19 Comments

1. Pajamas Media » Women Bite Dogs in Iraq:

[...] Read the entire story here. [...]

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:10 pm 2. AJ:

“women of the Middle East are the strongest revolutionary force in the region.”

True, which is why it is so odd & hypocritical that the “feminists” here and abroad are the last to be interested in condemning the anti-female/anti-liberal ideas of radical Islam.

Yes, Hillary the Hawk needs to step up. Will she, though?

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:31 pm 3. robotech master:

minor correction should be sunni not shi’ite(unless it really was shi’ites but being tirkit is mostly sunni along with the vast majority of Al-Qaeda.

PS mod delete this post once correction is made.

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:45 pm 4. robotech master:

would probably help if I posted the line in question

“So we’re talking about Shi’ites(should be sunni), and the menfolk in their town, whether religious or “just dads,” got wind of their daughters’ intentions and talked them out of it.”

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:46 pm 5. Son of Max:

Definitely Sunni.

AQ consider Shi’ites to be vermin.

Nov 27, 2008 - 1:23 am 6. Greyhawk:

“Yes, I’d like to know a lot more about this story.”

Me too. Too bad the media didn’t surge with us, a lot of people would know a lot more about a lot of things.

Nov 27, 2008 - 5:07 am 7. Winston:

It’s great news! And it happened thanks to the service of people like your sons. Give thanks to them!

Nov 27, 2008 - 9:14 am 8. Kevin R.C. O'Brien:

Excellent catch, Michael, and I agree with you on the value of that website to the general public. I think PJM could do worse than have some one commit to scouring it for surprises like this once in a while.

The Times makes the point that they will not run stuff like this because it’s “one-sided propaganda.” Paradoxically, they have no problem running with sole, anonymous, sources on the other side, but then, that’s how they roll.

Here’s another sub-site that most Americans don’t know exists. What’s interesting is to see who the heroes have been interviewed by. Note the big broadcast networks seem not to talk to young folks who win, say, the Navy Cross. Peculiar, that… unless you’ve experienced the poisoned atmosphere in the modern newsroom.

http://www.defenselink.mil/heroes/index.html

You could do worse than put a visit to that link on a monthly calendar, just to see greatness in a generation too many my age are eager to dismiss. And maybe take a little inspiration from it, and today, add one more thing to your list of why you’re thankful.

Nov 27, 2008 - 10:21 am 9. NahnCee:

So … why didn’t the mullahs and the fathers themselves turn the daughters into the cops, rather than trying to talk them out of it? How many untalked-out daughters are still out there training?

THIS is the part of Muslim behavior that I really really really don’t like and that I think we also see in America: if they know absolutely that someone is planning to do something wrong, they will not rat that person out. It’s just indefensible that the whole culture behaves that way.

Nov 27, 2008 - 10:57 am 10. Dominique:

Sir,
As I express much interest in human behavior and psychology since more than a decade, I did the effort for some months to read and learn a bit about Muslim terrorists and insurgents.

I initially assumed that those persons were psychologically disturbed or manipulated folks, like most profanes think.

But, contrary to my expectations, all my readings and the time I spent thinking about this particular subject proved to be fruitless, in the end, as the specialized literature dedicated to it, as taken as a whole, is strikingly made of contradictory statements and theories.

Authoritative specialists such as Marc Sageman claim that Muslim fanatics are no crackpots and are in no way “Mandchurian candidates,” whereas some others explain in detail the exact opposite. For worse, we are in no need of new theories and other breakthroughs, which continue piling on an already rich and heavy stack of specialized literature, as the book-review you recently published on the National Review exemplifies this problem.

As an aside, despite the credit a person such as Mr. Marc Sageman enjoys, I continue wondering why in the Hell Muslim terrorist cells and organizations would eschew recruiting some mentally unbalanced folks on a case-by-case or regular basis whereas nearly all, if not all, intelligence services around this world regularly do it, as another range of literature testifies for?

I attempted by my own to find some sound and unmistakable patterns in Muslim violence and, in this endeavor, I took a careful look at some case studies, armed with a decent knowledge on police investigation, psychology, psychiatry and behaviorism – in vain.

This personal enterprise yielded barely more than headaches and boredom, in the end; and my sole relief was to notice that no one in this world, including Professor Bernard Lewis, has proven able to set up a definitive and unquestionable answer as to what characterizes each and every would-be-Muslim terrorist or insurgent.

