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the return of scipio
irregular rants on history, politics, culture, theology and latin american misadventure
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January 31, 2006 The Islamic world is all in a froth---OK, it is always in a froth---about those Danish cartoons. Here is one of them:
The rest can be seen at Michelle Malkin's place. What would you think if Christianity acted as Islam acts? If Christians made war upon cartoons? If Christians made war upon Buddhist statues? If Christians chopped off heads on camera? If Christians sent legions of suicide killers into schoolhouses? If Christians murdered their daughters for violations of 'honor?' If Christians boasted about blasting civilian airliners from the sky? If Christians were involved in almost every war on the planet? If Christians at the Vatican regularly stampeded and trampled to death hundreds of their own? If Christian youth made a sport of raping non-Christian girls? If Christians hunted down and killed all who tried to leave the faith? If Christians sent out hit squads to murder all who insulted the faith? If Christians around the globe jumped with glee after the towers fell? If Protestant and Catholic Christians engaged themselves in mutual slaughter? If Christians sexually mutilated their adolescent girls? You know the answer. Civilized peoples of all kinds would jump out of their skins to call such a faith infinitely degraded. There would be outcries of Écrasez l'Infâme throughout the land. Yet when Islam does these things the world oozes understanding. Moslems appear on Oprah to explain it all away to the cooing crowd, writers censor themselves so as not to be seen as intolerant and politicians do back flips to appease. Why? Here is a short list of types of people killed and types of things broken by Islam since 2001:
Where is life in all of this appalling destruction? or Love? or Mercy? or Hope? Look at the Moslem world and what do you see? Where would you fit in?
If such grotesqueries represented only a tiny fraction of Islam, where is the Moslem outcry against all of these grim atrocities, most of which are committed by Moslem upon Moslem? Where is the honor in all this? Where is the decency? Where is any creative power in all of this? And if all of this were not enough, you might enjoy this candidate for Moslem mother of the year.
What the Hell is wrong with these people? For some perspective, here is the type of cartoons that regularly appear in the Islamic press every day around the world.
January 30, 2006 The Jesuits are at it again. Once known for their Catholic fervor they have for half a century slowly morphed into a trendy and hip ecumenical professoriate. Their teachings and practices far more often than not confound Catholic teaching rather than affirm it. Their house propaganda organ America very clearly shows how far the Jesuits have abandoned Catholic teaching and morals. Unless a reader knew it was produced by the Jesuits he would have little idea it came from a group of guys once known as front line warriors of the papacy. A recent editorial could have been written by fans of Brokeback Mountain. It concerns---what else---homosexuals and the priesthood. The position of the Jesuits is striking, and simply drools condescension and arrogance.
The teachings of Christ also suffered a 'wide variety of interpretations'---you know, from the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees and other such white-washed tombs.
No it is not. It will result in far fewer sodomites in the priesthood. Here is the key point made by the Jesuit author, and it admits to open rebellion against Catholic teachings:
So all Vatican documents are simply loose guidelines and vague suggestions that do not demand obedience?
To the Jesuits it is a 'valid concern' that most priests should not be sodomites in the same way that most priests should not be of one ethnic group. So homosexuality is to be equated with race, something you were born with and cannot change. Here the Jesuits have effectively removed the sin from sodomy. And as always here is that all encompassing goo-goo word, 'diversity.' The Jesuit author performs a logical sleight-of-hand, for there is no 'great diversity of Catholics.' They are all to strictly conform to Catholic teaching no matter their nation or skin color. If not, they have ceased to be Catholic in any meaningful sense. But then, so have the Jesuits.
The division in the Church started with Judas and is not new. Jesus said that there would be sheep with the goats until the end of time. These Jesuits are the goats.
No Catholic has the right to be a priest, and Baptism does not grant this. Allowing homosexuals into the priesthood is expose these poor men to temptations of a horrible sort. It is a great cruelty to them and to their flock, and would be anything but an example of Christian charity. Would you allow heterosexual priests to live among nuns? What would be the point except to see these men fall into sin? And the claim that there is no connection between homosexuality, pedophilia and ephebophilia is a great lie from the Father of Lies. I would ask this morally confused Jesuit: Just who then is molesting boys and young men? And sometimes doing so right in the Church?
I most certainly hope so. Father Richard John Neuhaus tosses his hat into the ring.
Yes there would be. The problem is one of rebellion against Catholic Doctrine and Morals set down in the teachings of Christ and Catholic Tradition. Either the Jesuits are right or Christ is. Homosexuals are to be loved and prayed for--- and kept far away from children. Just to clear things up, here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church actually says about homosexuality:
So the Jesuits have no problem with allowing into the Catholic priesthood men who are gravely depraved, intrinsically disordered and act contrary to natural law. And these men claim to be spokesmen for Christ? They actually represent the other fellow. No one is forced to be Catholic. It is a demanding faith and a confrontational one, for it sets its face against the world and does not accommodate it. If the Jesuits do not have the moral courage to abide her doctrines then they should get the Hell out. (Hat tip: Amy Welborn)
January 29, 2006 Say what you want about those fundamentalist Christians, they sure seem a rather calm lot. Insult them, take away the prayers of their God from schools, make fun of them in the media, use all sorts of legal wiles to keep them far away from abortion mills, remove their Ten Commandments from public spaces, make movies where Jesus marries, write plays where He practices sodomy, write books that call the whole edifice of Christianity a sham, and what happens? Not much. They keep going to their churches to pray for their enemies---and they seem to have lots these days. Yet they always turn the other cheek. You can create a piece of 'art' called Piss Christ or one with dung spread all over an image of the Virgin and all you will get for your time will be a few complaints and more of those prayers for your soul. That's it. Ah, but try something like this with Islam! I dare say that its response will be---how does one say this?---a bit more memorable. Recall the hapless lefty Salman Rushdie. He published an obvious slander of Islam in his Satanic Verses. Hey guys, it was funny! But Moslems were not amused. The Islamic world, especially the mullahs in Iran, went stark raving ballistic. A fatwa was issued by the Iranians that called for Rushdie's death by whatever means available.
