Mr. bin Laden, Meet Mr. Kennan--A New Containment Policy
The unilateral declaration of independence by the Kosovo Albanian government on Feb. 17, followed closely by the Bush administration’s enthusiastic endorsement of the breakaway state, has been roundly criticized on this site and others. While much of the criticism has focused on the disturbing precedent that Kosovo independence sets—parts of the American Southwest will, by mid-century, have an equal claim to independence if the primary justification for such independence is the simple ascendance of an overwhelming ethnic majority—a more immediate concern is the rise of an avowedly Islamic state on the European continent, a state that has been baptized in the blood of European Christians and sealed with the ashes of Orthodox churches and monasteries.
The lightning speed with which the Bush administration recognized the new Islamic state should give pause to even the most enthusiastic supporter of secession or national self-determination as abstract principles (rather than political tools). This is, after all, the same administration that has spent seven years waging a far-flung “war on terror” that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars in American treasure and thousands of American lives (not to mention the lives of innocent Iraqis and the loss of American liberty). In rhetoric (if not in reality), the war on terror has been aimed squarely at al-Qaeda, and Americans can be excused, therefore, if they find it just a touch odd that the Bush administration would be so quick to welcome the appearance of an Islamic state Osama bin Laden helped to birth.
The relationship between the Albanian Muslim Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and al-Qaeda was acknowledged by Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence agency, in a Nov. 29, 1998, story in the Sunday Times of London. The CIA and German intelligence separately confirmed that jihadists trained in al-Qaeda camps in Albania and Afghanistan had flooded into Kosovo in the late 1990’s, while Bin Laden himself was traveling freely throughout Central Europe on a passport issued by the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic. And, as I reported in the February 2008 issue of Chronicles, Albanian Muslim immigrants in at least one American city actively recruited for the KLA Caucasian converts to Islam, who were then sent to Afghanistan for al-Qaeda training.
From the standpoint of the Bush administration’s foreign policy (not to mention the American national interest), the recognition of Kosovo makes little or no sense—at least on the surface. If we dig a little deeper, however, a disturbing pattern emerges.
Despite the insistence of some of his supporters (and even more of his detractors) that the War on terror is actually a crusade against Islam, President Bush has repeatedly insisted that it is not and that “true Islam” is a “religion of peace.” We should take him at his word: not about Islam being a religion of peace (that would be the height of naiveté) but about his purpose in waging the war on terror. There is no reason to believe that he, or any of his advisors, actually regards Islam itself as a threat—at least to the United States. A broad range of Islamic states and organizations, however, are manifestly a threat to Israel, and it’s within that context that we can understand the eagerness of the administration and its neoconservative supporters to support the creation of a Muslim state in Europe—far from where they believe such a state could do any damage.
Judging by the combination of words and actions, the Bush administration’s war on terror has had three aims: first, to gain direct control over a portion of the Middle Eastern oil supply; secondly, to make it possible to remove some or all U.S. troops and military bases from Saudi Arabia, since their presence there has been resented by both Osama bin Laden and, post-Gulf War, by the Saudi princes; and thirdly, to bring a measure of stability to the Middle East that will increase Israel’s security.
Of the three aims, only the second—removing troops and bases from Saudi Arabia—has achieved any significant success. But it’s an important clue to help us understand what the Bush administration (and the Clinton administration before it) regards as the goal of U.S. foreign policy toward Muslim states. The most important thing is to avoid potential conflicts, especially those that could destabilize the Middle East. (The fact that the war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East does not disprove the point; the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the war, both inside and outside the administration, argued that it would bring greater stability to the Middle East.)
That tells us something, too, of the way that U.S. policymakers view the foreign policy of Muslim states. Since our political leaders do not take Islam seriously, they act—in all good faith—as if Muslim rulers do not take it seriously either. Thus, increasing Islamic immigration to the United States, massive Saudi funding of mosques here and in Europe (which facilitates that immigration; 300 mosques have been built in Kosovo over the past ten years, most with Saudi money), and the creation of Muslim states in Europe are not causes for alarm but potential opportunities, the reasoning goes, for increasing the reservoir of good will in Muslim states toward the United States.
There’s a certain split-mindedness at work here. After all, if U.S. policymakers really believe that the Saudis are not particularly serious about their religion, then how do they explain the fact that 80 percent of the 2,000 or so mosques in the United States have been built since the first Gulf War, and that the majority of those (according to the CIA) were built with Saudi money, even though Saudis make up a minor portion of Islamic immigrants to the United States? If the spread of Islam is not the aim, then there must be another, and it’s hard to think of one that’s more benign than bringing the “religion of peace” to a wider audience.
The neoconservatives have quite rightly taken their lumps for their role in fomenting the War on terror, but there is one charge of which they are actually (relatively) innocent: wanting to confront Islam qua Islam. Neoconservative nostalgia for the glory days of the Cold War has understandably raised suspicions that they were willing to use worldwide Islam as a substitute for global communism. But as Matthew Roberts has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt in “Putin Beyond the Propaganda,” the chief neocon strategists would still much rather fight Russia in a new Cold War—even using Islam to do so. They cringe at the suggestion of such writers as Srdja Trifkovic that the United States should join with Russia in a true “Northern Alliance” against a rising Islamic tide that, as it did 400 years ago, threatens to overwhelm Europe.
But Roberts and Trifkovic are correct: If Russia becomes an enemy of the United States, it will be because we have made it so. And we will have done so by ignoring the much greater threat of militant Islam—a threat that, for all of the rhetoric of the war on terror, does not arise primarily from nonstate actors such as al-Qaeda but from Islamic states, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, that we regard as allies in the war on terror. Without the unofficial support of such states, al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, and the KLA would never have achieved the success that they have.
In response to the threat of Soviet expansion after World War II, George Kennan formulated his policy of “containment,” first laid down in his “long telegram” from Moscow in 1946 and published the next year in Foreign Affairs with a by-line of “X.” For the rest of his life, Kennan regretted that his initial proposal was highjacked to create the rationale for the military operation known as the Cold War; his vision of containment was not primarily military but political, economic, and cultural.
In formulating a foreign policy to handle the threat of Islam, we can learn something from one of the wisest of 20th-century diplomats, a man who, unlike many of those who highjacked his ideas, was a true American patriot. We do not need a War on terror, with its nearly unbearable expense in blood and treasure; the primary threat Islam poses to the United States today is political, spiritual, and demographic, not military. As such, it can be contained at a much lower cost.
We can hardly expect President Bush or his successor to deliver the American equivalent of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address; but a little “straight talk” about Islam is certainly in order. Recognizing that orthodox Islam—what our politicians and media insist on calling “radical” Islam—sees no distinction between church and state is essential to formulating a realistic foreign policy. Muslim leaders view the expansion of Islam in both spiritual and political terms; dar-al-Islam, which all Muslims must work to make coextensive with the entire earth, is both a spiritual and a political order.
Because of this political dimension of Islam, perhaps the most important aspect of American foreign policy toward Muslim states is something that’s normally considered domestic policy—namely, curtailing Islamic immigration to the United States. While not all Muslim immigrants may be a threat, we have no reliable way of determining which ones are. Since Islamic doctrine regards the rule of a Muslim population, no matter how small, by non-Muslims as “oppression"—a condition that justifies jihad against the non-Muslim rulers—injecting such a population into our body politic has an effect similar to mainlining heroin. It may feel good now, but the long-term consequences are unlikely to be pleasant.
A corollary to our immigration policy would be an immediate cessation of the flow of foreign funds to the United States for the purpose of building mosques and Islamic schools. Both eyewitness accounts and in-depth examinations such as the Pew Research Center study released last May bear witness to what is taught in such places; as the Pew study found, younger Muslims in the United States are both more observant (50 percent attend mosque at least weekly, compared with 35 percent of older Muslims) and more likely to hold radical views (26 percent believe that suicide bombing can be justified under some circumstances, and another five percent refused to answer the question).
