Should America blame itself for the Muslim world's hatred?

Even in a world where anti-Semitism is becoming increasingly accepted, occasionally someone can say something that shocks even the French. The speech of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at a meeting of a conference of Islamic countries last week contained so much blatant anti-Jewish bigotry that French President Jacques Chirac felt compelled to condemn it. To the applause of his fellow Muslim world leaders, Mahathir informed the world that it was being run "by the Jews." The Malaysian spiced this rather routine litany of anti-Semitic invective by going on to state that the Jews "invented … human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others."

To his credit, President Bush made a point of personally refuting Mahathir's screed.

It would be nice to think that Mahathir's speech was just the ravings of a nutty Malaysian. That appeared to be the spin the administration wanted to put on the affair. Even as she condemned Mahathir's words, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice tempered that by saying, "I don't think they are emblematic of the Muslim world."

Perhaps Rice missed the fact that Ahmed Maher, foreign minister of Egypt, supposedly a U.S. ally, praised Mahathir's speech as "a very, very wise assessment." And Hamid Karzai, recently installed by the United States as the leader of Afghanistan, called it "very correct."

And those were just the comments from the "moderates." Far from being unusual, this type of Jew-hatred has become typical in an Arab and Muslim world that has become the global producer of anti-Semitism. Jews and Americans have become the boogeymen of the Muslim imagination, filling heads with ready-made excuses for the failure of Muslim civilization to keep up with the West.

This drivel has been hammered into the minds of young Muslims around the world in schools paid for by America's Saudi "allies."

But, predictably, for some Americans the answer lies not in confronting the dementia that passes for wisdom in the Muslim world, but for America to change its policies. It didn't take long for such a suggestion to appear on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. The author was Times columnist Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist who usually confines himself to rabidly partisan attacks on Bush's domestic policies.

But on Oct. 21, Krugman told his readers that the Malaysian leader isn't really such a bad guy.

In a piece titled "Listening to Mahathir," Krugman said that the bulk of the speech was an accurate depiction of Muslim problems. If he indulged in Jew-baiting, we should, Krugman said, understand he was just throwing his constituents "rhetorical red meat" as part of a "delicate balancing act aimed at domestic politics."

In other words, Mahathir was no different from, say, a politician in the American South in the 1950s who had "progressive" views, but who ranted about the threat to white America from blacks in order to stay in office. Except, of course, that Krugman and the rest of 2003 America no longer believes that such balancing acts are either justified or defensible.

According to Krugman, it really isn't Mahathir's fault that he has to say such nasty things. "The rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism" is, according to this sage of Princeton, due to Bush's war in Iraq and "unconditional support for Ariel Sharon."

Krugman's view is in line with the views of a State Department panel that recently toured the world trying to find out why Muslims don't like us. That panel — packed with anti-Israel academics — came back to tell us that America's bad image in the Muslim world was largely our own fault. They think that we should increase our efforts to make nice with Arabs and Muslims, and even rethink our foreign policy.

The article you posted on Friday just NAILS people like Krugman for who and what they are. It bears repeating. BTTT

Shame, Honor and Terror in the Middle East-The Arab addiction to irregular warfare
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 24, 2003 | David Leo Gutmann
Posted on 10/24/2003 8:38 AM EDT by SJackson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007228/posts

The rush of Arab guerrilla fighters to Iraq following the defeat of Saddam’s regular forces has mobilized a corresponding rush of pundits to the media outlets, eager to instruct us as to why the Arab Street is so angry with America.

For the most part they name the usual suspects, the “Marxist–Lite” factors that our academicians and Middle East experts are comfortable with: that ours was a Capitalist war for oil; that we are seen as the new Western colonialists; that we support the settler state, Israel, against the dispossessed Palestinians, and so forth.

Mention is rarely made of long-established Arab military traditions, or of irrational features of Arab psychology, particularly their profound vulnerability to shame, and loss of honor.

In regard to military history, the Arab’s preference for guerrilla over conventional war reflects a long tradition, one that began in antiquity, with the Bedouin raiders. Their way of war- brilliantly described by T.E. Lawrence in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom – is based on hit and run forays by camel-mounted Bedouin who appear suddenly out of the desert, tear up an unsuspecting enemy camp, and then disappear back into the waste, carrying “honorable” loot: thoroughbred horses, camels and women.