Those mullahs seem a bit touchy. Over a book. They never got Rushdie---not yet anyway---but they did get Theo van Gogh, who had the impertinence to make a film about Islamic culture. He was shot dead by a half-Moroccan on the streets of Amsterdam. No more film making for unlucky Theo! You see the point. No matter what the modern world throws at Christians they just go about their lives. But offer the mildest reprimand or the slightest insult to Islam, and it breaks out in mayhem and murder. Now it is making war over...cartoons. A Danish author is writing a book about Mohammed. He had a hard time finding an illustrator as few wanted the possible fatal attention such drawings might get from Islam. A Danish newspaper
These drawings have generated all sorts of responses from the entire Moslem world.
The Pakistani response has been somewhat more vigorous:
And one Islamic leader said
Rather than get bent out of shape over cartoons I would advise Moslems to use their energy to do something really radical. Like supplying clean water to their cities. Like stopping the honor killing of their women. Like figuring out why their nations are convulsed in poverty, violence and goof-ball Jew hatred. Like figuring out why tiny Denmark (population 5,432,335) has a per-capita GDP of $33,500---ten times that of the Indonesia, the largest Islamic nation. So naturally there is a cry from Islamic lands for a boycott of Danish goods. I would say that the non-cartoon-hating world should simply increase its purchase of all things Danish. Lost Budgie has a list of them. Will these folks be the next victims of Islamic irrationality?
(More silliness here. And some background here. And here.) (Update: While writing about Islam's war on cartoons I recalled this I had written in 2003:
Horror of horrors. I just read these headlines: Kennedy to Publish Children's Book So old, fat, corrupt and degenerate Ted Kennedy is going to use the skills he has garnered from his entertaining life and put them to use for the edification of our kids.
Well, in the spirit of letting bygones be bygones, I would like to volunteer my services to the senator. I can actually help him put words to paper. So let's get started. But how to begin? Hmm...let's see:
Woh! Where did that come from? This will not do. Let us try again.
Damn. It happened again. OK, let's try a different tack.
Whew! So far so good. So...where were we? Oh yes...
Hmm...some sort of problem here. But I do not give up so easily.
Stop it! Whoever is doing this, stop it now! I am trying to help a US senator! Do you mind? I will begin again.
Well, that is not too bad I guess. So...
OK. I give up. I'm beaten. But wait! I can at least help Ted write the dedication to his book. So:
You will, Ted. You will.
January 27, 2006 Today I am a happy lad. For Hamas has won the Palestinian 'elections.' The boys of Hamas were pitted against the wholly corrupt and incompetent Fatah. Now there can be no hiding, no wiggling about, no shilly-shallying about the intentions of the Palestinian state. Whereas before the Palestinians would say one thing to the Western media and another to Arabs, Hamas does not have this problem. It is absolutely and perfectly clear about what it wants.
Got it. Israel must go. War is the answer. International conferences---like the Oslo Accords---are a sham. OK, but what of this hatred of the Jews?
Wow! I had no idea that those clever Zionists had infiltrated our Oklahoma City Rotary Club. Good to know.
Well, now I understand the Iraq War: It was waged really to remove one Arab state after another so that the US military could at last use its weapons upon the people of Palestine. Glad that is cleared up. So there it is, folks, pure, unadulterated Hamas. Its goal is clear, its aim is direct and its audience now has no excuses for ignorance. And as if to pound this lesson in, I read that it has promised to open an Iranian embassy in Ramallah. From DEBKA we see that
Even considering that this comes from DEBKA this move makes inherently good strategic sense. Since all is open now, why not just be frank about things and allow the terror regime in Tehran a redoubt a few feet from Israel herself?
Crystal clear yet again. For a good time type into yahoo search the words Hamas + Terror. You can choose among 192, 363 entries and then read to your heart's content. Then type in Hamas + Terror + Syria----110, 207 entries. Then type in Hamas + Terror + Syria + Iran---88,665 entries. At long last type in Hamas + Terror + Syria + Iran + Hezbollah---a mere 52,440 entires. Of course there is much overlap among these articles, but you get the point. Iran has clarified things as well as the killers of Hamas have clarified things. We have been given the truth, and it has set Americans free.
