...But what ended what might have been continued rioting and dissension in Europe and elsewhere for years by immigrant Muslims was President Bush’s most courageous act. On October 6th, without warning, one Stealth bomber took off from the Enterprise in the Mediterranean, and another from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. The first dropped a two-kiloton bomb on Mecca. The second dropped a two-kiloton bomb on Mohammad’s burial place in Medina. The Kaaba in Mecca and the Green Dome in Medina were rendered gaseous. Tens of thousands of pilgrims perished in the blasts....And the American troops were welcomed with flowers. Yes folks, it's The Evil and The Stupid, together again.
More stunned than Westerners by the operation were Muslims. Their holy shrines were erased from existence in milliseconds. The expected wrath of Allah did not materialize. He had forsaken his chosen people. The sun did not rise in the West. The stars did not begin to vanish. The Five Pillars of Islam were rendered redundant, proven meaningless. The absence of supernatural retaliation and vengeful global punishment resulted in mass disorientation among Muslims, a species of trauma still being studied by top psychologists in major universities. Suicide rates among Muslims skyrocketed –suicides that did not include bombs detonated in public, but which were private affairs of family heads killing their own families before themselves.
Countless other Muslims simply ceased adhering to the faith. Once-faithful Muslims proclaimed their apostasy, preaching tearfully and angrily to sympathetic crowds about what a fraud Islam was. Women discarded their burqas and veils, and even burned them in the streets in demonstrations of freedom. Prayer rugs were turned into welcome mats or converted into scratching posts for cats. Mosques in Western nations were eventually abandoned by the dozens....
Hat tip to Neil Parille.
It strikes me that the obvious defense of this - if Objectivists think one is even necessary - would be to claim that the author is "not a real Objectivist" somehow. That would bring it in line with defenses of other ideologies - the 9/11 terrorists "weren't real Muslims", and the nutjob in Norway wasn't "a real Christian".
ReplyDeleteWhich might seem reasonable, except it doesn't seem to be a sufficient excuse for the Muslims, in this case. They get slaughtered for not being both religion-free and worshipful of the flawless policies of the USA. Innocent? Hardly! Their joy at our pain justifies their death!
In that same kind of light, it makes perfect sense to regard every last Objectivist, even the ones that adhere more closely to the policy of not initiating harm against others who have not attacked you, as viable targets for scorn and derision, based on the writings of but one man. Dismiss them all!
Incidentally, am I the only one who senses an undercurrent of Objectivists hoping they will be attacked? That they relish the idea that someone will come after them, so that they can then cause harm to these supposed attackers without violating their non-initiation of force principle? I've heard more than one Objectivist beating their chest about how they will resist and then utterly crush all the parasites and looters that may try to enslave them - often with a kind of appeal to Mother Nature, claiming the very nature of the world will destroy those who don't live the Objectivist lifestyle.
Nothing in this post surprises me. Peikoff's performances on Bill O'Reilly's show (and numerous posts on ARI's webiste and Capitalism Magazine by various Objectivist authors) really showed Objectivism to have a very hawkish and ultra-nationalist bent.
ReplyDeleteI've read things in Capitalism Magazine that baldly state that the very existence of Muslims on oil-rich ground is provocation enough: they think America owns the world's resources because of the country's rational and capitalistic ways. Everyone else is just squatting. I think Ron Pisaturo wrote something to this effect.
- Chris
This is stating the obvious, but wouldn't it be at least equally likely that the destruction of the two major Muslim holy places would precipitate a massively expanded and energized worldwide jihad, with millions of heretofore moderate Muslims becoming radicalized, creating a flood of new recruits to terrorist organizations and a consequent surge in suicide bombings and other attacks?
ReplyDeleteI've actually read through most of "Winning the Unwinnable War", and I think, cultishness aside, it's actually a pretty good read with intruiging policy recommendations. It doesn't approach the gleefull fantasy of Ed Cline but yes the authors do seem to think we can bomb islam into submission. It's well-written enough to recommend a read IMO, HOWEVER I think that they sweep "blowback" (as Mr. Prescott alluded to) under the rug and, as usual, have trouble seeing these complex issues in shades of grey (the other side of the same coin is Ron Paul's "The only reason muslims hate America is because of colnialism"; as the Objectivists point out it's not a sufficient explanation)
ReplyDeleteMichael Prescott,
ReplyDelete"This is stating the obvious, but wouldn't it be at least equally likely that the destruction of the two major Muslim holy places would precipitate a massively expanded and energized worldwide jihad, with millions of heretofore moderate Muslims becoming radicalized, creating a flood of new recruits to terrorist organizations and a consequent surge in suicide bombings and other attacks?"
It could, which is a major problem with the idea.
One thing I find interesting is that most Objectivists (although not Cline so far as I know) support "open immigration," a policy where almost all Moslems would be free to come to the US.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, bomb Islamic countries but the millions of Moslems here that we let in will be ok with having their home countries nuked.
In other words, bomb Islamic countries but the millions of Moslems here that we let in will be ok with having their home countries nuked.
ReplyDeleteAren't all allegiances and obligations chosen on Planet Objectivism? In the real world, blood is much thicker than water. On Planet Objectivism, blood is thicker than water but we can always pretend it isn't!
Laj,
ReplyDeleteThe ARI has been caught rewriting Rand's material (Journals, Q&A, etc.) and lying about her life (eg, the claim that Barbara Branden's book is a lie).
Do ARI supporters denounce the ARI?
@Michael Prescott: ... wouldn't it be at least equally likely that the destruction of the two major Muslim holy places would precipitate a massively expanded and energized worldwide jihad, with millions of heretofore moderate Muslims becoming radicalized, creating a flood of new recruits to terrorist organizations and a consequent surge in suicide bombings and other attacks?
ReplyDeleteYep. Not to mention the reaction of the rest of the world: Europe, China, etc. The world understands retaliation, but nobody (with the possible exception of Ed Cline) likes a bully. I can't imagine any of the world's other powers being comfortable watching the US enact Cline's horror show. Far from cheering the US on, I think it's much more likely that the rest of the world would decide they needed to make a concerted effort to rein in that bully. Then what does the US do? Nuke the entire world into submission? I'd like to hope that even Cline realizes what a bad move that would be.
Oh, my point about was ARI supporters don't give up on the ARI even though its shenanigans have been exposed and it acts contrary to its official doctrines. Likewise, I don't think Moslems will give up on their religion just because their holy sites are bombed.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Barnes,
ReplyDeletePersonally I do agree with Cline in that we've been too soft on our enemies, but I don't think we should go anywhere near as far as he wants us too, especially since it could backfire. I remember hearing that Even after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some hire ups in the Japaneses Military didn't care that so many of their countrymen had been killed and tried to stop the emperor from surrendering, even through he was worshiped as a god. That's how determined they not to surrender. If they had succeeded, at the very least they could have dragged the war on much longer, and the fanatical Muslims of the world are not all located on some small Island.
Damien,
ReplyDeleteCline's fantasies are as juvenile as they are sociopathic. His solution is, in essence, to start killing Muslims en masse, then keep killing them should they protest at this. Hmm, given that there are around 1.2 billion of them, distributed around the world amongst hundreds of countries, some of which have nuclear weapons themselves, what could possibly go wrong with that plan?..;-) Apparently Objectivists also believe the invention of a technology entitles the inventor to exclusive rights to any natural resources required by that technology - so should Australia price its uranium too high, the US is entitled to invade there too in order to keep its reactors running.
Of course this is all so childish it's hard to imagine a grown man wrote it. But then I suppose he takes Atlas Shrugged seriously too.
What happened to the "non-initiation" of force principle?
ReplyDeleteThe Romans didn't destroy Judaism when they destroyed the Jews' temple in Jerusalem. The surviving Jews just rationalized their religion in new ways, and the resulting Judaism 2.0 stayed in business in a decentralized form. Muslims would probably do something similar if an Objectivist kook became president and ordered the nuking of Mecca and Medina.
ReplyDeleteOnly as the other posters have pointed out, the U.S. would face hundreds of millions of pissed-off young Muslim men who feel that they have nothing to lose by dying as martyrs, after they realize they could no longer use the Hajj to score points with their god.
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ReplyDeleteMark,
ReplyDeleteIndeed - and as far as I understand it Mecca is nowhere near as central to the Islamic faith as the Temple was to Judaism mk 1. Proper propitiation could not be made in Torahic Judaism without the Temple, nor could the Temple be built elsewhere. Yet Judaism quickly adapted, crafting new theological arguments turning on phrases in the Torah (e.g. "To obey is better than sacrifice" was interpreted to mean that one could be obedient without participating in the sacrifices) and evolved into the Rabbinical Judaism that survived the Diaspora. The obvious response to the destruction of Mecca would be that there is already a valid exemption for those unable to conduct the Hajj; that exemption now applies to everyone, as no-one is able to visit Mecca (or alternatively that the Kaaba, having been vaporised, is now immanent and all Muslims are now on perpetual Hajj).