What we call “Muslim fanaticism” appears to be much different of terrorism and/or insurgency relating to more rational motives such as Palestinian irredentism or even far-leftist ideology, at least. As taken as a whole, today’s violence driven by Muslim considerations or claims seems to be irrational, if not just constantly changing, as the meaning of the Holy Muslim scriptures is constantly reinterpreted or even reshaped.
As said otherwise, it is tantamount to bluntly suggest that Muslim fanaticism seems to be based upon – nothing but the unfathomable mysteries of the human brain.

I acknowledge that the sole virtue of the aforesaid could be to explaining why are we unable so set up an accurate profile of the would-be Muslim fanatic. But as far as I could see, no one ever succeeded in bringing more conclusive evidences.

Today, I shifted nearly the whole of my free time to criminology relating to sexual violence; and I found that this other interesting matter bears one resemblance at least with Muslim violence. That is, no one, be him the best criminologist or acknowledged expert of this other field, can pre-detect – as anti-terrorist administrations and specialists would like to – would-be criminals or violent rapists; even though a more consistent and helpful array of common patterns can be found in the mind of this other category of persons.
After all, I believe that few could question my initiative to extend this comparison to drug traffickers, money counterfeiters, or even arsonists as I’m suggesting that Muslim terrorism relates to irrational behavior.

While I am benightedly enlarging the scope of this comment to the whole field of criminology, it provides me with an opportunity to submit to you and to your readers this second sorry remark.
That is, if cases of violent rapes, money counterfeiting, and arsons have been consistently recurrent in the history of humanity; today’s forms of Muslim violence associated to its claimed motives are not. They punctually happened and related to other religions, as the case of the Gun Powder Plot of 1605 may exemplify it, but they remain desperately relevant to the realm of exceptions.

I will ad third and last remark, which says that another irrational feature of Muslim violence is that it fails to be consistent in time and to aims at all countries likely to act or acting in an unfriendly manner toward Islam and/or Muslim individuals.

It is none of my intention to ad excerpts taken from The Game of Nations, written by Miles Copeland as early as 1973, to what is a long comment, already; but in the light of all has been said, stated, and written to day about why a Muslim can decide to be a violent person, this book and the opinion of its author remain the soundest and the most reliable I have ever read, even if they fail to provide an exhaustive array of answers to this question.
I bemoan that the political and geopolitical approach suggested by this author could hardly bear media and blog coverage substantially similar to what today’s terrorist experts enjoy, if I may put it that way.

That’s why I express my admiration for all those specialists who unabashedly continue on attempting to detect and chase terrorists and would-be terrorists and small terrorist cells. With all due respect for their works and noble efforts, I hardly resist the temptation to perceive them, as a whole, to some hypothetical organization tracking murders and murder attempts and even attempting to forecast murder attempts in keeping an eye, on a daily basis, on all handguns and handguns manufacturing companies existing in the world; and in attempting to find the cause of deadly gunshots through analysis of the metallic structure of the guns thus involved in such mischiefs.

If the efforts, skills, and talent of those specialists prove to yield successful results – as news regularly report about it – the scope of their investigations seems unlikely to be rewarded by more than empirical results, as long as it limits to the effects of Muslim violence and to the study of Muslim scriptures and habits.

Sincerely,

Nov 27, 2008 - 11:37 am 11. fulmar:

Unless you reference a miraculous transformation, it should be: “turned themselves in to coalition forces”

Nov 27, 2008 - 8:16 pm 12. Seanthebastard of Sydney:

A glass (or two) of Sicilian Red? Whats wrong with a good Aussie red?

Nov 28, 2008 - 3:23 am 13. Howard Richman:

Michael,

Thank you. This is a great Thanksgiving story!

By the way, on my blog yesterday I touched on a theme that I first read about here on your blog, the idea that the Chinese government makes up economics statistics, in this case their unemployment rate. I think you would enjoy the latest entry in my blog about the current economic situation in China.

Howard Richman
http://www.tradeandtaxes.blogspot.com

Nov 28, 2008 - 7:31 am 14. Pat:

The existence of eighteen daughters and their influencers forgoing violence is certainly good news.

But in a broader context, we also now have one entire generation in Palestine and elsewhere throughout the Middle East whose minds have been completely corrupted since birth – to comprehensively embrace mysticism, to hate Americans, and to kill Jews through suicide bombing.

The barbaric anti-mind, death-worshipping teachings of Islam are overrunning Europe. The U.K. has pockets of Sharia Law, and here in the U.S. so-called “peace-loving” muslims are conspicuously silent about the need to defend individual rights and capitalism.

I agree that most American newspapers and broadcasts are long on statism, short on capitalism and devoid of news, but until we teach reason in our schools and universities, and until the majority of Americans understand why a proper government must be *completely* separated from religion, I won’t get excited about a few more Iraqis terrorists abandoning violence.