The traditional Bedouin created a nearly pure “Shame” culture, whose goal was to avoid humiliation, and to acquire sharraf - honor. Thus, the goal of the Bedouin raid is not to finally win a war, for such inter-tribal conflict is part of the honorable way of life, and should never really end. The essential goals of the raid are to take wealth – not only in goods, but also in honor - and to impose shame on the enemy.

Any opponent worth fighting is by definition honorable, and pieces of his honor can be ripped from him in a successful raid, to be replaced by figments of the attacker’s shame.

The successful attacker has “exported” some personal shame to the enemy, and the enemy’s lost honor has been added to the raider’s store.

This calculus of shame and sharraf is an important element in all Arab warfare, whether waged by Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat, or a Bedouin sheik. In particular, that same dynamic drives the Arab preference for irregular over conventional war.

Irregular tactics - spiced with Terror – have on occasion defeated regular armies; but win, lose, or draw in the military sense, terror tactics can be a far more efficient means of meeting psychological goals - i.e., shedding shame and capturing honor - than all-out war. Here are some reasons:

First off, guerrilla warfare is the only form of combat in which Arab fighters regularly outperform the West. Little wonder then that irregular conflict, blended with terrorism, has always been the default military option for the Arabs, and one which they eagerly take up after their regular armies have been humiliated in the field.

Thus, the Palestinians, backed by the whole Arab world, turned to terrorism after the calamitous defeat of the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies in the Six-Day’s War, their fantasy being that the Fedayeen would redeem Arab honor and give Allah another chance to crush the Jews.

Secondly, In terms of spiritual as against purely military goals, the irregular fighter never really loses. At the battle’s end Goliath may own the bloody field, but David the stripling is always the moral victor. By crushing David, Goliath only adds to his own shame; and even if he loses, David always adds to his honor. For if David falls, his honor can never be smirched or stolen; and as a martyr he casts irrevocable shame on those who killed him.

The effectiveness of terrorist irregulars would no doubt be increased if and when they acquire weapons of mass destruction.

But until then, their material impact is limited.

They kill a few soldiers and civilians; they scare off some investors and tourists.

But it is in the moral domain, on the battleground of David and Goliath, that they have a destructive effect far beyond their numbers.

Thirdly, the terrorist’s actions have the effect of imposing shame on the same enemy whose people he kills.

A major aim of terrorist operations is to bring about the symbolic emasculation of the enemy’s military and civilian populations.

Thus, as the enemy non-combatants give in to their fear of terror attacks and huddle passively at home, they become vulnerable to the terrorist’s boast, recently broadcast by Hamas:

“We will win, because the Jews love life too much, while we love death.”

At this point, the terrorist has succeeded in multiple ways: Insult has been added to injury, and his enemies have been psychologically castrated, symbolically re-gendered into women.

But for the terrorist to succeed militarily (as well as symbolically and psychologically) he needs to recruit supporters in the enemy camp.

Shame societies avoid humiliation and attract support by blaming others for their defeats.

Once established, their Victim Identity achieves for them two major goals: it triggers the rage that fuels the worst terrorist outrages, and it mobilizes the terrorist’s natural allies in the enemy camp.

Thus, even as the victim posture reduces the Arab’s shame, it provokes a predictable and corresponding guilt reaction among the “progressive,” peacenik elements of the enemy society.

The voices of “Peace Now” and “Move On” zealots are heard, all of them shedding their own guilt by accusing their fellow citizens of driving the victims of oppression to terrorism.

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” becomes the dove’s mantra.

In this manner, the progressives become useful idiots for the terrorists.

As “transmission belts” they abet the terrorist’s mission of spreading guilt, shame and defeatism among the target population.

Egged on by a leftist media that deplores the struggle as a “quagmire,” the terrorized, demoralized civilians soon demand an end to the long, costly, inconclusive struggle.

