The Founding Fathers' Battle Against Jihad
SpaceEagle
Published
06/29/2011
I was doing some research on an article called "The Founding Fathers' Battle Against Jihad - Elisabeth Meinecke."
Although a couple of people who later became presidents DID talk to an
extremist to find out why their ships were being attacked when they had
not attacked or participated in an attack on the extremist Muslims,
there are some things that the writer overlooks.
I saw a comment on one article which was discussing the article and thought I would share it since it goes more in depth than I probably would have. It was posted by "Anonymous," so I don't know the author, but I'm posting the entire comment as it was on the piece at http://johnmacrants.blogspot.com/2005/07/tripoli-1786-new-york-2001-london-2005.html
The Modern West overlooks
a social phenomenon
that was more evident
in pre-modern times.
In urban environments,
what was it, that made a district?
Who kept strangers out,
and defended streets?
Young unmarried males without property.
A sort of eternal civil war
buzzed in urban realms,
promulgated not by armies,
but by youth bands,
elevated and instigated
to serve as intramural warfare volunteers.
Different societies motivated
cadres differently,
but almost all societies used this
available force in some way.
In "Bazaar" societies
in the mideast,
local imams
hired by businessmen
tutor young men in Koranic studies,
and concurrently motivate them
to do "charitable acts",
acting as a visible street presence.
We see parallels throughout history,
where young men attached to various "academies"
in Athens,
would greet newcomers at ship-side,
urging them to join this school,
or that school.
The one choice not allowed,
was to make no choice.
Those who chose no school,
were promptly beaten,robbed,
and forced back on the ship
on which they had just arrived.
Fans of ancient Rome remember
Blue ,Green, Red & White factions
that came within a hair's breadth
of dethroning Justinian.
We see a living relic of this
in the Pallio race in Siena, Italy.
Florence & Verona also had such races.
The race has no rules,
riders kick each other,
pummel each other,
and employ any means to victory.
The "colors"
participating in the race
represent urban factions
which dominated these cities,
in the absence of any other force.
Travel from one section
of such a city to another section
was well nigh impossible
without armed escort
and a passport from a faction leader.
This fact of medieval life
provides the dynamic for Shakespeare's"Romeo & Juliet",
whose problem was to be trapped
within rival gang enclaves.
Such groups ran Tweed's New York City,
and formed the backbone of
rival fire departments
and police forces.
The motivation at play
was less altruism,
than the scavenger's desire for "first bite"
at the contents of burned houses, or the wallets of unfortunate detainees.
Fresh from the post-Tweed reforms,
we now think of gangs
as a civil enforcement problem,
separated from normal life.
This is a parochial, short term view,
one not backed up by history.
Cliques form a central part of human society in history,
and the acknowlegement of factions,
and the fostering of faction
are commonplace,
pandemic....the norm.
The Fascism of WWII, and in the Balkans,
as well as Mao's
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
can be seen not so much
as "modernism-gone-wrong",
but as a simple rebirth of the eternal faction,
this time in a modern guise, cynically used.
Having established that the phenomenon exists,
consider two culture groups,
in competition within a modern secular state.
One group views common violence as abhorrent,
and has no recourse to it.
This same group believes
in a secular modernist inclusion paradigm,
welcoming all people,
all cultureways,
and all pathologies
attached to those cultures
as equally valuable human expressions.
Opposed to them,
posit a group with strict taboos,
an exclusionist world view,
an attraction to conflict,
in fact a "holy" mandate
to foist unending conflict on all
who are not within their group.
Well versed in faction,
comfortable only when championing a faction,
they "know better"
than to be misled by the diffuse
non-discrimination
inherent in modernity.
To them,
such tolerance is devil's work,
and those in the employ of evil
must be treated in correct fashion, as slaves,
as ignorant and unholy rival gangs.
When assessing
tactical advantages attached
to the views held by either side,
it becomes obvious
that there is an advantage
to behaving in the old way,
and using your youth cadre in the old way, on the street.
When dressed in a "charitable" or "civic action" guise
recognizable to the secular opponent, such defacto
brownshirts can be absolutely unopposed by any
civic force available to the seculars, and can then
begin to move mountains for their prophet.
In recognizing that Islam fosters behaviors considered
delinquency in the secular West, cruelty "made holy",
women repressed "for their own good", hate encouraged,
provided only that it be Kaffir-hate, one can begin to
understand the 1000 year crescent of fire around
Islam's edges. It meets other groups in a well defined
factional warfare blessed by its highest authorities,
a warfare imprudently devalued, squandered,
de-integrated out of European politico-religious life,
discarded as "youth crime" or "sports riots" in the West.