Saudi Arabia does not allow the construction of Christian churches in the kingdom; why should we allow Saudi money to finance the construction of hotbeds of Islamic radicalism within our borders?
Once we straighten out our own immigration policy, we should support others who wish to do the same. That would include opposing any actions, such as the admission of Turkey to the European Union, that would increase Muslim immigration into non-Muslim countries. The best way to avoid the creation of another Kosovo is to keep Muslim populations out of Europe.
Since the purpose of containment is to prevent the expansion of Islam, not to defeat Islam militarily, the United States should withdraw as soon as possible from areas of Muslim domination. First and foremost, that means Iraq, as well as the Middle East more broadly. It’s time to acknowledge that, despite initial success, our war in Afghanistan did not accomplish its stated goals. Osama bin Laden is still at large; Al-Qaeda is still a threat. It’s time to cut our losses.
Terrorism by nonstate actors should be treated, not as a foreign-policy and military issue, but as a criminal one. We might have had more success in capturing Bin Laden if we had put political and economic pressure on the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead, the Bush administration has nearly bankrupted the United States and destroyed American prestige, while committing horrific violations of human dignity (read: “torture") that would be completely unacceptable under criminal law. A foreign policy of containment would mean no more Abu Ghraibs and no more Guantanomos.
In all of this, we have to be careful to ensure that the implementation does not degenerate into a neoconservative military operation, designed to create an American empire that places our interests second to the good of others, or a Jimmy Carter-style foreign policy based on concern for human rights. As much as we might sympathize with the plight of Christians in Islamic countries and work privately to ease their condition, U.S. foreign policy needs to focus on the American interest, not on the interests of any other nation or group, no matter how passionately attached to it we might be.
Scott P. Richert is executive editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and is a regular contributor to Taki’s Magazine.
Comments
Mr. Richert: Excellent piece. Hopefully, over time, articles like this will foster a paradigm shift where people will begin to realize that Islamic terrorism is a demographic / immigration issue, not a Middle Eastern foreign policy problem.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I’m not surprised that Mr. Richert ignores the issues I raised last month.
1. I asked at that time a series of questions for the religiosity of Albania and Serbia. I got no verifiable answers, though some credible ones. I concluded that both states are secular, and that the conflict is nationalist, not sectarian.
2. There are no people call Kosovars. There is a people called Albanians. They are a folk, not a religion.
3. The KLA is Marxist in origin and now Nationalist in ambition, not sectarian
4. Paleocons are essentially becoming Neocons 1) in having a favorite little country whose irredentist ambitions are disguised as a religious conflict, 2) in advocating a Christian jihad against Islam a la Rev. Hagee, 3) in advocating a Wilsonian campaign against “Islamofascism” (Osama), 4) in Lincoln idolatry and the celebration of centralized states and empires ruling minorities by force, 5) in not having a clue in how to fight 4th Generation War (which is what the conflict with Osama and the conflict in the Balkans is), and 6) not having a child in the respective Serbian Army and the IDF, and sending him instead to Ivy League schools, and expecting someone else’s child to bleed and die.
5. Islam feeds off 1)decadent societies and 2) low birth rates in those societies. Change both and Islam goes away. A risible policy of containment of Islam will work no better than it did in Viet-Nam. We contained Communism by giving the working class a good life.
I add:
i. The comparison with the SW USA is a false analogy.
ii. Aware that tu quoque is also a fallacy, and aware that the Wiki is a questionable source, I still make the point that the the KLA isn’t the only group with dirty hands. Mr. Richert, a Serbian expert, should tell us about the
– the Red Berets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Berets,
– the Naša Stvar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_mafia ,
– and the assassins of Zoran Dindic
He won’t tell us. I just did.
iii. I am in no way supporting the Albanians and their own irredentist ambitions. I am saying, to coin a phrase, the whole mess in the Balkans isn’t worth an American life or an American dollar.
iv. I am not denying the danger of certain Islamic sectarians. In #5 above I have said how to deal with them.
For the record, I repeat my questions of 19 Feb:
1. What percentage of Albanians and Kososvars attend Friday Mosque services?
2. Do the spires of Minarets dot the cityscapes? Do Muezzins call 5 times a day to prayer? What percentage of the population of Albania and Kosovo practice the Salat?
3. Is alcohol sold in these countries? What is the per capita retail sale?
4. Is pork raised and sold in these countries? What is the per capita retail sale?
5. May a man have 4 wives in these countries?
6. What percentage of the women are veiled in these countries?
7. Is Sharia observed in these countries? Are adulterers stoned? The hands of thieves cut off?
8. What percentage of the population in these countries can read the Islamic sacred texts in their original language?
9. What percentage of the male population in these countries is circumcised?
10. What, according to reliable opinion polls, is the percentage of the population in these countries that support Osama, Sept 11, jihad? Or are members of al-Qaeda?
11. What percentage of the population in these countries have observed the Hajj? Or have made the pilgrimage to Mecca whatsoever?
12. What percentage of the population in these countries confess the Shahadah as their principle and foundation?
13. What percentage of the population in these countries are faithful practitioners of the Zakat?
14. What percentage of the population in these countries practice the Sawm during Ramadan?
15. What percentage of the population in these countries are Shia? Sunni?
16. What percentage of Serbs attend church Sunday?
17. What percentage of Serbs say they are atheists and agnostics?
I ask for verifiable citations. Just the facts, Ma’am.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I think there are a few things that should be pointed out:
1. The term “al-Qaeda” is something of a misnomer. Essentially any Arab that went to fight in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya have been all grouped as al-Qaeda, even if they had nothing to do with Usama bin Laden or his group.
Many Muslims saw it as a religious duty to go help oppressed Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc, yet had nothing to with conspiracies to attack the West or launch some global jihad. Indeed, you will find that many of the same people that fought in these conflicts were opposed to the actions and ideology of bin Laden.
In the post-9/11 world the American gov. bought into the notion that every far-flung Muslim insurgency was a thread in al-Qaeda’s web, and it seems that many otherwise rational people have fallen for this flawed narrative as well.
2. Usama bin Laden, while sympathizing with these various Muslim insurgencies, was focused primarily on expelling the American military from the Arabian peninsula. Neither he, nor his organization, played any key role in any of these insurgencies, with the except of the civil war between the Taliban and the North Alliance. (It is also important to note that numerous other groups maintained their own paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan to prepare for their own local insurgencies in Chechnya, Kashmir, Algeria, etc. These groups had little to do with al-Qaeda or anti-American terrorism.)
3. Kosovo and the pre-NATO intervention insurgency there had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. There is no sinister conspiracy to use Kosovo or Bosnia to establish some pre-Caliphate beachhead. The Kosovar Albanians have their own agenda. One can disagree with providing the Kosovar Albanians with independence, but is really disingenuous to suggest, as many have, that they are establishing some kind of radical Islamic state. The KLA may have utilized the assistance of some Arab-Afghans, but it doesn’t mean that they are another thread of the Qaeda web. This is not to provided an apologetic rendering of the KLA, their transgressions are well known, but people shouldn’t let their emotions or their ideology get the best of them.
That is just my 2 cents.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
What REALLY makes an Amerikan crazy...is that some things in life are not him nor his.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
As usual, Sid Cundiff, in his haste to enlighten us all with his thoughts, has not bothered to read the piece. Otherwise, he--not being an idiot--would realize that such remarks as the following are simply howlers in the context of this piece:
4. Paleocons are essentially becoming Neocons 1) in having a favorite little country whose irredentist ambitions are disguised as a religious conflict, 2) in advocating a Christian jihad against Islam a la Rev. Hagee, 3) in advocating a Wilsonian campaign against “Islamofascism” (Osama), 4) in Lincoln idolatry and the celebration of centralized states and empires ruling minorities by force, 5) in not having a clue in how to fight 4th Generation War (which is what the conflict with Osama and the conflict in the Balkans is), and 6) not having a child in the respective Serbian Army and the IDF, and sending him instead to Ivy League schools, and expecting someone else’s child to bleed and die.
