egypt a popular destination for foreign vacationers. will be shut down. Art, dancing, singing and other exercises of talent and self-expression will also be prohibited.

We “Drink alcohol and fornicate”.  I believe Bin Laden said the same thing, along with demanding an end to trading money with interest.  Exercises of art and other forms of self-expression have also been mentioned before, by other radical Islamists.  That’s what I’m seeing, supposedly in their own words.  Now you could argue that all the translators and/or reporters, from any and all walks of life, are mistranslating and/or misreporting the messages, but I’ll have a very hard time believing that.  If that were the case, there’d be people here, who speak the language, raising a fit– “That’s not what he said…!“

So far as I can tell, Ron Paul says “no sanctions” while at the same time saying that we should “put (undefined) pressure” on certain, undefined, entities but absolutely avoid them by staying out of their business while the jihadists ally with Russia, China and Venezuela, etc. and we should totally mind our own business because anything else whatsoever is “Imperialist”.  That is, so far as I can tell.  I’ve given up on my attempt to get clarification from Ron Paul.  I now know I’ll never get it.  There’s something seriously f’d up with him, that people close to him want very much to hide.  I don’t know what it is, but I can smell its horrible stench wafting out through my monitor.

So.  Again.  Please.  Focus like a laser beam this time.  Forget our litany of past and present sins for the moment.  Forget Ron Paul.  That’s a different subject from “what should we do now that the house seems to be smoking?”  I don’t want a sermon on why I shouldn’t play with matches while the house seems to be on fire.  OK?  There are possibly some rather more important matters that need our immediate attention.  Or do you believe we should just forget the smoke and argue amongst ourselves until we see naked flames?  How high do the flames have to be then?  Should we be at all concerned about these jihad jackwagons, who seem to be making progress while we’re losing liberty in our own house, and if so, what should we do about it?  Or do they even exist?  I’ve heard that argument– “There is no terrorist threat”.  Exactly what would your dream candidate say?  Please be clear and to the point. (assuming your dream candidate would be clear and to the point).  If you’re for Ron Paul I don’t waht to hear from you.  I already read his own words and they make no sense, and since he can’t speak for himself I don’t care what you have to say about him because you clearly don’t know any better than I.

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14 thoughts on “From the Horse’s (Jihadist’s) Mouth”

  1. “Exactly what would your dream candidate say?”

    “I will consult with topic experts on the matter with regards to the threat level and how to deal with it.”

    Works for me.

    I will say it’s odd that you produced such a long blog post about this subject. I do not consider terrorism to be all that important to the quality of my life. Running the very simple number of nearly 3,000 dead on 9/11/2001 to today gives us 300 a year dead via jihadism. That’s half, or slightly less, than what we see a year from negligent gun discharges per year.

    Why is this a serious issue in the next election? Shouldn’t we concentrate on real issues like the value of the US dollar, our budget, tax rates? You know, important stuff? When you try and whittle stuff down to things that only hit 300 people per year you’re down below the “I ran out of Miracle Whip!” problem area.

  2. This Egyptian is a perfect picture of the people who lie at the root of the threat to us. They don’t “hate us because we’re free” or Only because we are in Saudi and support Israel (though these may give them incentive to put us at the top of their hitlist). Instead, they have an ideology that requires them to attack the rest of the world, and they won’t stop until they’re dead or have a change of heart.

    Their followers, however, are often less devout and are recruited by the psychopathic leader who manipulate them, either using anger about things we’re doing over there, or guilt for their own sins (e.g. you slept with that girl and smoked pot; you will burn in hell…unless you blow yourself up…AND you can sleep with as many as you want until your martyrdom because it will give you Infinite bonus, heaven points).

    (I base the proceeding on reading extremist works and talking with friends from that part of the world.)

    In light of all of this, my dream candidate would:
    1: pull the military back to the US and cut off a lot of this foreign aid.
    2: not tell other countries what weapons they can and can’t have (I see it as analogous to Helmke telling me what gun I can have.

    3: Most importantly, Back it all up with a promise that anyone who attacks us will suffer strong retribution, we will loot whatever it takes to make ourselves whole for both the cost of their attack and the war, and then we will just leave them in that stone age state we’ve knocked them into–no rebuilding.

    Part of my motivation for the pull back is that I still subscribe to the “just war theory” idea that we should only fight in defense of ourselves or our allies, and linked with this, I believe that in such a defensive war, we should take the gloves off while dealing with the enemy: Non-combatants should still be protected, but combatants should get no quarter until their unconditional surrender.

    This will not frighten the men like this Egyptian, but our pulling back will remove one of their effective recruiting tools, and our threat, if backed up and followed, will give their countrymen an incentive to control the moonbats themselves, rather than sending them over here.

    Finally, I think this would probably buy us a few years to a century of peace in which we could rebuild the economy and make more and better weapons before we have to fight the crazy ones. I base this on the terrorist in question’s dialogue on turning first to his neighbors. If we aren’t in the Middle East giving the various groups a big enemy unite against, they’ll fall into what I would guess will be a century of civil war as each nation and sect vies for control of the Khalifa, and hopefully most of the extremists will kill each other off for us in that time.

  3. So he’s voting present. No thanks…a bunch of idiots saddled me with one of those guys last time around and, to paraphrase, he has “consult(ed) with topic experts on the matter with regards to jobs,the economy, and how to deal with it” and will get around to having a firm opinion real soon.

    Not. Good. Enough.

