Dr Ihsanoglu, The Geek Is Calling You Out

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is Turkish, a Muslim, and, reportedly, a historian by education and background. The Geek is American, NRP, and, for sure, a historian by education and background.

This means the fight would be fair. So, the Geek would like very much to challenge the SecGen to a debate, an open, honest, full, fair, and frank exchange on the question of "religious defamation" and the substance of freedom of inquiry, opinion, and expression.

Of course, such a debate either through written exchanges or up close, live, and personal is impossible. Not because the SecGen is a busy and very, very important person being in charge of the affairs of a large and powerful bloc of Islamic dominated states, but because the SecGen and the organization he heads as well as its member countries fear open and honest debate. Period.

The OIC in keeping with the prevalent Muslim ethos of the day greatly prefers whining about presumed victim status and alleging unfair treatment at the hands of prejudiced and hateful "others" to an open and vigorous heuristic exchange of differing views. The default position of Muslim groups and many individual Muslims whenever and wherever and however confronted with disagreement and challenge is to claim victimization at the hands of "Islamophobes."

One can confidently expect the recent episode of a Muslim Army psychiatrist going a tad bit funny at Fort Hood will raise a storm of protest to the effect that even mentioning the shooter's Islamic affiliation is unfair, unjustified, prejudiced, and defamatory. Only Muslim groups will howl with protest and charges of prejudice, discrimination, and hatred. There is no probability that the American Psychiatric Association will sternly warn of the improper linkage between a lone shrink going postal and the psychiatric profession as a whole. Nor is it likely that the United States Army will complain that identifying the trigger puller as a Major in its Medical Corps will cause violence and threats to be leveled against military personnel generally.

No. The complaints and the whining will emanate solely from the Muslim quarter. Along with dark cautions against the exacerbation of "Islamophobia" will be the obbligato and formulaic denunciations of violence and the demands that Islam be held harmless in the event.

Instead, the focus will be on the person--not the religion which is part of the person's internal structure and motivations. Excuses, usually those of discrimination or alienation will be offered as to why the shooter "snapped" and ran amok in a blizzard of bullets. The power of religion, of belief, of internal imperatives in conflict will be buried in drifts of psychobabble, charge and counter-charge, and, as the context, fear of offending people.

Ah, yes, the fear of offering offense, no matter how unintended--or justifiable--on the basis of fact. What compelling power that particular fear has today for presidents, potentates, popes, and even those of us in the hoi polloi. It is a fear which is both endemic and epidemic in the US and the West generally today.

It is, however, a fear which is remarkable only in its absence in the Muslim world, in the OIC and in the recent writing of Secretary General Ihsanoglu.

Which is why the Geek would dearly love to debate the Secretary General. The subject would be the "defamation" of religion resolution which whizzed through the UN Human Rights Council to the ultimate detriment of that most basic of Western and American rights, the right of free inquiry, opinion, and expression.

Mr Ihsanoglu has taken the standard Muslim line in defense of the unfortunate document co-sponsored by the US and Egypt before the UNHRC. He argues passionately that this resolution and, by implication, both the OIC and Muslms generally have been the victims of a "smear" campaign at the hands of unnamed non-governmental organizations and "interest groups."

You gotta love that. Sinister NGOs and an evil cabal of "interest groups" all plotting a vicious "smear campaign" against the innocent Muslims, adherents one and all of the religion of peace and tolerance."

Oh, the Secretary General's position is not simply that of branding the opposition as the legions of darkness. He also portrays the OIC as the force of light.

Let me reiterate the willingness on the part of the OIC to engage constructively with the US, the EU and others with a view to taking a holistic view aimed at defining and maintaining a delicate balance between freedom of opinion and respect for all religions and incitement to hatred.

Notice the finely nuance wording (the sign of an academic mind at work.) There is no way to "balance" freedom of inquiry, opinion, and expression with the other two considerations when only one religion--Islam--is specifically named in the resolution and when the most vocal advocates for the special position of that religion consider even truthful, factually based critiques of the faith and its works to be "defamatory," to be "incitement to hatred."

The "delicate balance" to which Dr Ihsanoglu refers is already impossible in Muslim dominated states which outlaw any criticism of Islam no matter how mild, how truthful, how factual, how justifiable. Given the totalistic nature of Islam which denies any possible distinction between the state and its politics on the one hand and the community of faith on the other, there is no way that the balance to which the Secretary General alludes can be made.

To put it bluntly, there is no tradition of free expression in any Islamic dominated state. There is no allowance for freedom of opinion in Islam qua Islam. Nor is there any probability that such would emerge in this world in the foreseeable future.

Dr Ihsanoglu is aware of this. He has to be. He is Turkish. Turkey, until quite recently at least, has been unique among Muslim majority states. It has had in an off and on sort of way a glimmering of free speech. Of course, as the heritage of Ataturk is cast off by the new Islamist rooted government there, the point will be moot in the future.

Dr Ihsanoglu must also be quite aware of the realities which exist in Muslim dominated states such as Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and so many others of heavy handed repression of disagreeable opinions, disagreeable writings--and disagreeable writers. He must know to his very bones that it is in Muslim dominated states that freedom means only the freedom to conform one's thoughts, words, and actions to the approved protocol.

He must also know, even if faintly, that it is not the words written and spoken by non-Muslims about Islam which creates any hostile attitudes toward either the religion of Islam or its adherents. Rather, it is the actions, the words, the behavior of Muslims which cause the reactions which the Secretary General finds so appalling.

It is very difficult for a person residing in the West to find good in a faith which either allows, or worse, impels the use of suicide bombers, the stoning of women, the amputation of the limbs of petty thieves. It is difficult to say nothing but good about a religion when that religion's sacred writings extol war, applaud the decapitation of Jews, demands violence be directed against those of another confession, calls for the death of apostates, and generally revels in both blood and visions of hell.

The Secretary General may even suspect that the root cause of the recurrent Muslim demands for special protection against the words and views is fear. He may even on rare occasions feel a quiver, a deep inner feeling which warns Muslims are not actually convinced of the worth of their own belief structures. If the believers truly believed in the value and worth and certainty and accuracy of their beliefs they would not tremble before criticism, they would not quake before attacks, they would not whine after special protection, and allege that only sinister and dark forces opposed their need for legal wrappings against the views and expressions of others.

Whining, protestations, and accusations of ill-will are not the sign of strength either in an individual or in a system of beliefs. So, Dr Ihsanoglu, what does this say about Islam? The OIC? Or you?