The whole point of the piece, Mr. Cundiff, is to set out a policy that would allow us to avoid the very things you claim I’m supporting.
So, either you didn’t bother reading the article; you’re a liar, who is banking on others not reading the article; or you’re simply incapable of understanding logic.
Which is it?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@jim:
“What REALLY makes an Amerikan crazy...is that some things in life are not him nor his.”
Sigh. Would you like Sid’s e-mail, Jim? The two of you might be able to reduce each other’s loneliness, while making irrelevant comments to each other.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Dan:
“That is just my 2 cents.”
Indeed. And if you’d like to convince us that those thoughts are worth more than that, perhaps you can provide some evidence that contradicts the claims of Albanian intelligence, German intelligence, and U.S. intelligence that Osama bin Laden was actively supporting Albanian insurgents in Kosovo.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I just realized that I was too harsh on poor Mr. Cundiff. He is absolutely correct when he writes: “There are no people call Kosovars. There is a people called Albanians.”
That’s why I did not use the word “Kosovar” in this piece or in anything else I’ve ever written.
Come to think of it, I guess this actually proves I wasn’t too harsh. Either Mr. Cundiff knows that I did not use it, and therefore his remark is an attempt to mislead, or he assumes I used it, which proves not only that he didn’t read the article but can’t be bothered to learn how to use the Find function in his web browser.
And with that, I’m back to my old policy: Sid can rant all he wants. I won’t be responding to him, and I suggest that others likewise refrain.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“Saudi Arabia does not allow the construction of Christian churches in the kingdom; why should we allow Saudi money to finance the construction of hotbeds of Islamic radicalism within our borders?”
Hey… wait a minute… this is a contradiction of our new political catechism. You know the line – that historically Islam has been much-so-much more tolerant and progressive that evil old Christianity.
But much of what we believe about our own past reflects our own gullibility than any historical reality. Look at it this way: In its 1700 years of often bloody history, Christian nations in Europe have periodically driven out groups perceived as dangerous: Jews, Gypsies, Christian sub-sects lacking membership numbers to defend themselves, political upstarts, etc. When those groups evacuated one Christian country, they removed themselves to… some other Christian country. At no time was there a mass migration of Europeans – of whatever ethnic background – to the welcoming, lovey-dovey arms of Islam. Dhimmitude and hostility, if not outright enslavement, would have awaited them.
There have been mass migrations throughout human history; this country is the product of many such transplantations. But the laundry list of oppressed groups from the Old Countries washed up on these shores long after North America had been established as a Christian continent.
Another point – and this one is really heretical: Perhaps Christian Europe’s persecution of minorities was not as not as relentless and persistent as we’ve been led to believe. There were violent outbursts to be sure, but constant persecution is intolerable to any human being. These groups would have fled as far as they could from any society sharing common particulars of any kind with their nemeses; in those days the main unifying trait running throughout Europe was its dominant religion.
To save ourselves from deracinated zombies, to keep from becoming another Kosovo, maybe it’s time to start squashing our au courant fairy tales.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Right San Fernando Curt,
as I said to my Jewish lunch buddy.If Christians were so bad to Jews why did over 90% of the world’s prewar Jews live in Christian countries?Did you also know that the oldest continuos Jewish community (over 2 thousand years) is in Rome,where the Pope was absolute ruler for over 1000 years.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Uh… that should read: “...save ourselves from BECOMING deracinated zombies...”
Click to flag this comment as abusive
It appears the neo-con plan is to “assimilate” radical Islam out of existance, by seducing Muslims with the pleasures of All-American consumerism and materialism in the same way that Christianity has been overturned as the part of the American national identity. It may also be a way to pacify the despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia which are our “allies” in the “War on Terrorism”.
At any rate, like most idiotic liberal ideas, it’s the downright silly to those of us who have a firm grip on reality. Islam will never be the equivalent of Unitarian-Universalism and anyone with any common sense understands this.
Sadly, I am doubt that in the climate of “multiculturalism” and “diversity”, there is no way to stop the immigration
and seperate from the Muslim World, if not because the US economy is dependent on Saudi cooperation in maintaining the “Petro-dollar” on which our deficits are made possible, because the US court system would never allow it.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Dearest, Sweetest Scooter::: No need to get snippy, it either does not become you or risks telling us way too much about you. You sir, I’m sure, are as familiar with the history of this country & others as I.
Essentially, my “issue” concerns..."becoming what one eats” and all those problems associated with subsequent in[digestions] & in[corporations]...Many distinquished Romans felt similiarly about the “Carthage” dilemma...as you know. Secondly, and much more importantly, is the problem of myth & reality. The ancients, as you know, worked hard to wretch reality from myth. It concerns me than Amerikans are working even harder to restore reality to myth. I think Mr Kennan would share that view.
Finally, in an attempt to slow down just a little....and get our ducks in line. Maybe you would share with your audience the connection between George Kennan (Sr.’s) views on “Russian containment"( “Tent Life in Siberia") and those of Mr. X....please share, if you would, those helpful insights you might have regarding the “problems” of Latins & Byzantine’s and their trailing effects on European Christianity & Asiatic Islam....You know Scott, the “clashing civilizations” of our day. Are we rivals or opponents?...Thank you for your gracious time & consideration
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@jim:
Apparently, I misunderstood your original cryptic comment. I apologize.
If you’d like to explain it, and to post a more coherent version of your second comment (here’s a hint--the ellipsis is not properly used the way you use it), I’ll do my best to respond.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
To Scott:: Thank you for your kind & attentive response. I am surprised at the assesment of incoherency regarding my last post. But I will get over that, my irrelevant comments and my overall gnawing a[lone]ness....with God’s help, of course.
Your remarks refering to my use of ellipses is noted and has been made before by other easily distracted bloggers on this site. Overall, I find such comments to be petty and pedantic. If all “our” time was spent discussing different “writing styles”: I don’t think Mr Taki would likely retain much further interest in maintaining the site. I hope you realize that your writing & others, often contains many, many non-sequitors...but the rest of us wisely overlook that in search of your general observations....and larger points.
Now, back to the business at hand. Let’s start with an elemental observation that British Gold has ALWAYS been more lethal than British Lead. Please confer as to its possible application to current Amerikan foreign policy behaviour, remembering, of course, to distinquish between the “unruly” American people and their potentialy much more reckless Amerikan rulers.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I thank Dan for trying to shed some light.
It is Mr. Richert who hasn’t read his own piece. The word “Kosovo” comes up pretty quickly.
Richert’s differences from the Neocons are only superficial. ”the United States should withdraw as soon as possible from areas of Muslim domination.” A very good idea. But Serbia should NOT withdraw from areas of Muslim domination? (Kosovo and areas with Bosniak majorities) ”U.S. foreign policy needs to focus on the American interest, not on the interests of any other nation or group, no matter how passionately attached to it we might be.” Another very good idea. So why is Mr. Richert whooping for Serbia irredentism? And calling for “Containment”? (a euphemism for fighting and killing, as Korea and Viet-Nam were “containment”). What is more, “containment” had at its core the idea that Communism was such a bad economic system that it would self-implode if non-Communists stood firm – hardly the expectation one should have with an inveterate religious system. So I’m left with the suspicion (perhaps hasty) that Richert is the mirror image of Poddy, and that the Kosovo conflict doesn’t seem to be about religion.