When trying to form a clear, undistorted view of Islam,
One is struck again and again by its multiple personae.
It glitters and glimmers, internally seeming charitable,
all inclusive, the solution to humankind's problems,
and yet at other times seeming barbaric, outmoded,
choked with misogyny, and a poison to the best hopes
of the human race.
It is in this doppelganger shape that Islam now exports
its "base" to Europe. Swimming in a sea of simple,
hopeful, moderate Islamic immigrants, people with
great gifts to bestow on the West, a few special men
can be counted upon to blaze a more focused path.
It is this small, special group, this "base", this Qaeda,
that harks back to the medieval verities, not as some
surreptitious mafia, or some furtive criminal Cosa Nostra,
but as proud Submitters to the divine...saints, if you will,
joyously exiling themselves, courting death, even,
just to set the stage for factional victory.
Sun Tzu , and his notion of competing generals,
is reduced to pedestrian banality in the face of
such a leaderless, omnipresent, eternally dedicated
and defeat-proof tactical schema.
For Sun Tzu, and those who would follow his advice,
must step outside the normal in order to act.
In the Sun Tzu scheme, war happens not in the everyday,
but on some field apart, risking all.
Much is lost in such a scheme.
Is there a superior war regime?
An Intramural Bushido?
War sans all possibility of defeat?
A ghost army, unfightable by military means?
An army that doppelgangs into ordinary citizens
whenever it wishes, thus tying the hands
of any military Gulliver with his own civil laws?
Are the immigrant imams of Holland, France,
Spain, & the UK instigating such a force?
Is Iraq alive with such a force?
Is the vaunted "Al Qaeda" just a misnomer,
not representing an organization, but simply
the occasional brave hero stepping up to
martyrdom as an inspiration to the factions?
Are the postmodern polities of Western Europe
prone, helpless to defend their much-too-advanced
notions against ancient cadres of inspired youth?
Is our much-heralded Western Democracy
simply a doomed heresy of the Dar-Al-Harb?
Harry the Riverdog
The writer of the article wants to point out Muslim extremists, but chooses to ignore the same type of behavior from Christian extremists who participate in attacking those who did not attack them as well. Pointing out the bad behavior in others without acknowledging and correcting your own bad behavior is hypocritical. The U.S. attacked a Muslim country under Bush that did not attack us. Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration called those responsible to task for their actions. Both the Republicans and the Democrats share responsibility for this now. I say remove the log from your own eye before you remove the splinter from someone else's.
I saw a comment on one article which was discussing the article and thought I would share it since it goes more in depth than I probably would have. It was posted by "Anonymous," so I don't know the author, but I'm posting the entire comment as it was on the piece at http://johnmacrants.blogspot.com/2005/07/tripoli-1786-new-york-2001-london-2005.html
The Modern West overlooks
a social phenomenon
that was more evident
in pre-modern times.
In urban environments,
what was it, that made a district?
Who kept strangers out,
and defended streets?
Young unmarried males without property.
A sort of eternal civil war
buzzed in urban realms,
promulgated not by armies,
but by youth bands,
elevated and instigated
to serve as intramural warfare volunteers.
Different societies motivated
cadres differently,
but almost all societies used this
available force in some way.
In "Bazaar" societies
in the mideast,
local imams
hired by businessmen
tutor young men in Koranic studies,
and concurrently motivate them
to do "charitable acts",
acting as a visible street presence.
We see parallels throughout history,
where young men attached to various "academies"
in Athens,
would greet newcomers at ship-side,
urging them to join this school,
or that school.
The one choice not allowed,
was to make no choice.
Those who chose no school,
were promptly beaten,robbed,
and forced back on the ship
on which they had just arrived.
Fans of ancient Rome remember
Blue ,Green, Red & White factions
that came within a hair's breadth
of dethroning Justinian.
We see a living relic of this
in the Pallio race in Siena, Italy.
Florence & Verona also had such races.
The race has no rules,
riders kick each other,
pummel each other,
and employ any means to victory.
The "colors"
participating in the race
represent urban factions
which dominated these cities,
in the absence of any other force.
Travel from one section
of such a city to another section
was well nigh impossible
without armed escort
and a passport from a faction leader.
This fact of medieval life
provides the dynamic for Shakespeare's"Romeo & Juliet",
whose problem was to be trapped
within rival gang enclaves.
Such groups ran Tweed's New York City,
and formed the backbone of
rival fire departments
and police forces.
The motivation at play
was less altruism,
than the scavenger's desire for "first bite"
at the contents of burned houses, or the wallets of unfortunate detainees.
