77 thoughts on “Willful Blindness And Radical Islam”

  2. Our Andrew assures me that anything said about Islam is by lying haters and if we believe our own senses we are a lying hater.

    Muslims aren’t just good. Everyone else is worse. I have it on his authority.

    1. As usual Ken is building straw men and making sh!t up.

      While I don’t disagree with the literal statements that Andrew McCarthy’s message I do disagree with the implicit message that hundreds of millions of Muslims are directed to kill non-Muslims.

      If I were to sum up the meaning I see in the Quran it would be

      Rule 1. Kill or subjugate your enemies as long as they are your enemies.
      Rule 2. I you have a treaty with others whether Muslim or non-Muslim, honor that treaty, if they break that treaty see rule 1.

      The current high level of Islamist terrorism follows military adventures lead by the US starting in 1990 (I think the Kuwait war was justified, a few Muslims, mostly Saudi’s did not). The actual number of Islamist terrorists really took off after the US lead invasions of Iraq in 2003.

      A previous high level of Islamist terrorism occurred after the expansion of Israel, which was backed by the US.

      I’m seeing a pattern.

      I’ve seen something very similar to rule 1 somewhere else, in TMIAHM the Prof says: There are two things you can do with an enemy, you can kill him, or you can make him your friend.

          1. As you are wont to say:

            Links please!

            Prove that the MAIN users are those with powerful armies.

            I seem to recall lots of use of that by, ohhh…Palestinians and various groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, for example, and they don’t have powerful armies.

            Your comment is willfully ignorant because pretexts such as alleged treaty violation is a time honored method for justifying violence. Used by everyone.

          2. I’ll just point out the simple logic that weak countries that go to war against strong countries lose, strong countries that go to war against weak countries usually win, so who’s going to be more motivated to falsely claim treaty violations as an excuse to go to war?

            And I’m not argue that the Quran makes such violations by any strong Muslim country against weaker countries less likely.

        2. This is the real problem. If violating custom or law is grounds for death, then it is critical who is deciding that custom or law was violated.

          That’s why we don’t go to war over treaty violations unless they are extreme, and as long as Islamic law says “kill people that disagree with your interpretation” we will be continuously at war with them.

      2. The current high level of Islamist terrorism follows military adventures lead by the US starting in 1990

        No, the ideology of Arab nationalism and Islamism goes back much farther, to the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, at the very least. The founders of ISIS can trace their organizational pedigree that far back. Even prior to that, there were similar groups and struggles for territory and control of the religion.

        In the last several hundred years, we can trace back many of the problems with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Baath Party, Arab Nationalism, and Islamism to the fall of the last caliphate, the Ottoman Empire.

        The current high level of Islamist terrorism follows military adventures lead by the US starting in 1990

        And yet the primary group of victims is always other Muslims. Bin Laden’s partners brutalized other Muslims in Afghanistan. The USA didn’t inculcate that ideology in Bin Laden or the Taliban.

        What we are seeing is just the continuation of millennia+ of genocide, conquest, and intra-religious warfare. Absent the USA, do you really think there would be no Islamists?

        1. Absent the USA, do you really think there would be no Islamists?

          No, but they’d be a lot fewer of them, fanatics love a cause to fight for.

          1. Why do you say that?

            Another time honored pretext for making war is a religious difference of opinion…which is merely a mask for raw naked power plays.

            Really, Andrew, do a little research, will you, and then some serious thinking.

            Because another way to interpret the “Israel Cause” is to simply say” “Well we want to start a Holy War but we need a reason other than raw naked power grab.” I know! I’ll use Israel!

            Capital idea Jeeves.

            In short, if you really believe fanatics love a cause to fight for, then you must also believe they are willing to find one even if one doesn’t exist. Because….fanatics.

          2. No, but they’d be a lot fewer of them

            Since they are battling to establish a caliphate, I doubt there would be less of them without the USA.

            You seem to think the primary motivation of the jihadists is the USA and that isn’t the case.