Never Argue Religion and Politics?

Way back in the mythical "good old days" when Ike was in the White House the Geek was repeatedly and strictly told never to argue religion and politics as to do such was to commit a grave social faux pas. By crossing this line of good conduct, the Geek would be assured of becoming a social outcast, shunned by polite people.

The Geek ignored the well-intended guidance, going ahead and arguing in the forbidden zones. He found quickly that his interlocutors rapidly became both frustrated and aggravated. The Geek spent some his adolescent years wondering why. Differences in view, he naively believed, should be welcomed. They provided diversion, the pleasure of give-and-take, allowed time to pass enjoyably and (sometimes) profitably.

After awhile the big fist of realisation hit him.

The real reason it is difficult--even impossible--to argue about religion and politics is that both subjects tend to be rooted deeply in pure emotion. And, arguing emotion is a working definition of futility.

It is probably equally futile to argue the one of the most important issues of the present time.

That issue?

Simple.

Religion in politics. To state the proposition less inaccurately: religion is politics.

No. The Geek doesn't simply mean the incessant "god talk" that blathered ad nauseum during the presidential primary campaign.

(That phenomenon bothered the Geek. Like Thomas Jefferson, the Geek holds the view that a person's religions convictions (if any) are a matter even more private than that person's sexual preferences and peccadilloes.)

The monotheistic religions are political in nature. The jefes within each, regardless of their job titles or the precise organisation of the hierarchy (if any), seek to exercise power over the perceptions, beliefs and actions of the membership.

Regulations--laws--concerning the most intimate of behaviors such as sex, eating and cleanliness provide a powerful means of controlling a population. Particularly if the laws are backed by the force of deity. The hope of everlasting pleasurable reward for obeying the authority of the faith. The fear of eternal punishment if that authority is flouted.

It is not surprising that at least two of the monotheistic faiths have spent much time, effort and blood acquiring, maintaining and expanding authority over, not simply the personal morality of people, but full-fledged power over all aspects of life and land.

For a thousand years and more the Catholic Church sought total, unchallenged temporal power in Europe. Using the supposed power of the Bishop of Rome to "bind and loose" souls as a potent adjunct to more conventional forms of diplomacy, the Church exercised powerful sway over the European continent and its inhabitants.

The Church and ambitious emergent secular rulers attempted to extend control over the Mideast--the Crusades--and the New World. The success of the enterprise was, at best, mixed. Ultimately it failed. Foundering under the gales of change that came in the wake of both the Crusades and the invasion of the Western Hemisphere.

Protestant churches were no better in avoiding the temptation to combine spiritual and temporal power. The Church of England was a major prop of the centralising British monarchy. Lutheranism allowed princes of the German states to define themselves and their territories. Calvin went for a theocracy in Geneva. In all cases success was, at best, mixed and transient.

Throughout all these attempts at unchallenged political dominance by one church or another, one factor remains constant. Blood flowed. A lot of blood. On the battlefield. From the assassin's knife. In the torture chambers. Blood ran long and deep.

The authors of the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution were well aware of this history. They were close to much of it in time. The potential harm of religion as politics compelled them to reject an identifiably religious, an identifiably Christian base to the new American Republic.

At the time, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the others were excoriated for not including a specific reference to Jesus Christ or Christianity in either of the two documents which founded the United States of America. In recent years members of the Christian right wing in this country have done the same.

(Actually, they've gone miles beyond mere criticism. They have distorted history and belief, tried to mug Jefferson into agreement with their view that the US is and always has been a Christian nation.)

While there is no doubt that the values, belief systems and morality of several Protestant Christian denominations comprise a critical substrate of the American Experiment, it is as wrong as a cat barking to aver that the US and its government are or ever have been a Christian edifice.

The US faced a wave of hijackings and hostage-taking in the Mideast. Hoping to avoid expensive, prolonged and unpredictable war with the Muslim ruler whose personnel executed these acts of terrorism, the administration negotiated a treaty.

The treaty between the US and the Bey of Tripoli contained a very explicit statement, "(T)he government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion." This ringingly secular declaration was not included simply because it was true. It was incorporated in the treaty because the Bey maintained that he and his subjects had a religious duty to keep the infidels away.

Of course, that was a crock. The Bey and his pirates were in a money making enterprise. Not unlike the airlines a century and a half later who paid tribute to Fatah to assure that their planes wouldn't be hijacked or bombed, the Muslims of Tripoli were after the payoff. When the US didn't pay its ships were victimized. It's sailors enslaved.

The treaty didn't work for long either. Finally, the US had to use force. At first we did it poorly. We lost one of our best and newest warships to the pirates. Took heavy losses. Some congressmen bemoaned the administration's inept handling of affairs. Its unwillingness to talk more--even pay more.

Finally, we got the war right. We won. The Marines' Hymn got a line. The Bey backed down. Our ships sailed in peace. Without having to pay for the right.

Nearly two hundred years ago our Muslim enemies attempted to shield the nature of their actions behind the dictates of religious obligation. We didn't play that game. We specifically denied that our government was Christian (or to use today's terminology so loved by the jihadists, "Crusader.")

We tried to talk. We tried to pay. When those didn't work, we tried fighting as a last resort. We fought poorly. Lost at first. Learned as we went. Won. End of story.

As the Geek has contended in previous posts, Islam is not a religion. It is what it always has been. An expansionist political vision cloaked in visions of religion. Politics and religion are inseparable in the Quran, the hidith, in all other Muslim writings.

A Muslim can take the expansionist trajectory of Islamic political doctrine or leave it. That choice is his. (The Geek uses the male pronoun intentionally. As one of the hidith makes clear, "Paradise for a woman is under a man's boot," only men matter.)

The US and other western, secular, liberal democracies must make it clear that in the conflict--no--the war between it and the Islamists/jihadists, we understand the nature and character of our enemy. The enemy is the stark, harsh, primitive political movement from the badlands of the Arabian Peninsula.

Sensitivity in pursuit of victory in this war is only legitimate as a tactic. Political correctness that prohibits accurately describing our opponent is not justified.

Arguably, the well-intended but hopelessly misguided effort to refrain from giving our enemy "legitimacy" by using terms such as "jihadist" or "Islamist" or "Islamic terrorist" is defeating its own goal. By being so, so sensitive we are giving the enemy the very legitimacy we hope not to.

