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-Land of the Free
A Unanimous Statement Signed by All of Congress Today; Officially Your World Has Changed, Mark This Date.
2021-07-04

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

(The Brave Men: Signers of the Declaration of Independence )


Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton
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The Grand Turk
Turkey Has Lost its Biggest Cheerleader: The U.S. Military
2017-08-04
h/t Instapundit
Turkey’s relations with the EU and place within NATO have come under increased scrutiny over the past year, especially during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's campaign to win a constitutional referendum this April, which many saw as a power grab.

...Since the failed coup against Erdogan last year, a new narrative has emerged amongst his supporters that I call "Erdoganism."

This "Erdoganist" narrative believes that Erdogan is an historic figure who will make Turks great and Muslim’s proud again, and that you have to support him not because Erdogan needs to be supported personally, but because this is how you put your weight behind this great historical project.

By inversion, Erdoganism also suggests that if you do not support Erdogan, you are therefore not a good Turk or not a good Muslim, and you should be prosecuted for that. I would also add that if you oppose Erdogan, you’re more than likely a proxy for foreigners.

Here is Erdoganism par excellence: blending political Islam and Turkish nationalism under Erdogan’s persona, whose leitmotif is that Erdogan is protecting Turkey and the Muslim World against foreign attacks. Those foreigners are usually Westerners, which in the Turkish context often means the Europeans. A strong anti-European and anti-Western animus guides the thinking of the pro-Erdogan bloc.

...The view of Erdogan and his supporters is that Samuel Huntington was right, there is a clash of civilizations, but he was wrong because the Muslims will win. Erdogan does not see NATO necessarily as a place where likeminded countries sharing similar values come together, it’s more his security outlet where he goes to buy security, and he needs a lot of that security against Russia.
After they gave up Communism as imperial religion, Russians started reviving Russian nationalism and the view of Russia as defender of Greek Orthodox provoslavnia (literally right and glorious) religion. In this view, Russia is third Rome and liberation of the second Rome = Constantinople is a holy grail

...It used to be that in Washington, the strongest advocates for Turkey were people from the U.S. military. They had great impressions from working with Turks in NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, they were grateful for Turkey’s part in winning the Cold War by blocking the Soviet Union’s access to the warm seas, and they were just very supportive of Ankara in general.

That is now the opposite. I would say that the people who have the most negative views of Turkey in Washington are, unfortunately, in the U.S. military as a result of a series of events, all of which took place under Erdogan’s watch. Turkey’s refusal to join the Iraq war in 2003, the collapse of Turkish-Israeli ties, the Turkish decision to buy Chinese air defense systems (although they backed down on that), Turkey’s recent decision now to buy Russian missiles, and Turkey’s lax policy in allowing radicals to cross into Syria in an effort to undermine Assad, all of these factors have hurt the relationship.
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Terror Networks
From Al-Qaeda to IS, familiar games and known players
2014-08-30
[ARABNEWS] Those who cannot remember the past, cautioned George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it.

Those who think in cliches are bound to repeat them.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but the scepter of IS -- and all such groups -- is evidently a grand conspiracy against Islam and its followers, just as Al-Qaeda had been. And you see the fingerprints of CIA, Mossad and their willing collaborators all over this baby.
So Barack ObamaI think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
, who stood against Bush's wars and his apocalyptic visions of a world divided between Us and Them, is not just back bombing Iraq -- fourth US president to do so -- he seems to read from the self-same script.

"No just God would stand for what they (IS) did yesterday, and for what they do every single day," the US president declared, responding to the slaying of US journalist James Foley in Syria.

When was the last time you heard this invocation of the divine and the whole business of civilizational conflict, the good versus evil? We have been here before, and not long ago either.

Obama may not exactly envision himself on a 'divine mission' to save the world, as his predecessor did, but he has ended up doing just about the same. Only the pretext seems to differ.

Then it was supposedly to rid the world of Saddam Hussain's mythical weapons of mass destruction or to confront him on his support to Al-Qaeda in planning 9/11, as Bush claimed.

Now it is to save the Christians and Yazidis from the clutches of the IS bigots. Truly touching the lengths America goes to every time to save the wretched world.

