Civilization & Its Haters

Steyn sums up well the basic struggle between civilized nations and those bad actors seeking their (the civilized) overthrow:

As my colleague Andrew McCarthy wrote, “Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn’t recede willingly before the wheels of progress.” Very true. Somalia, Iran, and North Korea are all less “civilized” than they were a couple of generations ago. And yet in one sense they have made undeniable progress: They have globalized their pathologies. Somali pirates seize vessels the size of aircraft carriers flying the ensigns of the great powers. Iranian proxies run Gaza and much of Lebanon. North Korea’s impoverished prison state provides nuclear technology to Damascus and Tehran. Unlovely as it is, Pyongyang nevertheless has friends on the Security Council. Powerful states protect one-man psycho states. One-man psycho states provide delivery systems to apocalyptic ideological states. Apocalyptic ideological states fund non-state actors around the world. And in Somalia and elsewhere non-state actors are constrained only by their ever increasing capabilities.

Ah, the appeasing fruits of liberal progressivism.

As McCarthy & Steyn so wonderfully illustrate, civilization--peace, democracy, the rule of law--is not the default condition of humanity.

These things cost blood & treasure to earn and more blood & treasure to maintain.


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Dangerous & Strange Bedfellows

In the most recent issue of "Natty Review" appears an article by Daniel Pipes--director of the Middle East Forum and Taube/Diller distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. In it, Pipes discusses the pragmatic alliance between "Islamists, Marxists, and the radical Left."

It is both persuasive and alarming.

For the hurried, an outline will be provided below, for those with a few minutes on their hands, click here.

Allied Menace
By Daniel Pipes

Overview: Despite their obvious ideological differences, Islamists and Leftists have begun to make common cause in their efforts against Western Civilization including the U.S., Great Britain & Israel.

Examples: Hugo Chavez's alliance with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Ken Livingstone the Trotskyite former mayor of London; Noam Chomsky, friend of Hezbollah; Ella Vogelaar, Dutch minister for housing; the Workers World's (an American Communist newspaper) laudatory obituary of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh; Carlos the Jackal & others actually converted to Islam; Norman Mailer called the 9/11 perpetrators "brilliant"; Michel Foucault supported the Iranian Revolution and called Ayatollah Khomeini a "saint"; during the Cold War, Islamists favored the Soviet Union and "the U.S.S.R. receive[d] but a small fraction of the hatred and venom directed at the United States;" the Cairo Anti-War Conference. The list goes on

Why the "unholy alliance?"

1. Similar enemy--Western Civilization, the U.S., Great Britain, Israel, Jews, believing Christians, and international capitalists.

2. Shared political goals: they want coalition forces to lose in Iraq, an end to the War on Terror, the spread of anti-Americanism, and the destruction of Israel.

3. Marxism-Leninism and Islamism have historical and philosophical ties: a stages view of history; crossover of Leftist thinkers like Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lenin, & Stalin. Additionally, Marxists have replaced the failed rise of the worker with the rise of the Islamists (ie. the Iranian Revolution, 9/11. et al.)

4. A pragmatic path to power. Both groups are able to subordinate conflicting pillars of their respective ideologies in order to combat their common enemy--here again, Western Civilization. Add to the examples listed above the Stop the War Coalition whose committee members are drawn from the British Communist party and the Muslim Association of Britain.

Conclusion: Where communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Castroists and others "had been clinging to the dregs of a clapped-out cause," Islamists bring a new proletariat. This dangerous and strange partnership is a threat to Western Civilization which "must be exposed, rejected, resisted, and defeated."


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