So the real problem in Mr. Richert’s thesis is its very core: the false and dangerous analogy to the Cold War and “containment”—another Neocon argument, really, for the Neocons love to compare World war One (against, they say, “Prussian militarism"), World War II (fascism), “World War III” (Communism), and “World War IV” ("islamofascism"). Just as the bad general is fighting the last war, so also the bad scaremonger – and both are offering a clear recipe for defeat. A war of religion – and such a war we haven’t had in the West since the Battle of the Boyne – works on completely different dynamics than ideological war (based on claims of justice), than State power grab wars, than wars of economic interest, and wars for the survival of an ethnos against threatened genocide or enslavement. All these kinds of war work with different motives to fight, different appeals to face machine guns, with different treatment of the enemy, with differing abilities to endure to the end, with different “rules”, and with different goals. (I follow Van Creveld here)
And a war of religion works on the dynamics of religion itself, and he who pleads for a 100 Year War against another religion (or the “containment” of a religion) ought to know just what religion is. With reference to Durkheim, Otto, and Eliade, we can say that religion’s dynamics are not just/unjust, power/weakness, wealth/destitution, survival/annihilation but rather holy/profane, clean/polluted, consecrated/common, numinous/mundane, sacred/secular. (I rather like the trichotomy between the holy/the poluted/and the mundane, and I find the following compelling: http://www.friesian.com/newotto.htm ) The paradigmatic model for such a war is the Book of Joshua. So the comparison with the Cold War is a program for defeat.
Mr. Richert is alarmed about Islam. Well, maybe I am too. Islam is a religion that’s not known (perhaps unfairly) for toleration. I am, in fact, against any religion that fosters intolerance, many such religions parading under the name “Christian”. Mr. Richert wishes to stop the spread of Islam. Well, maybe I do too. Indeed, I have gone beyond Mr. Richert and have provided the reader with the causes for the Islamic surge: Western decadence, low birth rates, and (to be added) secularization and the need for young workers to pay the taxes to support elaborate Social Democratic welfare programs. It is not illogical to suggest that by removing the cause, one removes the effect.
And again for the record, I am most definitely not a proponent of Albanian irredentism.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Now, Scott.... take a deep breath, reach down between your legs & see if you can locate a little strength, a little wit, a little grace, a little decency, and a little dignity....just for the Hell of It.
Please remember Scott, a good American, properly values a dog more than money....specifically, we “the people” seek to be better...not better off...can you understand that, young Pilgram?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Maybe it would be helpful for Scott to consider “synthesis” as disjunction...and third rail as “off the track”....perhaps.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ Mr. Richert,
Indeed. And if you’d like to convince us that those thoughts are worth more than that, perhaps you can provide some evidence that contradicts the claims of Albanian intelligence, German intelligence, and U.S. intelligence that Osama bin Laden was actively supporting Albanian insurgents in Kosovo.
No need to be snide, I was just trying to provide some clarity.
As I pointed out, the American gov. has painted any Arab in these conflicts as being al-Qaeda. Call me cynical, but it is going to take more then some unsubstantiated claim to convince me that the KLA is a finger of al-Qaeda. I take my cue here from Dr. Michael Scheuer, the leading Qaeda\UBL expert, who denied that foreign Arab fighters played any meaningful role in Kosovo.
http://antiwar.com/radio/2007/09/10/michael-scheuer-2/
Again, I’m not trying to defend the KLA, their connection to the Albanian mafia and drug smuggling is well known and established. I’m just wary of these silly international Islamic conspiracy theories that the neocons use to intervene in every corner of the the globe from Iraq to north\north-west Africa to the southern Philippines and to our own homes here in America.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Dan:
Sorry for the snide remark; it was a bit of humor gone wrong, apparently.
I agree with you when you write that “I’m just wary of these silly international Islamic conspiracy theories that the neocons use to intervene in every corner of the the globe . . . “
The problem, though, in this case is that the Al Qaeda connection wasn’t asserted by President Bush’s CIA; it was asserted by President Clinton’s--three years before September 11. And German intelligence and Albanian intelligence are not exactly neocon-controlled.
As for Arab fighters playing much of a role in Kosovo, where did I claim that? The evidence put forward by the three intelligence agencies was that jihadists trained in Al Qaeda camps were brought in to Kosovo.
Here in Rockford, Illinois, Albanian Muslims (brought to Rockford by Catholic Charities, sadly) were recruiting at the local mosque in the late 1990’s. They were specifically trying to convince Caucasian converts to Islam to go fight in Kosovo. In at least three cases, they succeeded. (For more details, please see my column in the February 2008 issue of Chronicles). Those converts were sent to Afghanistan to train.
And that seems to have been the pattern--the jihadists who came into Kosovo (as well as the jihadists who came into Chechnya) were largely non-Arab. That does not mean, however, that they were therefore not connected to Al Qaeda.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Not to get of track, but wasn’t George “Slam Dunk” Tenet the CIA director under Clinton as well?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
By the way, the idea that this is simply a neocon conspiracy theory fails on another point: namely, that the neocons in the Bush administration have denied repeatedly that Al Qaeda has had anything to do with the situation in Kosovo. If you implicitly distrust the neocons, then you might want to ask yourself why the Clinton CIA claimed one thing, and the neocons in the Bush administration claimed the opposite.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“Instead, the Bush administration has nearly bankrupted the United States and destroyed American prestige, while committing horrific violations of human dignity (read: “torture") that would be completely unacceptable under criminal law.”
First, torture in a “ticking-time-bomb” situation is not immoral. When the lives of thousands, possibly millions is at stake, waterboarding is a proportionate response. Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., proved it at the end of this article: http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html It was worth it to waterboard Mr. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
Secondly, I have many of the same concerns as Sid Cundiff, for whatever that’s worth. But rather than post that as as a “response” to a post he may not even have read, he should write it up and post it as his own article. One of my primary problems with Chronicles (gratuitous commentary) is the whole Serbian thing, which seems rather obsessive. What especially disturbs me is the chauvinistic rhetoric of so many Serbs. To hear them tell it, there is no such thing as a “Croat,” nor any such thing as an “Albania,” and Serbia stretches, practically speacking from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. If that is the language of the “respectable” apologists, I have no problem beliing that Serbian extremists could commit atrocities against Albanians or Bosniaks or Croatians, and even pas a polygraph afterward—they simply don’t believe that is *possible* to sin in the service of Serbia. You may say that is also true of the Albanians and the Croats—“tu quoque.” None of them seem all that great. I don’t want the Balkans to fall to Al-Queda, but I don’t want to help create a Greater Serbia either.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Sorry for all the misspellings; I cannot see the words I type at the end of lines, or
else I need to hit “enter” like this.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Well, I’m not up on the latest neocon screeds about Kosovo, though I do believe that David Horowitz had a bunch of the usual stuff about “Islamofascim” in Kosovo on his website. Honestly, I trust the Clinton administration as much as I do the Bush\neocon administration, (especially after Sandy Berger tried to shove all those papers down his pants), which is to say not at all. Remember Clinton is the one that feed us the fairytale that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was a secret al-Qaeda WMD lab.
I don’t entirely disregard everything that you have said, but seeing the al-Qaeda card played one time too many I want to see some serious empirical evidence.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Now, Mr. Richert might just reply, “Who said anything about ‘Greater Serbia,’ Caper, huh? Kosovo is an intgral part of Serbia.” Mr. Richert argues that the land has been consecrated by the blood of Christians so it belongs to Serbia, an Orthodox country. This no doubt refers to the Battle of Kosovo of 1389. Most any reader of Chronicles has seen reference to the Battle of Kosovo. It is held forth as a part of Western history
that we have flushed down the memory hole.