Push has now become shove. So cry havoc, and the sooner the better. (Hat tip: Lost Budgie)
January 26, 2006 I am always amused by the antics of our entertainers, especially the Hollywood variety. They are completely reliable---not to their spouses of course, but in their ability to play the public ape. It is well and good that they have neither shame nor conscience nor discernment, for otherwise we would not be treated to such deep thoughts as the following from pretty boy and Wyoming wrestler Heath Ledger.
He speaks of course of his pro-sodomy flick, Brokeback Mountain. Poster boy Heath is deeply disturbed that there are still---still!---some people in this day and age who would rather not see a movie where two men engage in doing the sort of thing that a generation ago few thought of doing and fewer still thought of watching. Yet, being the excellent moral philosopher that he is, he boldly speaks out against the Greatest Crime of Our Age, intolerance. The poor Mormons come in for a severe chastisement, holed up as they are in that redoubt of morality, Utah. (I am cut to the quick that Ledger did not include my home state of Oklahoma along with Utah, alas.) These pitiful souls, laboring under an ancient and decayed belief, refuse to raise themselves to the level of the breathtakingly tolerant and hip Heath Ledger. Damn them! You see, poor old Mormonism---and Christianity and Judaism and Islam---all refer to a bunch of old books as guides to Life, the Universe and Everything. These writings are quite specific on those activities that Ledger the Wise has done in public, boosts in public, and insists that one and all praise in public. From an old Jewish guy:
From an old Jewish guy who became a new Christian guy:
From a Moslem guy---and hold onto your hats, because it sure ain't pretty:
So that which Heath the Magnificent calls uncontroversial and very mature is called by that God fellow "an abomination...dishonorable...unnatural...shameless." In fact, old Yahweh really gave it to Sodom and Gomorrah for engaging in an early example of Brokeback Mountain. (Hey Heath, all those guys in those cities were sheep ranchers too!) Those places were burnt to a crisp
So now what do we do? Should we defer to some old texts from those religious types, or should we fall in line with Heath Ledger and all those Hollywood types? Decisions, decisions. Good old pretend sheep rancher Heath should hope beyond hope that God is dead, that all that monotheistic morality is false, that it is sweet and honorable to do unto men that which is done between married folk---a man and a woman that is, just to clarify things. And another thing. Is it just me, or is there something more than strange that it is fine with Ledger that for all his life natural and not he will be faced with what he did on screen in Brokeback Mountain? That forever and ever his wife will go to bed knowing that her husband promoted anal sex for money? That his children and grandchildren will always live in the shadow of that mountain in Wyoming? So Heath, one day you will have the great honor to pull your granddaughter upon your lap and tell her again what you did as a bright and shining Hollywood star. (Hat tip: Megan Basham)
January 25, 2006 As if America did not have her hands full in Iraq and with trying to find a way of denying nuclear weapons to the grotesque Iranian mullahs, now she must deal with a host of her enemies forging alliances and ganging up on her. All sorts of ominous winds appear to be blowing from Asia, from the Middle East and from South America as the Iranian president woos unsavory Syrians, Venezuelan blow-hards, a weird-haired midget monster from North Korea and the grubby killers of Hamas and Hezbollah. All of the sudden we are told that we should be afraid---very afraid. No we should not. The countries aligned against us at the behest of the Iranian nut-jobs are broke and incompetent. They are more of a threat to themselves than to us. I should add that anti-American alliances have always failed. Always. Our first wars were against France and her Indian allies in North America. There were four of these French and Indian Wars and they represented the first anti-American alliances. We defeated them all: France was almost eliminated from North America and her Native American allies were pushed into the Ohio River Valley. The next war we were matched against another anti-American alliance, the British and most of the Indians. We won again. The superpower of the day was beaten handily. The results of the first set of anti-American alliances were victories over France and Britain---the strongest nations in the world---political independence for our new nation and the first stirrings of an American power that would eventually dominate in one form or another the entire world. Not bad for the first set of anti-American axes. These really set the tone for future struggles against a host of foes: a group of nations would unite against us, we would defeat them, and the result would be a vast increase in our power and influence. France was at it again while under the spell of Napoleon. He was recognized as the greatest captain of his age and the 'disturber of the world.' The Corsican planned an invasion of our nation, first by cementing his strategic base on the island of Santo Domingo---the present day Haiti and Dominican Republic---and then using it to ship thousands of tomahawks and muskets to Indians who would bring fire and massacre to American settlers. His goal was New Orleans and then all of Louisiana. Napoleon's aim was
