Battle of World Views

In a February 2015 article in The Times of Israel, blogger Hussein Aboubakr, a Muslim, writes about the truth of the "Moderate Muslim."  He states that, "In my childhood I was told that every day that passes on the Islamic nation without a caliphate is a sin. That the failures and miseries of the Muslim world started the moment we gave up conquests and wars against the infidels. That our prosperity depends on conquering new lands, converting new believers, looting new resources and enslaving more women. I was taught that a Jew is essentially a demon in flesh and that it is our destiny as good Muslims to kill them all. I was regularly fueled by battle stories and stories of lethal feuds of seventh century Arabia. It was not just me, a small child in Cairo, who was raised with these great apocalyptic prophecies, it was also so many people from all around the globe."

The article covers the issue of the so-called "Moderate Muslim" in much more detail.  but his key point is:

"My argument is, we are using the label “moderate” for everyone who is not trying to kill us regardless of that person’s actual views. We are in a very bad situation to the extent that we have confused moderation with self-interest. The majority of the Muslim world may not be moderate, but rather acting in its daily life from a purely self-interested point of view. This is a very good thing. We should encourage all Muslims to act and preserve their self-interests. But we should not lie to them about the nature of their religious ideas."

Facts are facts.  This is a contest between world views. The question is, how do you combat a world view?

The West has continued to meddle, since the 1950s (see The History of Folly), in the affairs of Muslim countries by propping up monster dictators and most recently bombing many innocent civilians, we take what were for many, many years, self-interested, if bigoted, Muslims and radicalize them to fight against us by sacrificing their own lives. Most people in the Middle East personally know people who have been killed by western weapons.

And, the dirty secret is, groups like ISIS, know this. They know that if they pull off a Paris type attack, it is likely that the west will retaliate by massive bombing attacks and other military actions that will kill more innocents and, therefore create more and more recruits for ISIS. It's the exact opposite from what we would think.

The definition of insanity is to continuing doing what you have always done and expect different results. I don't know the whole answer, but what we have been doing isn't working...has never worked in the Middle East. If you're old enough, and have a memory longer than the average American, you can remember the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. There was a lot of discussion then that the USSR was crazy if they thought they could really win in a country of zealots who fight a guerrilla war. That these people had been attacked for centuries and never truly conquered.

Why, then, do we believe we can transform these zealots to western democracy by bombing them back to the stone age? It doesn't work. We need to consider new ideas...we need to consider that the same morons who brought us Obamacare are the same people who run our international policy. Why do we trust them at all?

We need to get a longer view of history...be honest about that history...and as free people, need always to question the motivations and actions of our elected (and non-elected) representatives.

Aftermath

I'm a bit too shell shocked to go into any real analysis of the election, so I just wanted to get down some of my general thoughts:

