The Third World's love affair with Islamic fanatics

I first realised that militant Islam was beginning to provide the ideological leadership for the Third World as a whole when I attended the mass rally at the ANC's national conference in 1992.

It was an emotional occasion. The organisers announced to the vast crowd packed into Durban's King's Park stadium that delegates from all over the world were in attendance.

As the list was read out, there was a spontaneous cheer for Sweden: all the ANC activists knew that the Swedes had been generous supporters. This was easily eclipsed by the roar of approval that greeted the Cuban delegates.

But the greatest roar, and a standing ovation, came when it was announced that there was a delegate from Iraq. Suddenly, one noticed a flowering of Saddam Hussein T-shirts. Muslims probably accounted for less than one per cent of the crowd, which was overwhelmingly Christian.

But this was not long after the Gulf War, when Iraq had appealed for Muslim solidarity against the Great Satan. It should not be forgotten how seductive that appeal was - it swept even Yasser Arafat off his feet, and Muslims from Indonesia to West Africa enjoyed the thrill of this emotional jihad.

Non-Muslims enjoyed it, too. Although Iraq had been defeated, Saddam was spitting defiance at America and that meant he was still a hero. The Third World respects power like nothing else. Given this fact, it was of cardinal importance that the West should destroy him completely, and it hadn't.

After the fall of Kabul, this is a lesson we need to learn: only the extirpation of the Taliban and bin Laden will convey the right message. Why is the Third World so anti-Western?

Most ex-colonial states absorbed a good dose of Leninist anti-imperialism during their liberation struggles, and sympathised with Soviet tirades against America. The fall of Communism suddenly deprived the so-called non-aligned bloc of the leadership it had implicitly accepted on this issue.

In effect, Saddam Hussein filled the vacuum. As the Nineties progressed, this identification hardened as it became clear that the Third World's warriors against America were no longer North Korean, Chinese or Vietnamese. They were Muslim radicals.

Third World radicals, who had always idolised those most intransigent in the face of American power, such as Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, could not help being impressed by the even greater intransigence displayed by the kamikaze tactics of Islamic fundamentalists.

In South Africa, we even had one provincial premier and Christian minister - the Rev Makhenesi Stofile - declare after September 11 that the Americans had it coming. All of which has wider implications for today's non-Muslim Third World than is often realised.

We should remember that Third World nations have naturally supported the struggles to liberate colonies anywhere in the world. In the Fifties, this meant French and British colonies; in the Sixties and Seventies, the Portuguese colonies; then Zimbabwe, Namibia and finally South Africa.

What was left was more problematic: the Falklands, Gibraltar, the Western Sahara. The only remaining "colony" that fitted the campaigning habits of a lifetime was Israel.

Here, recognisably white Western settlers were oppressing a recognisably non-Western population, whose representatives were seen as brothers-in-arms at conferences at which they rubbed shoulders with other Third World leaders.

Thus, attention came to focus ever more squarely on Israel; and, if Israel was a colony, its metropolitan power was America. Much of the Third World has accepted this definition of the situation, and is therefore lined up behind Muslim leadership - a situation pregnant with menace for Israel, and now equally for America.

Just as the Algerian war led to bombs in Paris and the Irish struggle to explosions in London, so September 11 is understood in much of the Third World as the moment when the struggle was brought back to the metropolis.

The only solution, seen in such terms, is the complete "decolonisation" of Israel: a withdrawal of American support for Israel as complete as the French withdrawal of support for French Algeria.

This vision of the future will become increasingly powerful in all those international forums, such as the UN, in which the Third World has a majority voice.

In the 1960's two nations were definitely First World nations. The Union of South Africa was a prosperous inductrialized nation where the world's first heart transplant took place. Rhodesia was another modern industrialized nation that was by most standards a rich nation where the Black Africans were better off than anywhere else on the African Continent except perhaps the Union of South Africa. In the Union of South Africa they continually experienced a net migraion of Blacks into the Apartheid state. If it was so bad why were so many Blacks migrating to it instead of prospering in their own tribal areas?

Now these nations are turd world cesspools. Zimbabwae (Rhodesia) is well on the way to becoming a disaster unlike anything seen in the past two Centuries.

These are some of the facts of the nations that hate us. Perhaps we as a nation have to consider a classical Roman solution for those who so hate us. Create a dessert and call it peace. Such a solution is not the American tradition and I am not yet advocating it but it is definitely something that should be considered. At a minimum we should condition the aid we so freely pass out. We should demand that an American Passport be considered a guarantee of safety from any government. Foreign nations should understand that harm comes to American citizens the consequences will be severe.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

Officer, in Saudi Arabia, it is not the Mercedes-driving polygamist that is our problem. He is secretively on our side, although he can't say so publicly.

