an online buddy speaks out re: ISLAM

An online friend of mine, a certain A. Simon who lives in a state whose climate is diametrically opposed to Alaska's, wrote me a doozy of an email about the Islam issue. I reprint it here for your perusal, minus a couple personal comments removed for privacy reasons.

[email follows]

I do have a small perspective to add about the Arabic people, whether it has any value or not. It seems to me that we're stupid (as a planet) for taking their statements at face value; how long has Arafat been saying, "Ok, I agree, no more suicide bombings," etc., and they've continued? Look at that poor Minister Of Information from Iraq; he could report for TIME Magazine. The simple fact is, they've been shit on and slapped around by the world for so long, they'll say ANY damn thing in public, and not mean a word of it. Saddam Hussein himself was constantly puffing up his chest talking about how he could lay waste to the U.S. military. It was BULLSHIT. He knew it; his people knew it, but it sounded real cool, plus calling him a lying asshole would get one shot.

Next point; they have NO clue how to self-govern. It's not that they're ignorant or uneducated. It's that they've never had the chance. They tended to come from Warlord/King to Despot to Mullah; somebody's always told them what to do, executed enough people to enforce it, and that's how it is. It's my view that if we back this government we've set up with sufficient force, and give it enough muscle to do the job, even if it fails after we leave, at least the TASTE of freedom will have been introduced; maybe it'll catch on, maybe it won't. I read today there's already a Mullah signing up his own army, and he hates the West, the U.S. in particular; perhaps a .308 round from an unknown source through his head might convince some folks we're not there to play.

Hell, I SOLVED this whole "mad bomber-jihad" shit on an Arabic message board a couple months back! It's SO simple.

1. Quit doing clitoridectomies. If their women had all their equipment, they'd LIKE sex. If they liked it, they'd do it more often and more enthusiastically. Geez, you ever see a fixed cat when another cat tries to fuck it? Ain't pretty. Now, carrying on this thought, if you JUST got laid, you're probably in the mood for a cold drink, some couch time in front of the tube, and the LAST thing on your mind is wrapping dynamite around yourself and blowing up a bunch of people you don't even know. That's a constant, anywhere in the world. Freshly fucked guys don't even THINK of stupid shit like that.
2. Arabic women are, collectively, some of the most beautiful women on the planet. Y'all would quit pissing away money coming stateside and screwing American girls, or going to Europe and blowing the family's hard-earned money on European girls if yours weren't maimed so badly they couldn't enjoy sex. And if your mothers/wives/daughters get a chance to read this, YES HE DID. He had sex with anything that MOVED while he was overseas, and he's LYING HIS ASS OFF if he tells you he didn't. In America, he bought a Trans Am and some cool furniture. Then he proceeded to wine and dine any female he found attractive, buy her jewelry, etc., and often got her to agree to marry him till she found out he had a wife or two at home and she had to wear that ridiculous funeral garment everywhere but in the house. Sometimes he'd forget he wasn't home and slap his girlfriend. Slapping an American woman is much like grabbing a lion by the testicles; it ends badly.

(Side note to family of the one Saudi I met; he was nothing like what I'm describing. Stayed home evenings, engaged in no kind of debauchery whatsoever; visited a local mosque regularly. Liked to argue the superiority of the Islamic way of life till I pointed out I was teaching HIM, not the reverse, and if he could get this quality of education at home, he wouldn't be hanging with an infidel like me).

I got a few reasonable replies about how I didn't understand their culture, a couple of replies about what an ignorant American I am, two death threats. But I still think I was right.

[end email]

I'm a regular reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog, and here's his take on current issues in Iraq, etc.:

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THE VITAL TASK: What matters now - the only thing that matters - is that we get the current end-game in Iraq right and find and kill or capture Saddam and his dead-enders. As for the dangerous situation in that country: who can be surprised? Did people really believe it would be one Tocquevillean orgy as soon as the Baathists were deposed? Did we really hope that the vast Baathist military that disappeared at the climax of the war would literally evaporate? The fact that the three major groups - Sunni, Shia and Kurd - are still on board for a representative government is far more significant than the resilience of a few Baathist left-overs, coordinated by Saddam. Safire was right yesterday. We are still at war over there against the Baathists and much of the current criticism of the occupation as a whole is ultimately designed to weaken domestic support for the vital task in front of us. That's what the anti-war left and right are now trying to do. They lost the battle before the war and during the war. They now desperately need the U.S. to lose the post-war. It's time for those of us who supported the liberation of Iraq to fight back against this potentially catastrophic gambit. For the U.S. to give up now, to withdraw, or to show any vacillation in the face of great progress in the Middle East, would indeed make matters far worse than if we had never intervened in the first place. We have an obligation to make it work. If some Democrats continue to argue that we should cut our losses, they are simply not ready for government.

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While I'm still mulling the rest of Sullivan's paragraph (and his larger argument), I fully agree with the part I put in boldface. We all have to throw our weight behind this, because that's the path we've chosen. Going half-assed into this project spells doom.
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