Ledeen was right; Said was wrong
posted by Jason Pappas at 1:57 AM
Friday, September 01, 2006
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17 Comments:
Ducky, I’m a critic of Bush. You haven’t been listening.
Prolific comment spammer Mr. Ducky is certainly persistent in using this blog as a dumping ground for his words of immense wisdom.
If one reads my comments in the linked article, it is clear that some writers warned of the Islamic Revival three decades ago. Contrary to what some leftists think, America isn’t the reason Muslims turn to Islam. Ledeen argued that a theocratic fascism was taking over in Iran while the left snickered that Islam was moribund.
Now that it is becoming hard to deny, some leftists are finally taking notice of the Islamic Revival; but they are trying to pretend that it has come about in the last few years as a response to Bush’s policies. This is the new leftist mantra. "Now, we have a problem." They refuse to acknowledge the vast diffusion of revivalist sentiment in the last 30 years.
Leftists are becoming irrelevant to the discussion, as we’ve seen here. As a matter of fact, they are nothing more than an irritant.
Ducky,
At times you rant on about how people are either ignorant of Islam or are unduly afraid of it. At other times you speak forebodingly of some sort of Iranian Shia superpower.
One question:
Do you ever attempt to be taken seriously?
Thanks, Jason, for this relevant piece. I will read it (+ your comment links) with great interest.
best,
JMK
The Duck is retro and following the fasmiliar Commie tactics from the 1960's
1 Lets see the Shah was authoritarian, so lets highlight his excesses and ignore the rampant abuses of the Mullahs. The Mullahs did get one thing right. They may discriminate against Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, but they got rid of Duckys kind rather quickly and violently. Nor does the Duck even mention the his kind were instumental in the initial Revolution.
2 Set the bar for victory impossibly high.
Lets see mere survival of Islamo-Nazi drug running thugs is victory.
3 Ignore Hezbollah tactics that directly cause civilian casualties in Lebanon and Israel.
4 Manipulation of the media and staged massacres. Lets see a staged massacre at Qana. Maybe ducky should use Green Helmet as his next avatar.
There is an irony in that India is making Ducky irrelevant. The last bastion of Communism is Higher Ed.
As United States degrees become garbage the number either accademia
will meet the challenge or become irrelevant. Businesses are now hiring Indian business school grads because they learn valuable skills and ours learn Rigoberta Menchu and Chomsky.
This may sound funny but actual Iranian and Communist Chinese degrees contain less political fluff classes than American Universities. A typical Iranian grad takes two political courses.
This is also the case in China as well.
Jason, nice post on Michael Yon's site.
This is what I posted (just now, awaiting moderation):
>>
I am in the middle east right now, working long hours…Earlier this past week I was taking pictures around town. Some kids were playing soccer. It was cute and innocent and looked like thousands of similar idyllic scenes from back home in Canada.
Most kids in the middle east play the same games me and my friends used to play back home - soccer (football), video games, racing bicycles…throwing water balloons.
Sometimes though…you see kids play another game. With toy machine guns, a group of kids “abduct” one of their friends, who’s dressed in some obvious Americana like a yankees hat but it’s usually a makeshift poncho painted as the American flag.
The game is called “Let’s take an American hostage.”
These poor little kids are already beginning the march along the path to jihadism.
Most of them don’t even stand a chance, they’re indoctrinated from the time they’re in the crib.
>>
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A new videotape has surfaced featuring Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and an American member of al Qaeda wanted by the FBI, according to a counterterrorism expert.
The tape, called "Invitation to Islam," runs 48 minutes, expert Laura Mansfield said. Al-Zawahiri speaks for about 4 minutes on the tape, and the American narrates the rest.
Californian Adam Gadahn, wearing a white robe and turban, introduces the message by calling on Westerners to convert.
After reading Ledeen's article, isn't it surprising that there are still so many people ignorant in what Iran's intentions are? It was obvious to Ledeen in the late seventies. Ronald Reagan knew to respond swiftly to Libya. Any response other than violence is taken as weakness. I don't blame Iran and terrorist organizations for seeing the West as weak.
Do you remember the late 70s in NYC shortly after khomeini took over in Iran [with Zbig's help of course; Zbig for those who don't know him, was the Edgar Bergen ventriloquist for the Charley McCarthy dummy played by James Earl Carter]? In those days, Ramsey Clark, former attorney general of the USA and then chairman of the national advisory council of the ACLU, was pimping for Khomeini, as was the Nation magazine [go read their issues from the first half of 1979]. Clark once complained that the New York Jews were preventing normal relations between the US and Khomeini, despite his own best efforts. Meanwhile, the Nation mag. was describing Khomeini's entourage at the time as a flock of civil liberarians. As they say, paper is the most durable material in the universe. It can stand anything.
Of course, khomeini's writings were already known. He was obviously a jihadist fanatic. But Zbig and Clark pretended not to know what khomeini stood for. Anyhow, I don't blame zbig and clark for being Democrats; I'm not sure the Republicans are much different when it comes to helping civil libertarian ayatollahs.
By the way, Michael Ledeen testified before the Congress' International Relations committee [this past March, it seems]. His testimony was translated and published in the Italain Il Foglio on 9 March 2006. Ledeen is now saying that the mullahs' regime can only be removed by an internal revolution. He now opposes military force. But what are we going to do with the Iranian bomb that may be a lot closer than the 5 years that the CIA is claiming??
The Ledeen and Kramer articles are first-rate. Much appreciated. Along with the former, may I offer another voice from the past?
Eliyahu m'Tsiyon, thanks for the reference. Yes, having that in print is far more useful than the memories of a lone blogger.
Unfortunately, Ledeen’s hope of a popular Persian uprising doesn’t solve our problem since it can’t happen on the time scale required for our defense or the defense of Israel.
Nice discussion of 19th century travelers to Israel … on your website. I was aware of Twain but not Flaubert.
Jeremayakovka, in that article, he's spot on. I was going to quote it but I wound up with almost the whole article.
That 1979 article helped me support a point in my latest post. May it bring you a curious reader or two.
Further reading:
Re academics' initial naivete re Iran's Islamic revolution, see passing references in the important, but somewhat overestimated, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Another great European writer who wrote about the "Holy Land" is Rene Chateaubriand, "Itinerary From Paris to Jerusalem".
Thanks for the tips on what to read.
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Toy Machine Guns
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