What about the Serbian (-Orthodox) memory hole, however? 1389 was the year of the *First* Battle of Kosovo. The Second Battle of Kosovo came in 1448. The Hungarians and the *Albanians* under the great
Christian hero Skanderbeg were to fight the Turks. But then the ruler of *Serbia*
cut off Skanderbeg in order to help the Turks. The Moslems stayed in Europe, and
conquered Albania, because of a Servian who served (pun!) them quite slavishly. If the Serbs
won Kosovo by the deeds of Lazar Hrebeljanovic, why shouldn’t they have lost them by
the treachery of Durad Brankovic? By the way, the defeat of Janos Hunyadi by the Turks
was what sealed the fate of Christian rule in the Balkans, and the Orthodox Serbs took
the side of the Mohammedan Turks against the Catholic Hungarians and Eastern-rite Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox Albanians. Since the Serbs fought the *Christian* Albanians in order
to save the Sultan’s skin in the Second Battle of Kosovo, it is ironic justice that today
the same Serbs are being forced out of Kosovo by Mohammedan Albanians (*and* some Catholic
ones too). Here, it is primarily realist consideration of jihadism in the Balkans that should
inspire opposition to Kosovar Albanian independence; as for the Albanian-Serbian national
question, the ghost of the Crusader Skanderbeg must be laughing somewhere.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“First, torture in a “ticking-time-bomb” situation is not immoral. When the lives of thousands, possibly millions is at stake, waterboarding is a proportionate response.”
I’m not even going to go down that road. Both Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Catechism handle this sufficiently. If you don’t think they do, please file a request for a judgment from the CDF.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“One of my primary problems with Chronicles (gratuitous commentary) ”
Indeed it is gratuitous commentary. I work for Chronicles, and, as an editor, I bear my share of responsibility for what is published therein. That said, when commenting on my pieces, you might confine yourself to what I’ve written. Despite the fever dreams of Sid Cundiff, I don’t spend much of my time writing about Serbia, nor, being a non-Serb, am I capable of being a Serbian chauvinist.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Mr. Richert, do you think that every statement of the Catechism or of Pope John Paul II is
of equal weight? Please see the work of Fr. Harrison, who notes the theological weight
and magisterial authority of all the relevant statements of the hierarchy. I provided
the link; tolle lege. Go down that road with Fr. Harrison, who will answer your
questions. *NO* I am not putting him above the Pope. Presumably you have some problems
with certain sayings and actions of Pope John Paul II.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Yes, I know, Mr. Richert, that you write for that magazine. And, not surprisingly, you
refer to the Kosovo issue here. So here you just happen to be writing on Serbia. You,
here, brought up how Kosovo “has been baptized in the blood of European Christians and
sealed with the ashes of Orthodox churches and monasteries.” So you are talking about
the Serbs, here, and I can only imagine that you are referring, at least in part, to the
First Battle of Kosovo. And I wrote about the interpretation of Balkan history promoted, both here by you and also in Chronicles by others, and why it is susceptible to criticism. I also stated that this
particular historical interpretation is used, here and in Chronicles to promote particular
anti-jihadist policies in the Balkans. But, in fact, anti-jihadism can be pursued without
necessarily subscribing to particular views of the Serbs’ purported role as the premier
gatekeepers of Europe.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“Now, Mr. Richert might just reply, “Who said anything about ‘Greater Serbia,’ Caper, huh? Kosovo is an intgral part of Serbia.” ”
Or I might not. And, therefore, I’d rather you didn’t put words in my mouth but simply quote what I’ve written, here or elsewhere.
“Mr. Richert argues that the land has been consecrated by the blood of Christians so it belongs to Serbia, an Orthodox country. ”
Do I? Where? Are you referring to this statement:
“a more immediate concern is the rise of an avowedly Islamic state on the European continent, a state that has been baptized in the blood of European Christians and sealed with the ashes of Orthodox churches and monasteries.”
Perhaps it’s too late at night, but it ought to be obvious to any casual reader that the “state” of the clause after the comma is the “Islamic state” of the clause before the comma. At no point in there do I mention Serbia, or make the claim that Kosovo belongs to Serbia because “the land has been consecrated by the blood of Christians.”
Once again, please feel free to quote anything I’ve written, here or elsewhere, but don’t follow Mr. Cundiff in putting words in my mouth.
“This no doubt refers to the Battle of Kosovo of 1389. ”
See above. I’m referring to the rise of Kosovo, the state recognized by the United States. The independence of that state has been achieved through the slaughter of Orthodox Christians and the burning of Christian churches and monasteries over the past ten years. That’s what I’m referring to.
Once again, etc., etc.
“it is primarily realist consideration of jihadism in the Balkans that should inspire opposition to Kosovar Albanian independence”
And, if you can find anything that I’ve written that suggests otherwise, here or elsewhere, please quote it. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to provide you with Sid Cundiff’s e-mail address, and the two of you can get together and manufacture straw men.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
Our comments passed in the internet, so on the question of my interpretation of Serbian history, I’ll simply refer you to the comment that appears after yours, and state for the record that I was not referring to the First Battle of Kosovo.
As for the Father Harrison article, I’ve read it several times. I’m not convinced.
“Presumably you have some problems
with certain sayings and actions of Pope John Paul II.”
Presumably, if I do, I’ll state that myself. And if you can find any such statements I’ve made in the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written, feel free to quote them.
Otherwise--well, you should know the drill by now.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Thank you very kindly for correcting me, Mr. Richert. Yes, I misread all the passages in
question. My readings of past posts at Chronicles has skewed my reading of your post. Not
that I can give you permission or withhold it, but please delete my asinine remarks on
this thread. Or, if you leave them up, know that they will be part of my mortification
this Passiontide. Either way is good. My sincerest apologies—no, I don’t wish for Mr.
Cundiff’s email.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
Apology accepted. And I’m afraid the remarks will have to remain up--I don’t have access to delete comments.
Best wishes for a spiritually fruitful Passiontide. And please pray for me, that I may have the same.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“but please delete my asinine remarks on this thread.” Here I did not mean the comment
on torture, but these need to be clarified. To be clear, Fr. Harrison concluded on the
matter of the “ticking time-bomb” circumstance that it has not been determined by the
Magisterium in any of the existing statements on torture. What he “proved”
was not that the infliction of force to extract life-saving information was moral, but
that it is not addressed by the Magisterium and therefore has not been *declared to be*
immoral. So even that was a misstatement . . . which I wrote in haste, and am correcting.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“What he “proved” was not that the infliction of force to extract life-saving information was moral, but
that it is not addressed by the Magisterium and therefore has not been *declared to be*
immoral.”
That may indeed be true, though, as I wrote, I’m not convinced, because his argument relies on intermediate steps that I don’t find convincing.
What I am convinced of, however, is that if the matter were submitted for a definitive ruling, Pope Benedict’s CDF is more likely to rule as I suggested than as Father Harrison has.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
On “torture”:
Define “torture”. I’ll work with my own definition here.
I guess I’m “pre-Enlightenment” enough to agree with this Fr Harrison character and Caper:
Torture is something that is done out of proportion to what is needed. That is, if one is certain a prisoner has some information that could be used to save the lives/souls of thousands/millions, then any means necessary to extract that information is permissible, it is not “torture”.
“Torture” would be beating Mr Richert’s hands in order to find out where he hid the Christmas cookies. It just wouldn’t make sense. “Torture” is kicking a dog because you didn’t get accepted to Princeton. It just doesn’t make sense. “Torture” is aborting your baby because you’re too lazy to breastfeed. It just doesn’t make sense.
“Torture” is NOT driving bamboo under someone’s fingernails in order to find out where his country’s leadership might be bombing innocent civilians tomorrow.
To equate lashes against the Innocent Back of Christ with the lashes earned by a mutineer on the high seas is Sacrilege. Jesus was fully Innocent, whereas the mutineer deserves every bit of his punishment. What brings the justice of punishment into sight is the injustice of Christ’s punishment at the hands of His tormentors.
