Down the slimey slope we go…
Hitchens on the thesis put forward by Robert Wright in a piece called “Who created Major Hasan?” that the Fort Hood shootings were caused by the War on Terror, and the supposed outrage caused by the killing of Muslims by Western forces:
For a start, did Hasan or Muhammad ever say what “killing” of which “Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan” they had in mind? There isn’t a day goes by without the brutal slaughter of Muslims in both countries by al-Qaida or the Taliban. And that’s not just because most (though not all) civilians in both countries happen to be of the Islamic faith. The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim. Many of those killed in London, Madrid, and New York were Muslim, and almost all the victims callously destroyed in similar atrocities in Istanbul, Cairo, Casablanca, and Algiers in the recent past were Muslim, too. It takes a true intellectual to survey this appalling picture and to say, as Wright does, that we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers because “the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy—a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims—is so dubious.” Dubious? The only thing dubious here is his command of language. When did the U.S. Army ever do what the jihadists do every day: deliberately murder Muslim civilians and brag on video about the fact? For shame. The slippery slope—actually the slimy slope—is the one down which Wright is skidding.
It is he, who I am taking as representative of a larger mentality here, who uses equally inert lingo to suggest that Maj. Hasan was “pushed over the edge by his perception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.” That’s a nice and shady use of the word “perception.” Might it not be equally true to say that Hasan was all-too-easily pulled over the edge, having already signaled his devout eagerness for the dive, by a cleric who makes a living by justifying murder of Muslims and non-Muslims alike?
Via Norm.
Comments
| 25 November 2009, 12:43 pm |
Self-hating? What a convenient way to dismiss anyone who challenges authority or received wisdom.
Like that self-hating anti-Zionist Jew Jesus Christ I suppose.
| 25 November 2009, 12:47 pm |
It takes a true intellectual to survey this appalling picture and to say, as Wright does, that we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers because “the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy—a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims—is so dubious.”
But it takes an intellectual of Christopher Hitchens’ caliber to tell us that bombing and invading foreign countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan is not going to have any unpleasant consequences.
| 25 November 2009, 12:50 pm |
The slippery slope—actually the slimy slope—is the one down which Wright is skidding.
The sellout Hitchens by contrast has already slid all the way into cesspool alongside all the other imperialist ex-trots.
| 25 November 2009, 12:52 pm |
“Self-hating? What a convenient way to dismiss anyone who challenges authority or received wisdom.
Like that self-hating anti-Zionist Jew Jesus Christ I suppose.”
Get your facts right Margaret. Jesus was a Jew, and by definition Zionist as his own words prove,
“Go nowhere among the gentiles and stay only among the children of Israel” Matthew 10-4
| 25 November 2009, 1:09 pm |
Fisherman Pete, he said that only in the context of the ministry of his apostles, i.e. he told his followers to focus on converting Jews first – which proves the opposite point to the one you are trying to make.
He also said, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” to the dismay of Zionists, and scolded Jewish racists with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
And of course he drove the Jewish traders out of God’s house …
| 25 November 2009, 1:10 pm |
“Self-hating? What a convenient way to dismiss anyone who challenges authority or received wisdom.
Like that self-hating anti-Zionist Jew Jesus Christ I suppose.”
You suppose wrong.
| 25 November 2009, 1:26 pm |
Like that self-hating anti-Zionist Jew Jesus Christ I suppose.
Get your history straight straight Margaret. Jesus Christ wasn’t a Jew, he was a Palestinian Arab. The Jews led by the hypnotist Christopher Hitchens killed him because he was an antizionist and later when Major Hassan learned of Hitchens’ secret program at Fort Hood to crank out Zionist automatons posing as US soldiers, he killed them and saved the world.
Didn’t Margaret learn anything at school? Jeez.
| 25 November 2009, 1:43 pm |
“He also said, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” to the dismay of Zionists, and scolded Jewish racists with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
And of course he drove the Jewish traders out of God’s house …”
Hm… Bob Wright seems to have neo nazi followers.
Why am I not surprised?
| 25 November 2009, 1:46 pm |
Jesus was born to Jews but He was the Son of God.
I told him to start His Ministry there. Hence His words to the Apostles in Matthew 10.
| 25 November 2009, 1:56 pm |
The comment above by “Mary Magdalene” was absurdly sinister,
but it may not have an awful lot to do with Robert Wright.
So I should probably retract my remark about him having
neo nazi followers.
| 25 November 2009, 2:03 pm |
thomas k, do you really consider the teachings of The New Testament sinister?
| 25 November 2009, 2:05 pm |
It is pitiable the way some people are posting here claiming to be supernatural beings.