He also enlisted Spain in his cause. So what we had against us was a brilliant conqueror using all the resources the French overseas empire, the North American empire of Spain and thousands of France's Indian allies. When it was all over Americans owned all of Louisiana and Napoleon had abandoned his dreams of American conquest---"Damn sugar! Damn coffee! Damn colonies!" So the third anti-American coalition ended as had the first two: the defeat of our enemies and a tremendous increase in our national power. But Britain was not yet done, and formed yet another alliance with Indians in an attempt to defeat America in The War of 1812. This war was really an sideshow of the Napoleonic Wars, and really ended not with the Treaty of Ghent but with one of the greatest strategic victories of American arms, The Battle of New Orleans. It was this vastly under-appreciated defeat of Britain's finest soldiers that cemented our independence from Europe, ended forever British wars on our soil and opened the entire West to American expansion. The next anti-American fantasy was the clumsy attempt by Napoleon III to get Mexico into an alliance against us during our Civil War. He sent the hapless, brave and silly Maximillian there to rule as the Emperor of Mexico (1864-1867). Napoleon harbored all sorts of anti-American schemes, including uniting France with the Confederacy and so splitting our Republic into separate parts. His rococo foreign policy was defeated by the Union victory and by the Mexicans themselves. Napoleon III became a perfect example of what happens to anti-American foreign leaders: Maximillian was shot, French dreams of influence in North America were over, and Napoleon himself was captured by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The dream of anti-American types to get Latin America united against us was continued by Germany in 1917---the famous Zimmerman Telegram. The note promised Mexico all the lands lost in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) if she would unite with Germany, and also suggested that Mexico try to convince Japan to join Germany's anti-American alliance. The result was America's entry into World War I and the defeat of Imperial Germany. The next anti-American alliance formed after Pearl Harbor. After we declared war upon Japan Germany declared war upon us, dragging the hapless Italy along. (Mussolini was really a proto-Chavez.) So there we were: the greatest powers in Europe and Asia united against America, an America with a small fleet and an army the size of Romania's. The results of this sixth anti-American coalition were the destruction of the Nazi, fascist and Japanese regimes, an American influence that now stretched across the world and American armies permanently in place in Europe and Asia. The Soviets put together another group of nations dedicated to the defeat of the United States, the Warsaw Pact. It ended the usual way: the Soviets disappeared from history and many of her former allies are now American allies. The latest Iraq war saw a great coalition united against America. Russia, China, Germany, France, Canada, the UN, much of South America and about the entire Islamic world worked to prevent our invasion of Iraq and later to insure our defeat there. All was for naught. We invaded, we conquered, and now we have a superbly trained military on the border with Iran and Syria. Which is a good thing. For now we hear that Iran and Syria have formed an axis against the US. From the Turkish media come these headlines:
Should we be be now doubly worried that these two nations have bonded against us? Actually, no. Syria has been an American enemy since the rise of Hafez Assad. His career of murder and terror neatly paralleled that of Saddam Hussein. Under his rule---now weakly and incompetently continued under his son, Bashir---Syria became little more than a gangster state, a Capone-ruled Cicero, Illinois writ large.
Always keep in mind that both of these nations have done and are doing all they can do defeat the US. Their alliance is not new and cannot suddenly---and magically---increase their power. This anti-American coalition is nothing more than an open declaration of weakness, an expression of fear, not of strength, and a public admission that when one of them falls, they will both go down together. South America well illustrates the absurdity of anti-American alliances. Chavez is a whirling little dynamo of anti-US activity: mouth always open, vulgar insults spread all around, cuddling up to Castro---even putting the old killer's face on Venezuelan currency---tossing out threats thither and yon, sending his Bolivarian goons into the streets of Caracas to bully his opposition, hanging out with Ahmadinejad and expressing that ultimate word in socialist goo-goo, 'solidarity.' And somehow all of this makes Chavez a threat to us? How? Commentators who write that we should be concerned about all of this have really just bought into Chavez' own delusions of grandeur. It is true that he has attempted to forge a grand anti-American axis in South America made up of Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. It really is to laugh. Having lived among and studied South Americans for 12 years I can say with accuracy that they have no competence at military and political affairs. Pick up any encyclopedia or history book and read to your heart's content. The history of the South American states---Venezuela especially---is one of mind-boggling corruption, grotesque economic mismanagement, opera-bouffe military prancing and the most odd-ball leaders this side of Africa. South Americans can scarcely unite on the simplest of economic issues---look at Mercosur---and to somehow believe that they will come together in a grand coalition to defeat American foreign policy aims is beyond ridiculous. Just consider one of Chavez' potential anti-American allies about whom much has been written. We should worry about Venezuela fortifying itself through some alliance with----of all countries---Bolivia. Bolivia? Yes, that landlocked state where life expectancy is 60 and whose GDP per capita is $3100, a place where strikes occur as regularly as they do in France, a nation that has lost every war, a state whose number one export is cocaine and where one-third of the populace is infected with Chagas Disease. Bolivia inspires pity, not fear. As does Venezuela. There is no possible coalition of nations that can come together and defeat us. If our history shows anything it shows this. Bu we can be defeated, though not by any conspiracy hatched by foreigners. America will fall---if she falls---through that tried and true formula of moral collapse. That, and not any imagined terrors beyond our shores, will send us the way of the Roman Republic.
January 24, 2006 File Under Way Too Many Movies: Remember that scene in the silly Arnold movie Commando where he is forced onto an airplane but then kills one of his captors? He then makes his way out of the plane by jumping out of it as it is almost airborne. Impossible of course. Really?
Now what will this idiot try to do, run for governor of California? File Under Way Too Many Movies: Remember that scene in the Tom Cruise film Collateral where Cruise says to Jamie Fox that some guy had died on the A train but nobody knew it? His dead body was transported around the city for hours. Well...