In short, it is wrong, it is Sacrilege to infer Christ’s own Sufferings onto the sufferings of the truly guilty.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
injustice of Christ’s torture
Click to flag this comment as abusive
it is Sacrilege to impute Christ’s own Sufferings onto the sufferings of the truly guilty.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Andy Capp:
“To equate lashes against the Innocent Back of Christ with the lashes earned by a mutineer on the high seas is Sacrilege. . . . In short, it is wrong, it is Sacrilege to infer Christ’s own Sufferings onto the sufferings of the truly guilty.”
I see you and Sid got together for a straw-man-making party.
Please cite anything I wrote, here or elsewhere, that justifies what you wrote above. If you can’t, please retract it.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Another excellent piece by Scott Richert.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“When the lives of thousands, possibly millions is at stake, waterboarding is a proportionate response.”
Problem is, according to authorities no less practiced than former KGB officers, torture is a poor way to extract information. The torture “subject” tends to tell his tormentors anything they WANT to hear – not necessarily what they NEED to hear; torture victims say anything to make the torture stop. Also, remember at issue is an enemy committed and disciplined enough to fly planes into buildings and set off bomb vests in crowds of bazaar shoppers; far from spilling their guts, zealots of that stripe just may see torture as a martyrdom aperitif.
But the biggest problem with torture is that once the “ticking time bomb” criteria is applied, everything becomes a ticking time bomb, and Mr. Capp’s Case of the Missing Cookies will become justification for lashing people to racks. Somehow, we got through 215-plus years as a republic without institutionalizing torture as a judicial tool. The tragedy of 9/11 didn’t reverse the physical laws of the universe, didn’t turn black into white or salt into pepper. It didn’t transform human morality into characterless squalor. It was an horrific event. We deal with horrific events without ourselves becoming horrific.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Sidney Cundiff never ceases to prove he is either:
1) devious plotter of discord amongst genuine Christians
OR
2) a complete moron
OR
3) a lunatic who sniffed the rubber cement cannister one minute too long when the other kids dared him
..."just the facts ma’am...Serbian irredentism....just the facts ma’am....statistics on church attendance...just the facts ma’am....just the facts ma’am”...and then the nurse arrives to mercifully administer the sedative...ahhhh.....peace for a few hours for those of us on Taki Mag
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“Presumably, if I do, I’ll state that myself. And if you can find any such statements I’ve made in the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written, feel free to quote them.”
I did not read this post last night. For the record, that referred to the kissing of the Koran.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“For the record, that referred to the kissing of the Koran.”
No comment. : )
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Just what I figured.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
And you can quote me on that. : )
Click to flag this comment as abusive
And I will quote you. And I shall continue to presume that on that matter you think the late
Pope was mistaken, or made a mistake. I’ll simply note that it’s my presumption, true
or false; you know which it is. The principle remains: John Paul II was fallible when he wasn’t
being infallible (big shock). That was my point, which Fr. Harrison also made about
several statements of that late Pope.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
You may continue to presume whatever you wish, but to quote a “No comment” and then to declare that you believe that to mean something more than “No comment” is not really acceptable behavior. If I had any desire to comment on an issue that’s been rehashed by many, many men far more qualified to discuss it than I, well, I’d offer a comment.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
And just to make it clear, the fact that Father Harrison’s article failed to convince me has nothing whatsoever to do with whether John Paul’s statements on torture were infallible. His and his successor’s opposition to the war in Iraq is not infallible, either, yet I believe that both pontiffs were right, while those who supported the war were wrong.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Scoo-trotter:: Try drawing closed that contracting net into which you are drawn & later caught...Method is merely a conceit:the folly of the universal polemic....poseurs par excellance. You, are now a debased, despoiled, defaced materialist, the quintessential marxist… “right” down to your quivering, calcifying bones. Please remember Scott, that character subordinates Fate, rendering it inferior. Aristotle in the hands of barbarians will produce nothing but fever & panic...never Heart. Please don’t confuse Canterbury Tales for the Psalms....or the Nazarene for Socrates. Mystery is algorithmically insensitive. It is not a riddle or a puzzel. Please don’t take those few thorns in your feet and decide to place them in the next “guy’s” side. Don’t let beauty become Sugar or let dialectics become hopping from one lie to another. There is a God, Scott. We are not his Prophets. Don’t let Gypsy Rose Thee....wither before this blossoming State.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Stating another way. If we ever had to use the word “freedom”...instead of “democracy”. Do you honestly think we would ever heard the word “democracy” uttered again?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Without venturing through the maze of commentary on Balkan History, the nature of torture and the like, I just want to commend you Scott for putting forth an intelligent proposal for dealing with the Islamic world. It seems to me that our History as a Christian, Western people has over the centuries rested not on our defeat of the Muslims so much as on our ability to circumvent them. When the rise of Islam cut Western Europe off from the wealth of the Mediterranean we developed superior agriculture and weaponry and overland trade. When they cut off trade to the far east, we took our superior technology to sea and dominated the world. Now we have to make their strangle hold on oil as irrelevant as their grip on the spice trade once was.
You are right in that the Muslim threat is only proportional to our indulgence of it. Quarantine the primitives in their own lands and surpass them with our technical prowess.
But here is the, rub. How do we save the Christian West even as the Christians renounce their their own identity? Can we save the edifice of the West even when there may be nothing within?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Mr. Richert:
You said very little about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which I see as deeply related to the question of how to “contain” radical Islam.
What do you propose the United States should do about its relationship with the Zionist State?
Doesn’t this relationship prevent us from being able to do a great deal of what you’re proposing?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@digbydolben:
“You said very little about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which I see as deeply related to the question of how to “contain” radical Islam.”
Actually, I did discuss it, especially the role it’s played in current American foreign policy toward Muslim states (including the role it may have played in the swiftness of American recognition of Kosovo). See, in particular, paragraphs 5-7.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
OK, Mr. Richert, so you did--just a bit, but what I want to know is this: Doesn’t what you propose imply, necessarily, that the United States should apply a more even hand in arbitrating between Israel and the Palestinians? Or do you believe that the United States should withdraw from the “peace process” altogether and leave Israel and the Palestians to fend for themselves in negotiations? Do you perhaps believe that the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel is detrimental to what must be the new foreign policy interests implied in your article?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@digbydolben:
I think that the final paragraph of my article answers your question, without me writing another, separate article here in the comments.
The American interest should be the American interest. Full stop.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
OK, I get it, and I agree with you, but I think you should now write another article--not here in the comments--about how this new, more even-handed policy toward the Israel-Palestian conflict should be implemented, and how it should be sold to the American people.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“the American interest should be the American interest”...boy, am I glad I didn’t write that...talk about grounds for a woodshed experience with Father Duffy, oh my!!
Scott, let’s be playfull...and have you describe & explain, you know, chronicle “American interest”.
And if you persist in forbiding access to crtique....some may begin to suspect....that your ultimate “ratio” is not an inclination to ward off pesky foolishness, but rather an effort to keep unperceived those thoughts & perceptions that would serve to expose your identications & analysis as being shallow or hollow.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“Kennan regretted that his initial proposal was highjacked to create the rationale
for the military operation known as the Cold War; his vision of containment
was not primarily military but political, economic, and cultural.”
Hi Scott - what an excellent piece. The quote above really nails it! Thanks, Michael -
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@jim:
The presence of your posts indicates that no one is “forbiding [sic] access to crtique [sic].” But again, if you wish to engage in discussion, you might try writing a sentence or two that others can understand.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
To Scott:: Scott, you are the George McClellan of the blogsphere. Like Lincoln said of ole George...."you got the slows”. Needless to say, McClellan wouldn’t engage either, but then his reluctance was completely understandible; Lee, Stuart, Jackson. You fortunately have no such concerns. McClellan wasn’t really a “fightin” man. He was an engineer, a teacher and then made himself useful, like Lincoln, at the Illinois Central. Like you Scott, McClellan, was always very politically “inspired”. And I would bet my house; that if I asked George McClellan to explain “American interest” even he, without pause or hesitation...would gladly provide some kind of an answer.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@jim:
This is growing rather tiresome. Do you honestly have no idea what the phrase “the American interest” means? It means that which is in the national interest of the United States of America.