Taking Obama's lead, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even cousins across the pond have gone all hyper screaming: "Apocalypse Now . . . end-of-days . . . We must prepare for everything . . . an imminent threat to every interest we have . . . This is beyond anything we have seen . . . "

In the words of Robert Fisk
...British journalist who is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western...
, Hagel and Dempsey were pure Hollywood. It only needed Tom Cruise at their presser to utter the words "Mission impossible. " David Cameron
... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
, in the great tradition of Tony Blair who swore the UK was just 45 minute away from an Iraq WMD strike, sees the IS unleashing its terror on the UK streets. For years one saw such exaggerated nightmarish scenarios regularly spawned by the West vis-a-vis Al-Qaeda and of course Iraq and Iran.

Alas, Al-Qaeda has nearly been wiped out; Saddam and Bin Laden have been eliminated and Iran has been suitably neutralized.

So the world needed, or rather the mighty military industrial complex that drives the US economy needed, a new enemy to keep its good, old wars going. And the fearsome IS chief Abubakr Al-Baghdadi with his black, murderous mobs and their blood-curdling acts of casual brutality is perfect for the job profile. Even Al-Qaeda, or what remains of it, seems to be fearful of and is shocked by their viciousness and sheer savagery.

The tales of mass murder, rapes and abductions of Christians, Yazidis and even Moslems by the hordes of the IS or Islamic State, as it absurdly likes to call itself now, already seem to be the stuff of legends. Not surprisingly, they have shaken and outraged people around the world-- the Moslems more so. The IS and the so-called caliphate it promises is like our worst nightmare come true.

It materialized out of thin air, like clouds of locusts, taking over the vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory. As Yvonne Ridley reasons, IS has achieved in a matter of weeks what the US and its allies failed to do in 10 years of occupation. This hasn't happened by accident; military victories on this scale take strategic planning and inside help.

So who, exactly, is behind IS? More importantly, who stands to benefit from this carefully calibrated mayhem in the heart of the Middle East? The same folks who created Al-Qaeda and used it ingenuously and effectively for years until Osama and his baby had exhausted their uses and were past their sell-by date.

Look at the uncanny similarity in the methods used by Al-Qaeda and IS -- from the chilling murder of Daniel Pearl to the barbaric beheading of James Foley this month, both US journalists incidentally.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but the scepter of IS -- and all such groups -- is evidently a grand conspiracy against Islam and its followers, just as Al-Qaeda had been. And you see the fingerprints of CIA, Mossad and their willing collaborators all over this baby.

As author Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya argues, the targeting of Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria and attempts to remap the Middle East are aimed at paving the way for the clash of civilizations that the likes of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis have obsessed over for years.

So it is good that Arab and Moslem states seem to be waking up to the monster that is staring them in the face. The recent Arab ministers' brainstorming in Jeddah and the Saudi-Iran confabulations seeking a common front against IS are welcome. So are the strong denunciations by top Islamic scholars and ordinary Moslems.

The Moslem world has never in its long history faced a greater challenge. Doubtless, IS is a clear and present danger. And it wouldn't, most probably, have come into existence if it had not been for the spectacular lies and crusades of Bush and Blair. The Israeli crimes against humanity and relentless persecution of its helpless victims have also helped radicalize generations of Arabs and Moslems -- even those born in Western climes, as is apparently the case with the alleged British killer of James Foley.
One can just hear it whispered among the grander wives of Saudi Society, as they discuss the latest exploits of what now calls itself the Islamic State. "Parvenus!" they hiss, and "Nouveau riche upstarts! How dare they act just our illustrious ancestors did only a century or two ago, and claim to be equal!"
Link


Africa North
After Tahrir Square?
2011-02-10
[Asharq al-Aswat] There can be no doubt that the protestors in Cairo's Tahrir Square have proved their point regarding the departure of President Mubarak. However,
The infamous However...
 those who have followed the situation in Egypt for years realize that the departure of the President may not change the conditions in Egypt; in fact living conditions could perhaps get worse. My aim here is not to diminish the importance of what happened, the protests have forced the President to step down from power [at the next elections], and the presidency will not be passed down to his son or one of his associates, whilst constitutional reforms and the establishment of fair elections have also been promised. However,
The infamous However...
 for those waiting for Egypt to transform into a Western-style democratic country, or for the establishment of a prosperous middle class, or for the economic conditions of millions of poor people to improve; these are hopes that are becoming increasingly difficult [to achieve] day by day.