I know that there is some lesson here---about Man's Inhumanity to Man, about the heartlessness of urban life, about the coldness of city folks---but damn if I can figure it out. But somehow I don't think we will ever read in the papers, Dead Man Rides Tractor For Hours. File Under Fix Or Repair Daily: When I was a teenage punk I had a Chevy Impala with a 327, Hurst linkage and a Holley 4-barrell carb. It also boasted dual glass packs, which made it loud and a terror to my neighbors. My fellow punks and I would always make fun of Ford cars, saying Ford was really an acronym for Found On Road Dead, or something like that. Well...
Alas, now they are coming after my old Chevy!
What's good for General Motors may not be good for the USA. We're turning Japanese, Japanese, Japanese...again. File Under We're Coming to Take You Away, Hah Hah, Ho Ho, Hee Hee: Please. Let us all stop asking, "Are we going to war with Iran?" We have been at war with the mullahs since 1979, or rather they have been at war with us. Seizing embassies, taking hostages, blasting airliners out of the sky, blowing up barracks, shooting at our ships---all these are acts of war. We simply have not done anything about it. Until now. They have wanted war, and now they will get it. Playtime's over boys.
No! Who would have guessed this? File Under Texas Cowboys Are So Stupid: Stop the presses! President Bush has just made it official: He will not see Brokeback Mountain.
Alas, who has not?
January 23, 2006 As the day of Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons slouches closer and closer, there is a great to-do in the blogosphere, among pundits, with the striped pants set in the State Department and with professional military guys. Some of the arguments state how Iran's nuclear facilities can be taken out---and rest assured, they can be, if one is willing to deal with the cost. Some state that Iran is too far along in development and may even have one or two weapons. Some say that Iran has ways of striking back at the US and so rendering any pre-emption impossible. The boys at Winds of Change have a sobering analysis of the coming war in Iran. It is a bit scary but sums up many possibilities and directions the Iranian crisis could take. It is a necessary read. And top off these essays with a visit to The Officer's Club. Over at Regime Change Iran there is a nice variety of quotes, some of which are unduly pessimistic. Rational people understand well that Iran must not, under any circumstances, be allowed the possession of nuclear weapons. Civilized nations---there are only a handful of these really---must do what it takes to prevent this. If it occurs it will spell the defeat of the US in Iraq and led to a regional nuclear conflict. The pessimists have a number of points, though none are persuasive. One says that
No she does not. The mullahs have been striking at America around the world, in the sea and in the sky for 26 years. She is already doing all she can do to defeat us. Iran seeks nuclear weapons both to do more against us and to insure that we cannot strike back. Iran will wage war against us until one of us is gone. The so-called 'oil weapon' is a weak policy instrument indeed. If Iran shut off her oil she would simply collapse. Oil producing nations need to sell their oil, not threaten to keep it in the ground. And if with her back to the wall the mullahs blow up their oil installations, why should we care? The government would collapse, we would rebuild the oil facilities---recall how rapidly we got everything working again after Katrina---and that would be that. As far as Iranian activity in the Persian Gulf...well, the Iranian navy would have to deal with the most powerful fleet in history. It would certainly have 'a short and exciting life.' And Hezbollah already bedevils American policy in the region. It is a pest but little more. When Iran falls, Hezbollah loses its funding and will collapse.
We will not have to manage the aftermath, for we will go in, get it done and get out. We have learned from our occupation of Iraq. The US military does not make the same mistake twice.
What 'global consequences' might occur? China does not want her foreign policy and economic development tied to an unstable Iranian regime with nuclear weapons. She already has to deal with one nut case, and that right on her border. Russia might wail and gnash teeth but nothing more. She has had some recent experience herself with Islamic terror. Why would anyone expect Russia to like an nuclear Islamic terror regime right on her frontier? Europe will...well, who really cares? You should finish up your reading day with this from Michael Ledeen. It is rather optimistic---an unusual tack for him. He believes that any Iranian war would pull in Syria, but not to that nation's interest.
And so it will be an added bonus that Syria will collapse when Iran does---two for the price of one. So pull it together, have a stiff drink, and prepare for the coming American war with Iran. It will be a short, sharp shock, will briefly raise the price of oil, will make for some great headlines and will put an end to the terror masters of Tehran. Update: The literate and perceptive Kobayashi Maru as usual has some thoughts on the matter, though he does seem a bit depressed:
Stop by and cheer him up. He is always a good read.
January 22, 2006 Cyrus the Great and Ahmadinejad the Not Let us all agree: Iranian President Ahmadinejad hates Jews. Hates them with a bloody passion. Wants them out of the Middle East. Wants them to move to Europe. When---if---his nation gets nukes he has promised to destroy Israel. His mullah masters of course feel the same way. The anti-Semitic ravings coming from Iranian officialdom are hair-raising indeed. And Iran puts her money where her mouth is: She has long engaged in tracking Jews down and killing them wherever she can get at them. She has made no secret of this stupefying hatred of God's Chosen. But there is no particular reason why such grotesque anti-Semitism should find a home in Iran. Historically Iran has not sought out Jews to murder them but to protect them, even to favor them. The very first entrance of Iranians on the international stage was when they seized Babylon from the Chaldeans, they of Nebuchadnezzar fame. The great Persian King Cyrus (ruled 539-529 BC) was known for his tolerance, and he let the Jews, forced to live in Babylon since 587---the Babylonian Captivity---return to Jerusalem.
