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Posts Tagged ‘genocide’

Great moments in environmentalism, part 1

Posted by Richard on January 28, 2011

Scientists at Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology claim their "research" shows that if you kill enough people over a long-enough period of time, it's good for the environment:

His empire lasted a century and a half and eventually covered nearly a quarter of the earth's surface. His murderous Mongol armies were responsible for the massacre of as many as 40 million people. Even today, his name remains a byword for brutality and terror. But boy, was Genghis green.

Genghis Khan, in fact, may have been not just the greatest warrior but the greatest eco-warrior of all time, according to a study by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Energy. It has concluded that the 13th-century Mongol leader's bloody advance, laying waste to vast swaths of territory and wiping out entire civilisations en route, may have scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing forest.

Apparently, the "research" was all done with today's favorite science toy, computer models. Why bother with all that tedious gathering of empirical data or messy experiments, when you can just write software that embodies your assumptions and cranks out conclusions? ("What are you going to believe, reality or my carefully constructed, elaborate, and expensive computer model?")

They had a lively and fun discussion in the comments at Mother Nature Network. The defenders of this "research" insisted that it was just a study, not advocacy, and everyone should calm down. But I can't help but think that the environmentalists who publish such dispassionate, objective studies are only one part of a green movement that includes many passionate advocates. And the eco-fascists of the green movement have a long history of expressing sentiments like these: 

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion — guilt-free at last! — Stewart Brand

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight — David Foreman, Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS — Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. — David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. — Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. — Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

I wonder what these scientists are working on next — maybe a computer model to determine whether the ecological benefits of the Third Reich's population reduction efforts outweighed the harm done by the emissions from those ovens? 

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Remember the victims of communism

Posted by Richard on May 1, 2010

Today is a good day to remember the 80 to 100 million people who were killed by communism. Ilya Somin came up with the idea:

Today is May 1, May Day. Back in 2007 and 2008, I advocated the idea of transforming this long-time communist holiday into Victims of Communism Day — a day of remembrance for the victims of history’s bloodiest ideology. This year, several bloggers are joining in an effort to commemorate the occasion. Jonathan Wilde of Distributed Republic deserves credit for organizing this effort.

Go here for links to related posts. 

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Snatching defeat

Posted by Richard on July 11, 2007

After countless mistakes and still impeded by the most restrictive rules of engagement ever, coalition forces in Iraq seem to have turned the corner. The troop surge (which nearly doubled the number of combat troops in the field) and Petraeus plan are beginning to work. Shia tribal leaders are turning away from al Sadr, Sunni tribal leaders are fighting al Qaeda, and the Iraqi security forces are more and more in control and trusted.

The situation in Anbar province has improved greatly in the past couple of months, and al Qaeda is on the run in Diyalah, with villagers calling on the Iraqi Army for help in battling the barbarians. They're treating us as liberators in and around Baquba — and if you've been reading Michael Yon's dispatches, you know why.

Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two man and chief strategist, in a video released on July 4 (Belmont Club has a detailed summary; Power Line has the video), made it clear that they're in trouble in Iraq, are losing the support they had among the Sunni population, and are desperate for reinforcements. 

Zawahiri's plea for help in preventing a U.S. victory in Iraq was immediately answered — by the mainstream media and Democrats. With al Qaeda weakening every day and coalition forces making progress in the most embattled regions of Iraq, the Americans who are completely invested in U.S. defeat and humiliation have themselves become desperate. We can't wait until next spring, they cry, or even for Gen. Petraeus' interim report this fall, we have to surrender and withdraw right now! The New York Times demanded that we leave "without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit," even while acknowledging that the result would be more bloodshed and chaos, possibly genocide, and the emergence of a new terrorist stronghold. 

The Democrat cheerleading for defeat is disgusting, but expected. What's new and truly contemptible is the sight of Senate Republicans sticking their finger in the wind and running for cover. LTC Ralph Peters outlined the sorry situation we're in (emphasis added):

EVEN as our troops make serious progress against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq and other extremists, Congress – including Republican members – is sending the terrorists a message: "Don't lose heart, we'll save you!"
…

Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq is suffering a humiliating defeat, as fellow Sunni Muslims turn against the fanatics and help them find the martyrdom they advertise. Yet for purely political reasons – next year's elections – cowards on Capitol Hill are spurning the courage of our troops on the ground.

The frantic political gamesmanship in Congress would nauseate a ghoul. Pols desperate for any cover and concealment they can get have dragged the Iraq Study Group plan from the grave.

Masterminded by former Secretary of State Jim "Have Your Hugged Your Saudi Prince Today?" Baker, the report is a blueprint for a return to yesteryear's dictator-smooching policy (which helped create al Qaeda – thanks, Jimbo!).