Today, many could say that the primary aim of the protests was to eradicate oppression and political tyranny, and enable Egyptians to make their own decisions, with dignity. However,
The infamous However...
 these people may have forgotten, as their opposition reaches greater heights, that the rises in food prices and unemployment over the last three years -- which are two global phenomena -- have had a direct impact upon the direction of events [in Egypt]. Social networking websites -- such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube -- provided the necessary arena for the demonstrators to mobilize, plan, and communicate, away from the interference of the authorities. However,
The infamous However...
 what happened in Egypt -- at least what can be observed, as of now -- was not the "Facebook Revolution" or the "Twitter Revolution", nor did it only consist of "democratic" protests or demands for "freedom". True, the recent demonstrations may have raised banners such as "poverty", "despotism", "justice", and many others, but the variety of slogans, as well as the diversity of participants, both ideologically and politically, means only one thing: this was "rage" against the ruling regime. The majority of key players in the initial protests were lower middle class youths who suffer from unemployment, or who work in modest jobs, even though they are educated to a university standard. This demographic, whose numbers are officially estimated at 5 million, were able to communicate via the internet and organize themselves. The chances of their success increased with the general air of popular resentment and rage at the situation in the country, and the events in Tunisia which represented the straw that broke the camel's back.

Today it is difficult to review and assess the regime of President Mubarak in a rational and balanced manner because of the state of popular upheaval that we are witnessing. However if we can say anything today, it is that President Mubarak should have stepped down in a dignified manner a long time ago. His era has witnessed successes, and many significant mistakes, but over the last ten years in particular, there have been signs of old age and senility at the top levels of Egyptian power. Subsequently, the country sank into a debate surrounding the possibility of hereditary rule, and different wings of the National Democratic Party competed to monopolize money and power, amidst poverty and [popular] discontent, with some state institutes -- most notably the security agencies -- becoming mere instruments of the regime, rife with corruption and authoritarianism.

Despite all this, Mubarak's era being solely held responsible for the deteriorating conditions in Egypt will not help to resolve this crisis, in fact the problems afflicting Egyptian society will likely get worse, before they improve in the long run.

Within a few months, Egyptians will be able to elect a new president, amend the constitution, and achieve an elected parliament; yet solving the problems of the Egyptian state may take decades. 700,000 Egyptians enter the job market each year; 417,000 of whom are high school or university graduates, whilst only 18 percent of this figure will have graduated from technical or medical departments. These statistics are compounded by the declining overall level of education in Egypt, which is now globally classified as ranking 106 out of 130 countries. Not only this, but the Egyptian state is considered one of the most bloated states in the world, in terms of government apparatus, in other words the state and the public sector employ more people than is strictly required. The state has also financed projects to support services and basic needs in a manner that is beyond the country's economic capacity to meet, in a bid to buy the silence of the poor. This is not to mention Egypt's population kaboom, which means that for decades, Egyptian state institutions will be unable to find solutions to housing or health problems, or rectify poverty levels in the country.

The Egyptian government is dependent on six major sources to achieve economic growth: tourism, oil and gas revenue, the Suez Canal, foreign investment, remittance for expatriate employment, and foreign aid. Any future government must protect the three sources that have been affected by the current crisis: tourism, foreign investment, and foreign aid. David Mack has warned against rushing to applaud the events in Egypt because the challenges of economic and structural reform will perhaps be too much for any one or two generations to overcome, especially if food prices and unemployment continue to rise, not to mention a decline in tourism, and shrinking foreign aid and investment in general. In this case, "the U.S. media and armchair theoreticians of democracy in the United States will be able to walk away at the end of the day. The Tunisians and Egyptians will not". (David Mack, Hold the Applause, Foreign Policy, 3rd February 2011)

Currently, many fear the rise of the Mohammedan Brotherhood, and this fear is justified, yet it is not likely that the Mohammedan Brotherhood will be able to form the next Egyptian government on its own, either due to their inability to acquire sufficient votes, or for fear of international reaction. As a result, we are likely to witness short-term coalition governments. Today, Egyptian expectations are higher [than before], their criticisms will be greater now that they are aware that they possess the power to force [political] change at any time; if this were to occur Egypt may cease to function internally, amidst partisan and political conflicts that could last for decades.