By retracting from rhetorical honesty we are giving the enemy the same hope we did when we cut and ran from Somalia following the death of a handful of Rangers and Special Forces in an ineptly planned and executed raid.

Our enemy in the current war(s) is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not the poverty of so many people in the Muslim countries. It is not even the 1.5 giga-Muslims per se.

(It must be recalled that each Muslim has the right, even the duty, to interpret the religion for himself. He need not listen and heed thoughtlessly the urgings of some cleric or another.)

Our enemy is the most death oriented, most harshly primitive versions of Islam incorporated in Salifism and Wahhibism. It is those Muslims who listen to the call of blood, death and unforgiving, indiscriminate acts of murder. It is those Muslims who act as apologists for the killers or who seek to subvert the will and ability of those who oppose the perpetrators of homicide.

Our enemy is those Muslims who, like the Bey of Tripoli and his ilk, harmed us and those like us while wrapped in the pages of the Quran.

It is not Islamophobia to know your enemy and to let him know that you know him. It's called being honest.

Will The OIC Ever Understand Freedom of Expression?

Not a chance--if the recent statement of the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference is any indication.

Flying well under the radar of the Western mainstream media, the fifty plus members of the OIC held a two day meeting in Istanbul to consider ways and means of countering a phenomenon the member states don't like.

The term used by the OIC is "Islamophobia."

More correctly, the little something which annoys the OIC is called "Free Speech."

Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, OIC Secretary General kicked off the International Conference on Islamophobia with a florid diatribe against the "defamation" of Islam. See http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=711.

In the course of his remarks, the professor not only demonstrates that he has no concept of free speech, open inquiry, or the clash of ideas, he exhibits a complete lack of historical awareness and caps it off by proving Sam Huntington was right--we are engaged in a "clash of civilizations."
"Prove it!" You challenge.

OK, let's listen in. Here is how the prof sees freedom of expression. To put it simply, he understands it as one big "yes, but."

Another bone of content with the proponents of Islamophobia is the question of the freedom of expression. Although all agree that any freedoms are always linked to responsibility, such as respecting human rights, and avoiding any form of incitement to hatred or defamation of religion, we find that some circles in
the West tend to ignore this basic universal and moral value. There is a
tendency here to consider that narrow and local interpretation of the universal
values, comes above any other given value, thus putting the local, ethical or
moral values in total contradiction with the universal values.

Perhaps the General Secretary has been too busy constructing this tortured logic to have noticed that Muslims have a great experience at inciting hatred and defamation of religion. If he needs a refresher in this, the professor needs only to go to Cairo and wander through the bookstores. If this is too hard, he can check http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/eng/eng_n/hi41207e.htm and link on to a number of other excellent examples of Islamic "literature" which defames and incites hatred for Judaism.

Then there is the GenSec's take on history. Read on, "No Muslim has ever been accused of demonizing or vilifying any of the sacred religious Christian symbols or national one." It is a fact of history that Muslims have demonized and vilified both Christian and Western national symbols. It is ludicrous to say otherwise.

(The only rival in the ludicrousness department might be the "apology" of some overly politically correct people offered to Muslims for the Crusades. The Geek might think that the "apology" was justified if the Muslims offered a similar mea culpa for the conquest of the Iberian peninsula, or the attempted conquest of Vienna. More to the point of reality, "apologies" for historical realities are utterly irrelevant exercises in feel-good verbiage.)

The SecGen pays lip service to the "dialogue between civilizations," but the essential subtext indicates that the OIC actually believes in a "clash of civilizations."

"The subtext?" You ask.

Consider the first field of the OIC's website, http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/index.asp. It shows a global map with the member countries shown in red. Now, play along with the Geek in a little thought experiment. Picture the headlines in, say, the Washington Post, or the London Times, if an OCC (Organization of the Christian Conference) were to be formed. Were to post a website with a global map where all the predominantly or exclusively Christian countries were displayed in blue.

Pretty ugly, right?

Of course, the world will never have to deal with an OCC or a map where blue countries cover the majority of the world. The historical trajectory of the post-Reformation period militates against the idea of an OCC taking form regardless of the fantasies of some Christian evangelicals. Politics and religion in the West may be linked by values or ideas, but they are not joined hip and head as Islam posits and Islamists demand.

Get a grip on this. In the preliminaries to the recent Annapolis Conference, the Palestinian Authority negotiators made it clear that the PA would not accept characterising Israel as a Jewish State. Presumably, the OIC has no problem with this stance or, if it does, the problem has been well hidden.

Yet neither the PA nor the OIC have any difficulty with the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. There is no indication that the OIC would make a face at any of the member countries designating themselves as Islamic.

Now, think for a moment what the reaction of the OIC's Secretary General would be if a country would rename itself a Christian republic. There is no doubt in the Geek's mind that such an action would be quickly and loudly decried as "Islamophobic." Heck, the resulting brouhaha would make the lunatic protests over the Danish cartoons last summer (over which the SecGen spills more than a few words) look like love making.

In short, the subtext of the OIC as represented in its Secretary General's speech is simple: What's ours is ours. What's yours is negotiable.

Admittedly, there have been some awfully stupid actions taken by Western governments to limit speech, inquiry, and debate in recent days and years. One need only recall the "Truth in History" laws of Germany and Austria which criminalise something called Holocaust Denial. Many of the speech codes adopted by American universities in the search for sensitivity protecting political correctness fall in the same category of idiocy.

What the OIC obviously wants is much more than either of these examples. What it wants is nothing less than either a highly constricting self-censorship on the part of Western media, academia, and politics or imposition of such limitations by the United Nations.

The UN General Assembly is no advocate of free speech. It is no upholder of free inquiry. It is no friend of wide open, free swinging debate. This has been shown not simply by the repressive measures imposed on journalists (including bloggers) and academics. It has been shown not only by past actions taken by the UN or a subdivision thereof to limit journalism or satellite broadcasting.

The generally negative, not to say destructive, view of free speech afflicting the UN has been shown in recent weeks by the expressed attitude of its Special Rapporteur on Racism, who has been a major cheerleader for governmental action against "Islamophobia" which he, like the OIC, equates with the worst excesses of racism.

Get a grip on this unpleasant reality. The OIC, and presumably the majority of the countries which comprise it, are hellbent on imposing limits on us in the West. The organization wants to stuff a gag to end all gags in our collective mouth.

It's simple. If you can't say something nice (that is something we at the OIC like) about Islam or Muslims--say nothing at all.