That Baker report reminds me of cheap horror films where the zombies just keep coming back – except that zombies retain a measure of integrity.

But if Republicans are rushing to desert our troops and spit on the graves of heroes, the Democratic Party at least has been consistent – they've supported our enemies from the start, undercutting our troops and refusing to explain in detail what happens if we flee Iraq.

So I'll tell you what happens: massacres. And while I have nothing against Shia militiamen and Sunni insurgents killing each other 24/7, the overwhelming number of victims will be innocent women, children and the elderly.
…

… As for those on the left who sanctimoniously set out rows of shabby combat boots to "teach" the rest of us the cost of war, I fully expect them to put out displays of women's slippers and children's shoes to show the world how many innocents died when they "brought our troops home now." …

I hate the long-mismanaged mess in Iraq. I wish there were a sensible, decent way to get out that wouldn't undercut our security and produce massive innocent casualties. But there isn't. Not now. And, like it or not, we have a moral responsibility as well as practical interests in refusing to surrender to the butchers in Iraq.

This has been the Bush-Cheney War. But it will only be fair to call the carnage after we run away the "Reid-Pelosi Massacres."

Of course, many Americans will pay scant attention to the bloody consequences in Iraq. The advocates of surrender will surely avert their eyes from the resulting mass graves and deny any responsibility, just as their counterparts from an earlier generation did regarding the killing fields of Cambodia and the mass graves, prison camps, and boat people of Vietnam. 

Besides, the escalation of attacks on the West by a reinvigorated al Qaeda may distract us. As Armed Liberal noted, if we abandon Iraq to the Islamofascists: 

We will have helped train a new generation of jihadis to believe that if they kill several thousand troops, we will surrender. The last time we taught them this lesson was in Somalia, which in Bin Laden's words

But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.

I can't wait to see what he says – and more importantly, does – in response to our pullout from Iraq.

 

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The 1930s again

Posted by Richard on February 16, 2007

I don’t really know why this subject tears me up so much emotionally, but it does. I’m an atheist with no particular attraction to Judaism. I’ve certainly had plenty of Jewish friends, but that doesn’t explain why the threat to Israel, the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, and related stories disturb me so very, very deeply.

Maybe, perversely, it has something to do with my pure Aryan (German-Austrian) heritage — my uncle Günther was a Luftwaffe pilot who died in WWII. Maybe the fact that I’m somehow connected to the "other side" weighs on me in some weird, irrational way. Whatever… I read stuff like the following, and I just start trembling and the tears flow. I don’t want there to be another shoah — holocaust. And I’m afraid that it may happen.

Thanks to Solomon for pointing out Charles Jacobs’ moving column. Like Sol, I’ll present the whole thing. If you’re Jewish or have ties in the community, please help with the Shabbat on the Iranian Threat. If you’re not, do something else — even if it’s just some small effort to express concern and raise awareness, like this post. Let Jacobs tell you why:

It’s the 1930s for U.S. Jews

By Charles Jacobs – Thursday February 15 2007

Half the world’s Jews are in the crosshairs of the Persian anti-Semite soon to have a nuke. Like his German predecessor, Ahmadinejad has a plan to annihilate millions. This time every Jew on the planet knows it. This time, can they act to stop it?

American Jews, far less powerful in the 1930s than today, were late to use what little power they had to scream the world awake. Looking back, world Jewry adopted a motto that in part defines them against that failure: “Never Again.”

But “Again” now looms, and Jews here are about to relearn a lesson: to speak up has a cost. Experts say Americans are concerned about Iran, but when they about Iran from Jews, they become suspicious.

Anti-Zionist intellectuals have revived the “dual loyalty” accusation with a vengeance. The infamous Walt-Mearsheimer paper, soon to become a lucrative book, claims disproportionate Jewish influence over American foreign policy was used to the benefit of Israel and to the detriment of “real” American interests.

The accusation that Jews tricked America into the Iraq war for Israel’s sake is not new. “The Jews,” it will be added, now drive America to attack nuclear Iran. “The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure from the New York money people to the office seekers," is how former general Wesley Clark put it.

The problem faced 65 years ago repeats: Will Jewry here risk its position to help Jews targeted for death overseas?

On moral grounds there is no question: Jews dare not be silent about the Iranian threat. But there is a practical issue that cannot be ignored. What if by raising their voices, Jews hurt this cause? Suppose people would become less convinced about Iran because it’s Jews who are protesting? A real predicament that Jews will have to overcome.

Surely there are non-Jews equally concerned about nuclearized Muslim messianics; Iran poses a threat not just to Israel but to all of the West.