As you can see, the problems in Egypt cannot be solely blamed upon the president -- or corruption during his presidency. This is because, according to international reports, there is a widespread culture of corruption and bribery, inefficiency, and a lack of accountability in all aspects of society. Thus the coming days may pose greater challenges, because the stability that Egypt lived through for three decades -- albeit in a non-democratic manner -- ensured tremendous growth in tourism, and foreign investment. Assuming that tourism will continue and develop, foreign investment may not grow to the same extent, because investors have become unsettled by the magnitude of changes that Egypt may undergo in the coming phase with regards to its legislative and economic framework.

In his important book "The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century", Samuel Huntington said that: "Judging on past experience, the two most influential factors in the stability and expansion of democracy are economic development and politicianship". Any researcher who knows the political reality in Egypt is aware that there are many social and traditional obstacles preventing this.

The Tahrir Square youth have been able to make their voices heard by the world, but the crucial matter here is not one of objection and protest -- for others have tried this in many other countries -- but rather in transforming these protests into political and economic gains...that is true success.
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-Obits-
Huntington's Prophecies: A Tribute to an Outstanding Political Genius
2009-01-05
Harvard educator Samuel Huntington, the most controversial political scientist of the past two decades, breathed his last on 28 December 2008, aged 81. A prophetic genius to some and an evil war-mongering ideologue to others, it is an opportune time to revisit the controversial works of Huntington.

With Marxist-Communist regimes collapsed ending the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama argued in his influential thesis, The End of History, in 1989 that liberal democracy may signal the end-point of humankind's ideological evolution and the final form of governance, which would eventually be adopted globally. Fukuyama's thesis had two seminal assumptions: a) Triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally, and b) Emergence of a nonconflictual world civilization.

Huntington's Civilizational Clash theory (1993) challenged both assumptions of Fukuyama. Regarding Fukuyama's presumed triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally, Huntington emphasized that "Law and order", "the first prerequisite of Civilization", were evaporating or under threat everywhere--China, Japan and the United States included. Globally, "Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism... a global Dark Age possibly descending on humanity," he wrote.
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International-UN-NGOs
Anti-Americanism Is Mostly Hype
2008-06-23
Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal

So America is unloved in Istanbul and Cairo and Karachi: It is an annual ritual, the June release of the Pew global attitudes survey and the laments over the erosion of America's standing in foreign lands.

We were once loved in Anatolia, but now a mere 12% of Turks have a "favorable view" of the U.S. Only 22% of Egyptians think well of us. Pakistan is crucial to the war on terror, but we can only count on the goodwill of 19% of Pakistanis.

American liberalism is heavily invested in this narrative of U.S. isolation. The Shiites have their annual ritual of 10 days of self-flagellation and penance, but this liberal narrative is ceaseless: The world once loved us, and all Parisians were Americans after 9/11, but thanks to President Bush we have squandered that sympathy.

It is an old trick, the use of foreign narrators and witnesses to speak of one's home. . . . The deference of American liberal opinion to the coffeehouses of Istanbul and Amman and Karachi is nothing less than astounding. You would not know from these surveys, of course, that anti-Americanism runs deep in the French intellectual scene, and that French thought about the great power across the Atlantic has long been a jumble of envy and condescension. In the fabled years of the Clinton presidency, long before Guantanamo, the torture narrative and the war in Iraq, American pension funds were, in the French telling, raiding their assets, bringing to their homeland dreaded Anglo-Saxon economics, and the merciless winds of mondialisation (globalization).

I grew up in the Arab world in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and anti-Americanism was the standard political language – even for those pining for American visas and green cards. Precious few took this seriously. The attraction to the glamorous, distant society was too strong in the Beirut of my boyhood.

It is no different today in Egypt or Pakistan. And what people tell pollsters who turn up in their midst with their clipboards? In Hosni Mubarak's tyranny, anti-Americanism is the permissible safety valve for Egyptians unable to speak of their despot. We stand between Pharaoh and his frustrated people, and the Egyptians railing against America are giving voice to the disappointment that runs through their life and culture. Scapegoating and anti-Americanism are a substitute for a sober assessment of what ails that old, burdened country.

