Islamists are Imperialists

Are the Muslim peoples helpless victims or ruthless imperialists? Should we treat their aspirations are worthy attempts to build an authentic Islamic culture or should we treat it as a naked imperialist quest?

In an article in Commentary Efraim Karsh reminds us that Islam has always organized itself upon the model of the desert raiding party, living off the loot seized from the victims of its military raids. Asserts Karsh:
Mohammed “devised the concept of jihad shortly after his migration to Medina as a means of enticing his local followers to raid Meccan caravans.”

This pattern was followed by all the inheritors of Mohammed’s mantle. It was always expansionist, always using the jihad as an excuse to colonize and expropriate other peoples’ wealth and labor. This “shameless exploitation triggered numerous rebellions throughout the empire,” rebellions that were ruthlessly and bloodily put down right down to the end of the Ottoman Empire.

The great question before us today is whether this ancient imperial model of conquest and plunder can work in the modern world, or whether the jihadists can make it work. We westerners like to think that the rise of commerce and industry in the last millennium has made the old imperial model obsolete.

To us the accusation made by Lenin was wrong. The British Empire was not an organ of exploitation but a commercial empire, one that added value and wealth to its possessions rather than looting them.

The same applies to the American empire. The post World War II American Empire has been above all a commonwealth of rising prosperity for all its peoples. It started first with the rebuilding of war-shattered Germany and Japan, continued by defeating the predatory Soviet Empire, and now has convinced the ruling elites of India and China that the way to the restoration of their ancient splendors is by emulation of the American economic and political model.

In the new model wealth no longer depends on the ownership of land and natural resources, and political and economic power no longer issues from conquest and plunder. It all grows out of the mutual interaction of billions of people serving each others’ needs in the global economy in the spirit of democratic capitalism. In fact the model of conquest and plunder now appears as a wealth-subtracting process.

The question for our time is therefore to consider whether the seven stage strategy and the primitive raiding parties of Al Qaeda can really upset the global commonwealth led by the United States, or is the whole project, in the words of Lee Harris, a “fantasy ideology?” Concludes Karsh:

Whether or not any such structure exists or can be forged, the fact is that the fuel of Islamic imperialism remains as volatile as ever, and is very far from having burned itself out. To deny its force is the height of folly, and to imagine that it can be appeased or deflected is to play into its hands. Only when it is defeated, and when the faith of Islam is no longer a tool of Islamic political ambition, will the inhabitants of Muslim lands, and the rest of the world, be able to look forward to a future less burdened by Saladins and their gory dreams.

We know we have the means to defeat it. The question is: Do we have the will to defeat it?

How to Tame Foxes

Foxes are pretty cute. Except that they are wild animals and do not relate well to humans.

In 1959 a Russian geneticist, Dmitri Belyaev, decided to do something about it. He took a bunch of wild foxes that he had captured from the wild and started to breed them.

Starting with a population of caged wild animals, he selected from each generation the puppies who were friendliest (or, initially, least hostile) to humans, breeding only from them.

After 35 generations of breeding he obtained nice tame foxes. Actually what he had was dogs.

The tamed foxes wagged their tails, whined for affection, were submissive, barked like dogs and their ears flopped.

Perhaps Dmitri could have saved himself the trouble. I was out for a walk yesterday and passed by a dog that looked very much like a fox.

There was one curious thing about the tame foxes.

[T]he tame foxes’ brains were smaller. Domestic animals generally do have small brains. On average, domestic dog, cat, sheep and pig brains weigh 25 per cent less than those of wild animals.

Similarly, the brains of women are about 100 grams lighter than the brains of men. Does this mean that women are “tamer” than men?

Who knows? The writer Terence Kealey is vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham in Britain, and he advises caution.

But what I do know is that such speculations are dangerous in the academic world. Lawrence Summers, the President of Harvard, lost his job when he conjectured that women might not scale the same intellectual heights as men, so for me to continue this theme might be perilous.

So you’ll have to work it out for yourself.

StrategyPage on Iraq Again

Last week we retailed a report from StrategyPage that proposed a rather different Iraq situation than the one we get from the frontline media.

Here is StrategyPage again, proposing that the Sunnis realize that they made a major strategic blunder in opposing the United States.

The Kurds and Shia Arabs have formed a national police force and army that is far more powerful than anything the Sunni Arab community can muster. Over the last year, Sunni Arabs realized that the police and army were in control of more and more Sunni Arab towns.

That’s nice: Sunni towns ruled by Shia/Kurd dominated security forces. The Sunnis must love that.

If this is true it means that the Bush strategy, to “stand up” the Iraqi security services, is working, and in the test of wills the changing facts on the ground are changing the minds of the Sunnis.

The alliance with al Qaeda was a disaster. These Islamic terrorists were obsessed with causing a civil war in Iraq, and they insisted on doing this by killing lots of Shia Arabs. The Sunni Arabs didn't want to kill lots of Shia Arabs, they wanted to rule them all once more.

This makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t do the Sunnis much good if they rile up the Shiites. They want the Shiites nice and quiet, just like they were in the “good old days” of Saddam.

The trouble with TV war is that the bombs and the mayhem are not where the action is. The place to be is a fly on the wall at the headquarters of the various combatants. What do they think is happening, and what do they plan to do next? But you never learn all that until long after the event.