And there is the charming tale of the Book of Esther, of how the Persian King Xerxes (ruled 484-465) took a fancy to a Jewess. She was a real knockout and such a great girl that Xerxes divorced his prickly wife Vashti to possess her. But there was his wicked prime minister, a real Ahmadinejad type, Haman by name, who was eaten by envy, and sought the destruction of all Jews in Persia. He came to an evil end due to the cleverness of Esther and her father Mordecai.
Mordecai reached the same level of prominence in ancient Persia as that other Hebrew Joseph---he of the multi-colored coat---had in ancient Egypt. Jewish success in Iran 2500 years ago is today celebrated as Purim. And as recently as the 2003 Christmas Day earthquake in Iran
What we have with Ahmadinejad and the nut-job mullahs is something confined to the grubby mentality of the ruling class and not part of the Iranian people. A normal state of Iran would be less of a threat to Israel than France is. There is something that should give the Iranian rulers pause if they were men prone to calm introspection. It is that for the last 4000 years all civilizations who sought the destruction or enslavement of the Jews were brought to a bad end, sometimes by fire and sword. Assyria, neo-Babylonia, Ramses II's Egypt, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and the Arab world are some outstanding examples of what a people can expect once it begins to bring terror to God's Chosen. It is almost uncanny that a sure sign of a nation's imminent destruction is when it begins to push Jews around.
Whatever the reason, true, virulent anti-Semitism is such a good indicator of the presence of evil that I'm tempted to believe that when God made the Jews his chosen people, this is what he chose them for: to be a sort of Villainy Early Detection System for everyone else. (Hat tip: Bookworm Room) It is thus a certain thing that Ahmadinejad and his masters will be booted off the world stage. But probably they will need a big push. They will get one.
January 21, 2006 I sometimes wander around my travel diaries. They were written in times that seem long ago and about climes that seem far away. Some of the places I went were worth the time and effort to get there. But some of the others were...well, here is one village in Honduras that I can say with utmost confidence I will never see again.
The shore of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala experienced a terrible flood and landslide some months ago. But it had long suffered under an invasion of two-legged locusts.
Few travelers visit Paraguay. They have their reasons for avoiding the place.
But of course it is all worth it. Travel involves heading out to see the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Some places you plan for years to visit annoy once you see them. Some places you stumble into by accident remind you of why you travel.
I remember all of this because something odd and unsettling will occur in a few months. In April more than two years will have passed since my return from Latin America. Since 1983 I have never spent more two years away from it. I am not quite sure what must be done about this except to say that something must be done about this.
January 19, 2006 Iran is hell bent to get nuclear weapons. Niall Ferguson imagines a future historian writing about the Great Middle Eastern War of 2007-2011 if she succeeds.
Scary stuff for sure. But how likely is it? Not very. Iran labors under an insoluble strategic problem. Here was her situation pre-September 11:
Here is her situation today:
Iran has experienced a text-book case of foreign policy failure of near unprecedented dimensions. But there is more. Iran's economy is rust bucket and ramshackle. Years of sanctions and economic incompetence have had their effect: unemployment reaches 50 percent among the young, for example---and most Iranians are under 20 years of age. They have no personal experience of all the glorious hordes of 'students' who seized our embassy, ruined a presidency, humiliated our nation and daily screamed into the news cameras, "Death to America!" But they see all around a ruined economy and grimy tyranny. Certainly most Iranians would not mind at all if their nation possessed the bomb. It is a status thing, like driving a Lexus. But most Iranians are not only rational, they are pro-American---which is the same thing. But there's the rub: Iran is in no way a rational state. Her rulers are a group of ferocious America haters, practiced killers, bloody-minded tyrants and gruesome anti-Semites---a real bunch of Mad Hatters. They are clever but their hatred addles them. The Soviets were killers but they were not nuts, and they were not driven by any suicide impulse. Their possession of nuclear weapons could scarcely have led to nuclear war---unless they wound up in the hands of a real nut, like the Soviet puppet Castro. But here is Iranian ex-President Rafsanjani, who said two years ago that on the day the Muslim world gets nuclear weapons the Israeli question will be settled forever
Any questions? There is a definite sense of desperation in Tehran, as if it knows that the window of opportunity to acquire nukes is closing, and not slowly. Thus the almost daily threats, the dog and pony show with Europe and the UN, its on-again off-again love affair with Russia. Its tactics are those of a boxer who is being cornered: dance around, throw false jabs, duck and cover, bob and weave---and all the while hoping for the ring of the bell. But that bell will not ring. No American president, no Israeli prime minister and no Arab state can possible allow the mullahs to succeed. Not even corrupt old Russia could relax with a bunch of nuclear nuts on her border. An Iran with nuclear weapons would be simply intolerable and would inflict a massive strategic defeat upon the US. To state the matter simply in my Oklahoma dialect: It ain't gonna happen. So be not afraid. Do not worry that a cornered Iran will send her terror mobs thither and yon to wreak havoc and murder, for she already does this. Do not worry that a cornered Iran will call upon China to come to her aid, for China is a nation with little strategic reach and whose threats are nothing but bombast. Do not worry that a cornered Iran will shut off her oil in an attempt to strangle the West, for oil in the ground is useless and only acquires power when it is transformed into money, something that Iran needs to fulfill her nuclear ambitions. A mullah-ruled Iran without money would disappear from history. Iranian President Ahmadinejad thus labors under a bizarro fantasy. His latest ranting can be answered quite easily:
We are the United States of America.