If, instead, you’re asking, “What is the American interest in [such and such a situation],” well, then you’ll need to ask that question. And if it won’t require writing a separate article here in the comments section, I’ll offer an answer.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@T.O. Meehan:
I apologize for overlooking your comment; Jim’s ramblings had distracted me. You wrote:
“But here is the, rub. How do we save the Christian West even as the Christians renounce their their own identity? Can we save the edifice of the West even when there may be nothing within?”
We can’t. And that is the rub. That’s why the guiding principle of Chronicles has always been that there are no political solutions to cultural problems. At best, political solutions--such as the foreign-policy proposals I’ve made in this piece--are rear-guard actions.
The real front is in the recovery of faith and family and culture. And, unfortunately, things have declined so far that the battlefields are in our living rooms and dining rooms.
The politically obsessed commenters on this website will immediately dismiss that idea out of hand, but unless we can revive something worth defending in our own families, neighborhoods, and parishes, then no national political “solution” will be found.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Scott, you are getting warmer...don’t seek the salary of a parson...go for it...out with it...tell me just what you tell your kids...or yourself...and hopefully, for the same reasons.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ jim
Do you take hallucinogens before posting comments on this site? I don’t mean this as an insult or a condemnation. I am simply trying to understand why you write the way you do.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
To Vissarion:::just to perfectly establish what a complete prole you really are...TSA qualified & ready to go...please share some of the inspiring books or authors that have cleared your world for life as a gnarly, consumated dwarf.
Put up or shut up!!
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@T.O. Meehan:
A little more, having finished dinner with my family.
Sid Cundiff, in the midst of all his irrelevancies and deliberate misrepresentations of my positions, did hit on something very important when he mentioned low birth rates. Contraception, as I’ve discussed in other venues, is not so much a cause of a culture in decline as it is a symptom.
The fact is, birth rates in societies in decline drop even in the absence of widespread access to contraception. That’s because people tend to have more children when they are optimistic about their future; they tend to refrain from having children when they’re not.
As I’ve pointed out on this website (and in articles elsewhere), of all the children I interviewed at the Muslim school here in Rockford in February 2002, only one had fewer than three siblings--and he was a nominal Christian. These aren’t poor, uneducated people who don’t know better (the lie usually told about those who have big families); these are the children of doctors and lawyers and engineers. The size of their family tells us that they value children and that they are optimistic about their future, unlike so many self-identified Christians in the United States.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@jim:
I was willing to put up with your rambling incoherencies, but your nasty response to Vissarion just earned you the same treatment that Sid deserves.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
A couple more thoughts about birth rates: The fact that they are related to optimism about the future indicates that most “pro-natalist” government policies are unlikely to do much to increase birth rates, at least over the long run. Neither are more abstract considerations, such as “preserving the white race” or “outbreeding Muslims.”
My wife and I have six children, and our seventh, God willing, will be born two weeks from today. At no point have we ever said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to get another tax deduction!” or “Whites are going to be a minority in the United States by 2050--let’s see what we can do to stop that” or “I hear that the mosque is bursting at the seams--time for us to have another!”
On the other hand, we’ve also never sat down and “run the numbers” to determine whether we can “afford” another child. We don’t have to, for the same reason that we don’t shop at Wal-Mart: We don’t live our lives as Austrian “consumers,” but as husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter.
(That, by the way, reminds me of an article I’ve long wanted to write: How “Always Low Prices” Leads to Always Low Birthrates.)
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Low birth rates are prevalent in most counties throughout the world. They are the most malignant sign of suicide. These people are no longer interested or sustained by the “national interest”. The Greeks, the Romans and all the others just hit the wall. They stopped being interested in being Greek or Roman...or could no longer identify what Greek or Roman meant. Whatever Greek or Roman was..it no longer “spiritualized” them....and in most cases it is very easy for anyone to comprehend.
Flannery O’Connor was very concerned with manners. She properly perceived that manners were a recognition of inherent “transcendence”. It is most difficult to get overly concerned with religions or cultures or ethnicities or “national interest” when it is abundantly clear that there are few zip codes in the world where manners even exist. My suggestion is to stop worrying about “collective” issues except with regard as to how they would serve to re-establish “manners”.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Scott, congratulations on your family...and very best wishes on the new one. I hope I have communicated to you all along....ellipses and all....that what you have inside that house...Wal-Mart or no, is our only “american interest”...and anything that interfers with their healthy development is clearly NOT in our national interest.They are not public functions, they are private personalities. Please recognize that just about every one else...whether home or abroad....is in exactly the same boat.No divide et impera. Delenda est Roma.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper:
“What about the Serbian (-Orthodox) memory hole, however? 1389 was the year of the *First* Battle of Kosovo. The Second Battle of Kosovo came in 1448. The Hungarians and the *Albanians* under the great
Christian hero Skanderbeg were to fight the Turks. But then the ruler of *Serbia*
cut off Skanderbeg in order to help the Turks. The Moslems stayed in Europe, and
conquered Albania, because of a Servian who served (pun!) them quite slavishly. “
Perhaps this will help you with your own “memory hole”: “The government under Skanderbeg was unstable, however, and at times local Albanian rulers cooperated with the Ottoman Turks against him.” So yes, Djuradj Brankovic was a traitor, along with many other nobles from many other nations who were trying to survive in desperate times. Djuradj himself was betrayed (Peace of Szeged): “The final version of the treaty re-established Serbia as a buffer state and settled its return to Branković,[2] as well as the return of Albania and all other territory conquered, including 24 fortresses, to Hungary. The Ottomans also had to pay an indemnity of 100,000 gold florins and release Branković’s two sons.” What transpired next is (Crusade of Varna): “Shortly after all the short-term requirements of the treaty were fulfilled, the Hungarians and their allies resumed the crusade. Murad, who had retired shortly after the treaty was completed, was called back to lead the Ottoman army. On November 10, 1444, the two armies clashed at the Battle of Varna (near the Black Sea fortress of Varna, Bulgaria). The Ottomans won a decisive victory despite heavy losses, while the Hungarians lost their King and over 10,000 men.”
Serbs continued their fight against Moslem invaders, Albanians did not.
http://historymedren.about.com/library/text/bltxtalbania5.htm
Albania: Historical Setting
Library of Congress Country Study
“The division of the Albanian-populated lands into small, quarreling fiefdoms ruled by independent feudal lords and tribal chiefs made them easy prey for the Ottoman armies. In 1385 the Albanian ruler of DurrÎs, Karl Thopia, appealed to the sultan for support against his rivals, the Balsha family. An Ottoman force quickly marched into Albania along the Via Egnatia and routed the Balshas. The principal Albanian clans soon swore fealty to the Turks. Sultan Murad II launched the major Ottoman onslaught in the Balkans in 1423, and the Turks took Janina in 1431 and Arta on the Ionian coast, in 1449. The Turks allowed conquered Albanian clan chiefs to maintain their positions and property, but they had to pay tribute, send their sons to the Turkish court as hostages, and provide the Ottoman army with auxiliary troops.
The Albanians’ resistance to the Turks in the mid-fifteenth century won them acclaim all over Europe. Gjon Kastrioti of KrujÎ was one of the Albanian clan leaders who submitted to Turkish suzerainty. He was compelled to send his four sons to the Ottoman capital to be trained for military service. The youngest, Gjergj Kastrioti (1403-68), who would become the Albanians’ greatest national hero, captured the sultan’s attention. Renamed Iskander when he converted to Islam, the young man participated in military expeditions to Asia Minor and Europe. When appointed to administer a Balkan district, Iskander became known as Skanderbeg. After Ottoman forces under Skanderbeg’s command suffered defeat in a battle near Nis, in present-day Serbia, in 1443, the Albanian rushed to KrujÎ and tricked a Turkish pasha into surrendering him the Kastrioti family fortress. Skanderbeg then reembraced Roman Catholicism and declared a holy war against the Turks.