Something to think about with regard to Al Qaeda. They want to take over the entire Middle East and make it into a new caliphate. That means that every present ruler and politician will be out of a job. We should understand, and maybe we do, that we Yanks and most Middle Easterners are on the same side on this one.

America's Triple Threat

We all know that Iraq is going down the tubes and that President Bush should be impeached for it. Still, we can take heart from the fact that it hasn’t actually gone down the tubes, not yet, although “everyone” is expecting it any day.

And we know all about the threat of immigration, the flood of immigration from Mexico, that amounts now to a fifth of the population of Mexico living and working in the United States. And there’s the implied threat of all those demonstrators organized by the Spanish media. Yes, Virginia, because demonstrators marching in the street are a show of force.

Now we have Dick Morris warning us that the upcoming presidential election in Mexico is likely to be won by lefty candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado (AMLO), who is supported by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Rumors have abounded for months that Lopez Obrador's campaign is getting major funding from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. And last month Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz)., a moderate Republican, told several Mexican legislators that he had intelligence reports detailing revealing support from Hugo Chavez to AMLO's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

See what I mean. That would really be cool, wouldn’t it, to have lefty Latin American leaders from Cuba to Mexico to Venezuela to Peru to Bolivia.

Between them, Venezuela and Mexico export about 4 million barrels of oil each day to the United States, more than one-third of our oil imports. With both countries in the hands of leftist leaders, the opportunity to hold the U.S. hostage will be extraordinary.

What, we should worry? Only three threats to the peaceable hegemony of the United States? As Marine General Chesty Puller said: “We’re surrounded. That simplifies the problem.”

School Teachers Have Principles Too

Some people would rather go on food stamps than shop at Wal-Mart. It’s the principle of the thing.

For years, substitute teacher Jack Powell had shopped at Wal-Mart because of its Always Low Prices Always. But then he got into discussions about Wal-Mart with Sandra Carner-Shafran, a teaching assistant at BOCES and a member of the Board of Directors of New York State United Teachers, according to Liza Frenette of The New York Teacher.

Shopping at Wal-Mart? This is a place that encourages employees to get social services because it does not provide adequate health insurance or wages; sells goods made in sweatshops; and upsets entire communities by undercutting the downtown stores, then raising its prices when the locals go out of business.

And anyway, the children of his partner didn’t like shopping at Wal-Mart. “They knew what the store stood for.”

There was only one moral thing to do. Jack Powell went on food stamps.

"I'm just trying to live my life. I try to set an example and do what I believe," said Powell... [who] sings and strums about health and environmental awareness.

What can you say about a guy like that?

Girls Just Wanna Have...

April Fool! It turns out they don’t want to have fun after all. A study of womens’ attitudes towards one-night stands presented by Dr Sharron Hinchcliffe of Sheffield University discovers that they regret it. According to Nic Fleming in the Daily Telegraph

Around nine out of 10 of those questioned felt casual sex was immoral and that those women who engaged in it were not doing so primarily for pleasure.

Researcher Dr Hinchcliffe seemed puzzled by the results of her survey.

"It makes me question whether women have really gained all the sexual freedom they are supposed to have gained since the Sixties."

Yep. It takes an academic to say something as stupid as that.

Inspired by the results of the study columnist Mary Wakefield decided to do some research among her friends while out on a “hen weekend” in the country.

"Actually," said one, "I regret nearly all the men I slept with before my husband." Down the line, one by one, came cautious noises of assent.

No doubt the caution issues from the instinctive feeling that they might be seen as betraying their sexual freedom by the likes of Dr Hinchcliffe.

But the ladies all wished “that we'd drunk less and said No more often, but [all agreed] that it would be a crucial error to ever admit this to men.”

Er, the ladies lost me there. Just what is it that they are trying to hide from their men? That they really didn’t like those rolls in the hay? That they want relationships not sex?

Have they ever thought that there might be some men out there that would actually be relieved to know that women really don’t feel that good about the much vaunted sexual revolution?

Noah's Flood and Global Warming

Four thousand years ago, more or less, we humans so polluted the environment that God sent a flood to clear away all the polluters and save the one righteous man, his family, and a bunch of innocent flora and fauna.

Four years ago, more or less, the environmental priests of the world in Kyoto assembled declared that Gaia was being offended by the sins of the world and that the consequent global warming would cause a great flood that would inundate the low lying areas of the world. The priests called upon the righteous to turn the evil hearts of the corporations and repent.

It’s lucky that our global media does not call environmentalism a religion. Because then it might feel obliged to be more skeptical of the movement’s claims. For the rest of us, we are bound to observe that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Moore is not amused.

[T]he beauty of it is that everything can come under the rubric of "saving the planet". Whether it's speed limits or disposable nappies or second homes or cheap flights or old fridges or how many babies you have, you can be told not to do whatever it is you are doing. And if you complain, you can be marked out as a selfish pig.

When you don’t have a real religion, such as that one with a lover God who wants you to love him back, then you have to invent one. And the chances are it’s not going to measure up to the ones already on offer.

And there’s another thing. One of the keys of a successful religion, you may have noticed, is that it insists that the faithful go out and multiply. It’s an insurance policy to make sure that there are plenty of believers in the next generation.

Our new red-green socialist-environmentalist religion seems to have slipped up on that one. It’s a mistake that could be fatal.