Get a grip on this, OIC. The answer to speech you don't like hearing isn't censorship. It isn't a gag. It isn't accusations of "racism." The answer to speech you don't like is more speech.

Why don't you blokes try something new? Try entering the debate. Try listening to opposing views. Try to heal your hyper-sensitivity to words or pictures that might be considered (even by non-Muslims) offensive.

Heck, guys, debating sure beats suicide bombing.

You really ought to try it.

Are Muslims The Vipers In Our Nest?

Religious beliefs formed the foundation of the United States nearly two centuries before the country came into existence. We (sort of) acknowledge that fact with our continued celebration of Thanksgiving. The original celebrants of Thanksgiving were a group of religiously intolerant fugitives from the "blasphemous" air of Anglican polluted England.

Make no mistake about it. The Puritans saw themselves as the only "real" Christians. In their estimate the Church of England was as un-Christian as the hated Roman Catholic Church. Nor were they any more willing to accept any other "dissenting" groups such as the Quakers or the motley bunch assembled around Roger Williams in the Rhode Island Colony.

The Puritans came to New England to hold themselves "pure" and prepare for a return to the "world" in order to redeem it when God so directed.

So, they drank, fornicated, repented every Sunday and went back to drinking and fornicating with the occasional time out to hunt "witches." A nice Godly crew, right?

Religious intolerance continued well into our collective national history as shown by the anti-Catholic bias that continued through (and beyond) the Nineteenth Century. The Democratic Party was branded as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" after the Civil War, and the distrust of Catholics continued into the Twentieth Century as seen in the campaigns of Al Smith in 1928 and John Kennedy thirty-two years later.

In recent years the Christian Right has brought back the fires of the Puritan witch hunts in at least metaphorical form with judicial and political litmus tests which subordinate economic and other considerations to an amorphous mass dubbed "values." These "values" whether a position on women's rights to control their reproductive lives, the relations between people of the same (or opposite) sex, or stem cell research have taken pride of place over such matters as the ways in which our tax money might be spent or even the issue of war and peace.

H. Rap Brown once said that violence was as American as apple pie. He might have more accurately averred that religious bigotry and myopia were as American as cherry pie.

Now we have to face the bedrock of religious belief and its perversion in a more concrete and potentially threatening way. We have to take a hard and long look at the position of Muslims in American society.

Muslims currently make up only a small percentage of the American population. However that percentage is bound to grow, perhaps significantly given immigration and the increased number of conversions, particularly among Americans of African ancestry.

Europe has already been faced with the difficulties of an increasing number of Muslims. We must not only observe--and learn, we must also examine how Islamic jurists define the responsibilities of a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country.

For a start, take a look at http://www.meforum.org/article/1761. The author gives a well-balanced synopsis of the state of play regarding the determinations offered by various Islamic clerics/jurists on the relationship between the Muslim and the non-Islamic society in which he lives.

Douglas Farah offers a less-than-positive stance on this article in his post (which is reposted on the Counterterrorism Blog) http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/278/in-some-ways-the-crux-of-the-matter.com. He emphasizes the duty laid upon Muslims to consolidate their position and seek the creation of a global Islamic state.

The creation of a new, presumably global, caliphate is the end goal of Islamism. Various Islamist writers from Qutb to bin Laden have made this clear. Further, whether Islamist or not, the assorted Islamic jurists and clerics have asserted that the corrupt, decadent West will and must accept Islam.

In a similar way, Islamic clerics and jurists of all stripes agree that the first loyalty of a Muslim is to Islam, not the state. This is not a restatement in updated terminology of the old canard held to be true for so long in the US that the first loyalty of a Catholic is to the Pope and not the State. The Islamic community is held to be an alternative to the nation-state, a superior option which can and will be brought into existence thus replacing the Western invention.

Politically articulate and aware Americans would be well-advised to study Islamic formulations regarding the relation of Muslim and state. Each of us must reach a well-founded position on this critical matter. Unless we do so we face two dangers. Each is as bad as the other.

The first is that Muslims who reject our view of separation of religious community and secular state will be able to use the liberties of our Constitution and political system to our ultimate disadvantage.

The other is that we Americans will dip deep into our well of religious bigotry and intolerance to make judgments and take actions which will do us long term harm.

It is a long, hard, and winding road between the idiocy of mindless, uncritical multiculturalism on one side and base bigotry on the other. Finding the road requires judgement based on knowledge. Keeping on it requires a clear awareness of who we are and what we are all about.

Give The Sensitivity Rap A Rest--Please

The Geek has always had a soft spot for the United Nations and occasionally hopes that it will become an organization useful for some employment other than serving as the periodic fig leaf covering the policy genitalia of the United States or magnifying local events into seeming global catastrophes.

But, that's not going to happen soon as shown by a small, recent event.

Comes now the UN special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related forms of intolerance, a lawyer from Senegal named Doudou Diene with a twenty-one page report on the alleged growth of "islamophobia" in Europe. (The Geek didn't make up Mr Diene's impressive job title. That's the way it was reported. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=bcd6c1c9-69ee-4da2-a9d4-e431b1e37ff7&k=493)

According to Reuters, Mr Diene is hyperventilating about what he sees as political exploitation by parties on the right of fears raised in the post-9/11 environment linking Islam with terrorist attacks. Diene is quoted as saying that more and more intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians are "equating Islam with terrorism and violence." He goes on to mention that some were attempting to "silence religious practices by banning the construction of mosques."

In his report and quoted remarks, Mr Diene echoed earlier statements by Masood Khan, Pakistan's representative at the recent conclave of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an assembly of fifty-seven nations allegedly representing each and every one of the roughly 1.3 billion Muslims in the world today.

Masood Khan characterized the rise in "Islamophobia" as "alarming." He backed his assessment by mentioning, "Recent acts of defamation in the shape of blasphemous sketches in Sweden and posters in Switzerland..." He concluded, "Such blasphemy should not be encouraged in the name of freedom of expression."

Apparently, the special rapporteur for racism, etc. agrees. Sensitivity trumps freedom of expression. Swiss posters featuring a set of white sheep kicking a black sheep out of the pasture along with Swedish sketches and Danish cartoons must be prohibited lest some Muslim, somewhere be offended.

The Geek disagrees. Completely.

Freedom of expression is one of the highest, perhaps the single highest, Western post-Enlightenment value. Without freedom of expression, other values--political, social, cultural, economic--cannot exist.