Nov 28, 2008 - 10:15 pm 15. Pat:

To Dominique at #10 – the reason why most Muslims harbor antipathy toward the West is two-fold. First, having had their minds crippled since childhood by the barbaric, pervasive, mystic irrationality that is Islam, they are unable to reason and hence are woefully inept at living. This is why, for example, muslims will lock up all the parties to an automobile accident and wait for Allah to somehow tell them who is the guilty party. By abandoning the mind, Muslims allow themselves to become sub-human muddlers and death-worshippers not fit for existence in the 21st century.

Second, as a result of their self-imposed mental handicap, they resent the fact that Americans (as a group) are, by stark contrast, the most rational, purposeful, nature-taming, productive-wealth-creating people to have ever lived.

So, like the child throwing the tantrum, they figure that if they destroy America, then it will no longer be a reproach to them for their shabby existence. Collapsing of the World Trade Center with 3,000 murdered Americans is thus cause for jubilation in the streets! It would be difficult to find a more primitively anthropocentric re-write of reality than this!

This is of course unfortunate for America and the rest of the civilized world because far from resenting others, producers know that it’s in their best interest for *everyone* in the world to be as productive as possible – bringing more values to the world’s markets (beyond the oil they looted from us) so *everyone* makes more profit. There are no conflicts of interest among rational men.

As to the American leftists who hate America, and the conservative wimps who apologize for being American: well, they too should be pitied for their ignorance.

Had we had leaders for the past fifty years with the courage to affirm our right to exist by keeping our oil wells and perhaps nuking Iran and Saudi on 9/12/01, we and the rest of the world would have by now gotten on with the business of peaceful production, profits and the pursuit of happiness in this life. Instead, our leaders are moving us to the day when the Enlightenment finally collapses and the barbarians take over…

Nov 28, 2008 - 11:14 pm 16. John new orleans personal trainers:

Great news, I did not get to read it in the NYT.

Nov 29, 2008 - 8:48 am 17. groy:

I did not know there were Shia in Tikrit….it’s all good either way.

Nov 29, 2008 - 10:53 am 18. Nancy Albert:

Scholars are missing some gender and demographic factors causing Islamic violence . First, a society which practices polygamy must dispose of extra males or have a terribly unstable society comprised or marauding unmarried males seething with unmet sexual needs. Throughout their history the Muslims have utilized these young males as invading armies, but now they are too militarily weak to continue that method of culling, so recently suicide has been interpreted as a high calling. Bush has done a huge favor to Muslims by killing off so many of the extra men.

Second, the refusal of many Muslim societies to allow birth control exacerbates this problem. Birth bias toward more girls would help.

Third, the practice of consanguineous (first cousin) marriages (in some countries exceeding 50% of all marriages) along with polygamy is increasing the frequency of recessive genes expressing themselves as physical and mental diseases.

Fourth, Islam is based on a flawed assumption that males and females are organized like other large mammals with herd mentalities. The males are blameless for raping if a woman displays the slightest provocation and males are expected to dominate a “herd” which naturally means violence toward other men. Polygamous societies are always violent, even Christian ones. Islam does not expect a man to refrain from exploitation of women or violence in general. Christianity is founded on mankind being made in the likeness of God and thus, because he has a conscious and can make individual choices, is morally compelled to emulate Him and love all his creatures.

The particular flaw in Islamic logic is that herding animals give the female the absolute power to refuse sex when she is not in heat (estrus). Conversely humans have the wonderful gift (menses) of year round sexual receptivity in females. Islam insults men by assuming they are dumb beasts who cannot restrain themselves and insults women by saying it is OK for men to rape and beat them because they are simply weaker beasts. If women really were just another typical mammal, she would be non-receptive to sex except once or twice a year, given her body weight in comparison to other large mammals. The larger the mammal, the longer it is between estrus. So we are truly distinct from other mammals and have a higher calling than Islam decrees.

If everything is predetermined by Allah instead of individual choice there is no incentive to apply the golden rule or even study the natural laws of the universe.

Nov 30, 2008 - 10:00 am 19. Dan S:

“3. robotech master:

minor correction should be sunni not shi’ite(unless it really was shi’ites but being tirkit is mostly sunni along with the vast majority of Al-Qaeda.

PS mod delete this post once correction is made.
”

“Mullahs.” Mullah generally (in arabic speaking areas) means Shia.

Or maybe the original writer got it wrong in using that term.

Dec 2, 2008 - 1:47 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: