Comments on: Down the slimey slope we go…

By: Josh Scholar

Josh Scholar — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:46:44 +0000

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!

By: Kilbarry1

Kilbarry1 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:26:00 +0000

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!)

By: Josh Scholar

Josh Scholar — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:08:42 +0000

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.

By: Hamid

Hamid — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:53:40 +0000

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?

By: Kilbarry1

Kilbarry1 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:47:09 +0000

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.

By: mullah

mullah — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:51:58 +0000

I haven’t been able to find out when he joined the military. How long did he serve for?

By: Monty

Monty — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:54:26 +0000

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.

By: mullah

mullah — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:18:48 +0000

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…

http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/

By: tevya

tevya — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:33:35 +0000

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?

By: Josh Scholar

Josh Scholar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:15:13 +0000

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.