A suspect has been arrested in the Times Square bombing. He is Shahzad Faisal; an American immigrant from Pakistan who spent several months recently in that country and has ties to Islamist terrorist groups. Whether or not he was wearing an I ♥ Osama tee shirt and was carrying an Al Qaeda Blue Crescent card is not certain at this time. The joke would be saying that his motives were "unclear", but that joke is already official policy.8 years, 7 months, and 23 days ago, Civilisation got a wake up call when the crash of two skyscrapers in New York City told the world that there are barbarians abroad. These power-hungry, fanatical throwbacks to the 7th century had been for decades waging war against the West, their coreligionists, and anyone else who dared to stand in their way to world domination. Or, indeed, anyone who didn't timidly bow to their insane totalitarianism. It took the transformation of two of the greatest structures in the world into piles of rubble to tell all free men that their liberty was not guaranteed, but something to be fought for or surrendered in ignominy.
A war was launched against the barbarians, though this was tainted at the beginning by an American President who kept going on about the "religion of peace" until you expected him to convert and a British Prime Minister who cringed so long in his desire for political cover that it allowed the UN to toss off its unaccustomed courage in favour of a return to its default status of graft and cowardice. Despite seeing the enemy in the face, freeing tens of millions of people from tyranny and giving a benighted region its first glimmer of freedom since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the civilised world has gone back into its slumber. No matter how many Madrids, Beslans, Balis, Moscows, Londons, Fort Hoods, Washingtons, Kenyas, Kohbar Towers, Bombays–the list goes on and on–the governments of the West seem determined to close their eyes and wish that this war just goes away and that the people would stop banging on about things like mass immigration from the Umma.
Look at what happened in Manhattan. It was a replay of the 2007 Tiger Tiger bombing attempt in London right down to the botched detonator that prevented scores of lives from being lost. And what was the White House's response? A deep desire to treat it like a mere crime and a replay of the Fort Hood atrocity: "Nothing to see here. Not terrorism. No link to foreign groups. Lone nut job. White guy seen near the vehicle. Okay, maybe he wasn't. He's Pakistani. Al Qaeda? Uh... Ooo, look! Militias!"
The frightening thing is that this isn't an American government going off the rails. It's a US President falling happily in line with Europe and officially tossing all those inconvenient words like "terrorism", "Muslim", "Islam", and "Jihad" into the dustbin. Not to mention following a war strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan that smells suspiciously like trying not to lose it until after the 2012 elections. This makes me very afraid, but the fear is not that it will give the barbarians an opening that they are clearly exploiting at this very moment, which it does, but that it means that the United States, the lynch pin of Civilisation's defence, is no longer taking this war seriously. And, of course, there is a news media who don't seem at all bothered by this state of affairs, so they ignore it.
By this do I mean that I believe the barbarians will win? No, not in the least. What I do fear is that things will get far worse, needlessly so, before they get better and that the peoples of the West will become convinced that their governments have abandoned them to their enemies. If that perception takes hold, then the cure will be far worse than the disease.
Then, God help us and our children.
Update: Three more arrested trying to leave the country.
Update: And another one in Pakistan.
Update: From the BBC:
US President Barack Obama has vowed that Americans "will not cower in fear" following the failed car-bomb attack in New York's Times Square on Saturday.Americans certainly will not "will not cower in fear", though their President will soft-pedal like mad while he prays that it all goes away.
Update: Lone wolf? Hah!
Update: Kiss any intelligence gathering goodbye; bomber suspect read his Miranda rights.
So much for treating this war like a war.
Update: And now, conclusion jumping!
Update: More on Mr "lone wolf".
4 comments:
I'm interested in exactly why you think that the cure would be worse than the disease? Could you spend some paragraphs to list the details that you believe would convince some silent readers who might be tending to start believing otherwise?
Good question and one that I'll probably deal with later in a posting, but for now I'll leave it at saying that it depends largely on where and when and why. I'd say that, generally, the two things that would certainly be worse, though not the worst, would be:
Civil war where the people are battling their government as well as the Jihadists.
Anti-Muslim pogroms administered by an enraged people who've just, for example, seen one of their major cities vanish in a mushroom cloud.
I can't imagine any Western society that went through such an ordeal, even successfully, that wouldn't take generations to live through the repercussions.
Well the planning has already started:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections-on-civil-war-in-britain.html
Anonymous, is this the link from Gates of Vienna that was posted on this blog a couple of weeks ago, about it being about time for some ethnic rioting and murdering? Interesting stuff... in the sense of, I think I might want a transfer to Australia for a few years until this blew over, if this were actually happening. The author of that article did not seem to think that his scenarios were such bad things, and rather seemed to be looking forward to giving them a try.
Not sure about the relative desirability of the disease and proposed cure, in this case. A cure is supposed to fix the problem, but I think we're talking about two different kinds of very, very bad. Yes, I think the proper answer would be to go after the [redacted]s who are sending these terrorists, back in whatever holes they're hiding in. But the Smart Ones seem to think that they can talk our way out of it.
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