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| Jun 11th, 2006 11:38 AM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn11.html 'Warmongers' have a point: It's a war June 11, 2006 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Here are four news stories from the last week: Baghdad: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi found himself on the receiving end of 500 pounds of U.S. ordnance. London: Scotland Yard arrested a cell of East End Muslims allegedly plotting a sarin attack in Britain. Toronto: The Mounties busted a cell of Ontario Muslims planning a bombing three times more powerful than Oklahoma City. Mogadishu: An al-Qaida affiliate, the "Joint Islamic Courts," took control of the Somali capital, displacing "U.S.-backed warlords." The world divides into those who think the above are all part of the same story and those who figure they're strictly local items of no wider significance deriving from various regional factors: In Baghdad and London, fury at Bush-Blair neocon-Zionist-Halliburton warmongering; In Toronto, fury at Canadian multiculti-liberal-pantywaist warmongering -- no, wait, that can't be right. It must be frustration among certain, ah, ethno-cultural communities at insufficiently lavish levels of massive government social programs, to judge from the surreal conversation on NPR's "Morning Edition" between Renee Montagne and the city's mayor; And in Mogadishu, well, that's just one bunch of crazy Africans killing another bunch of crazy Africans -- who the hell can figure that out? If Bono holds a celebrity fund-raising gala, we'll all be glad to chip in 20 bucks. If you choose to believe that, as Tip bin Neill might have put it, "all jihad is local," so be it. You can listen to NPR discussions on whether Canada's jihadist health- care programs are inadequately funded, and I'm sure you'll be very happy. But out in the real world it seems the true globalization success story of the 1990s was the export of ideology from a relatively obscure part of the planet to the heart of every Western city. Take the subject of, say, decapitation. There's a lot of it about in the Muslim world. These Somali Islamists, in the course of their seizure of Mogadishu, captured troops from the warlords' side and beheaded them. Zarqawi made beheading his signature act, cutting the throats of the American hostage Nick Berg and the British hostage Ken Bigley and then releasing the footage as boffo snuff videos over the Internet. But it's not just guerrillas and insurgents who are hot for decapitation. The Saudis, who are famously "our friends," behead folks on a daily basis. Last year, the kingdom beheaded six Somalis for auto theft. They'd been convicted and served five-year sentences but at the end thereof the Saudi courts decided to upgrade their crime to a capital offense. Some two-thirds of those beheaded in Saudi Arabia are foreign nationals, which would be an unlikely criminal profile in any civilized state and suggests that the justice "system" is driven by the Saudis' contempt for non-Saudis as much as anything else. Which brings us to Toronto. In court last week, it was alleged that the conspirators planned to storm the Canadian Parliament and behead the prime minister. On the face of it, that sounds ridiculous. As ridiculous as it must have seemed to Ken Bigley, a British contractor in Iraq with no illusions about the world: He'd spent most of his adult life grubbing around the seedier outposts of empire and thought he knew the way the native chappies did things. He never imagined the last sounds he'd ever hear were delirious cries of "Allahu Akhbar" and the man behind him reaching for his blade. And he never imagined that back in his native land his fellow British subjects -- young Muslim men -- would boast to the London Times about downloading the video of his execution and watching it on their cellphones. Writing about the collapse of nations such as Somalia, the Atlantic Monthly's Robert D. Kaplan referred to the "citizens" of such "states" as "re-primitivized man." When lifelong Torontonians are hot for decapitation, when Yorkshiremen born and bred and into fish 'n' chips and cricket and lousy English pop music self-detonate on the London Tube, it would seem that the phenomenon of "re-primitivized man" has been successfully exported around the planet. It's reverse globalization: The pathologies of the remotest backwaters now have franchise outlets in every Western city. You don't have to be a loser Ontario welfare recipient like Steven Chand, the 25-year-old Muslim convert named in the thwarted prime ministerial beheading. Omar Sheikh, the man behind the beheading of