Without freedom of expression, there can be no freedom of inquiry, no freedom to explore, take risks, change, develop.

Without freedom of expression, there can be only group think. There can be only group think within limits permitted by some absolute authority.

The God dodge won't work. An Islamist (or Masood Khan, for that matter) might argue that the deity alone sets the limits. Of course, it is humans who set themselves up to interpret in the manner of presidential spokespersons just what the deity really meant by one prohibition or another, one exhortation or another.

If history shows one bright and shining line separating free societies from those under the authoritarian boot of ideology or religion, it is that provided by freedom of expression. That line is bright with the blood of those who died to establish and preserve it. It shines due to the courage of those who push the envelope, dare the censors, outrage the mainstream.

The Geek does not expect either Mr Diene or Masood Khan to understand this aspect of Western history. After all, there are many Americans and many Europeans who are quite willing to censor in the name of sensitivity, under the banner of multi-culturalism.

The Geek accepts the notion of civility of discourse. History demonstrates convincingly that a modicum of civility in political, social, or cultural speech serves as a potent lubricant. Civility allows debate, disagreement, even argument without fists being clenched or throats staining for an additional decibel.

Civility in discourse is all that is necessary. The avoidance of the intentional, wounding insult is all that is required for the gears of interaction to operate with relative smoothness.

Perhaps one other factor is necessary as well. Get a grip on it.

Freedom of expression brings risks. Among these is the possibility of having one's sensitivities offended. Gosh! Can you believe it? Even the Geekmo has felt offended once or twice in his life.

This sort of inadvertent offense is like a sudden shower on a warm day. It comes. It goes. You dry off. Life goes on. That's all there is to it.

No one likes to get caught without an umbrella when the rain hits. But, we get over it. No one likes to be offended. But, we can get over it.

We can even benefit from the occasional sense of being offended. The sudden, sharp sense of outrage, of hurt sensitivities can, if we are smart enough, insightful enough, cause each of us to reflect on the basis for the outrage. How real is it? How important is it? Did it really hurt that much?

Mr Diene, Masood Khan, and the pathologically sensitive among us have to get over it. We are all best off when we remember the childhood, but certainly not childish saying: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Maybe we should add the words, "Unless I let them."

Finally, Mr Diene and others of your ilk, remember the harm words might do is far, far outweighed by the good freedom of expression has yielded. Can you say the same about the roadside bomb or the person in our midst with an explosive packed vest?

Ayatollah Khamenei Warps Reality--Again

One of the features of the First Cold War which the Geek has missed is the high quality, inventive invective that formerly poured from Moscow and, to an even more delightful extent, Beijing. The Geek still gets a frisson of delight when he remembers that at one time he and others like him were characterised as "running dog lackeys of the Wall Street imperialist claque."

Those were the days, my friends (to borrow a song lyric) when US presidents were routinely abused as "fascists," or "Hitlerites." The Good Old Days when the Soviet capo could promise "to bury" the US and all of us. It's enough to make you sigh with nostalgia for the way-back-when, the time when we Americans were "the oppressors of the legitimate aspirations of the toiling masses."

Praise be to the All-Highest (under whatever name you prefer.) The mullahocracy in Tehran has volunteered to take up the rhetorical slack.

Not that the Iranian theocrats have ever been bashful when it comes to insults and threats. Recently the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards naval component promised to make the Persian Gulf a "hell" should the US navy get uppity. The warning was expanded to include the states of the Gulf littoral.

The Geek supposes that the USN is quaking in its seaboots.

The emir of the IRGC navy was backed by his commander,who shortly before he was transferred to the post of security and military advisor to the president,promised to "punch" the US should it be so bold as to list the IRGC as a terrorist organ. Oh, boy, that was scary, right?

Perhaps the same man in his new role as presidential advisor wrote the speech given by Iran's Cleric-in-Chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As the crowd in the mosque cheered him on with rhapsodic cries of, "Death to America," (a favorite Iranian oldie-but-goodie), the Ayatollah compared George W. Bush unfavorably with Adolph Hitler.

Wait one, Ayatollah!

The Geek was thunderstruck when George H.W. Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Hitler sixteen years ago. The Geek said then and he writes now, the comparison was unfair to both Saddam and Hitler if for no other reason than Saddam didn't even make the top ten in genocide practitioners.

The Supreme Mullah is even more wrong. But the line was a crowd pleaser. So was its follow-on. The Man of Allah predicted that W. Bush would stand trial as a war criminal just like Hitler and Saddam.

Flag on the play, Ayatollah.

Hitler, in case your theological education overlooked recent history, committed suicide in his bunker while Red Army shells exploded outside. In case you were too busy praying or cranking out fatwas to notice what was happening next door, Saddam Hussein was tried, convicted, and executed by a pure Iraqi team. It wasn't an international tribunal as in Nuremberg after World War II or a constituted international court such as heard the cases of more recent perpetrators of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

That didn't matter to the mass in the mosque. It was time for more delirious cheers of "Death to America." Seems the worshipers didn't know anymore about the recent past than the preacher--or didn't care about such trivialities as reality or truth.

On a roll now, Khamenei accused the US of manipulating Saddam Hussein so he kicked off the Gulf War. (The one between Iraq and Iran, not the US led operation to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait.) This piece of oratorical flourish committed an assault on historical reality akin to charging that Franklin Roosevelt manipulated Hitler to attack the Soviet Union in June 1941.

(Whoops! Maybe the Geek shouldn't have written that. There might be some academics of the Blame-America-First school of history who feel that must have been the case.)

Similar violations of historical fact dotted the balance of the "sermon." The US made sure that Hamas won the elections in the Palestinian Authority. The US egged Israel into last year's disastrous invasion of Lebanon. And so on. And so on.

The crowd ate it all up.

Can't say it surprises me. How about you?

We all understand political rhetoric for hometeam consumption. It's what we're going through right now. W. Bush slings his I-Was-Right-and-We're Winning! brand. The Surrender Now! crowd in Congress heaves its. Both distort truth, ignore history, chuck rationality into the pottie and pander to emotions.

Politics as usual, right?

Sure. The Geek has no problem with the concept although he is amused by the Tehran version and irritated by the Made in America sort.

There is, however, something in play here far more important than rhetorical distortions for domestic consumption.

Iran has a credibility problem. A major one. It is very hard to believe Teheran's protestations that all the Islamic Republic wants is it's own Atoms For Peace and Prosperity program.