          3. You seem to think the primary motivation of the jihadists is the USA

            It’s the jihadists that fight for the caliphate, jihadists are made when Muslims see a need for a holy war in to defend their lands, non-Muslim countries getting embroiled in wars on Muslim land are seen as aggression against Islam.

            If the US were to invade NZ because they didn’t like an elected NZ governments policies they would find themselves fighting lots of kiwi’s angry at the US aggression, and that’s without a directive in the Kiwi Holy Book to defend NZ.

          4. If the US were to invade NZ because they didn’t like an elected NZ governments policies they would find themselves fighting lots of kiwi’s angry at the US aggression, and that’s without a directive in the Kiwi Holy Book to defend NZ.

            The bombers in Turkey are now identified, they were from Russia, Andrew approved peaceful Uzbekistan, and Andrew approved peaceful Kyrgyzstan.

            Andrew, please let us know when the US invaded those countries.

          5. they were from Russia, Andrew approved peaceful Uzbekistan, and Andrew approved peaceful Kyrgyzstan.

            They were individuals Leland, not representing their country, do you blame Jihadi John on Britain because he was British?

            Please reduce the amount of stupid.

      3. The current high level of Islamist terrorism follows military adventures lead by the US starting in 1990

        Ok, anybody calling Andrew an apologist I think has solid ground. He seems willfully ignorant of the past (the links are only the attacks in and Reagan’s term of office).

        In Andrew’s twisted logic, if Indonesia hadn’t attacked Iraq, the Bali bombing wouldn’t have occurred. If India had stayed out, then there wouldn’t be bombings in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008 (multiple), and 2013 each with more dead and wounded than Orlando.

        We should have just followed Clinton’s example after the 1998 bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and absorbed the next attack on Americans for whatever excuse they made.

        1. He seems willfully ignorant of the past

          I’m still seeing the pattern I mentioned, the attacks in your link followed other occasions when anti American sentiments were high, usually as a result of military action by the US or allies she supports. I don’t excuse any of them, I simply point out that they don’t occur in a vacuum, they’re triggered by past events.

          Those who deposed the Shah of Iran certainly had good reason for anti-American sentiments:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

      4. I don’t see where you get that idea. We (the US) had several treaties with the Barbary Pirates, but they kept breaking them. It was only when France invaded North Africa that the Islamic threat subsided.

        1. I had a look at that, could find mention of one treaty, but it was with only one of several countries supporting the pirates.

          1. Does that matter when the example illustrates that the problem goes back farther than the 1990’s?

          2. This might help:

            The treaty was broken in 1801 by the Pasha of Tripoli over President Thomas Jefferson’s refusal to submit to the Pasha’s demands for increased payments.

            Through subsequent battles, Tripoli eventually agreed to terms of peace with the United States. Tobias Lear negotiated a second “Treaty of Peace and Amity” with the Pasha Yusuf on June 4, 1805. To the dismay of many Americans, the new settlement included a ransom of $60,000 paid for the release of prisoners from the USS Philadelphia and several U.S. merchant ships. By 1807, Algiers had gone back to taking U.S. ships and seamen hostage. Distracted by the preludes to the War of 1812, the United States was unable to respond to the provocations until 1815, with the Second Barbary War, thereby concluding the encompassing the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War (1800–1815).

          3. Does that matter when the example illustrates that the problem goes back farther than the 1990’s?

            Have you actually been reading my comments?
            Was the US involved in installing and supporting the Shah?
            Was the US involved in supporting the expansion of Israel?
            Was the US involved in ousting Sunni from the Iraqi government?

            I’m not saying that the US shouldn’t ever use military force, just that expect what goes around to come around, if you support one faction over another and injustices are created, expect those who’ve been disenfranchised to hate you, and if they’re Muslim’s expect them to read their Quran and to fight to defend their people and lands because their holy book tells them to fight against aggressors.