Fresh from the post-Tweed reforms,
we now think of gangs
as a civil enforcement problem,
separated from normal life.
This is a parochial, short term view,
one not backed up by history.
Cliques form a central part of human society in history,
and the acknowlegement of factions,
and the fostering of faction
are commonplace,
pandemic....the norm.
The Fascism of WWII, and in the Balkans,
as well as Mao's
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
can be seen not so much
as "modernism-gone-wrong",
but as a simple rebirth of the eternal faction,
this time in a modern guise, cynically used.
Having established that the phenomenon exists,
consider two culture groups,
in competition within a modern secular state.
One group views common violence as abhorrent,
and has no recourse to it.
This same group believes
in a secular modernist inclusion paradigm,
welcoming all people,
all cultureways,
and all pathologies
attached to those cultures
as equally valuable human expressions.
Opposed to them,
posit a group with strict taboos,
an exclusionist world view,
an attraction to conflict,
in fact a "holy" mandate
to foist unending conflict on all
who are not within their group.
Well versed in faction,
comfortable only when championing a faction,
they "know better"
than to be misled by the diffuse
non-discrimination
inherent in modernity.
To them,
such tolerance is devil's work,
and those in the employ of evil
must be treated in correct fashion, as slaves,
as ignorant and unholy rival gangs.
When assessing
tactical advantages attached
to the views held by either side,
it becomes obvious
that there is an advantage
to behaving in the old way,
and using your youth cadre in the old way, on the street.
When dressed in a "charitable" or "civic action" guise
recognizable to the secular opponent, such defacto
brownshirts can be absolutely unopposed by any
civic force available to the seculars, and can then
begin to move mountains for their prophet.
In recognizing that Islam fosters behaviors considered
delinquency in the secular West, cruelty "made holy",
women repressed "for their own good", hate encouraged,
provided only that it be Kaffir-hate, one can begin to
understand the 1000 year crescent of fire around
Islam's edges. It meets other groups in a well defined
factional warfare blessed by its highest authorities,
a warfare imprudently devalued, squandered,
de-integrated out of European politico-religious life,
discarded as "youth crime" or "sports riots" in the West.
When trying to form a clear, undistorted view of Islam,
One is struck again and again by its multiple personae.
It glitters and glimmers, internally seeming charitable,
all inclusive, the solution to humankind's problems,
and yet at other times seeming barbaric, outmoded,
choked with misogyny, and a poison to the best hopes
of the human race.
It is in this doppelganger shape that Islam now exports
its "base" to Europe. Swimming in a sea of simple,
hopeful, moderate Islamic immigrants, people with
great gifts to bestow on the West, a few special men
can be counted upon to blaze a more focused path.
It is this small, special group, this "base", this Qaeda,
that harks back to the medieval verities, not as some
surreptitious mafia, or some furtive criminal Cosa Nostra,
but as proud Submitters to the divine...saints, if you will,
joyously exiling themselves, courting death, even,
just to set the stage for factional victory.
Sun Tzu , and his notion of competing generals,
is reduced to pedestrian banality in the face of
such a leaderless, omnipresent, eternally dedicated
and defeat-proof tactical schema.
For Sun Tzu, and those who would follow his advice,
must step outside the normal in order to act.
In the Sun Tzu scheme, war happens not in the everyday,
but on some field apart, risking all.
Much is lost in such a scheme.
Is there a superior war regime?
An Intramural Bushido?
War sans all possibility of defeat?
A ghost army, unfightable by military means?
An army that doppelgangs into ordinary citizens
whenever it wishes, thus tying the hands
of any military Gulliver with his own civil laws?
Are the immigrant imams of Holland, France,
Spain, & the UK instigating such a force?
Is Iraq alive with such a force?
Is the vaunted "Al Qaeda" just a misnomer,
not representing an organization, but simply
the occasional brave hero stepping up to
martyrdom as an inspiration to the factions?
Are the postmodern polities of Western Europe
prone, helpless to defend their much-too-advanced
notions against ancient cadres of inspired youth?
Is our much-heralded Western Democracy
simply a doomed heresy of the Dar-Al-Harb?
Harry the Riverdog
The writer of the article wants to point out Muslim extremists, but chooses to ignore the same type of behavior from Christian extremists who participate in attacking those who did not attack them as well. Pointing out the bad behavior in others without acknowledging and correcting your own bad behavior is hypocritical. The U.S. attacked a Muslim country under Bush that did not attack us. Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration called those responsible to task for their actions. Both the Republicans and the Democrats share responsibility for this now. I say remove the log from your own eye before you remove the splinter from someone else's.
1 Comments