But Bush-hatred and anger over the Iraq war drives so much of American politics. Never mind that Israelis, focused for a decade on Iran, warned America about the negative consequences of attacking Iraq. Facts don’t matter. Everything Bush believes will be contested whether it’s “Iran is lethal” or “the Earth is round.”

Irrationality reigns. The only folks likely to scream along with the Jews about Iran are Republicans, neo-cons, Evangelicals and conservatives: The same groups that evoke hatred in America’s opinion elite. Even if Jews join a coalition of the rationally fearful, the cry will not fade that “the Jews” push for war with Iran.

Meanwhile in Boston, “The Emergency Committee on the Iranian Threat,” launched a Web campaign: Shabbat on the Iranian Threat. They call on American rabbis to speak about Iran to their congregations on the days before Purim (March 2-3), the Jewish holiday celebrating the escape by Persian Jewry from annihilation by another Persian leader centuries ago.

Bring two gregors (noise makers).

Never again, dammit. Never again.
 

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Nazi roots of modern Islamofascism

Posted by Richard on July 27, 2006

If you want a crash course on the history of radical Islam in the 20th century and its extensive ties to the German Third Reich and European fascism, go read Eye on the World’s March 25 post, Islamonazism.

It begins with a look at Islamist-Nazi connections prior to and during WWII, focusing on the somewhat well-known story of the Jerusalem Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Huseini, but with much more detail than I knew. For instance, I knew al-Huseini spent much of the war in Berlin as Hitler’s guest and that he worked to recruit Muslims to the Nazi cause throughout Islam (with a great deal of success, by the way). But I didn’t know how closely involved and enthusiastic he was about the "Final Solution" (emphasis added):

At the Nuremberg Trials, Eichmann’s deputy Dieter Wisliceny (subsequently executed as a war criminal) testified:
"The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. … He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz."

OK, al-Huseini was obviously a very evil man, you might shrug, but that was more than 60 years ago. Well, I suggest you look at how broad and deep his influence was in the Arab world. He was treated as a pan-Arab hero after the war and never prosecuted for war crimes (although indicted) because the allies feared the Arab reaction. He passed along his Nazi ideology, including his rabid hatred of Jews and commitment to exterminating them, to a host of proteges, including Gamal Abdul Nasser, Saddam Hussein, the first chairman of the PLO, Ahmad Shukeiri, and the founders of the Ba’ath Party, who bragged openly of being racist Nazis.

Oh, and then there was a young man named Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Born in Cairo in 1929 and brought up in the Gaza Strip, he was a nephew of Muhammed Amin al-Huseini — and a great admirer of the Nazi mufti. He dedicated his life to following in his uncle’s footsteps and annihilating the Jews. But first, upon enrolling at the University of Cairo in 1951, he changed his name — to Yasser Arafat.

There’s much, much more. RTWT. Bookmark it for future reference. Send the link to people you know. Western Civilization could in the long run be in trouble if too few of us understand the true nature of our enemy and what’s at stake in this war they’re waging.

(I owe someone a hat-tip for the link to this important post, but I’ve lost the source, and Eye on the World doesn’t have trackbacks.)
 

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Muslims seek refuge in Israel

Posted by Richard on June 5, 2006

Solomonia pointed out two posts at Augean Stables that offer a striking "compare and contrast" opportunity. The first post was about Arab indifference to and complicity in genocide. It quoted Mohammed Buisier’s Wall Street Journal column about Darfur, which pointed out that the March Arab League summit in Khartoum passed a resolution denying that there were any massacres in Darfur and condemning any outside interference in the Sudan’s internal affairs. RL quoted Buisier and commented:

By adopting this argument, the Arab League was not just covering up for the atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government, but also for the direct or indirect involvement in this part of the Sudan of some of the Arab governments attending the summit. It is but one more shameful manifestation of Arab governments turning a blind eye to the continuing inhumane atrocities committed against their own citizens.

It sheds an interesting light on the moral indignation that the Arab League expresses vis-à-vis the Israelis. Even if we discount for tribal loyalties (the Palestinians are also Arabs, so their suffering concerns them more), this is rank hypocrisy. Here we have Sudanese Arab Muslims actually committing genocide, and the same organization that denounces a fabricated genocide of Palestinians (who continue to grow in numbers all the time), cannot bring itself to say anything negative. …

The second Augean Stables post was about Muslim Sudanese refugees fleeing to Israel, and thereby demonstrating something important:

This recalls what happened when the Phalangist massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatilla started. The Palestinians ran to the Israeli posts for protection, thereby showing that, when the chips are down they knew Israelis don’t massacre, no matter what Arab leaders and media told them. …

In this case it sheds an interesting light on the issue of refugees. Part of the “Zionist narrative” is that they treated their refugees from the Arab world with as much consideration and concern as possible, working hard to absorb them, while the Arab countries froze their refugees from Israel into a state of permanent suffering. Using moral equivalence, criticizing Israel for not sufficiently respecting the cultures from which these refugees came, the anti-Zionists have heaped contempt on this effort to distinguish the Israeli record from the Arab. But these Muslim refugees from Sudan, with limited access to anything but the Muslim press, know better… two generations later.

