Update (Correction):
I reread my comment and have to correct myself. It’s true that Muslim states haven’t been conquering Christian (European) states since the 16th century, as Reed argues. But his piece and my comment both omit (in my case, from forgetfulness) that Muslim rulers have been conquering other countries in that period.
In India, the East India Company was actually fighting Muslim rulers both in the south and the north, with the ultimate goal of diminishing the power of the Mughal ruler in Delhi. All in all, Muslim empire in India lasted longer than official British rule (1858-1947) and longer even than the de facto British presence in India (1600-1947).
If you count from the earliest Afghan incursions of Mohammed Ghaznavi and Mohammed Gori, the Muslim military presence in India lasted from the 8th century to the early 19th century, over a thousand years in all.
Looked at from that perspective, the struggle today between Islam and “the West” is more accurately seen as the struggle between the last of the feudal theocracies and the usurping power of the merchant-state.
ORIGINAL POST
Fred Reed via Lew Rockwell:
“Would it be poltroonish of me to note that just now Christian armies are busily annexing and wrecking Afghanistan and Iraq, having recently bombed Somalia? That they use robotic aircraft to murder Yemenis, that they hunt down Moslems in the Philippines (where after 1898 Americans engaged in atrocities that would win the admiration of the Japanese), encourage Israel to ruin Lebanon and to run a concentration camp for Moslems in Gaza, enthusiastically murder Pakistanis from the sky, and threaten Syria and Iran?
Those Moslems. Militant, they are. The bastards.
The Islamic countries listed above are only those currently attacked by America. Let us look at the matter in another way. I append here a list of all Christian countries conquered by militant Moslems since 1529:
………
Next, a partial list of Moslem countries conquered by Christians: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq (the first time), Iraq (again), Iran, Pakistan, East Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Dubai….
This list does not include such minor Christian conquests as North, South, and Central America, India, China, Southeast Asia, black Africa, and such. Unconscionable, Moslem aggressiveness is.
Buchanan regards the events of 9/11 as no end grievous. So do I. Yet perhaps people who live in glass pots and kettles shouldn’t call names. The UN’s figures give 600,000 Iraqi children dead because of the American embargo, which didn’t allow, for example, chlorine to sterilize water. This is equivalent to 6.4 million dead children in the United States. Hmmm: If Moslems had killed this trifling number of our sprats, might we wax grumpish?
Yes, I know, the UN is a commie Marxist socialist anti-American conspiracy, and not as trustworthy as the American propaganda apparatus. All right. Let’s assume that the UN lied by a factor of ten, and thus only 60,000 Iraqi children died thanks to us. Thus, if 3,000 Americans died in New York, we owe the Moslems some 57,000. No?
If I may sally briefly into unloved seriousness: What puzzles me, as one who has lived extensively abroad, is how little Americans are able to see things through the eyes of others, how little empathy they have (this latter defect being characteristic of both psychopaths and narcissists).
Consider a headline from Antiwar.com of a sort appearing almost daily: “US Drone Strike Destroys House Full of Children in Pakistan.” Apparently no one in the Great Rubber Room north of Mexico has an inkling why this might arouse hatred in Pakistanis. Can you imagine the fury that would ensue if a Moslem blew up a house full of American kids in, say, Queens? But when we kill their kids, no one cares. “Yeah, well. Tough. Giv’em a few dollars.” Buncha dirty raghead larvae. No better than cockroaches, right?”
My Comment:
What Reed omits in this account of Christian versus Muslim is crucial….more crucial than the point he’s trying to make. In fact, this omission entirely undermines his thesis about a psychopathic population.
What he considers “Christian” conquests in the last 300-400 years not Christian at all, but primarily driven by international merchant associations like the East India Company. Christianity followed in many cases, but only as an appendage. In India, the East India Company had de facto possession of vast areas of land by late 17th century, but Victoria was crowned Empress of India only in the mid-nineteenth century and the missionary movement was only in full swing at that time.
The truth is neither Muslim nor Christian states (as in, theocracies) are primarily responsible for the majority of conquests since the Renaissance. That honor goes to the great merchant associations of the West and the bankers who funded them.
Now return to Reed’s argument about violent Christians and add this: what if the merchants/bankers had a network of foundations and media outlets that insisted on portraying the violence of the last 400 and odd years as driven solely by racist Christianity? What if the merchants/bankers had cultural affiliations that were hostile toward Christianity – and indeed to religion itself – and were thus unable/unwilling to correct this distortion?
Wouldn’t the issue than be not the psychopathology of the population (as Reed describes it) but the psychopathology of the ruling class?
And wouldn’t an equal issue be the media, since it is the tool that the psychopathic rulers use to drug and hypnotize the population until it can’t identify its real enemies?
Fred Reed is one of my all time favorites. I read everything he writes. First time I have ever seen anyone make more sense than he has.
Thanks…but I rethought that.
Muslim states haven’t conquered any western states but they have been conquering other states..
it’s an important point..
