Fresh from reminiscinces about the NYC aristocracy and wincings about the porcelain activities of closeted Republic party senators, comes this charming book review from William F.Buckley.
Either the old man has finally suffered a stroke, or his column has been once again "jacked" by neocon thugs. I've had my suspicions in the past, and this is another piece of evidence in the chain linking to the idea that he's cacked and yet his column, like Tupac's albums, survives.
To work then:
"I am informed that French pacifists, ensconced in the French Academy in 1939
and determined to understate Nazi military exercises (even those being done as
close by as Czechoslovakia), refused to acknowledge such a creature as a
"bombardier."
Ding! Ding! Ding! Godwin's Law Alert! Can't start a fearmongering Islamophobic rant without first invoking the spirit of the Nazi's. WFB even takes the extra step of equating any dissenters from the crusade as namby-pamby Frenchies.
"Norman Podhoretz, a gifted writer and analyst,"
Also:
- one of the original signatories of the Project for the New American Century
- the author of the recent piece in the WSJ "the case for bombing Iran"
- was mentored by neocon cappo di tutti cappi Irving Kristol.
Kind of taints the "analyst" part a tad.
But wait - now the real fearmongering horses**t starts:
"The Islamists have:
"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.
"Potential" access? Who doesn't have potential access? Here's an analogy: I hate all Raiders fans and I have potential access to a gun. I mean -all I have to do is go to a gun shop and buy one, right? You gonna lock me up?
Notice the subtle whitewashing here too: He's implying Iran, and thereby labeling the entire nation of Iran "Islamist" .
"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.
That's like saying all Irish Catholics might join the IRA.
"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.
This is pure horses**t. There is no evidence of this. None. At all. There are Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, but there has been no credible evidence that they are linked in any other way than their dislike for the actions of the US. Some hate the "liberal" freedoms of the west, some have "beefs" with particular actions the US has taken (e.g. Bin Laden's outrage at US bases on Saudi land which was his own professed reason for 9/11), some hate our blind support of Israel, but any assertion that they are linked in any other way than cheerleading each other's "successes" (much less "institutionally") has been easily debunked.
Remember however that this sentiment is brought to you by the same people who previously tried to argue that the USSR was the power-seat of the very same type of "terror network" and that every terrorist organization and "communist" government from the IRA and PLO to Cuba and China were all part of an elaborate plot to dominate and enslave the west. It's paranoid fantasy on steroids.
"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."
Again "capable of appealing" ? WTF does that mean? OK let's use another analogy - can we then say that Christian fundies like the Branch Davidians followed an idiology "capable of appealing" to Christians of all stripes? What makes an idiology capable of anything? It's nonsense.
Now to the "math" portion:
"If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population
worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."
Let's put that sh*te out of its misery:
"If"?
Who has said that "Islamists" are 10 to 15 percent of ALL muslims? This is known as recycling guesswork. The neocons have completely fabricated this number.
Quite frankly, how could you possibly ever determine the number of "islamists"? The definition itself is constantly shifting and open to personal interpretation. You can inflate or decrease the numbers to suit your agenda. E.g. sometimes Iran is included and sometimes it's not depending on who's arguing and what they're trying to "prove".
All of the typical elements
are here:
- Create a strawman
- attack critics ad hominem
- create/inflate statistics to support the strawman.
- warn of the dire consequences of not supporting the strawman 100%
Finally, to address the dopes who will inevitably name call:
This is not to say terrorism is not an important concern. In fact today a story has once again shown that John Kerry was right: the most effective solution is vigilent intelligence gathering and well trained law enforcement.
As I said yesterday, what we are witnessing here are the initial stages of the fall-rollout of the campaign against Iran.
Apparently Buckley is on board -though he can't seem to muster his own arguments so he's parroting Podhoretz'.
Shameful and sad.
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