The Great Islamic Warrior: Stewardresses, Elementary Schoolchildren and Wounded Crash Survivors

We want to say a few words about yesterday’s incident in Iraq, in which a private helicopter with Americans and other foreigners was shot down and then, as is always inevitible, shown on Al-Jazeera. Isn’t it strange how one “news” channel always ends up with the exclusive footage of the Infidel Massacre of the Week? Al-Jazeera is nothing less than the Der Sturmer of our age. The fact that our Department issues press visas to their "reporters" literally revolts us.

The nature of our enemy could not be made any clearer. From Beslan, to Manhattan, to the field in which the helicopter’s passengers met their doom, one theme is constant: the absolute cowardly and craven nature of the Islamic Fascists themselves.

Say what you will about the old fashioned German variety; at least they knew how to fight and fight bravely. These new fascists cannot kill anything that isn’t rendered helpless or unaware first. And, when they are fought head to head they more often than not fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness. Or commit suicide, which, despite what you’ve read at Daily Kos is not a sign of bravery but yet the ultimate in cowardice.

Stewardresses. School children. Hostages. Injured survivors of a helicopter crash. All just more cowardly fun for our modern day Saladins.

We are at a loss to explain why there has not been, to date, any anger in the “American Street” about any of this. It’s almost as if we expect such barbaric and ruthless behavior from Muslims, and, thus, the terrible reality of it is just yet more reinforcement of a belief set that is literally beyond disgust.

Muslims parading their children and volunteering them for suicide operations. Palestinians tearing Israeli soldiers apart with their hands and dancing around with bloody entrails. Heads of families ordering sons to kill their own sisters with their bare hands.

How does any of this fail to make an impression? Are we just that distracted by Michael Jackson? Or have we (or at least a substantial portion) become detached from reality itself, sheltered in a cacoon of luxury and easy living?

Make no mistake about it: a new world war is brewing. And, as before, we in the liberal west are sleepwalking towards it, not really daring to state the terrible and unbearable truth.

There is no co-existence possible with the Islamic Fascists. It’s them or us.

We choose us.

We only hope our fellow citizens have the fortitude to drop the blinders before another attack on the helpless and the unaware renders Sept 11 in importance what the first World Trade Center attack has become: a prelude and a warning of much worse to come.

The Pope is a NAZI!!!!

No sooner had the new Pope been elected than the MSM began to scream its head off. In the United States, there seems to be widespread anger and revulsion at the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger because he appears to be Catholic. Not only that, but he also appears to take the central tenants of that faith seriously.

This is, of course, unforgivably retrograde. Doesn’t the Pope know that his beliefs aren’t shared by the editorial boards of the nation’s great newspapers? What is wrong with that guy?

In Europe, and among the more fanatical of the new Pope’s opponents in the United States—like the denizens of the Democratic Underground and the hopelessly one-issue Andrew Sullivan (seriously, if you heard a parrot saying “gay marriage is a fundamental human right!” four times a day, are you really missing anything over at Sullivan’s much-read blog?)—have added to their arsenal the deep, dark truth:

The Pope is a NAZI!!!!

Well, as it turns out, he was dragooned into the Hitler Youth at 14, when membership was compulsory, then got drafted into the Wehrmacht, served in an anti-aircraft unit near a BMW factory in Bavaria and then deserted.

So, clearly, he was a NAZI!!!

Somehow, when it suits their purposes, the much-vaunted liberal capacity and demand for nuance and understanding seems to simply vanish.

We have our own problems with the Catholic Church, as we’ve outlined below. And we will be sorely disappointed and indeed angry with Pope Benedict XVI if he does not take immediate, drastic and severe action to punish those who engaged in pedophilia cover-ups, most specifically the execrable Cardinal Law of Boston. And we also deplore the fact that official Catholic biographies of the new Pope—including that at EWTN’s web site—mysteriously jump from 1941 to 1947. But the shrill outrage over the man’s beliefs lays bare the cold fact the MSM and the Left’s opposition is due to the fact that people of faith actually believe in their faith. They just simply cannot comprehend the religious mind nor do they have the slightest bit of tolerance or understanding towards it.

Except, of course, for those of the Islamic faith. For them, they have an undying amount of tolerance and understanding.

It’s much easier to criticize the Catholic Pope than to risk being the first American Van Gogh, after all.