Nor should we listen too closely to the anti-American hysteria that now grips Turkey. That country was once a serious, earnest land. It knew its place in the world as a bridge between Europe and Islam. But of late it has become the "torn country" that the celebrated political scientist Samuel Huntington said it was, its very identity fought over between the old Kemalist elites and the new Islamists.

No Turkish malady is caused by America, and no cure can come courtesy of the Americans. The Turks giving vent to anti-Americanism are doing a parody of Europe: They were led to believe that the Europe spurning them, and turning down their membership in its club, is given to anti-Americanism, so they took to the same fad. Turkish anti-Americanism is no doubt fueled by the resentment within Turkey of the American war in Iraq that gave protection and liberty to the Kurds. No apology is owed the Turks; indeed, it is they who must reconsider their intolerance of minorities. If the Turks were comfortable with the abnormality of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, it is they who have a problem. . . .

Go read it all.
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Britain
Does Islam fit with British law?
2008-02-11
I like to think of myself as a practical guy. Philosophy is nice, but this question is a total waste of time in my opinion. Unless it's rhetorical or designed to get the undecided to hop off the fence, but it's likely that this question will be taken seriously by way too many self-haters.

Enjoy the comments at the end of the article. The three that were visible when I grabbed this were all from Americans offering advice to brethren who they hope have the common sense to stop mulling over this crap and the courage to kick their butts out of Europe if they won't integrate. Or maybe just kick their butts out of Europe because they won't integrate.

Lots of opportunity for snark. Let's see if we can get one of those "Snark O' the Day" awards out of this great material!

Enjoy!

Is a clash of civilisations looming? It’s now time to find the links rather than the conflicts between English and Islamic law.

Is a clash looming between the laws of the West and Islam? In the wake of 9/11, commentators such as Samuel Huntington have spoken of a conflict between an economically powerful but increasingly amoral West, and a resurgent and moralistic Islam.

There is much at stake. Can a state such as Turkey, overwhelmingly Muslim, join the EU and become party to international human rights provisions? Given that Islamic councils have been established in England, should they be recognised by English family law?

And what of the exercise of human rights in the context of combating terrorism? Is any dilution of human rights norms justified for the protection of the public and of national security? “The rules of the game have changed,” Tony Blair famously said after the London bombs. This seemed to signal a change in policy on human rights, from which Muslims – here and abroad – would be the most likely to suffer.

But everyone can feel victimised and resentful. All religions attach importance to certain rituals and sanctity to certain religious persons. How far should the law go in protecting such religious beliefs and ultimately religious feelings, and how far in protecting free speech? The Danish cartoons raised passions on all sides.

Sharp questions lead to sharp answers. In all our communities there is misinformation, ignorance and fear of that which is little known. Occasional suspicion readily deepens into a rut of distrust, which can lead to anxiety and antagonism; so ends all hope of understanding between communities and mutual appreciation.

Two organisations have come together to generate discussion with a quite different dynamic. The Temple Church in the heart of legal London and the Centre of Islamic and Middle East Law (CIMEL) at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London are sponsoring a series of lecture-discussions on Islam in English law. The sponsors are telling every ticket-holder that an important part of the series is the opportunity for people from different backgrounds to meet. “Please make the most of this opportunity, from this first evening, by introducing yourself to those sitting around you,” they say.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, launches the series this Thursday with a foundation lecture on civil and religious law in England. The discussions are part of the 2008 Temple Festival, a year-long mix of music, art, drama, history and law events to mark the 400th anniversary of James I granting the Inner and Middle Temples freehold of their land.

English law and Islamic law differ in principle and in application. English law has been shaped in large part by the principles and history of Christian culture, but acknowledges no duty of obedience to any revelation, scripture or doctrine ascribed to God. In current practice, it attends closely to the rights and freedoms of the individual and protects them against curtailment from the state or from corporate power.

It is the prime duty of all Muslims to follow, as much as they are able, the traditions of Islamic law, which include the principles imparted by Allah to the Prophet Muhammad. Islamic law has tended to protect and strengthen the community in which, it is intended, the individual can then live a devout, good and ordered life.