It's also very hard to believe the mullahocracy's protestations as delivered by the Foreign Minister the other day that if the US would just leave the region, Iran along with its good friends and peace-loving allies Syria and Saudi Arabia would provide fraternal assistance to the Iraqis. Even harder to accept is the oft repeated denials of providing material, munitions, training, and other assistance to some insurgent groups in Iraq.

While the Ayatollah's spewing of high-quality invective was enjoyable for his audience (and the Geek), while it was intended for domestic consumption only, it was dangerous. Dangerous to Iran. Dangerous to all the rest of us.

It was dangerous to Iran because it served to widen the credibility gap yawning between mullah driven blathering and the suspicions of Iran's intents growing in the US and much of Europe.

It is dangerous for the rest of us because while rhetoric may not be reality, rhetoric has the potential to drive perceptions both within and outside Iran. Perceptions rapidly and readily become the bases of action.

So reads the book of history.

A final piece of advice to the ayatollah's speech writers. Take a look at some of the old communist declarations. They were both more amusing and far less likely to be taken seriously. Also, retire the "Death to America" slogan--it's been overdone.

Islam--Prejudice or Honesty?

Getting a grip on Islam and Muslims is worse than trying to take a firm hold on a flopping fish. Every time you think you've got a hold on the critter, it slips, slides and flips out of your hands.

The problem has two sources: The nature of Islam; the nature of tolerance and understanding in the US and throughout the Western world.

Islam is a deeply divided system of beliefs due to its origin as a political ideology with religious coloration as discussed in earlier posts. A major inconsistency exists between the earlier revelations when Mohammad was developing his movement and the later verses written after the violent conquest of the major cities of the Arabian Peninsula such as Mecca.

The early verses give rise to the oft-repeated portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace, harmony and human unity. In this Islam is no different from more recent ideologies, most notably communism.

Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro all spilled much ink and expended much wind on the proposition that desirable human virtues such as equality, individual development, the abolishment of poverty, disease and famine would accompany the success of the ideology. Ideologues, whether they cloak their wares in the will of God, or Historical Inevitability, all have the goal of attracting, retaining and mobilizing followers in order to achieve one goal.

The goal?

Power. Political power. The capacity to directly and significantly affect in a desired way the perceptions, beliefs and actions of a target population. The target population might be that of Russia. It might be the people of Cuba, or China. A long time ago it was the inhabitants of the desert wastes and the cities of Arabia.

Or the target population might be that of the world. The goal might be the enrolling of the entire human race under a single banner.

Of course history shows beyond even the most unreasonable doubt that sweetness and light, warm, fuzzy words might not do the job. The pen might not be as mighty as the cliche holds.

But, a pen backed by a sword is far more convincing. Unpleasant, but true. Take a grip on it.

The sword. It was the sword that won the Arabian peninsula for Mohammad and his Companions, his hard-core cadre. It was the sword which won so much more for Islam over the next century or so. It was the swinging of the red-edged sword which lurks behind the later verses of the Quran.

The later portions are the mother lode for fatwas, jihads, suicide bombings as well as the bodyguard of lies which can and does surround these overt hostile actions. It is the later verses which are the red meat for the fearful, the vengeful, and the authoritarians in the souk and the mosque.

Get a grip on this. Islam is a religion (or a politco-religious system, if you prefer) that is inherently authoritarian. It demands complete submission to the will of the deity as well as those qualified to instruct the mass as to the what the deity's will might be.

It is in the act of submission, the process of turning the course of a person's life over to the deity and the interpreters, that gives Islam (and, the Geek must point out if he's honest about it, other religious beliefs) it's appeal and power.

History and psychology agree on a few points. One of the most important is that most humans, most of the time, do not want to take responsibility for their own lives. Particularly they don't want to take responsibility for failure, bad decision making, or other negatives.

An authoritarian religion, any authoritarian social-political system or ideology for that matter, can relieve the individual of the unwanted burden of personal responsibility. It also can and does provide a suitable candidate, an Other, as the evil doer perpetrating all of life's miscarriages upon an individual. (For Nazis it was the Jews, for Communists it was the capitalists, and for Islamists it is the West and the apostates within.)

An authoritarian ideology whether religious or secular can, must, provide targets for frustration, failure, humiliation, for all the icky-poo components of life. To be really successful an authoritarian ideology must provide a vision of both paradise lost and paradise regained. It must blame the present situation on past failures of ideological purity and cohesiveness. It must promise that paradise will be regained if ideological purity and cohesiveness are practiced fully and completely.

An authoritarian ideology must play to fear, must harness fear, must insist that only through complete and absolute submission to the requirements of the ideology in belief, in speech and in action will the individual's fears be lessened.

Get a firm grip on this: Islam is an authoritarian religion, an authoritarian ideology, even a total institution as Goffman defined such nearly fifty years ago for many of its adherents. It plays to fear, encourages fear, stokes fear. At the same time it provides a message of hope, redemption and ultimate victory in both this world and the next. All that is required is total, utter submission.

A well known paradox of the human condition is that submission truly liberates. Surrender does make one free.

Another paradox is that enough fear makes an individual fearless. Fear God and dread nought is found in the Bible. An equivalent expression is in the Quran--repeatedly.

In Europe and the United States total wars of religious ideology are thankfully in the past. Westerners can afford to believe in the virtues of tolerance, open-mindedness, appreciation of cultural differences. We are quite used to the clamor of competing voices in the public square. We are by and large unbothered if churches, temples, synagogues and mosques border the public square.

Many of us who grew up in America during the worst days of the Cold War nonetheless believed that the attempts to limit speech, limit political action, limit the presence even of Communists and those close to Communism was wrong as grilled watermelon. We asked ourselves and each other, "If capitalism and democracy are so strong, so good, what are they afraid of? Why the censorship, the outlawing, the paranoia?"

There was never a good answer. There was never any real answer. None was possible. Now, more than ever, the generation of the Cold War's most frosty depths which now runs so much of the institutions in the US and the West doesn't want to be guilty of the same paranoiac closed mindedness as our parents and grandparents.

We don't want to think that 1.5 billion or so Muslims are all fear-ridden authoritarians ready to answer the call of jihad. We don't want to be seen as the moral and intellectual cripples that years ago we saw the older generation, "the establishment" to have been. We want ever so much to think as does Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an article out in today's Salon www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/26/war_of_ideas/index.html? source=newsletter that Muslims are not uniformly wearing black hats. We want to believe that most Muslims reject the fatwas, the bombings, the jihad as much as we do.