Nationalism in Asia: Why The Great White Fleet Will Never Quite Go Out of Style

It has become a commonplace observance to note that the Chinese Communist Party has traded the ideology of Communism for a super-heated ideology of nationalism to retain support for its rule among the Chinese people. In fact, as the experiences of all Communist nations to date demonstrates (with the possible exception of the former German Democratic Republic, which made a fetish of anti-nationalism), the two concepts have in practice come largely combined. From the anti-Yanqui posturing of Castro’s Cuba, to the Junche self-reliance “philosophy” of North Korea to Stalin’s legendary calls to protect the Motherland, Communist regimes have always sought to shore up support by entwining the nation and the Party.

The Chinese Communist Party is really no different in this respect from its (former) fraternal brethren. The Chinese leadership, since Mao’s proclamation of the PRC announcing that “the Chinese people have finally stood up,” has always used calls to national, ethnic and racial pride as a means of gaining support, particularly among the young.

Additionally, the Chinese view all ethnic Chinese as their citizens, regardless of their nationalities, which is why they have a particularly hard time dealing with patriotic Chinese-Americans. It also explains why the Chinese intelligence services—so far as we can tell from published accounts, we claim no special knowledge here—primarily rely on appeals to race to recruit.

The United States saw the raw power of Chinese nationalism among that nation’s young during the “spy plane” incident that occurred so early in President Bush’s first term that many have forgotten about it entirely. To recap, a routine intelligence mission over international waters and in international airspace was intercepted by Chinese fighters; during the ensuing confrontation a very hot-headed Chinese pilot collided with the U.S. plane, destroying his own aircraft and forcing the U.S. crew to make an emergency landing on Chinese soil.

The uproar that occurred within hours of this episode’s reporting in China was a wonder to behold. In what by any measure is the worst breach of the time-worn rules of international diplomacy since Tehran allowed Iranian students to overrun the U.S. embassy there in 1979, the Chinese government allowed the most inflammatory rhetoric and reporting to be used regarding the episode.

The result was a day’s long siege of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing: the building was surrounded by rapidly nationalist Chinese students, Americans were attacked and not allowed to leave the compound, the walls were battered with paint, stones, and bricks, and anti-American remarks were written on the walls surrounding the area. During all this, the Chinese police and army stood by and watched.

Proving for at least the 188th time that Chomsky-like equations of the concept of nationalism and patriotism so common to left-wing intellectuals and college freshmen alike, the U.S. responded with great restraint. The President’s calls for resolutions to the issue were statesman-like, calm and rational. The Administration did everything it could to avoid making statements or arguments that were likely to arouse anger in the American public.

Eventually, the matter was resolved, although we do not think the Chinese are aware of the damage inflicted by the incident on bi-lateral relations, so drunk with their own economic and nationalist fervor are they. No doubt they assume that since we didn’t bang our shoes on podiums and issue threats that we are weak, decadent and likely to bow before their might.

There are some very, very old Japanese and German gentlemen still around that could enlighten Beijing on the folly of those assumptions, but we doubt the PRC leadership is in a very reflective mood these days.

Now Chinese rage is directed at the Japanese. From time to time Chinese anger over Japanese school-book treatment of WWII erupts; this has happened so many times there appears to be a script written somewhere.

Except, now it appears that the more radical nationalist elements in Shanghai has tossed the script aside and are protesting Japan with ever-increasing vehemence. The Japanese Government, not unreasonably given the honor issue at stake, is unwilling to set the matter aside as did the United States (publicly, that is; privately we did not let the matter go and compensation was paid) and has demanded that the PRC apologize.

The result is a showdown between two arch-rivals that illustrates yet again the limits of U.S. power and influence. To our policy wonks and foreign policy experts, the growing economic power of the PRC as a result of economic liberalism should lead the PRC to behave in a more normative fashion. Since the modern market economy is now central to both the PRC and Japan, the two nations should be moving into a convergence of issues, leading to more polite and co-operative bi-lateral relations.

Such are the dreams of the tenured and the honored. In reality, the age-old nationalisms continue to be more powerful than the pull of WTO treaties and the fact that both nation’s people’s lunch at McDonald’s.

Perhaps a University of California professor can be dispatched to explain to Tokyo and Beijing that “international law” can solve the conflict?

Or perhaps Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum that we speak softly, carry a big stick, and always—always—expand the power and prestige of the United States Navy in both the Pacific and the Atlantic was much more prescient than even that great President could have dared imagine.