  4. Well when I heard the news about the airport in Istanbul, I was certain it had to be the work of Presbyterian grandmothers from Iowa. Imagine my shock when it turned out to be people of another faith. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there might be a pattern to these things. But what do I know, I wasn’t smart enough to pick either Hillary Clinton or John Forbes Kerry as my Secretary of State.

  5. Andrew, your view of the meaning of the Quran is besides the point. It’s what the folks who blow themselves up in crowded airports believe that matters. To ignore the religious component of what is going on is just plain stupid.

    1. I’m not ignoring it, I can see that compared to some (but not all) other cultures the Islamic faith results in Muslims having a lower threshold for retaliating against what they see as unwarranted aggression.

      Which raises an interesting question, how high is the threshold for retaliation for cultures like right wing America, Britain, France, India?

      I think most would agree that when it comes to foreign aggression generally the US right has a lower threshold for retaliation than the US left.

      Usually the more powerful a countries military is the lower the threshold there is for it going to the mattresses, Islamists might have a lower threshold even than the US.

      1. Usually the more powerful a countries military is the lower the threshold there is for it going to the mattresses, Islamists might have a lower threshold even than the US.

        This is absurd, and slanderous.

        1. It’s also contractory. Our we supposed to believe the folks who attacked the magazine publisher (over an f’n cartoon) were more powerful than the French military?

          1. Are we supposed to believe the folks who attacked the magazine publisher (over an f’n cartoon) were more powerful than the French military?

            No, because that’s not what I was arguing, I was acknowledging that Islamist organizations have an as low or lower threshold for attacking those they see as their enemies than major powers like the US despite their minute military strength.

          2. Rand quoted Andrew accurately. Maybe Andrew is right in a warped way. ISIS does seem to have a more powerful army than Charlie Hebdo, and John Kerry said the attack on the magazine was an understandable response. I think both Kerry and Andrew are more concerned about insulting Islam rather than Islam killing civilians.

      2. for retaliating against what they see as unwarranted aggression.

        Except that most of the violence is carried out against other Muslims. They aren’t “retaliating” for anything. It just a typical desire for genocidal conquest and world domination.

        1. I didn’t say against non-Muslims, I said “against what they see as unwarranted aggression.”

          I think that supporters of Bin Laden saw the US deploying troops on Arab soil as “unwarranted aggression”, if I recall correctly the Saudi government found the deployment of US troops on Saudi soil as unpopular with many Saudi’s.

          Supporters of ISIS – many of whom would have been in the ruling class of Saddam’s Iraq, certainly see the US as an aggressor overthrowing their Sunni government, with the Shia as the benefactors and as complicit.

          1. Wodun read you correctly and then he corrected your accounting. ISIS is killing more Muslims than anybody else in their desire to unite under a particular sect of Islam. That’s not about retaliation, but conquest. And they are doing it in the name of Islam using versus from the Koran as justification.

          2. Next you’ll tell me that all those other factions fighting against Assad have no reason to, that Assad’s actually a really nice guy and all those seeking to throw him out are just terrorists.

            Leland, I’ve pointed out that the Sunni Government in Iraq was deposed by the US. After that the Sunni were ejected from the Iraq government by Nouri al-Maliki’s regime, after that hundreds of unarmed Sunni’s protesting against their subjugation were slaughtered by Shia forces, after that ISIS got lots of followers in Iraq.

          3. Next you’ll tell me that all those other factions fighting against Assad have no reason to

            They have a lot of reasons, especially because the groups at war there are not all fighting for the same objectives. Are some of them motivated by a desire to overthrow Assad? Sure, but then what?

            Each group has their own desires for what happens after.

            Don’t forget that ISIS was Syria’s proxy army in Iraq. ISIS was just fine with Assad and while they do fight each other in Syria, often Assad and ISIS leave each other alone and focus on the other groups there.

            Some of the actors here are just trying to prevent their people from being exterminated. Cultures that predate Islam are being wiped out through genocide. For many centuries, it was a slow rolling genocide but now things have picked up pace.