As for me, I’m in all your hearts and you know it!
| 25 November 2009, 2:14 pm |
The usual creepy gang of people denying that Jesus was Jewish … one despairs, really one does.
| 25 November 2009, 2:14 pm |
The usual creepy gang of people denying that Jesus was Jewish … one despairs, really one does.
| 25 November 2009, 2:14 pm |
The usual creepy gang of people denying that Jesus was Jewish … one despairs, really one does.
| 25 November 2009, 2:14 pm |
The usual creepy gang of people denying that Jesus was Jewish … one despairs, really one does.
| 25 November 2009, 2:25 pm |
After Jesus, Jews had a choice, that’s all.
| 25 November 2009, 3:13 pm |
Perhaps jesus was a ‘moderate’ Jew like the mythical ‘moderate’ Muslim who will reform Islam and write the ‘New Qur’an’.
I await the Islamic Jesus.
| 25 November 2009, 3:28 pm |
Well Alan, extremist Muslims claim (like Fisherman Pete) that Jesus is only for Jews (they quote the same verse from Matthew).
So an Islamic Jesus would be as big a shock for Islam as it was for Judaism.
| 25 November 2009, 3:28 pm |
I await the Islamic Jesus.
Don’t bother waiting. You missed him. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, on more than a few occasions referred to himself as being analogous to Jesus Christ.
| 25 November 2009, 3:33 pm |
Satan, Prince of Darkness: Go to Hell or I’ll have to whip your sorry hide (again).
| 25 November 2009, 3:35 pm |
“Fisherman Pete, he said that only in the context of the ministry of his apostles, i.e. he told his followers to focus on converting Jews first – which proves the opposite point to the one you are trying to make.
He also said, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” to the dismay of Zionists, and scolded Jewish racists with the parable of the Good Samaritan.”
Umm, Zionism is a secular ideology, no? That would make “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” perfectly in step with zionism.
Thought this is irrelevent. To put modern Zionism in a biblical context is absurdly anachronistic to me.
| 25 November 2009, 3:43 pm |
Mary Margarine, your Jew-hating rants are not “the teachings of
the New Testament”. Silly neo nazi cow.
| 25 November 2009, 3:44 pm |
Marge, it is one thing to say that our war on terror won’t have unpleasant consequences (which is not what Hitchens is saying), and quite another to say that said consequences are our fault and moral responsibility (which is what he is arguing against). Nice to see you completely fail to address the fact pointed out that Islamist terrorists’ victims are by a large margin their fellow muslims. Or that their absolutist ideology makes them a mortal enemy to anyone deemed in their own eyes as insufficiently godly (i.e. most of humanity) . In other words, all you have to do to provoke an Islamist is to exist. And of course, your denying Islamists moral agency, thus reducing them to the status of reactive amoebas is nothing new…
| 25 November 2009, 3:56 pm |
>>> Nice to see you completely fail to address the fact pointed out that Islamist terrorists’ victims are by a large margin their fellow muslims.
That’s because I agree with it.
However, I also believe that the West’s (and that includes the USSR) bombing, invasion and occupation of muslim countries has inevitable consequences, and that the proclamation of a “war on terror” is an absolute gift to the believers in Jihad.
But Hitchens is far to clever to see these simple truths.
| 25 November 2009, 5:29 pm |
Margaret you’re a sick and thoroughly nasty piece of work. Could you answer Michael Fife’s points then fuck away off? Thanks.
| 25 November 2009, 6:06 pm |
I think to parse this thread:
1) Hitchens is saying the obvious, that since Muslims are being slaughtered and horribly horribly oppressed by our Islamist enemies, it isn’t brutality that offends people like Hasan, his rage is the result of mere indoctrination by the very people who are doing the oppressing.
2) what people like Margret and “Mary Magdalene” are thinking goes along the lines of “I don’t give a flying fuck that people are oppressed and slaughtered, I just knew that if we oppose some stupid brown creeps somewhere they’ll get pissed off and some of them will attack back. Women slaughtered in stadium, girls schools blown up, whole countries oppressed – who the fuck cares, those aren’t OUR people. Jesus don’t you understand that brown people don’t matter? You fuckers! God damn nigger lovers the lot of you!”
| 25 November 2009, 6:34 pm |
Josh – exactly.
| 25 November 2009, 6:38 pm |
The Ft Hood killer wasn’t reacting to anything. He was a fighter in the war on terror, just not on our side. He was an agent of the enemy, operating behind our lines, and as such he could be executed under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Had he not been in the armed forces, his jihad would have manifested in some other way. Perhaps a suicide bombing in a shopping centre, or an attack on a school.