The English court system aims to free litigants – and especially, vulnerable litigants – from the pressure that people powerful in a local community can bring to bear; Islamic councils draw strength from the insights that local and personal knowledge can offer.

English family law does not accept the validity of decisions of the many Islamic councils that have grown up; there is vigorous debate as to whether it should. Intolerant actions of militant Islamists have affected the debate on the exercise of human rights – an issue behind the question of the validity or morality at Guantanamo Bay.

At times the two systems have seemed in direct conflict. In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights declared that Islamic law “clearly diverges from convention values, particularly with regard to its criminal law and criminal procedure, its rules on the legal status of women and the way it intervenes in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts”.

The claim cries out for discussion. We too readily imagine two incompatible and impermeable systems of law squared up for conflict with each other. But it is a matter of genuine disagreement how wide or deep is the gulf between the two systems – and both are evolving.

The series on Islam in English law is not designed to reach clear, prescriptive answers to all the questions that its speakers will raise. It is meant to be a forum for the discovery, on all sides, of people, ideas and ideals that seem alien and threatening.

Last month, when Dr Williams spoke in the House of Lords on religious hatred and religious offence, he talked of an “argumentative democracy” in which, quite apart from the law’s sanction, public controversy should not be debased – or effectively silenced – by thoughtless and (even if unintentionally) cruel styles of speaking and acting.

The setting for the rest of the series is significant. The Temple Church was built in 1185 by the Knights Templar, who were vital in the Crusades to the viability of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In past centuries it represented the gulf between Christendom and Islam; the sponsors are now using it to help to heal the divisions it was built to foster.

They have just installed a window in the church to mark the anniversary, bearing the motto of James I: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That is what the sponsors, through honesty and courtesy and without delusion, hope to be.
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India-Pakistan
Tribes of Terror -- Pakistan tribes
2007-11-12
This is a long read, but worth the time. I explains as it raises additional questions.

Lord Curzon, Britain's viceroy of India and foreign secretary during the initial decades of the 20th century, once declared:

No patchwork scheme—and all our present recent schemes…are mere patchwork—will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steam-roller has passed over the country from end to end, will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine.


Nowadays, this region of what is today northwest Pakistan is variously called "Al Qaedastan," "Talibanistan," or more properly, the "Islamic Emirate of Waziristan." Pakistan gave up South Waziristan to the Taliban in Spring 2006, after taking heavy casualties in a failed four-year campaign to consolidate control of this fierce tribal region. By the fall, Pakistan had effectively abandoned North Waziristan. The nominal truce—actually closer to a surrender—was signed in a soccer stadium, beneath al-Qaeda's black flag.

Having recovered the safe haven once denied them by America's invasion of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and the Taliban have gathered the diaspora of the worldwide Islamist revolution into Waziristan. Slipping to safety from Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden himself almost certainly escaped across its border. Now Muslim punjabis who fight the Indian army in Kashmir, Chechen opponents of Russia, and many more Islamist terror groups congregate, recuperate, train, and confer in Waziristan. This past fall's terror plotters in Germany and Denmark allegedly trained in Waziristan, as did those who hoped to highjack transatlantic planes leaving from Britain's Heathrow Airport in 2006. The crimson currents flowing across what Samuel Huntington once famously dubbed "Islam's bloody borders" now seem to emanate from Waziristan.

Slowly but surely, the Islamic Emirate's writ is pushing beyond Waziristan itself, to encompass other sections of Pakistan's mountainous tribal regions—thereby fueling the ongoing insurgency across the border in Afghanistan. With a third of Pakistanis in a recent poll expressing favorable views of al-Qaeda, and 49% registering favorable opinions of local jihadi terror groups, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan may yet conquer Pakistan. Fear of a widening Islamist rebellion in this nuclear-armed state was General Musharraf's stated reason for the recent imposition of a state of emergency. And in fact Osama bin Laden publicly called for the overthrow of Musharraf's government this past September. It is for fear of provoking such a disastrous revolt that we have so far dared not loose the American military steamroller in Waziristan. When Lord Curzon hesitated to start up the British military machine, he was revolving in his mind the costs and consequences of the great 1857 Indian "Mutiny" and of an 1894 jihadist revolt in South Waziristan. Surely, Curzon would have appreciated our dilemma today.
Finish at link
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Olde Tyme Religion
Review: The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization
2007-08-26
The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. By RICHARD W. BULLLIET. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 187 pp. $24.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).