The Geek is personally eager to accept the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving and peaceful; that those who live among us share our basic values, orientations, hopes and fears. But, his cynical historian's mind wonders, "Is desire enough?"

After all, the Geek recalls, it was Lenin who observed, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."

Are we selling rope today?

Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy? Part 3

A little while ago, a guy accosted me down in front of a local bar. He wasn't drunk. He made a demand. "Geek. What I care about is Iran. I don't want to see us in another war. Know what I mean?"

The Geek nodded, he hoped sagaciously with a hint of total agreement. He was wondering where the dude was going with this.

"See, I think things will get out of hand. Know what I mean?"

The Geek wasn't sure. He had suspicions. But, unlike the current Administration, he has never been given to acting on suspicions. He nodded again, hoping the gesture showed a bit of doubt.

"See, Geek, it's like this. It's not like I want those idiots to get the bomb. But, bidda-bing, bidda-bang, we go in with an air strike and Lord only knows what those zany morons might do. Know what I mean?"

The Geek nodded. It was back to sagacious.

"And, then, we might nuke the hell out of 'em."

"Sure might at that," the Geek agreed.

"But, man, I mean, governments--even the Tehran bunch--know that. They don't want to see their country get the schnitzel. Right?"

It was hot. The Geek had an hour and half drive off the road to get back home. He was not ready for a street corner debate. He copped out.

"I'll have to think about it."

Here's the answer the Geek would have given, if he hadn't been hot, tired and eager to get home.

In short form the answer is, "Not necessarily."

The long form response requires taking a firm grip on history. Pol Pot and his minions were not bothered by the killing fields of Cambodia.

Saddam Hussein didn't appear disturbed by using heavy artillery and poison gas on his own people. Next door, Assad lost no sleep over rolling the tanks over the bodies of fellow Syrians.

Going back a bit further, Mao stayed calm as his Great Leap Forward greased the slide to death for millions from starvation, disease and cannibalism. The Japanese High Command was untroubled by the reality that an American invasion would lead to millions of civilian deaths.

On the other side of the world, Adolph Hitler stated that the German people deserved to be destroyed because they had let him down.

Then there was Joe Stalin who famously quipped, "The death of one person may be a tragedy but the death of millions is a statistic." He ought to know. At least about the second part of his comment. No leader in the bloody history of the human race died with so much blood on his hands.

What this dreary historical record tells us is simply that it is never wise, never prudent, never even rational to depend upon the enlightened self-interest of another government-particularly when that government operates from a set of values vastly different from one's own.

Perhaps, particularly when the government in question believes that it has God on its side--or at least talks and acts as though it believes so. (Of course, the Geek notes with the typical historian's cynical smile on his face, that the German soldier went to war in 1914 and again in 1939 with the slogan "Got Mit Uns" on his belt buckle. We know how that belief worked out.)

Consider for a moment the war between Iran and Iraq in the early and mid-1980s. The Iranian government was both willing and able to send untrained masses of very young volunteers into combat. Most were unarmed. Many were used as human mine clearing forces. The body count was impressive, even if the military results were not.

In short, the government in Tehran has shown itself quite immune to considerations of casualties. It has even shown a bizarre ability to use body counts and funerals for domestic propaganda, to whip up continued war fever.

It is possible, even probable, that the Iranian mullahocracy views the prospect of war with Israel or the United States not only with equanimity, but a tinge of eagerness. Why not? They expect to win. One way or another. No matter how many Iranians are killed, the chance still remains that the attacker will be destroyed or at least so badly damaged that Teheran's Islamist goals would nonetheless be achieved.

What are the implications if this analysis is fundamentally correct?

There are two: Letting Iran achieve a nuclear capability is not prudent, to say the least; using force is an option that has to be considered like porcupines make love--very, very carefully.

After all, in war no one has God on its side.

Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy? Part 2

The Geek thinks it's fair to consider Islam in its early days as a political movement since Muslims today quote from the Koran and the haddith to show that there is no line between religion and politics. If that's the way they want it, OK.

The basic doctrine of Islam is riddled with inconsistencies, paradoxes and flat out contradictions because the Koran evolved as an integral part of a political movement. So, let's get a grip on the following.

The early verses, those revealed before Islam emerged victorious in its wars with other, older indigenous beliefs, were written during the movement growth and enhancement phase of a political entity operating with the color of religion. The purpose of the early verses was simple: To present the new belief system in the most appealing way possible so as to mobilize support and minimize opposition.

The early "revelations" constitute the portion of the Koran most liked by apologists for Islam. That's as it should be for these are warm, soft and fuzzy emphasizing kindness to widows and orphans, celebrating the unity of believers and calling upon the more appealing virtues of the human nature.

The other portion of the Koran, the parts which are cold as steel and as pointed as a sword's tip, were "revealed" following the political victory of Mohammad and his religopolitical entity. Now the emphasis was upon regime consolidation, maintenance and expansion. Now the focus was upon domination, well, to err on the side of accuracy, domination and submission. That meant (and means) domination by socially dominant authoritarian personalities and submission by everyone else. The cold, sharp verses called as well for submission by all non-Muslims to the God, Prophet and believers of Islam.

The later "revelations" are those most often cited by Islamists today to justify jihad, recast suicide as martyrdom and demand the submission by the non-Muslim billions to the dictates of a particular, and to most human beings, foreign system of perception, belief and behavior. The paradox, the contradiction between the cold, sharp portion of the Koran and the earlier, gentler and kinder part is either not commented upon by the Islamists or derided.

Admittedly the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament contain nonsequiturs aplenty and to a major extent can be reconciled as one, seamless body only by world class mental gymnastics. Having said that, the Geek contends that the internal inconsistencies of the Koran are greater and are explicable only by the Koran having been written under two, vastly different sets of political imperatives.

Another contradiction overlays the first. Islam demands submission, utter and absolute, and total submission by the individual. The word "Islam" denotes complete submission. Submission to whom is the inevitable question.

Answering the "to whom" question brings the second part of this paradox into play. Islam, or at least most segments of it, allows for individual judgement regarding the demands of Allah and Islam beyond the Five Pillars of the religion. In this seemingly innocuous area, the placing of some measure of responsibility upon the individual believer for the determination of duty under the Koran and Allah, there is room for much division--and much evil.