          4. Sunni’s protesting against their subjugation were slaughtered by Shia forces

            Intra-religious warfare. It has only been going on in Islam since the religion was founded.

          5. Intra-religious warfare. It has only been going on in Islam since the religion was founded.

            Inter-tribal warfare has been going on over the whole Earth since time in memorial, that doesn’t negate America’s role in the expulsion and subjugation of Sunni in Iraq.

      3. “I think most would agree that when it comes to foreign aggression generally the US right has a lower threshold for retaliation than the US left.”

        Not true. In any instance of foreign aggression, no matter how trivial, the US left instantly, and with scorched-earth fury, retaliates…against the American right.

  6. He’re a list of over 100 wars that the US has been involved in in it’s 240 years of existence,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

    While I agree some of those wars were justified, there’s also a lot of those that were started on a pretext or were disputes that could have been settled without killing lots of people.

    Did the US really need to attack Fiji? Couldn’t some of those wars against native Americans have been resolved by talking? Given that accusation that the sinking of the USS Maine was a result of a foreign attack was unsound was the war against Spain justified? Why did the US government fabricate evidence to justify launching the second Gulf war?

    I can find similarly long lists for other major powers, Britain, France, Russia.

    On the other hand large but less powerful countries China, Brazil, Indonesia have been involved in relatively few wars, and smaller countries fewer still, and of course when little countries get involved in wars the reasons are a hell of a lot better, usually the genuine defense of the country or rarely to unseat thugs in neighboring countries eg, Pol Pot (by Vietnam) and Idi Amin (by Tanzania).

    I think Kubrick got it right:
    The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

    1. Why did the US government fabricate evidence to justify launching the second Gulf war?

      550 tons of yellow cake – http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/

      Wikileaks and WMD – https://www.wired.com/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/

      NYT even admits there was WMD – http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

      Also, WMD was just one of many reasons given for going to war with Iraq. Iraq was not living up to the agreement made at the end of the last war and their constant attacks against the American military meant we were already in a de facto state of war.

      1. The yellowcake was:
        According to an expert familiar with UN nuclear inspections, US troops had arrived at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and the material under investigation had been documented, stored in sealed containers and subject to supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1991.[97][98] The material was transported out of Iraq in July 2008 and sold to Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corp.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Post-war_discoveries_and_incidents

        From your second link:
        The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.

        From your third link:
        The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.

        Face it Wodun, there was no WMD program in breach of the agreement reached after the 1990 war, there were just a few chemical munitions around that Saddam’s government had mislaid (a result of disorder rather than deceit).

        1. there was no WMD program in breach of the agreement reached after the 1990 war

          The possession of WMD was and Iraq had it.

          Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger

          Skeptics should note that Iraq was in the possession of WMD in violation of the agreements made at the end of the last war. For leftists, no amount of WMD is grave enough unless Obama uses them as an excuse to go to war.

          The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program.

          This is not true.

          I gave you three links all from leftist websites. Even the leftists had to admit that there were WMD. That they dishonestly lied about the lead up to the war shouldn’t be surprising.

          1. I stand by this: “there was no WMD program in breach of the agreement reached after the 1990 war, there were just a few chemical munitions around that Saddam’s government had mislaid (a result of disorder rather than deceit).”

            And I’ve never seen any evidence that that assertion is incorrect or that the US government, after the facts were ascertained after the conflict, disagrees with that conclusion.

          3. Willful Blindness indeed.

            The nerve agent mentioned in your link, sarin, can have a maximum shelf-life of five years. The shells recovered in 2005 were produced in the 1980s.

            Nothing you’ve mentioned refutes my points in my June 30, 2016 At 3:05 PM comment.

            Are you just going to keep on looking for evidence of deceit by Saddam even after rational people and all the evidence proves that there were just a few chemical munitions around at the start of the 2003 war and that they only still existed because Saddam’s government had mislaid or improperly disposed of them, a result of disorder rather than deceit?

            You are starting to look like conspiracy theorists.