Finally, like the French in Algeria, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Israelis in Lebanon, the humiliated enemy, defeated by a numerically inferior but spiritually superior force, would slink away, carrying the burden of Arab shame with them as they go.

This is the catastrophic outcome that we are now approaching in Iraq.

A premature American pullout would ignite a wave of Jihadist triumphalism, and bring on terrorist attacks, complete with WMD, that could soon render intolerable most urban life in the West.

The military effort against terrorism is vital, but not enough; we have to fight on the psychological /spiritual/ conceptual fronts as well. Where to begin?

Only regime changes towards democracy can break up the natural, hard-wired linkage between shame, victimhood and terrorism that we find in the Islamic societies.

The sentimental symbiosis between the shame society’s “victims” and the “Liberal Guilt” subcultures of the targeted democracies is equally “genetic,” hence unbreakable.

But there is a third crucial link in the terror chain that is not hard-wired, that can be weakened: the dialogue between the Jihad-friendly "liberal" elites and their larger, usually conservative audience, the citizens who consume their classroom lectures, their editorials, their politicized news reports and films.

When, in a democracy, this citizenry loses heart, then the military war against terror is soon abandoned.

In a democracy we cannot, even in wartime, interfere with the free expression of defeatist, “Amerika” bashing sentiment; but we can, in ways consistent with the First Amendment, mount rhetorical counterattacks, from the conservative and centrist camps, that neutralize its demoralizing effect.

If we are to defeat terror, a kind of regime change is required: on our campuses, in our press, and in Hollywood.

And responsive to that need, previously silenced voices are being heard.

Organizations like Students for Academic Freedom, FIRE, Campus Watch, ACTA and the National Association of Scholars are fighting the good fight for free speech on our thought-policed campuses; and networks like Fox News are providing pulpits for informed conservative opinion on TV.

Perhaps most hopeful of all, a lively and uninhibited blogger’s Samizdat offers new internet outlets, unmonitored by the Thought Police, for a new generation of gifted commentators who gleefully and intelligently refute the pious orthodoxies of the pro-jihad Left.

Finally, the battle against terror is won or lost at home.

If we refuse to be guilty about the war that we have to fight, and if we can refuse the temptation of a shameful retreat, then we will eventually prevail on the fighting fronts as well.

We are at a crossroad that most politicians evidently believe that the average American is too dumb to understand.

The entire world is becoming more and more evil every decade. The French sneer at those that hold to a difference between good/evil as engaging in primative moralizing. "Truth is relative", is the thin veneer of an excuse thrown out by those preferring to do evil. This is the chism that continues to grow wider and deeper between the USofA and the rest of the world. "Back to the Dark Ages", should be the favorite bumper sticker for Europeans as they throw off every moral lesson of history and embrace the abuse of despots and dictators toward their own citizens as being a neccessity at times and in certain situations.

Rather than condem Saddam's "Kingdom of Torture", France embraces it as a way to unify and control the violent, ignorant, clans that inhabit that area of the world. France could care less if a soccer player is being hung by his heels and tortured, or which school girl is being yanked out of class and raped, as long as it doesn't interfere with buisness.

In the interest of painting an honest picture, the USofA wasn't very concerned either as long as Saddam was content to remain a small player on the world's stage. But the maniac wasn't content to do that. The American response could have been to level the entire country and everyone in it rather than give the general population there a chance for more freedom and self determination, but that is not the way we operate.

The new ideal in Europe is for very limited freedom for their own people, as the rights of the socialist state becomes paramount. We are resented for not embracing the same, so attempts are made against the people's of the USofA by underhanded means via their own politicians, political parties, ngo's, the U.N., and trade agreements.

The answer of demoncrats is to go along with the direction the rest of the world is headed, and repubicats are moving in that direction themselves. The people in the crosshairs are those decendents of freedom in the, so far very successful attempts, to wrest away from them their right to self determination, the right to determine and direct the future of their nation, control of their own private property, and gun ownership. The weapons used aginst them are rabid immigration, a criminal and activist judicial system, gun control, removal from them of their control of their national resources, wealth, trade protections, sovereignty, jobs and consitution. "Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you", is not just a river in Egypt anymore.=o)

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