Very perceptive. Move to the head of the class.
Prove it.
January 17, 2006 File Under Alien V. Predator: Our enemies recently had had some bad luck on a visit to Pakistan.
Killed at their dinner like old Joey Gallo, who was whacked at a Manhattan clam house back in 1972. Those whacked in Pakistan were not Pakistanis but Egyptians, foreigners and aliens. I hope they enjoyed their last supper. That which brought about their demise was a small little aircraft, Predator by name. I love its description at Air Force Link:
'Perishable targets'? Well, yes. Here is a picture of the cute bird.
That odd device hanging below is the Hellfire-C laser-guided missile. Here is a better look.
(Hat tip: The Officers' Club) The noise it made as it neared its target was the last thing on earth those terrorists ever heard. Too bad the Hellfire could not play The Ride of the Valkyries. File Under Dog Eat Dog: As if the al-Qaeda thugs did not have it bad enough in Iraq. Now their erstwhile pals are whacking them.
No honor among thieves---or terrorist killers it would seem. The foreign (damn aliens again!) terrorists were involved in the kidnapping and torture of Iraqis both Sunni and Shiite, one of whom was found at room temperature after a gruesome time for sure.
The locals had had enough and turned on their 'liberators.' The fact is that even anti-American Iraqis know who will win this war. They are simply betting on the stronger horse. File Under Please Just Go Away: Old Walter Cronkite is back---again. (Will he ever depart us, alas?) I had just recovered from his last bit of treason, and---shazaam!---there he is appearing before reporters and slandering his nation, an activity at which he is second only to Jimmy Carter.
If any of my readers can follow the logic there, could you please e-mail me? And Wally even dusted off the same political advice he gave to LBJ after Tet:
Sure Walter, it worked so well last time. Our retreat from Vietnam caused hundreds of thousands to perish. And now you wish the same upon the Iraqis? What is with this guy and all of his acolytes---the Durbins and Murthas and Kerrys and Kennedys, Democrats all---who preach defeat for America and worse for her allies, while carrying as much water as they can for the most dreadful killers on the planet? Can they at the very least not publicly insult our country? Is that really too much to ask?
January 16, 2006 I started to write on my first day at Saint Michaels. I was in 1st grade, and the sister dutifully wrote upon the board the words John and God. I had in my hand one of those impossibly thick pencils that were standard equipment among my peers. The sister watched with alarm as I tried ever-so-carefully to copy out the words on the wide-lined paper on my desk. Her ruler came down hard on my knuckles and the improvement in my handwriting was immediate. At the end of day the sister proclaimed my two words the best in class. As an example for all to see, she posted my paper on the classroom wall. I was now a published author. The desire to write has never left. All through middle school and high school writing was the one and only thing I could do well---and do better at than all the math whizzes and science geeks and bullying jocks public schools could throw at me. Writing became a haven from the sometimes freakish reality I lived in. I was in it but not of it---as the Catholics like to say. I wrote fanciful tales of derring-do and imagined writing more. Along with writing came books---lots of them, mountains of them, all to be read and re-read. The coolest to my adolescent mind were encyclopedias and adventure tales. Oddly, stories of tiger hunters in India became one of my minor specialties. Even today I can almost rewrite word-for-word some of them. Reality intruded---it has a habit of doing that, alas---and for some years I was too concerned with mundane things like eating to leave much time and space for writing. The United States Air Force entered my life---or I entered its life---in 1972. After Basic and Medical Corpsman Tech School I settled at my permanent base in Big Spring, Texas. Now that I had much free time the old writing bug returned. And books returned, more than before. I was discharged in 1975 and headed to Portland. College was my goal, but no 4 year school would accept me. You see, my GPA in high school was between D- and F+. I enrolled in a community college after whizzing through the writing test. I had to take the usual requirements: Math---I loved it; Science (in the form of Chemistry)---I hated it because I could not understand it (there is a lesson there somewhere); English---Home at last. Most students grumbled about the writing but I loved it. Here I could feed the addiction and actually earn college credits doing so. A perfect world, yes? My first essay was titled The Dangers of Sugar. It was tripe ("something poor, worthless, offensive") but it was writing. I was off and running. My English instructor deserves special mention. He really wanted to be a 19th century French intellectual---a Zola type, or perhaps a de Maupassant---and he largely succeeded. The beard, the bohemian look and the constant air of tobacco were as much a part of him as a rifle is to a Marine. He was also tubercular and must have weighed 150 pounds while standing 6 feet 4. He was funny, ultra-liberal and he liked my writing. That was good enough for me. Wandering into a History class was a marvel. Term papers, essay exams, seminar projects and stacks of books: I was as elated as a Ted Kennedy who had wandered into an open-bar brothel that had an all-you-can-eat buffet attached to it. I still have all of these papers. Some are junk, some are still readable. I wrote on Sejanus, Assyria, the Parthians, Germanicus, US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, Alexander, Auschwitz---on everything I could. And I still do. Years after leaving college the writing bug now has a regular outlet, my blog. I can write to my heart's desire and fulfill every whimsy. It began to take shape in early 2003. I was teaching in Argentina but leaving for good that June. The plan was to solo backpack through South and Central America from