World historians will enjoy and profit from this wise and wonderful book with an eye-opening approach succinctly captured in its title: The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. Richard W. Bulliett, professor of history at Columbia University and former director of its Middle East Institute, offers a startlingly original interpretation that challenges not only conventional wisdom but the historical master narrative of the last fourteen centuries. No one who has digested this little volume will be able to look at Islam and Christianity again in the same way.

At the first glance, Bulliet's book appears to be a rebuttal of Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis. In fact, the real target is Bernard Lewis, sage of Middle Eastern studies, who originated the term in an article on "The Roots of Muslim Rage" in 1990 and whose baleful influence on the Bush administration helped spur the American occupation of Iraq in 2003. It is a distinguished Arabist's response to the academic and policy-making drum beaters of American empire whose misunderstanding of Islam and Middle Eastern history have led to talk of a generations-long war with radical Islam and trying to make Mesopotamia safe for democracy.
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Britain
Carey backs Pope and issues warning on 'violent' Islam
2006-09-20
THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a “clash of civilisations”.

Arguing that Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” Lord Carey went on to argue that a “deep-seated Westophobia” has developed in recent years in the Muslim world.

Lord Carey, who has continued to work in interfaith collaboration since his retirement in 2002, said that the relationship between Islamic countries and the West was “the most dangerous, most important and potentially cataclysmic issue of our day.” He described the two civilisations as “polarised and uncomprehending” and said that the Danish cartoons controversy last March showed “two world views colliding in public space with no common point of reference”.

He said the West had been largely responsible for “redrawing the map of the Middle East” and it was the “moral relativism of the West” that has outraged Muslim society. Most Muslims believe firmly that the invasion of Iraq is 2004 was solely about oil, he said.

He went on to defend the Pope’s fundamental thesis, that reason and religious faith can be compatible. “The actual essay is an extraordinarily effective and lucid thesis exploring the weakness of secularism and the way that faith and reason go hand in hand,” he said.

He said he agreed with his Muslim friends who claimed that true Islam is not a violent religion, but he wanted to know why Islam today had become associated with violence. “The Muslim world must address this matter with great urgency,” he said.
Can someone explain how they let this guy go and got the Druid?
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
The Ideology of Defeatism
2006-08-28
Long, but well reasoned.

John Garth in his biography of J. R. R. Tolkien recounts a meeting between the future author of The Lord of the Rings and an Oxford professor at the outbreak of World War I. As a student, Tolkien had taken part in debates over the looming German threat, but was still dismayed at the turn of events. According to Garth, "the Catholic professor responded that this war was no aberration: on the contrary, for the human race it was merely 'back to normal'."

It is the complete rejection of this concept of normality in human affairs that is at the core of liberalism. Though there have been strands of liberalism throughout history, it flowered in the relatively peaceful first decades of the 19th century, following the quarter century of global warfare that had been spawned by the French Revolution and the ambitions of Napoleon.

The disruption of the London terrorist plot to blow up a number of airliners has again raised the "clash of civilizations" issue brought to prominence by Samuel Huntington. But rather than dwell on how Islamic fundamentalism is able to motivate suicide bombers and insurgents, it is more important to look at whether American civilization can still motivate resistance to such assaults. Has liberalism already so weakened society's will to fight back that even leaders and soldiers committed to do so cannot succeed?

Militant Islam's war against the West is not just normal, it is perpetual. If campaigns of conquest are not possible, then ghazi (raiding) warfare is to be conducted. This is more than mere "terrorism." It is the tradition of weakening bordering communities by attrition until conquest is possible. That the London plotters were from Pakistan, whose theater of conflict is Kashmir, on the Indian frontier of Islam, indicates that they see a world war, not a struggle limited to Gaza, Lebanon or Iraq. Many Moslems have been recruited into extremism while living in the midst of liberal societies (like London), having found their surroundings decadent and corrupt. Thus liberalism's much vaunted ideals of tolerance and passivity are seen by foes as a lack of honor and strength.


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Home Front: WoT
Michael Barone: Our covert enemies
2006-08-22
In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.
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