the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl, was an English "public" (i.e., private) schoolboy and graduate of the London School of Economics. Five years after 9/11, some strategists say we can't win this thing "militarily," which is true in the sense that you can't send the Third Infantry Division to Brampton, Ontario. But nor is it something we can win through "law enforcement" -- by letting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI and MI5 and every gendarmerie on the planet deal with every little plot on the map as a self-contained criminal investigation. We need to throttle the ideology and roll up the networks. These fellows barely qualify as "fifth columnists": Their shingles hang on Main Street. And, even though the number of Ontarians prepared actively to participate in the beheading of the prime minister is undoubtedly minimal, the informal support of the jihad's aims by many Western Muslims and the quiescence of too many of the remainder and the ethnic squeamishness of the modern multicultural state provide a big comfort zone. This week the jihad lost its top field general, but in Somalia it may have gained a nation -- a new state base after the loss of Afghanistan. And in Toronto and London the picture isn't so clear: The forensic and surveillance successes were almost instantly undercut by the usual multicultural dissembling of the authorities. If you think the idea of some kook beheading prime ministers on video is nutty, maybe you're looking at things back to front. What's nutty is that, half a decade on from Sept. 11, the Saudis are still allowed to bankroll schools and mosques and think tanks and fast-track imam chaplaincy programs in prisons and armed forces around the world. Oil isn't the principal Saudi export, ideology is; petroleum merely bankrolls it. In Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and elsewhere, second- and third-generation Muslims recognize the vapidity of the modern multicultural state for what it is -- a nullity, a national non-identity -- and so, for their own identity, they look elsewhere. To carry on letting Islamism fill it is to invite the re-primitivization of the world. Copyright © Mark Steyn, 2006 |
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| Jun 10th, 2006 03:42 PM | ||
| Royal Tenenbaum |
Fuck you. They could still win tonight. 
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| Jun 9th, 2006 02:59 PM | ||
| Zebra 3 |
Quote:
 - The Oilers are fucked.
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| Jun 9th, 2006 10:09 AM | ||
| AChimp | Hmm... I must have confused it with all the other times where he wasn't. | |
| Jun 9th, 2006 09:19 AM | ||
| mburbank | I got that, on account of how hysterical it was. | |
| Jun 8th, 2006 11:52 PM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore | He was joking. | |
| Jun 8th, 2006 08:08 PM | ||
| AChimp |
Quote:
 Yes, because a country should have two sets of standards ands two sets of laws for it's citizens. You hitting the bong again, Abcd? |
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| Jun 8th, 2006 02:42 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx | It's a shame these guys can't be put put to a Shari'a arbitration, but Canada is Islamophobic. Arresting terrorists will only push more young Muslims towards radicalized points of view. This is also why Muslims should not snitch on their brothers and play into the Western-Zionist mythology which persecutes innocent people. Because it will lead to arrests like these. | |
| Jun 7th, 2006 10:17 PM | ||
| AChimp |
See? 5-0 Carolina. This is a disaster. The guy was the janitor. Sometimes he did the prayers. |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 10:10 PM | ||
| Preechr |
Two young men that were tied into that group up in Canada were from a suburb here in Atlanta. Both graduated from a high school in Roswell, GA, but the one being talked about the most is the one that went on to go to GA Tech. Homegrown terrorists. ...and the leader ran a mosque all those guys attended, not just a janitor. It was funny that his neighbors didn't talk about he was such a nice guy and they never would have suspected him... They said he was a dick. |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 04:51 PM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore | Terrorism and Islamic radicalism (with terrorism being the preferred tactic) are two different things. I think many countries still don't get that, and should probably take it more seriously (some European nations come to mind). | |
| Jun 7th, 2006 04:39 PM | ||
| mburbank |
