STOKING FIRES OF CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT

By Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch

This endorsement of Giuliani is premature. He has not shown, has shown signs in fact of the opposite, of being sufficiently clear-minded about Islam, and sufficiently unsentimental (none of that business of Bush's "ordinary moms and dads" or his latest business about not "abandoning" the Iraqis to their islamically generated fate) to view "victory" in Iraq to be achievable not through remaining and tamping down internal sectarian and ethnic fissures, but in welcoming them, just the way the Muslims in Europe have welcomed, and cleverly exploited, the two mental pathologies of antisemitism and anti-Americanism to drive a wedge, in policies related to Muslims and the Islamic countries, between America and Western Europe).

Until Giuliani gives signs that he is no longer a Bush loyalist, or listening to them, he will not be satisfactory. We can't tolerate more years in Iraq; the Amerian army can't, taxpayers cannot. The Americans must get out of Iraq not because Islam is not a world-wide threat, but because it most definitely is.

Unless and until Giuliani, Thompson, someone on that side, begins to get this, and clearly distiniguishes himself, unsticks himself from Bush, adducing the right reasons for so doing, then Bush, who is for the Republicans a Tarbaby as Iraq is a Tarbaby for the whole country, will bring down that Republican candidate, whoever he is.

And meanwhile, while everyone focusses on Iraq, trivial Iraq, and because of Iraq continues to be inveigled into thinking that the main weapon of Jihad at present is "terrorism" and thereby overlooks Da'wa and demographic conquest and the Money Weapon that furthers both, other things are also happening but being overlooked.

Not only the matter of Islam. There is the economic warfare being conducted by China. Everywhere you go now in sub-Saharan Africa you will find colonies of Chinese, busily engaged in locking in the vast natural resources, for the Chinese are not inhibited in any way in their attempt to ruthlessly dominate in the new "Race for Africa" which, unlike the late-19th century vresion, now has only one entrant—China. And go to remote places (Belize, say) or go to un-remote places (Italy, say) and you will find economic colonies of Chinese who have managed to beat the locals, and forced them go give up. The silk manufacturers of ties and other clothing in Como now have yielded to Chinese suppliers; the small manufacturers of pots and pans in Italy have done likewise. And it is the same everywhere that the God of Globalization has been worshipped, unthinkingly, and the lowest-price competitor wins, as Ricardo's comparative advantage takes the place of any considerations of patriotism, or a sense that local manufactures, for not only economic but for social and political reasons, may well be worth protecting, even if they may cost more.

And what else is not being attended to as we tie ourselves in idiotic knots over Iraq, aside from the real menace, and real instruments, of Jihad? And aside from China's economic march through the globe? Well, there is anthropogenic climate change, and the problem is not so much the end-state (with Boston having a climate like Savannah) but all the things that will happen because of the astounding unprecedented speed of the change, the rate of the change. The flooding of all of Lower Manhattan, Shanghai, all of Bangladesh, and of a great many islands are part of it, but only a part.

What is causing calendrical confusion in bird migrations? What has caused the CCD—colony collapse disorder—with bees? What is causing strange mutations in the amphibia of Costa Rica? What may be causing the disappearance, within a century or two, of 90% of the world's species? Who is minding the global-warming store, while the richest, most powerful country on earth, with the largest scientific establishment, seems preoccupied with keeping Iraq, and its assorted Muslims, in a unified state?

This misguided war, which it is now clear was based on ignorance of Islam, has been colossaly exensive. It is war that was, and is being commanded, by those who demonstrate repeatedly an ignorance of the full menace of Islam and the varied instruments of Jihad, and who never considered, never thought of considering, the ways in which, for our purposes, we might welcome rather than deplore, exploit rather than attempt to remedy, the pre-existing fissures within the Camp of Islam, not by doing something but by leaving the place alone, once the American forces had scoured the country and assured themselves that the regime had not had, or was not close to developing, nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.

This war, Tarbaby Iraq, has now cost in past, present and committed future costs, $880 billion. That is more than the total cost of all the wars, save World War II, ever fought by the United States. If the Administration were to achieve its stated goals in Iraq—a unified Iraq, with a "democratic" government and a populace in which various local lions lie down with various other local lions—then nothing whatever will have been done to weaken the Camp of Islam, or to diminish the menace of the Money Weapon, of Da'wa, and of demographic conquest. Those ignorant of Islam think or claim to think that the example of "democratic" Iraq will do something.

What? What will it do? Will Sunni regimes take pleasure in an Iraq, and in Baghdaad, madinat al-islam, the fabled capital for four hundred years of the Abbasid Caliphate and hence the most important city, after Mecca and Medina, in the history of Arab Islam, and dear to the history-haunted and myth-making Arabs, especially those Sunni Arabs who rule in every state except Iraq (even where, as in Bahrain, the Shi'a may outnumber the Sunnis, or as in Yemen, where they come close)? Will they be impressed by the transfer of power from Sunnis to Shi'a in the Land of the Two Rivers? What madman could think so. Answer: the madmen, or dopes, who have conceived of this policy and who cling to it, and all those who, not having thought things through but determined to show those "cut-and-runners" especially if they happen to be Democrats, stick loyally with Bush on the assumption that any criticism of the war must come from appeasers. As visitors to Mihad Watch know perfectly, the must unanswerable, withering, and therefore dangerous (to Bush loyalists, to those who support Tarbaby Iraq) criticism can be found at this website.

But it is not only thaat $880 billion that has been largely squandered, nor the problem of norale in the services, where many of the best young officers leave the service, and few of those whom one would like to have join, will now think of joining (well aware, as they are, of how peremptorily and unfairly the Pentagon has misused and abused their predecessors, assuming they could simply push them around, interrupt without end their regular careers and lives, all because the Pentagon itself miscalculated completely the size of the regular army, and the specialties that would be needed, but that have been permanently farmed out, it appears, to those citizen-soldiers who, one suspects, will not be re-enlisting in large numbers).

No, it is also the Opportunity Costs. What hasn't been handled. The growing Muslim presence and threat in Western Europe. The economic warfare of China. Anthropogenic climate change that may be unstoppable—it may be too late, and time now only to plan to mitigate, to build those seawalls in, say, Lower Manhattan to protect it.

Meanwhile, Tarbaby Iraq holds us fast.