• This is now the second presidential election in a row where the Republican party decided it was best to run a "nice" campaign.  They are so kowtowed by the threats of being called racist, that they would not deal directly and firmly with Obama's history and record.  They allowed the Democrats to continue to distort facts with very little response.  This is a complete lack of leadership and the Republican party deserved to lose.
• It seems to me that we have now become a country, as a whole, who is willing to follow Europe down the socialist debt hole toward insolvency.   Alexis de Tocqueville  is credited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”  We seem to have reached this point.  We no longer ask what we can do for our country, but want only to know what our country can do for us.  We seem to be willing to sell our legacy for free health care, food stamps and Obama phones.
• The nation has reached a state of shallowness and vapidity from which I fear only truly hard times will shake us.  I saw polling information that said something like 43% of those responding to exit polling said that President Obama's handling of the hurricane Sandy disaster was "very important" to their decision.  This is absolutely astounding...and more than a little distressing...to me.  That someone could, after four years of broken promises, failed policy and nonexistent leadership, see the President acting "presidential" in a brief, staged photo-op after a storm and think that made him a good president is incomprehensible.  The fact that the response of the Federal government has been less than stellar since then means nothing to the Obama groupies with stars in their eyes.
• Half the country seems to be hopelessly invested in class warfare...just like the Russian people were before the communist revolution...or the Germans before the Nazi take over.  This has caused them to draw stark, black and white lines in their minds.  Corporations are always evil and Unions are always good.  Democrats always acts for the good of the people and tell the truth...Republicans are selfish liars who only care about what's best for them and their Corporate overlords.  The rich have stolen everything they have from the poor. They are blind to the fact that absolute power corrupts, absolutely...regardless of party, occupation or income.  They are easily fooled by 20 second sound bites and focus-group tested tag lines.
•  Facts and details mean nothing to many people.  They will not hear the truth that the largess they vote themselves is financed by trillions of dollars of indebtedness to our enemies.  They will not see that the policies of their chosen representatives have caused the financial woes we have been experiencing.   No discussion of corruption...no discussion of the rule of law moves them.  They mock, scoff at and ignore anything that does not agree with the approved party line...and this is on both sides of the political divide.  When confronted with hard issues, they do not answer them...they will only excuse, obfuscate or ignore them...but never deal with them.  If all else fails, they just blame Bush.
• There are no statesmen left...only power hungry politicians. 
• The Republicans are only marginally better than the Democrats...but we were unwilling to move even incrementally toward smaller, less intrusive government.
• I fear for our future.

Should Israel Be Returned to the...Turks?

There is a lot of discussion going on about what America's role should be in the so-called Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  Are the Palestinians entitled to the land that is currently Israel because they were there before 1948 when it was given to the Jews by the United Nations?

Well, if that is the criteria, maybe we should give it to the Turks.  Before the most recent incarnation of the Israeli nation, the land of Palestine was controlled by the British, as part of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. This was put in place after World War I which saw the defeat of, among others, the Ottoman Empire...the Turks.  This land had been part of the Ottoman Empire since about 1517.  So, I would say that if anyone has claim to Israel, it would be the Turks, wouldn't you?

The vast majority of the land under the Mandate, as well as that under French control, were given to Arab peoples. Only a very small portion was given to the Jews...only about 1/6th of one percent of the land in the Middle East.

Before this, though, it was the Turks who controlled and owned this region.  Of course, before that, it was the Mamluks, the Arabs, the Persians and the Byzantines who controlled the land.  Oh, then before that there were the Romans...who gave the region the name of Palestine after the biblical enemies of the Jews, the Philistines...who were not Arab.  And, if you go back a little further, it was the land of...the Jews.

And, who really are the Palestinians?  There was historically never a country, tribe or people known as the Palestinians.  These, really were just Arabs who lived in the region who were not welcomed into the other Arab lands.  Some refer to them as the rabble or outcasts of the Arab world.  From a control or ownership standpoint, they really have no strong claim on the land.

So, where does this leave us? Who should get Israel?  The current occupants, the so-called Palestinians?  Should we give it back to the Turks maybe?  Well, in my opinion, it is the current occupants who own it.  Look, I am no Zionist.  While I am a christian, I do not believe that the Jews have some kind of divine right to the land.  I believe that God gave it to them once, but then, through disobedience, they lost it. I am, however, a supporter of Israel in the same way as I am a supporter of Great Britain, or Germany, or Japan.  They are friends and allies.

Every country and region in the world has been shaped over the centuries by wars, conquerors and political agreements of all sorts.  At one time most of Europe was controlled by the Roman Empire...then came the Normans, Vandals, Saxons, etc., etc.   How far do we have to go back in time to redress the perceived wrongs of the past? Hopefully we can become more and more "civilized" in our dealings among nations as time passes, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.  But, until then, we need to face the facts.  We all are a product of our history, good or bad.  We are where we are today, and we must align with our friends in good times and bad for all of our mutual safety.  If we abandon friends due to international peer pressure or  growing internal political struggles, we will be left with no friends because we will not be a trustworthy ally.

Israel is our only true and stable friend in a region filled with our sworn enemies.  We must support them.