In short, the paradox between submission and the requirement for individual judgement or interpretation gives the socially dominant authoritarian all the latitude needed to speak with authority, to write with authority, to issue fatwas with authority. The gap between submission and responsibility provides all the room necessary for the fearful, authoritarian follower to obey the voice and words of command, to feel absolved of responsibility, of guilt.

Far from being a single intellectual edifice, Islam is a construction at odds with itself. The different parts of the mental mosque pull against each other. The greatest jihad is the jihad the Islamists will not, cannot admit--the jihad within the mosque. This is the war that has raged for centuries. It is the war for the very soul of Islam.

On the up side, the Geek notices that the paradoxes and inconsistencies give a wedge to those Muslims as well as those outside the Muslim communities who have had it up to their dandruff with the Islamists and their love affair with death. The non-monolithic nature of Islam gives many avenues of approach, a lot of ways to enlist the aid and effort of non-Islamist Muslims to finally claim the soul of their faith from the children of violence and turn it over to the sons and daughters of the early words, the words of peace and harmony and the unity of humanity.

Islamophobia or Islamoaccuracy?

The Geek admits that he finds it emotionally satisfying to have a Two Minutes Hate against more than a few Muslims, particularly those who fall under the label, Islamist. It is terribly easy to be alternately amused, nauseated and angered by people who get their rocks off holding demonstrations which demand, "Death to (Fill in the blank), hold graduation ceremonies for suicide bomber teams and throw acid in the faces of unveiled young women.

There are already a large number of sites that cover the revolting face of Islam such as jihadwatch.org or the_gathering_storm.blogspot.com/ or mavericknewsnetword.typepad.com. There are also sites that offer apologies for Islamist behavior.

The Geek's goal today is neither to condemn nor to condone. The Geek's purpose is a little broader gauged, to see whether or not parsing the Islamist love affair with death gives any hint about what historical analogy should be used regarding Iran, its mullahocracy and potential membership in the Nuke Club.

To start, get a grip on this reality: There is no one, monolithic entity called Islam. Despite the Quran's call for unity among all believers, Islam is riddled with fissures, fault lines and fractures. While less perhaps than the divisions within Christianity, Islam has more groups, creedal distinctions and cultures than Judaism.

Not only is there the major schism between Sunni and Shia, there are other deep differences. It is impossible even to say that there is one brand of Islamicism. Remember that term is only fifteen or so years old, the winner in the media sweepstakes among several contenders including Islamic fundamentalist, Islamic revivalist, Islamic purist, Islamic traditionalist, and Islamic neo-traditionalist. Apparently the media like one word terms so the darkhorse of two decades ago, Islamist came from behind to win.

Some Islamic fundamentalist groups are resolutely not only apolitical but frankly anti-political. Others are rabidly political but focus upon the regimes in their native country. Still others are rabidly political and revolutionary. Some of these are focused on one country, their own. Others such as Al Qaida are megalomaniac enough to seek world revolution and the global victory of Islam. Their form of Islam.

There have even been at least one Islamic purist movement, that one led by a Sudanese Quranic scholar named Tahe which argued that the Quran was not monolithic. Tahe contended before he was bulldozed to the gallows for reasons of Sudanese politics, that the Quran was comprised of two sets of revelations, those of the Medina period and those composed after Mohammad won, the Meccan revelations. Tahe argued (and paid for his argument at the rope's end) that the first set, the Medina revelations which emphasized peace and harmony and all the other gentle virtues pointed to by individuals seeking to prove that Islam is the religion of peace, is the true Islam.

The Meccan revelations to the contrary are loaded with the blood, gore and love of war that can only occur after victory in a hard fought, bitter internal war. It was prophecy at the dripping edge of the winning sword. This is the part of the Quran so loved by practitioners of jihad and suicide bombing.

So, then, Geek, who or what is an Islamist?

As the Geek sees it, an Islamist is an individual or a group dedicated to the use of violent terror tactics to achieve a religiopolitical goal. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives into a crowded marketplace, the laddybucks who took hundreds with them on their death rides of 9/11, the Taliban fighter, most of the insurgents in Iraq, as well as those who recruit, train, plan, direct or support the lethal operations are Islamists. The others, those who do not use terror and violence, are covered by other terms.

The Geek has been asked (in the real, not the virtual world) what if any difference exists between the suicide bombers of recent years and the Kamikaze pilots of World War II in the Pacific. He has always been surprised at the naivete of the question. The answer is so obvious.

The Kamikaze pilot like the Japanese soldier who engaged in a suicidal final attack or pulled the pin of a hand grenade while holding it to his chest so as not to be captured played a fair and rational game. Kamikazes attacked warships. Soldiers went forward with bare hands and swords against American machine guns. No attacks were made on civilians.

The suicide bomber seeks out the softest of civilian targets. He attacks women, children and the elderly preferentially. That is the difference between Islamist and Kamikaze.

All too often the response has been, "Geek, so what? I mean, the Americans drop bombs on civilians."

True enough, the Geek acknowledges. However, even back in World War II, with one exception, none of the Western Allies waged intentional war on civilians.

Except for the British "Worker De-Housing Program," executed by the Royal Air Force's firebombing heavy bombers, civilian casualties were not the goal of the operation. They were unfortunate, regrettable collateral effects of efforts which were both proportionate to the military advantage accrued and conducted according to the customs, usages and laws of warfare. That was true even as regards the American firebomb and atomic bomb attacks on Japan.

That may not be a pleasant reality to consider. But it is the one that is true. Get a grip.

In later wars, even those currently underway, the US has taken great pains to avoid civilian casualties. Some military commentators have argued that we have been too fastidious. Whether that is true or not is beside the point. However, international custom, usage and law is clear: The responsibility to avert civilian casualties is the responsibility of the defender.

Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq have intentionally embedded military facilities and combatants in civilian locations and then taken propaganda advantage of the inevitable civilian casualties. (It is for this pragmatic reason that the Geek has argued in previous posts that the US has to stop using air delivered munitions.)

Now that the Geek has blown away false justifications and specious analogies, back to the main matter. The Islamist has a love affair with death. He wants to kill people, in wholesale lots if at all possible, but at retail if he must. He might like to live long enough to kill more, but if die he must, it's no big deal. The Meccan revelations have some well-known and well-specified rewards in store for him.

"OK," you agree, "the individual is a killer and a person ready to die as long as he kills in the process. But what about governments, like the Iranian? They're different. Governments don't want to see their own population killed."

"Oh. Really? Is that so?'" Replies the Geek. "We'll see about that."