          4. Pro tip: There were many reasons to remove Saddam that had nothing to do with WMD. The “lack” of WMD is just the straw that the left has always grasped.

          5. Pro tip: There were many reasons to remove Saddam that had nothing to do with WMD. The “lack” of WMD is just the straw that the left has always grasped.

            And if the result hadn’t been a complete balls-up there wouldn’t be an ISIS, hundreds of thousands of people wouldn’t have died and the people in Iraq would be better off now, rather than worse off.

            Perhaps the results could have been what the G. W. Bush government had envisioned, the problem is that that administration and subsequent US administrations didn’t understand what they were doing, the invasion wasn’t undertaken with sober regard to the challenges of getting a longer term peace, it was all about the immediate glory of a short term victory.

            It just occurred to me that in that respect it was a lot like Apollo.

          6. I just caught the last half hour of the film Charlie Wilson’s War (a film I hadn’t seen before) with a quote leading the end credits:
            Charlie Wilson: These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.

          7. Hey everybody, Andrew watched a leftist propaganda filmed and took it as gospel. She how bright he is!

    2. On the other hand large but less powerful countries China

      China has been involved in a lot of wars.

        1. Andrew’s two lists of wars are apples and oranges.

          American civil war: 4 years
          China civil war: 23 years

          American list includes lots of small internal regional conflicts not included in China list.

          China list does not include external wars such as
          * the Chola incident in 1967
          * Sino-Indian skirmish in 1987
          Or ongoing border clashes with pretty much all of its neighbors.

          All of which is irrelevant to this topic of blindness.

          1. From Ken’s blog:
            1. “war-footing strategy is the only sensible counterterrorism paradigm”

            I think that means increased security within the US and using intelligence services to locate terrorists and stop their attacks. I agree with that.
            2. “The jihadists who listened to [the Blind Sheikh] did so because he is an internationally recognized authority in the political ideology that draws on Islamic scripture to inspire attacks against the West.”

            I agree with that, if taken in context with my other points, he was saying things they wanted to hear and that was that the US was an aggressor and so the Quran allowed Muslims to attack aggressors.

            3. “What matters is that there is a sharia-supremacist construction of Islam to which hundreds of millions of Muslims have adhered for centuries.”

            That comes down to how do you define “sharia-supremacist”, if it’s that hundreds of millions of Muslims think they should live under Sharia law it’s certainly true, if it’s that hundreds of millions of non-Muslims should be forced to live under Sharia law I would disagree.
            In the US you have white supremacists, they want white supremacy within the US, I don’t think they call for white supremacy in Africa.
            4. “Sharia supremacism is virulently anti-Western…”
            To me his meaning is unclear, ISIS is virulently anti-Western and IS supporters are Sharia supremacists, but if his “Sharia supremacism” is about Muslims wanting themselves to live under Sharia law I disagree with “virulently anti-Western”, in several countries there are parallel justice systems to accommodate the different beliefs.
            5. “A sensible national security policy cannot regard the objective presentation of evidence as if it were the promotion of hate speech.”

            Perfectly true, but that doesn’t mean that hate speech doesn’t exist and isn’t destructive.

            6. “The goal of counterterrorism is supposed to be the prevention of jihadist attacks[, not prosecution after.]”

            Agree entirely, but I’d say the best counter terror strategy is avoid creating anger through injustices.

            Obama could have killed ISIS before it got started by pulling the Nouri al-Maliki regime into line when they started to act like thugs.

        2. Andrew, do you apologize for living in a land taken from the Maoris? I’m just asking because you should also be acknowledging your shameful heritage.

        3. That is rather frequent. One war about every 7 years.

          They are overdue, which explains the seizing of territory from their neighbors, ASAT mobilization, restructuring of their military for combined arms, massive military buildup, and extensive espionage.

    3. “Did the US really need to attack Fiji?”

      Were you there? Of course we did! Little bastards wouldn’t stop Fijiting.