The guy who is our problem is Achmed in the old Toyota pickup with his wives and kids in the bed, and his prize sheep and goat in the back seat.

Because of HUGE (500 % in 15 years) population growth, his oil-rich government is now, believe it or not, low on cash! Acmed's perks are getting cut way back. (Shoulda thought of that, with four wives at a time and 30-40 kids per family, it doesn't take long to run low on cash, no matter how much oil you pump.)

Wullah! It gets even more serious. Things are so bad, old Achmed may actually have to go to work ... every day! This is because his oil-rich country can no longer afford to pay him, and the foreigners who do everything from sweep the streets to running the phone company.

He realizes that he can't have a new pickup or another wife, because the really big bucks are going to the guy in the Mercedes. Achmed, and 100 million TWA's like him, are Osama bin Laden's biggest fans. The guys in the Mercedes are paying off Osama to stay away. They think.

The point to remember is that at the moment an innocent life, unconcerned with the conflict, is taken, the cause becomes non-existent

A classic "double standard." America is taking "innocent lives, unconcerned with the conflict" every day. They're called "collateral damage." And don't start harping about the 4,000 in New York and Washington. Afghans lost 2,000,000 fighting a war so Americans didn't have to, and the minute their enemy left, the US left them and their ruined country.

If we must "go it alone", it will be messy.

It will be messy, soon.

We cannot "make the world better"

Then we are acting as armed interlopers any time we do gobeyond our own borders, and have no right to expect anything but the treatment always given to people who believe that might makes right.

HERE HERE! What sins do we commit that other countries do not? Pornography? The Asian pornographers run circles around us--they even have sex and nude scenes in shows openly marketed for children. Arrogance? The Chinese are far and away more arrogant, perhaps because they have had thousands of years of practice. Shamelessly violent entertainment? I suspect that the strict Muslim countries with their public executions has outraced Stephen King. Cultural hegemony? The British have always been best at that vice. Flagrant inhumanity to man? Oh, let's see. Who developed AIDS cures, and whose medical researchers are at the forefront of developing new medications, often sold at discount rates to the world's poor, while rich and poor Americans subsidize the research by paying more? Who provides the most disaster and humanitarian relief worldwide, whose loans float marginal nations, whose diplomats are always available to help negotiate settlements between warring factions--settlements that are generally broken at the first chance?

We are condemned the world around for SOME of the consequences of being free. Yes, freedom begets Brittany Spears, rap music, Hollywood liberals, and the kind of President who fires missiles to divert attention from a mistress. But the rest of the world is too ignorant to recognize the value of the freedom and the good things that come of it. I guarantee you that this world would sink again into medieval misery if America falls. Maybe the Mullahs would like that. But I don't think they'd like it too well, for too long.

ASK the people who think we deserved 9/11 WHAT we do that is unique to us. If we deserved 9/11, so did every other creature on this planet, for we are the best of them--not individually, for we have some sorry specimens among us--but as a culture. YES, WE ARE THE BEST.

Actually I'd prefer the South Pacific,

Actually, would they prefer you? If you are anything like you post, you would be amongst the first to claim that he true Polynesian culture didn't fit your white purist background.
People like you always bring to mind *people* like THIS:

Arnold served George III with the same skill and daring he had shown in the Patriot cause. In 1781 he led devastating strikes on Patriot supply depots: In Virginia he looted Richmond and destroyed munitions and grain intended for the American army opposing Lord Cornwallis; in Connecticut he burned ships, warehouses, and much of the town of New London, a major port for Patriot privateers.

In the end, Benedict Arnold's "moral failure lay not in his disenchantment with the American cause" for many other officers returned to civilian life disgusted with the decline in republican virtue and angry over their failure to win a guaranteed pension from Congress. Nor did his infamy stem from his transfer of allegiance to the British side, for other Patriots chose to become Loyalists, sometimes out of principle but just as often for personal gain. Arnold's perfidy lay in the abuse of his position of authority and trust: he would betray West Point and its garrison "and if necessary the entire American war effort" to secure his own success. His treason was not that of a principled man but that of a selfish one, and he never lived that down. Hated in America as a consort of "Beelzebub ... the Devil," Arnold was treated with coldness and even contempt in Britain. He died as he lived, a man without a country.