  5. Pretty much what UTLaw said. We should defend ourselves decisively and effectively, first and foremost. Beyond that, I want a candidate who will keep our military at home, engage other nations diplomatically when and wherever possible (I contend that would be more often than you would think), and put US interests first in all dealings. I would be ok to deploy abroad if we are specifically asked, by a trusted friend and ally, for assistance in a clearly defined, achievable mission and if Congress declares war pursuant to that. If other countries and the UN don’t like it, too bad. In addition to the moral/ethical problems inherent in waltzing in to solve the world’s problems, we simply can’t afford to do any more than protect ourselves and our borders right now.

  6. The cold hard reality is we will never be free of terrorism and at some point we have to ask whether the hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives of our soldiers are worth the cost. That is the sort of honesty I would be looking for. So far there is no credible mainstream discussion of the “War on Terror” in terms of how much cost is too much, or even if such a thing is possible. Can the cure be worse than the disease? This isn’t even getting into the gradual loss of civil rights in order to “fight terrorism”.

  7. Somewhere between the extremist policies of “nuke’em until they glow” and “fortress America, never any troops on foreign soil” is a policy we all can live with. Starting with the goal of a balanced peace, we should befriend Israel first, last and always, then deny nukes (by force of arms as necessary) to those demonstrating any sort of willingness to use them in any mode except strategic defense. With those two pillars activated, the third leg of uncomplicating the rest of our foreign policy, and making outward cash flow in that foreign policy dependent on positive trade relations, will give us the three-legged stool which sits stable on any surface.

  8. What would Hillary do? I don’t think we all know that. As far as I recall, she was pretty much along the same lines as G.W. Bush, then she sort of flip-flopped, and now we don’t hear much out of her. Admit it– She’s a political calculator and will therefore take any position, including silence when it serves her, that she believes will best further her political aspirations and prestige. She’ll wet the finger, hold it up, find out which way the wind is blowing, and then get out in front of it, pretending to lead, saying it was her idea all along.

    Yes this is a very long post, as I was addressing the various arguments I hear regularly, but which I believe don’t fit together into a coherent set of thoughts or principles.

    I’ve been witnessing something in private conversations, in our culture, and even here on this blog, that I couldn’t put my finger on, and I think I have it now– We have all, myself included, been heavily influenced by Critical Pedagogy, and can’t quite weed it all out from our minds. It’s a hypnotic influence, feeding on our desires and replacing rationale with emotion. I’ll post on that later, as I believe it is extremely important.

    Remember; I still haven’t given my own opinions on a) whether I believe jihad is a major threat compared to others right here at home, and b) American foreign and military policy. Though I get the felling some of you think I have done so, all I’ve done is to lay out some of the basic facts as I see them: “Jihad may not be super powerful, but it doesn’t take a super power to cause major problems…” etc., which I don’t believe anyone can counter.

    Be careful too, not to conflate our use of the military abroad on one hand, with losses of liberty here at home on the other hand. One does not necessarily flow from the other. The purpose of our government after all, including a military in any form, was SUPPOSED to be protection of liberty. Yes, the war on an emotion has been used as an excuse, by those charged with protecting our liberty, to do all sorts of ugly things to us, but make no mistake– the statist scum will use any excuse. They don’t need no stinking foreign war to do it, but they’ll be more than glad to use it if it’s convenient. Be very careful how you approach these sorts of things. For example, “The Earth Has a Fever” has been just as effective, and that’s not only totally made-up, it’s the exact opposite of the totally made-up “global cooling by albedo” crisis of the ’60s and ’70s. There are made-up crises coming out nearly every week, all for the purpose of justifying government intervention. Don’t think for a second, that, for another example, ending the War on Drugs would suddenly cause the DEA to simply disband and go away, and liberty to break out through the restraints, unless there is a corresponding movement, with the same momentum, to make it so.

  9. Excellent point–we must never forget that ATF was spawned from IRS revenooers who were suddenly out of work following the repeal of Prohibition.

  11. My “dream candidate” would install Justin Raimondo as Secretary of State.

    But don’t you worry even a bitty-bitty-boo, Lyle, all the Big Parties still lust for blood and torture; “we” (what’s this “we,” paleface?) won’t be clear of it ’til the Empire crumbles. Damn, I hate to see the West die so ignobly. And so before I’m safely dead.

  12. Lyle,

    Through “fate,” I ended up with a bunch of old government white papers that were sent to the head of one of the biggest US corporations ever. Because of that, I’m firmly convinced that our government tells us nothing or very little, or they mislead us to think what they want us to think. I’m also convinced that most inventions were dreamed up long ago and just took awhile to become reality. I also believe other countries are far more intelligent than we think they are.

    The average American is just clueless. Unfortunately, you and I and everyone else who posts here are most likely Average Americans. And we are all clueless (though we might speculate).

    I’m a swing voter and I’m not liking several of the Republican candidates so far. Ron Paul seems smart when he talks about the Federal Reserve and fiat currency, but on everything else he’s a dud. He sure has avid fans though.

  13. I like the idea of pulling out of the world completely–but I don’t want to do it overnight. I don’t want to see what will happen in the vacuums that we would create that way! Give each country a four-year notice that we are leaving, and inform them that before we leave, we will be willing to train CIVILIANS ONLY in the fine art of defending a country using M-16s supplied by us. If the host countries aren’t willing to train their civilians in the use of M16s (or their weapons of choice), that’s fine by us…after all, we’d be leaving in four years, anyway, and if they don’t want to be prepared for that, its their life.

    As for Ubu52’s comment that the “average American is just clueless”, well so is everyone else. I would grant that other countries are far more intelligent than we tend to think they are…or rather, the citizens of said countries are far more intelligent…or would be, if they could just accept their duties as individual citizens, rather than believe that they have some “special role” as “citizens of their country and/or world”.

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