Kev, I think even you would admit that there are some slight differences between a speciffic, mostly public terrorist organization and terrorism. I wouldn't want you to think that I don't understand terrorism is very, very, very, very bad. I'm merely pointing out that a country can (and many other countries have been for decades now) deal effectively with the repercussions of terrorism without hysterical rhetoric, fear mongering, constitutional jiggering, jingosim. A bizarre idea I'm sure, but worth trying. |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 04:22 PM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore | Yeah, that's a bummer. | |
| Jun 7th, 2006 04:20 PM | ||
| AChimp |
There were a bunch of teenagers arrested, too, but they can't be named because they're too young. I think that most people realize that this was just an isolated group of people (they were led by some crazy janitor guy ) which means that there isn't any widespread plot to wipe us out. The fact that there are people out there who want to blow up buildings doesn't change the fact that I have responsibilities. I still have to go to work. I still have to pay my taxes. Life proceeds as normal.The police did their job. That's what we pay them for, so now send it to the courts and I'll just get on with what I was doing beforehand, thanks. Honestly, more people in Canada are concerned about Edmonton's goalie being injured in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 04:09 PM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore |
12 men have been charged in Canada. Jack Murtha's Scooby Doo skills appear to be unnecessary. "and treating the entire thing as a crime, instead of part of a war on a concept." Last I checked, Canada has witheld funding to Hamas due to their terrorist ties and unwillingness to acknowledge Israel. I suppose that's far too "conceptual", but it appears they take Islamic extremism pretty seriously, too. |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 03:57 PM | ||
| mburbank |
I saw a video of youre excellent defense skills. I don't think the Canadians need you. I'll be interested to see if the Canadians foiled this plot purely with their police force, without violating their constitution, and treating the entire thing as a crime, instead of part of a war on a concept. Wouldn't it be amazing if they were capable of protecting their country and citizens without a state of frenzy, color coded warnings, huge sums of money allocated based on party affiliation and imperial executive authority? 'Cause I'd heard that was impossible. As for the beheading, a nasty threat from a nasty person, but I'll wait to see if it was a possible threat, or wether it was more along the lines of the Jose Padilla dirty bomb threat. The Canadians do good police work. Why not take a deep breath and let it do it's work? After all, as was pointed out to me when I applauded Mutha's release of info on Haditha, these terrorist plans, including the beheading are only 'alleged' at this point. Isn't 'innocent until proven guilty' operative in Canadian justice? |
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| Jun 7th, 2006 09:22 AM | ||
| AChimp | Beastiality is a crime up here, KKK. | |
| Jun 7th, 2006 08:40 AM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore | And you'll babysit their kids. | |
| Jun 7th, 2006 04:29 AM | ||
| Kulturkampf | I would defend the canadians but they insult themselves. | |
| Jun 6th, 2006 11:28 PM | ||
| KevinTheOmnivore | Yeah, you guys kick ass. | |
| Jun 6th, 2006 11:21 PM | ||
| ArrowX |
Yes I live in the Second fastest Growing one, but its only 60 some thousand people, and I know theres HUGE population centers, but the majority of our population is spread out in 2001 the Population-density was about 3 people per suare Km. but we arent afraid because were fucking Canada. |
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| Jun 6th, 2006 11:12 PM | ||
| Pub Lover | They wanted to cut off the Prime Minister's head. What the hell is that about? Isn't killing him enough without being stupid about it? | |
| Jun 6th, 2006 10:49 PM | ||
| Johnny Couth |
Quote:
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| Jun 6th, 2006 10:39 PM | ||
| ArrowX |
ya, there arent enough canadians in one place to warrant a very effective bombing, at most they could get about 500 people, and besides that it would be more effective to just blow the shit out of cars on highways, because we have alot of those. How about the anti-tarrorism funds cut from NY? Anyone scared of that? |
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| Jun 6th, 2006 07:56 PM | ||
| Royal Tenenbaum | Only people in Toronto should be/are worried... | |
| This thread has more than 25 replies. Click here to review the whole thread. | ||