June 2003 until the late Spring of 2004---what later became my 'Year of Living Dangerously.' Trouble was that I would be unemployed upon my return to the US. I came up with the idea of constructing a web page---mikeaustin.org---where I would place all things relevant to my 12-year teaching career: resume, letters of recommendation and so on. That way I could keep in touch with any number of US schools and any interested superintendent could simply view my web site and think, "This guy is an idiot!" or "This guy is a genius!" (I fall somewhere in between.) And my web site gave me the tremendous advantage of allowing my to put my thoughts to web all during my year out and about. I was never one for diaries, not having the ambition or discipline that they required. But the web was different. And so began my almost daily habit of writing. It was easy to do while traveling through Latin America, as about every city and town had an internet cafe with an html editor (mine is FrontPage). My idea worked, and brilliantly so---for it got me my present job, the Best Job in the World. Which brings me to my blog, now 1 year old. It is really a subdomain of mikeaustin.org---mikeaustin.org/blog. Much of the writing on it was originally done for mikeaustin.org. There are no particularly 'bloggy' things about it: no trackbacks or comments section or any of the professional blog stuff. I keep things simple. For now at least. But things change. And so has the focus on my writing. When I first started in January of 2003 I wrote about was then current in the news---the Iraq War mainly. When I began my year of traveling my focus switched naturally to Latin American things, especially solo backpacking. When I set up the blog I began to write on whatever caught my fancy: history, theology, politics, my new life in the US. I began to write longer pieces, a habit that has stuck. And it is a marvelous habit. For it wonderfully concentrates the mind and keeps it sharp and useful. And it does not matter who reads my writing or how many do so. What matters is the writing itself. It is both means and end, written not for fortune or fame but because God is watching. And He gave me both the desire and the method to fulfill it. Deus lo volt.
January 15, 2006 Today is Mass. On this day hundreds of millions of Catholics will kneel before the Body of Christ and recite the words of a soldier: Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, But only say the Word and I shall be healed. Who was this soldier? He was a Roman and a pagan who lived 2000 years ago. He was a centurion---what we would call a staff sergeant---and he knew Christ. A servant of the centurion was sick unto death. And so this Roman soldier---one of those men who had forced half the world through force of arms into the Roman imperium---went to Jesus to ask a favor.
There is neither doubt nor fear in the centurion's voice. There is only knowledge of his own unworthiness and his faith---a faith absolute---that the request will be answered.
Jesus is telling us that this soldier had more faith than anyone in all of Israel---more faith than even that possessed by His disciples. And the result of this soldier's faith?
Three years later the centurion was at the Cross, and was one of the few who recognized Christ for what He was:
So from Scripture and the 2000 year old Christian tradition we learn that Christ has a special place for the soldier. For it is his words---not those of the poet or politician or philosopher---that are said millions of times a day at every Mass. God has always used soldiers to make His point in the world. We remember the great conqueror Joshua ('God is his help'). Even before the death of Moses Joshua was the commander of the Israeli host in the war against the Amalekites. Joshua was also sent on a spying mission among the Canaanites, which later led to the near extinction of these grotesquely immoral peoples. He eventually conquered 6 nations and 31 kings. At this soldier's death 'the light of Israel for a time faded away.' Keep in mind the words that Edersheim used in his Bible History to describe Joshua, for they could be used to describe the American soldier of today.
From Joshua to Saul to David to Solomon and on to the armies of Assyria and Babylon and Persia, the Old Testament is full of God using soldiers to work His will. Three hundred years after the death of the centurion He again uses a Roman soldier, Constantine (272-337), to fulfill His purpose in history. It was Constantine who before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312), had a dream where he saw in the sky the words In Hoc Signo Vinces ("in this sign shall you conquer.") The sign was the chi-rho, a symbol of Christ.
Constantine carried this standard with his army and conquered. The result was the Edict of Milan which legalized the Christian faith in the empire of Rome. No more the horrific persecutions of Nero and Diocletian, for the soldiers of God had ended them. Their like would appear again at Tours (732), in the first three Crusades (1095-1192), at Lepanto (1571) and at Vienna (1683), each one a part of the age-long war between Islam and Christianity. And this struggle continues today. For it was the US military, nearly all of whose members are Christian, that brought the Afghanis out of a medieval tyranny and the Iraqis out of a nightmarish barbarity. To put the matter clearly, God used the US military to free 50,000,000 million people---just as He used it to free Europe from fascism and communism and Asia from Japanese militarism. He uses it still. And He is not finished yet.
(Hat tip: The Officers' Club) Onward Christian soldiers.
January 12, 2006 I have a great weakness for Ancient History. Of the 400 or so books I have read since 1996 maybe half have been about dead men in togas, phalanxes or legions. Such is my addiction. I make no apologies. I simply love the classical world. My love of these dead white males has fine company. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Washington---in fact the entire pantheon of America's founding fathers---were well-versed in classical history. The lessons of Athens, of the Roman |