Originally from The Scotsman, the story of the Sudanese refugees in Israel is fascinating and heartwarming. Israelis are having a national debate about Sudanese asylum-seekers:

“If they know, everyone who pays $50 (£26) can come to a modern, democratic state and live happily ever after – why not come to Israel?” Yochie Gessin, an Israeli government lawyer, said last week. “We can’t accept this, there are some 40 million Sudanese.”

Such statements have sparked a bitter reaction. Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, has written to prime minister Ehud Olmert, urging him to “show solidarity” with the Sudanese refugees.

“As members of the Jewish people, for whom the memory of the Holocaust burns, we cannot stand by as refugees from the genocide in Darfur hammer on our doors,” Shalev wrote.

Michael Kagan, a lawyer with the Tel Aviv University Human Rights Clinic, which represents some 50 Sudanese refugees in the Israeli High Court, agreed. “This situation reveals just how much Israel is currently grappling with the issue of offering asylum to non-Jews,” he said.

The asylum seekers apparently are grateful to be living among Jews who worry about how welcoming to be, instead of among their fellow Muslims who are indifferent to genocide and contemptuous of human rights:

Now working in a kibbutz on the shores of the Dead Sea, Sanka is one of almost 30 Sudanese released on “house arrest” as their fate is decided in court. Despite being jailed for a year before being sent to the kibbutz, Sanka is remarkably upbeat about living in the Jewish state. “The Israelis here are really a free people, they have an open mind,” he said.

With his family from Dafur, Sanka, then living in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, decided to leave Sudan after attracting unwanted government attention over his reformist views. “I am Muslim but I don’t agree with fundamental Islam,” he said. “Many of my friends who expressed similar views, were arrested, tortured or in some cases, disappeared.”

He spent four years in Cairo but, after being arrested as an illegal worker, he caught a bus to Egypt’s Sinai region where he then walked for two days across the desert and into Israel. He was picked up by an Israeli military patrol and taken to a military jail.

“The Jewish people I’ve met here understand my plight. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that sounds funny but I do. I feel freer here than I ever did in Sudan.”

A Muslim feels freer in Israel under house arrest than in the Sudan or Egypt. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the relative moral status of the two cultures. Israel isn’t just more hospitable to Muslims than Arab nations are to Jews — it’s more hospitable to Muslims than Arab nations are to Muslims.
 

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Explaining Darfur

Posted by Richard on May 7, 2005

Glenn Reynolds pointed to a Joseph Britt post at Belgravia Dispatch about Darfur. He suggested reading the whole thing, and I enthusiastically echo that. This is the finest commentary on Darfur that I’ve seen. Heck, it’s the finest commentary on Arab culture that I’ve seen. I can’t help quoting big chunks:

… Arabs in Darfur seem to use rape as a weapon more often than Arabs from Saudi Arabia or Ramadi, and explosives not as often. But these look like details to me, a case of different people relying on different chapters of The Savage’s Handbook.

I know all the likely rebuttals to this deliberately brutal and inflammatory language. None of them explain the Arab genocide in Darfur; the silence of other Arabs about Arab genocide in Darfur; or the Western media’s silence about Arabs’ silence about Arab genocide in Darfur. Friedman, for example, seems oblivious to the subject. Kristof, who is not, follows the conventional practice of American journalists witnessing something awful. This is to demand that the American government do something about it.
…
We all saw in the last decade how many people in the former Yugoslavia had to die while European powers fiddled around waiting for the Americans. Europe had the means to stop the fighting sooner, but not the will. … At the end of it all European governments had the grace to show some sense of guilt and remorse about the whole sorry business.

The Arab world isn’t even doing that about Darfur. No peacekeepers, no aid, no media coverage, and for damn sure no guilt. …
…
You don’t need to be a master geo-strategist or have a doctorate in comparative anthropology to figure out that a culture and religion indifferent or worse to murder on a large scale is going to be a problem for the civilized countries. Egyptian, Saudi, and other Arab Muslims who object to this characterization of them have it within their power to prove me wrong, or not, by what they finally do about Darfur.

Bravo.

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