On March 1, 1444, Albanian chieftains gathered in the cathedral of LezhÎ with the prince of Montenegro and delegates from Venice and proclaimed Skanderbeg commander of the Albanian resistance. All of Albania, including most of Epirus, accepted his leadership against the Ottoman Turks, but local leaders kept control of their own districts. Under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg’s heraldic emblem, an Albanian force of about 30,000 men held off brutal Ottoman campaigns against their lands for twenty-four years. Twice the Albanians overcame sieges of KrujÎ. In 1449 the Albanians routed Sultan Murad II himself. Later, they repulsed attacks led by Sultan Mehmed II. In 1461 Skanderbeg went to the aid of his suzerain, King Alfonso I of Naples, against the kings of Sicily. The government under Skanderbeg was unstable, however, and at times local Albanian rulers cooperated with the Ottoman Turks against him. When Skanderbeg died at LezhÎ, the sultan reportedly cried out, “Asia and Europe are mine at last. Woe to Christendom! She has lost her sword and shield.”
“
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ jim
Books or authors that have inspired me? “Idiot” by Dostoyevsky.
However, I would not recommend it to you; the writing style is too straightforward, the book has a beginning, a middle, and an end, it has proper sentence structure and punctuation… you know, boring old stuff.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Vissarion, obviously not enough to know how to spell his name properly. Yet, maybe your tours of Dostoevsky’s mind would enable you to address his thoughts on Russia becoming the Nova Roma? Don’t forget the beginning, the middle & the end.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ jim
By properly you must mean “Достоевский”, right? Or you can pick your favorite:
“Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky… sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, Dostoievsky, Dostojevskij or Dostoevski...”
If you want interpretation of Достоевский’s thoughts, pick a book, read and think. I’m not going to do it for you.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Vissarion, you couldn’t do it for yourself, much less for me or for anyone else. Stick to the Encylopedia...it suits you. You are just bitchy stenographer & nothing more....full of carboard cants & chants, more pulp fiction from some adorned, adored Potemkin Village...repeat after me, Polly want a cracker?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ jim
Sour, bitter… inadequate
Click to flag this comment as abusive
You Vissarion, like your doppelganger Scott,(oddly, you resonate Scott to the 8th octave), and the other pretending, posturing “integrities & clarities” that haunt this site like Flying Dutchmen; whose self-celebrations(Paris Hilton’s of the vitae of the mind)...are nothing more than the hissing, pissing of small lizards, belly-down on the slickest, shallowest grass they can find. You are your complaints. Amerika is the de-composing heap that it is....because it is over-populated by the likeness of you(home-ruled, home-schooled). You Vissarion(Scotts) are nothing more than an ole-fashioned, harping, opportunistic coward. Projection & Apologia remain man’s best friend. PS//Don’t take so long before responding. It succeeds in creating, confirming the impression that you require hours with Jeeves...or in the Library...before mustering confidence in another pathetic response. Vissarion, you are an amerikan, metra, manchurian girlee-boy....as intended.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@Caper
“Here, it is primarily realist consideration of jihadism in the Balkans that should
inspire opposition to Kosovar Albanian independence; as for the Albanian-Serbian national
question, the ghost of the Crusader Skanderbeg must be laughing somewhere. “
You do realize that Skenderbeg died Catholic (for all we know) and now most of Albanians are Muslim? From your posts I gather that you are Catholic as well, so tell me please, doesn’t Catholic doctrine say that all these Albanians will end up in hell?
Perhaps you should try to think as a true Catholic before you try to post as one.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Scott. Appologies for this tardy response. Yes the problem most assuridly is primarily cultural. And yet it’s clear that the organs of power and communication do not reflect the state of our culture as it is. The American people are a lot more Christian than the people they watch on TV.
The Herdists, to use E. von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s term, control the Academy, the Media, the Legal profession and the Bureaucracy. Surely part of the answer is to wrest control of these, in order to keep these people from polluting and debouching our culture further.
But I can certainly see that without faith and the self assurance that comes with self knowledge, we will lack the will to do this. So the problem is circular.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@T.O. Meehan:
“The American people are a lot more Christian than the people they watch on TV. ”
Then why do they watch them on TV?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“@Caper:
You may continue to presume whatever you wish, but to quote a “No comment” and then to declare that you believe that to mean something more than “No comment” is not really acceptable behavior. If I had any desire to comment on an issue that’s been rehashed by many, many men far more qualified to discuss it than I, well, I’d offer a comment.
“
Yes, I was indeed behaving unacceptably here—I apologize. And I mean that; I mention these things
in Confession. I know that you do not wish to comment, and I can understand why a Catholic would not want to comment on this. I know that nothing can be concluded from a mere refusal to comment; it is your
harsh criticism of Islam in the past and present that would give some cause to assume (with all the risk of
making an ass out of myself) that the late Pope’s action might not sit well with you, to put it in the mildest of possible terms—not so much on account of what it says about John Paul’s state of soul, which is unknowable, but for what the act signified for others. So I was not trying to conclude anything from a mere refusal to comment taken on its own, nor do I intend to “quote you.” Perhaps you really are one of those people who, when faced with
an incomprehensible act on the part of a superior, simply is able to say, “I will not comment; it
is not my business to pass a judgment here in favor or not.” Such souls are rare and are to be
emulated. But once again, it would compromise your stated decision not to comment if you were to concede anything as to the likelihood of any of these explanations, for to give a rationale for not commenting is in fact to comment.
The blessing and curse of this medium is that words cannot be taken back. Suffice it to say that none of this has been necessary for the point that Popes are infallible under stringent conditions only. Thank you and
may your Holy Week live up to its name.
P.S. In a more recent debate, Mr. Zmirak weighed in on the role of subsidiarity in anti-abortion
legislation. His answer may be of interest to you, or not.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
@ Sasha Djurovic,
First, let me say that, yes I know that Skanderbeg died a Catholic and that the majority of
Albanians are Mohammedans who will go to hell if they do not repent of their false religion.
Why did I say that Skanderbeg must be laughing? When a Christian Serbian prince could have helped a Christian
Albanian prince (Skanderbeg) vanquish the Turks, that Serbian prince blocked the Albanian. It is
an irony of history, also known as blowback, that because Durad Brankovic refused to ally himself
with Christian Albanians, Christian Serbs today are suffering from an invasion of Mohammedan Albanians. But
to dwell on this irony would be to disrespect the completely innocent people who are dying as a result of it, so I
shouldn’t have brought it up. Plus, I thought it relevant only because I mistakenly thought that
Mr. Richert referenced the First Battle of Kosovo, so I mentioned the Second.
Yes, of course, if Skanderbeg were alive he would oppose jihad in the Balkans.
My apologies for the offense, even if you do not value that apology as being worth much.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I support this defensive containment strategy.
One thing - I think most Israelis recognise that an Islamised Europe would be very bad for Israel, much worse than the current neo-Marxist Europe. That Neocons refuse to see this, among other things indicates to me that they are not genuine proponents of Israel’s best interests, or the best interests of the Jewish people. But perhaps they can be persuaded?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Perfect
Best wishes,
Alex
http://www.world-viagra.com - my favourite pharma shop
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Great
Best wishes,
Alex
http://www.world-viagra.com - best cheap pharmacy shop
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Nice
Best wishes,
Alex
http://www.world-viagra.com - best cheap pharmacy shop
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Taki's Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. Personal attacks, ethnic slurs, the riding of hobby horses and the beating of dead ones will be deleted as soon as they are detected by our small but alert staff. Repeat abusers of this policy will be barred from leaving comments. All comments reflect only the views of those posting them and not necessarily those of this website, its editors, or authors. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
Commenting is not available in this section entry.