“I am commanded to fight the infidels until there is no more unbelief.”
That means us.
| 25 November 2009, 7:15 pm |
Except, Monty, he gave us plenty of warning that he was going to go off. If he was a trained agent of an enemy he wouldn’t be saying clearly what he believed and basically begging to be noticed and relieved of duty.
I wonder how the army will adjust to this.
| 25 November 2009, 9:33 pm |
Josh, thanks for your short but accurate summary of this discussion.
Cudos to tamask for “silly neo-nazi cow”.
Nutters, shouldn’t you be chewing carpets or something?
| 25 November 2009, 11:18 pm |
The Ft Hood killer wasn’t reacting to anything. He was a fighter in the war on terror, just not on our side. He was an agent of the enemy, operating behind our lines, and as such he could be executed under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Maybe he was just bullied by an uncaring and unfeeling army who didn’t grant his requests…
| 25 November 2009, 11:54 pm |
Mullah, It occurs to me that he joined the military for his own purposes, one of which was to milk the taxpayer to pay for his medical training. Then he did everything he could to get himself discharged, and unsurprisingly, they have a rule to stop you doing that. Well they would, wouldn’t they? But they should have picked up on his latent jihadism.
| 26 November 2009, 12:51 am |
I haven’t been able to find out when he joined the military. How long did he serve for?
| 26 November 2009, 1:47 am |
Josh Scholar: “Hitchens is saying the obvious, that since Muslims are being slaughtered and horribly horribly oppressed by our Islamist enemies, it isn’t brutality that offends people like Hasan, his rage is the result of mere indoctrination by the very people who are doing the oppressing.”
Yes Hasan was acting in the tradition of the Stalinist and Maoist intellectuals of the past. He just went a step further and became a mass murderer himself instead of “only” justifying it. However is indocrination really the explanation?
On a related point I wonder if even “fundamentalism” is a major issue? There are fundamentalist groups that keep to themselvres and don’t try to wage a war on society. Hatred is a more basic issue and it’s seperate from the fundamentalist one.
Self-hatred is the most basic of all and it is what motivated Stalinists like Sartre and Co. In their day it tended to be an INTELLECTUAL sickness. The man in the street might gave been a rabid nationalist or racist but even that was more “normal” than the antics of the self-hating intelligentsia. Today the virus of self-hatred is no longer confined to the ivory tower but is infecting the man in the street – or in the army. That helps to explain Hasan.
| 26 November 2009, 7:53 am |
Margaret: However, I also believe that the West’s (and that includes the USSR) bombing, invasion and occupation of muslim countries has inevitable consequences, and that the proclamation of a “war on terror” is an absolute gift to the believers in Jihad.
And bringing a semblance of democracy and freedom to backwater dictatorship countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan has inevitable positive consequences (such as justice, equality, human rights, and other goody stuff denigrated and despised by reactionary postmodern leftists as unsuitable for Muslims). You some douchebag – aren’t ya?
| 26 November 2009, 11:08 am |
Kilbarry1 I disagree. I think each belief system has its own mental results. Islam is different from revolutionary communism is different from buddhism.
If you want to understand people, understand what they’ve been taught, how they were taught it, what strange way it shaped their perceptions and mind, how they came to view the world because of it…
Equating Islamism with socialism I think only shows you shallow similarities. Islamism is it’s own unique kind of poison.
| 26 November 2009, 1:26 pm |
Definitions are slippery things but I would not equate Islamism with socialism. Not being an expert, I tend to see “Islamism” as a form of political Islam based on hatred of enemies rather than a desire to convert them. I would compare it to Stalinism and Maoism and also to Naziism. Hitler was not trying to convert the Jews any more than Stalin was the capitalists.
Intellectuals like Jean Paul Sartre managed to reconcile existentialism with marxism because his real motivation was hatred of his own class and his own society and that hatred swept away all rational considerations. His present day successors manage to reconcile their far left ideologies with support for Islamic terrorists because they too are driven by similar hatreds.
Naturally this theory owes something to my own religious background (which is based on the conversion ideal!)
| 26 November 2009, 6:46 pm |
I tend to see “Islamism” as a form of political Islam based on hatred of enemies rather than a desire to convert them.
That is an insight worth repeating. Thank you!
Wright is a standard fellow-traveller and a standard self-hater, all bundled into one revolting but alas all too familiar package, one that contaminates what used to be thought of as the enlightened West.