Commentary – Europe's Two Culture Wars
Nihilism rooted in skepticism, issuing in the bad faith of moral relativism and Western self-loathing, comforting itself with a vacuous humanitarianism: not only is this not marvelous, it has contributed to killing Europe demographically, and to paralyzing Europe in the face of an aggressive ideology aimed at the eradication of Western humanism in the name of a lethally distorted understanding of God’s will.
Category: philosophy & politics
America’s 1st War on Terrorism
Terrorism In Early America
Almost 180 years ago our infant country attacked Tripoli under circumstances that are eerily similar to contemporary times. That conflict, immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn, "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli" called the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Pirate War, came shortly after we gained our independence from England. The United States chose to fight the pirates of Barbary, rather than pay tribute, as did all the other nations who traded in the Mediterranean Sea. The decision was bold, but the eventual victory by the tiny United States Navy broke a pattern of international blackmail and terrorism dating back more than one hundred and fifty years of European appeasement.
Guerilla-Terrorist?
Many people feel the use of the expression "one person's guerilla is another's terrorist," I was trying to say that no, a guerilla is someone who uses unconventional tactics to win a conventional war, and a terrorist is some one who uses random acts of violence to strike fear in a population and force a paradigm shift in beliefs. Like at the turn of the 20th century it was the anarchists we feared until the bloodbath of the first world war. That war only led to the rise of communism and the fear of nuclear war.
THE ESSENCE OF AL QAEDA
The Essence of Al Qaeda 
Dr. al-Faqih heads the Saudi opposition group, Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), and is a widely acknowledged expert on al Qaeda. This 02/04 interview is still a devestating read.
Zawahiri impressed upon Bin Laden the importance of understanding the American mentality. The American mentality is a cowboy mentality– if you confront them with their identity theoretically and practically they will react in an extreme manner. In other words, America with all its resources and establishments will shrink into a cowboy when irritated successfully. They will then elevate you and this will satisfy the Muslim longing for a leader who can successfully challenge the West.
Old States, New Threats
Globalization is a cultural and economic phenomenon — not a system of international security.Borders may be eroding and stateless terrorist groups like al-Qaeda proliferating, but don't be fooled: The traditional state remains the most dangerous force on the international scene. Perhaps the greatest security threat we face today is from a paranoid and resentful state leader, armed with biological or nuclear weapons and willing to make strategic use of stateless terrorists.
We don't live in a democratic world so much as in a world in the throes of a very messy democratic transition, so national elections combined with weak, easily politicized institutions produce a lethal mix — dictators armed with pseudo-democratic legitimacy.
We are entering a well-armed world, with more players than ever who can unhinge the international system and who have fewer reasons to be afraid of us. That's why a resentful state leader, armed with disruptive technologies and ready to make use of stateless terrorists, poses such a threat. Hussein was a wannabe in this regard. According to a Joint Forces Command study, parts of which appeared in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, he was preparing thousands of paramilitary fighters from throughout the Arab world to defend his regime and to be used for terror attacks in the West. Looking ahead, Ahmadinejad would also be a prime candidate for such tactics, as would Chavez, given his oil wealth and the elusive links between South American narco-terrorists and Arab gangs working out of Venezuelan ports.
We face a world of unfriendly regimes, even as our European allies are compromised by burgeoning Muslim populations and the Russians and Chinese deal amicably with dictators, because they have no interest in a state's moral improvement. Never before have we needed a more unified military-diplomatic approach to foreign policy. For the future is a multidimensional game of containment.
Why China Fears Falun Gong
Independent Online Edition > Asia
In the 19th century the Taiping Rebellion sprang from a religious cult which provoked perhaps the bloodiest civil war in human history when the forces of the Qing Empire clashed with those of a mystic named Hong Xiuquan who said he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ and claimed to be the new Messiah. At least 20 million people and perhaps as many as 100 million perished.
Not long after that came the Boxer Rebellion in which rebels also saw the world in more metaphysical terms, claiming that movement exercises influence the fundamental forces of the universe. They even went so far as to insist that their breathing exercises would allow them to ward off bullets. Nor wonder the normally inscrutable President Hu looked taken aback when the Falun Gong woman screamed.
The Role of Sacrifice
All religions have this theme of sacrifice and repentance, but one religion has finessed it in a brilliant way that few commentators have grasped. The story starts in Genesis. Instead of making Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac, God lets him sacrifice a ram instead, which you will probably agree is much more sensible. The Jews developed this form of sacrifice into a fine art. The Temple in Jerusalem had a special system to drain away all the blood when the rich brought hundreds of animals at a time to the slaughter.
But then came a radical change. About 2000 years ago in a confusing episode over which people still furiously argue, God said: Enough of all this wasteful sacrifice. Because I so love the world, I will sacrifice my own Son for your sins so you don’t have to sacrifice your sons or your livestock.
This Christian doctrine can have a practical effect. In China, when non-Christian villagers experience sickness or misfortune they often sacrifice their livestock to appease the evil spirits. But Christian villagers don’t sacrifice, for Jesus already died for their sins.
They end up being more prosperous.
Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.
The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb
Telegraph | Opinion | The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb
The author is Amir Taheri is a former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, but now lives in Europe.
In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.
Click here to see Google Maps of the Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye
Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye – New York Times
Even economists striving hardest to find evidence of immigration's effect on domestic workers are finding that, at most, the surge of illegal immigrants probably had only a small impact on wages of the least-educated Americans — an effect that was likely swamped by all the other things that hit the economy, from the revolution in technology to the erosion of the minimum wage's buying power.
Going Nuclear
Going Nuclear
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.