    4. Yes, we’re filled with shame over our gunboat diplomacy. We hear it all the time. I flog myself nightly.

      Here’s a question: What did Nigeria do to deserve Boko Haram?

      1. What did Nigeria do to deserve Boko Haram?

        I don’t know, I haven’t been following it closely. Boko Haram like ISIS has very few Muslim supporters and needs to be dealt to.

          2. You really showed Boko Harem, you linked to polls. Well that’s that, they’re dealt with now.

    5. China has a long history of warfare. It is not external, but rather internal. Its borders were established years ago but strife within the country occurs as the pendulum swings from centripetal forces to centrifugal forces (not my words, but rather Chinese historians.) Mao was the latest centripetal emperor.

      The Chinese are so arrogant and ethnocentric that they never bothered to expand outward because there was nothing to learn from foreigners.

  7. Ideology of the terrorists, aided and abetted by the ideology of fools who believe that prosecuting bad behavior is provocative.

    (any guesses of which regular trolls will be triggered? 😉

    1. I had no doubt. It’s amazing that 3 people from countries amounting to the old Soviet Union walk into a Turkish airport, kill scores of people, and we get lectures on how they are not Muslim despite their claims, and they did it because the United States attacked Iraq in 2003 on faulty evidence. The cognitive dissonance is strong with Andrew.

  9. we get lectures on how they are not Muslim despite their claims,

    I haven’t said that

    and they did it because the United States attacked Iraq in 2003 on faulty evidence.

    Nor did I say that.

    And you accuse me of cognitive dissonance?

    The attack if by ISIS – which is very likely – will lose them even more support from Muslims, and cause Turkey to rethink their reluctance to aid in the war against ISIS.

    So I wonder if the idea behind the attack was to attribute it to the PKK.

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/06/turkey-istanbul-ataturk-airport-attack-isis-pkk-dangerous.html

      1. It’s that the link you intended?

        It wouldn’t play for me initially so I watched the whole 18 minutes on You tube, at one point she said she was royalty, she was brought to the air port in a police car. She had lots to say.

        PJ media describes it as scary, perhaps that means they thought she was serious, I guess they thought that that was how airline bombers acted, but I’m pretty sure that that’s not the case.

        My interpretation is that she probably a manic-depressive who’d had a crap time in America with all the Islamophobia she’d faced (probably a lot due to her big mouth and dress) was getting pretty angry with the country and was having a manic episode as a result of finally getting out of what was to her a hell hole.

  10. Nor did I say that.
    …
    The attack if by ISIS – which is very likely – will lose them even more support from Muslims

    1. Just because the invasion and subsequent subjugation of Sunni lead to ISIS doesn’t mean that since then there haven’t been other things influencing ISIS.

      Analogy, Just because the British were mean to the American colonists doesn’t mean that subsequent attacks on other peoples by those colonists are the fault of the British.

        1. I also suspect you won’t notice the logical inconsistency in your analogy, that had it been consistent would completely destroy most of your arguments in this comment thread. You won’t notice, because your point in the analogy seems to be to point out your hatred of America.

        2. I probably have been a bit negative (we all have) I should have pointed out how America has gotten it right on occasion, Japan, Europe, South Korea and other countries wreaked in WW2 are all doing pretty well since the US contribution to their security and the American support they received after the wars that ravaged them, I just wish America was still in the game of winning the peace.

          1. Andrew,

            I’ll accept the comment. I will note that America is still in the game of winning the peace, but sometimes winning the peace means beating the bully rather than just turning the other cheek. We may disagree with the degree of all this, but I can respect your thoughts if you’ll simply understand that we want peace like you do. It’s all a debate of how it is achieved.

          2. Cheers.

            I’m still looking up stuff of Charlie Wilson’s War.

            You may have seen this before, I find it a fascinating documentary and think it gives insightful perspectives on how Muslims are honor bound to fight invaders, and how even the most fanatical can put aside religious differences and work with the US if it serves their interests.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hU3r4q5CV8

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