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You would betray your country to suit it to your prejudices.

In that case, I would expect you to be holding NON-Muslim hostages. There, now. Does that make you feel better, hmmm? The Benedict Arnold analogy remains, for you have just shown your betrayal of civilization for abject barbarism.
So which is it? Are you a lilywhite Euro who desires to *cleanse* the planet, or a dark skinned Muslim who desires to *cleanse* the planet, each at the cost of someone else's freedom and/or life?

Hostages, Muslims, Benedict Arnold, blah blah blah. And of course "We're Number One." Rah Rah Rah.

Listen dummy. It's the West that has been invading the Islamics backyards for the last couple hundred years, not the other way around.

And as far as we're so smart, we're so great, enjoy it while it lasts, which should be a few years. In less than 50 years we've gone from being the greatest producing country on the face of the world to the greatest consumer and the biggest debtor. You can't go to a store in this country without seeing most of its merchandise from China, Singapore, Mexico, anywhere there's cheap labor to feed the self-indulgent consumers. Once the real estate bubble busts like the NASDAQ did, you're going to see some serious economic difficulties, not this little piddly stuff we've gone through since March. Those high-tech gizmos don't come cheap you know. And we'll be needing lots and lots of them.

Are you a lilywhite Euro who desires to *cleanse* the planet, or a dark skinned Muslim who desires to *cleanse* the planet, each at the cost of someone else's freedom and/or life

Keep guessing. One thing I'm not, is a Middle Eastern tribal who thinks that my war god has told me I'm his favorite boy, and that gives me the right to take anything from anyone I believe will advance my tribe's cause.

How much freedom and how many lives has our erstwhile Middle Eastern 'ally' taken over the last 50 years?

How much freedom and how many lives has our erstwhile Middle Eastern 'ally' taken over the last 50 years?

Obviously, not nearly enough. How many did our *ally*, the erstwhile Soviet Union take? How many Americans did Saudi Arabia murder? How many lives did Iraq and Iran take from each other and from among their own people?
Ya got so sense of proportion, AGA.

Ya got so sense of proportion, AGA

Heah's a "sense of proportion" for ya.

During the 1980's the Afghan people - both northerners and southerners - lost TWO MILLION lives, and at least another TWO MILLION maimed and permanently wounded, fighting America's enemy with America's money.

The minute the Soviets left, America COMPLETELY abandoned the country instead of supporting any group that could bring order and stability. This is how the Taliban came into power.

So the "Northern Alliance" are good guys? Then why weren't we backing the "Northern Alliance" for the last 10 years instead of doing it now?

So there are "moderate Pushtuns?" Then where was our support for these "moderate Pushtuns" from 1989 to the present?

So Pakistan is our ally against terrorism? Then how come we have been slapping Pakistan with economic sanctions for the last decade instead of giving them all the aid we're now throwing at them?

Meanwhile, America has spent 100 BILLION on a Jewish country that has never, not once, had any of its people fight our wars. Instead, they've dragged us into theirs against 20% of the entire world's population.

Sense of proportion, your ass.

Yes, my a$$ is pretty well proportioned for my height. So now what? You say Israel sent us to war. I say you are a fool. It wasn't Israel's fault the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The US supported th Mujahadeen against the Russians, not the Taliban against the Afghans. You get a little whacked out on this subject, man. 2% of the world's entire population could not POSSIBLY be the superhumans you seem to trying to give them credit for. Rulers of the World. Sounds like sci-fi. Or we be way much smahtah than we thunk we wuz.

a Jewish country that has never, not once, had any of its people fight our wars. Instead, they've dragged us into theirs

You are hallucinating. The Kuwaiti's dragged Americans over to save their soft little butts from Saddam. The Bosnian Muslims dragged Americans over to save them from the Serbs. Never has Israel dragged Americans to fight their wars. They are capable of fighting their own wars.

Once again, you make no sense

Israel has been fighting a war against Middle Eastern people for the last 50 years. Their war has been aided and abetted by American money and American weapons. After 50 years some of the people being attacked by our weapons decided to attack American targets, including innocent civilians.

And what's this superhuman BS? The Jewish state wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Americans.

Like there are so progressive, none repressive modern third world regimes we could support?

In your ignorance it has likely escaped you that the regimes we do support are far closer to western values than any available alternative.

Why should the article look to Greece for anti-American hatred when we have plenty of useful idiots posting here on FR ready to whine?

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