Now then, this is really good. Fred Reed is quite funny. I heard from a friend in Mexico that Fred Reed and Joe Bageant sometimes hang out and drink in their Mexican village near Guadlalajara. Bet its a hoot and probably darn interesting…
Now, now….The post is a topical essay and not an exhaustive survey of all attacks invasions of Muslim nations. His points are well made, the piece is nice political satire with an edge and a bit of insight…..No need to fault find and or nitpick, its not a Hopkins theses.
Hey –
It’s an important point. I love Reed..one of the LRC writers I read all the time.
But this is the kind of thing that makes neocons think we’re being naive or ineffectual about Islam.
I’ll add your perspective
I see your point. On the other hand, the older I get and longer I have been back in U.S. I don’t know if much of the population is any more virtuous than the ruling class….Some great brilliant folk among the proles but for the most part,…Ortega and Mencken are borne out the more time you spend with the ordinary folks…..That there are virtuous and distinguished minds out there is a certainty but they are a minority. Most people aspire to be one of the ruling class and as Reed and others state and hint your typical americano is indeed usually a dangerous dolt and often a naricisst or socio path–see Lasch on this the tendency was in place in the 40’s and 50’s and in full bloom. Its a total societal decline if only it were as simple as blaming elites or islamophobism. Its almost as large portions of humans have a self destruct tendency emanating from a deep idiocy. Herbert Spencer may have been right…
“Its a total societal decline if only it were as simple as blaming elites…”
That has a hollow ring to it.
For instance, how the majority of the population was against the bailouts, yet it happened anyway.
When older children take advantage of naive and gullible younger children, how often does the adult say it’s the fault of the younger children and expect the younger children to have the ability to change the situation?
Lord of the Flies?
Clark – yes.
When people are informed correctly they tend to understand..
There is something much deeper than just mass ignorance.
Think about all the citizen blogs and activism..and it goes no where because the people in the system have been bought of..
Look how the tea party is morphing into Dick Armey
Well there are plenty of educated and even handsome and intelligent adults.
I would buy both my dear L’s point and Clark if we assume there is no free will and if as you infer–people are children or i.e. as adults cretins.
You give way too much credit to the elites and conspiracies….
We are ALL in this together. And if oe Six pack were anot as enamored of something for nothing the current state of affairs would not exist.
Remember–you can’t con an honest person……
Yes, L it all goes nowehere. Reminds me of a mexican president who in a moment of honesty said we are all society and we are all behind corruption, from on high to on low…..
Do people posses free will or not? ARe they tied to blogs and mass media? If the latter then we are cows and deserve everything we get good and hard.
Love ya L.
What do you mean informed correctly? Who determines this? Again, this is very anti free will and indivoduatlity. Its as if people are to stand agape waiting to be informed as to the right truth by their betters–pretty easy to exploit no? I suppose that is what the NY times and WSJ argue is their role?
Robert –
I see your point a hundred percent. I do think at some level, there is blame to be distributed.
But you know, to say that the level of culpability is the same for EVERYONE is simply wrong…and very socialistic.
Isn’t that what socialists say when a crime is committed? Ah well, the guy’s family abused him, society didn’t intervene etc. etc.
Does that mean I am as responsible as Ted Bundy for his murders? Obviously not.
And even in other cases, it’s not true.
Let’s say some newspaper mogul is agitating for war. He can fire editors who don’t go along. An editor who has a sick child, goes along, because he needs the money for his child. Is he really as culpable as the mogul? He didn’t initiate the policy, he is against it, he voices his opinion on blogs anonymously, but to keep his job, he has to publish edited articles? Can I really call him a monster or a psychopath because of that?
He has free will, but what is demanded of him in my example is superhuman virtue – not ordinary decency. I’m not sure it’s fair to say society has to be superhumanly virtuous… or it deserves all its evils.
Adam Smith and the other liberal thinkers envisioned a well-functioning society based on normal human ambitions and NORMAL (not supernormal) decency, given a culture informed by Christian virtues.
Now, it’s true that we no longer have a culture informed by Christian virtues, but it’s untrue to say the culture isn’t informed by virtues of ANY kind. It is.
After all, what is PC ultimately but an attempt to inscribe a certain sensitivity in the pysche? It assumes an ethical/moral code. It isn’t the code of the 18th century, but it’s a code.
So, we are less moral/ethical by the standards of the 18th c in some respects and more so in other respects.
I don’t mean to say that people haven’t been dumbed down or that they aren’t mean and malicious. You know I don’t have any high opinion of the demos in democracy.
But I have a higher opinion of them than of the psychopaths at the top.
Have to agree with you. Nice to have discussions with toughtful person.
Yes, there is a dumbing down it is sort of entering a new dark age. I think it was Lyotard (or one of the french thinkers) that argued that we are entering a new dark age borne of new illitearcy. yes, the elites do not like the demos and well probbly hodl them in deeper contempt that warranted. Though, I must say its quite a tragic sight to see the Mexican elite cowering from the Narcos–demos gone mad and psychopathic.
Interesting times……..