Tigerhawk talks about the infantilization of seething Muslims by condescending western elites:

Neither the pope nor the Muslim clerics are the only actors here. Tens of thousands of Muslims chose to act in violence or condone violence yesterday. Millions more supported them in this, the evidence being that Muslim politicians jumped on the bandwagon. These millions of Muslims are hardly candles in the wind, helplessly manipulated by the imams. They chose their religion. They chose their mosque. They chose not to “listen carefully” to the words of the pope. They chose to take to the streets in rage, and they chose to burn and attack and kill perfectly innocent people, all on the say-so of one or another demagogue in a turbin. They are not children, however much the cultural relativists who absolve the rioters and their sympathizers infantalize them. I condemn these people for making bad choices; liberals, such as the editors of the New York Times, refuse to condemn them because they believe that Muslims are incapable of choices. I may deplore the choices of these rioting Muslims, but the New York Times holds them in contempt, regarding them as nothing more than wild animals. Just as we all blame humans who antagonize an animal into a violent response, the New York Times blames Westerners who “sow pain,” as if Muslims have the free will of a cornered wolf.

For my part, I am sick of “Muslim rage.” Whether inspired by the pope or Danish cartoonists or the clumsy use of the word “crusade” by a Western politician, there is simply no defense for the behavior of these imams and their followers. It is barbaric, and everybody who is not barbaric or an unreconstructed apologist for barbarians knows it. The Muslims who commit arson and mayhem in response to some Westerner speaking his opinion — and the pope, as leader of the Roman church, is exactly that — have chosen to act as enemies of reason, peace, and everything that is good in the world.

…Islam needs jihad, which I understand means “struggle.” It needs a jihad against illiteracy. It needs a jihad against ignorance. It needs a jihad against sloth. It needs a jihad against corruption. It needs a jihad in support of women, without whom it cannot succeed in the modern world. It needs a jihad against the clerics who have — allegedly, according to “moderates” — perverted the truth of its religion. It needs a jihad against its governments — secular and Islamic — who have destroyed the future for more than a billion people. It needs a jihad against despair.

Until I see the arsonists and rioters among Muslims embracing these jihads, I will hold them responsible for the bad choices that they make, including the choice to reject secular education, the choice to destroy rather than construct, the choice to dwell in the past instead of dream about the future, the choice to obsess about Jews rather than wonder how they might emulate the Jews, and the choice to have so little confidence in the power of their own religion that they oppress and condemn and kill those who choose otherwise.

I’ve been listening to this fight between the Senate and the White House over clarifying what Common Article III means.

You know, I’m open to the argument that we should follow the Geneva Conventions because it’s the right thing to do and right way to behave, but the argument that we should do it to ensure good treatment of our own troops is simply laughable in the real world (and I suspect that most of those in uniform think so, too). When is the last time we fought an enemy that actually obeyed the Geneva Conventions?

And of course, I think that it’s a perverse travesty, and counterproductive of the purpose of the conventions, to reward people who trample on them by treating them under their provisions. All we do thereby is encourage them in their barbarity. That is a Supreme Court decision that needs to be revisited.

Amnesty International is actually accusing Hezbollah of war crimes. After all these years of bashing Israel and the US, and ignoring the other side, has it decided to finally do something to try to reestablish its credibility?

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

[Note: This post will remain at the top all day, so if you’re on a return trip, you might want to scroll down to see if there’s any new stuff below.]

Michael Ledeen is still angry. I never was. But then, I didn’t lose anyone I personally knew.

It’s always chancy to try to recollect emotions from an event five years on, but thinking back to that day in San Juan, watching the first tower burning, I don’t recall anger. When I saw the second plane strike the second tower, the only feeling that I had, I think, was resignation, along with the instant knowledge that we were now at war, in a way that we had never been in my lifetime. This, I thought, was what it was like for my grandparents (whose age I was closest to when the event occurred for them) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I remember a sense of foreboding, and wondering what the future held. On a more practical and personal note, I remember wondering when and how I would get back to California, since all flights in the US would surely be grounded soon, including the one that I was about to depart to the airport to catch.

That earlier war, at least for my parents and grandparents, lasted less than four years (though for Asia and Europe it was much longer). Last year I wrote an essay on the fourth anniversary comparing the two wars. I still think it holds up well (or at least as well as it did the last time). Here’s a replay:

Continue reading The Long War →