Author Archives: Baron Bodissey

Descriptive vs. Normative

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Last week Takuan Seiyo weighed in on the controversy over Diana West’s book American Betrayal. The comment thread that developed on his post is quite extensive, and ranges over a lot of topics related to Soviet Communist penetration of the United States government during World War Two.

One of the issues raised concerns the debate over where a second front in Europe would be opened. Ms. West’s book presents extensive evidence that Soviet agents or sympathizers in the American government helped influence the final decision to land in Normandy and advance through France. A major alternative that was considered and rejected was a landing at the head of the Adriatic with an advance through the Balkans to Vienna.

Ms. West was not advocating for either option, but simply presenting the evidence that agents of influence had in fact helped sway the strategic decision.

Many commenters seemed to assume that she believed the “Italian option” would have been better. This is an example of confusing descriptive text with normative text. I have often run into the same problem myself — if I simply describe the arguments for a controversial position, without polemical embellishment or condemnatory phrasing, readers assume that I am advocating that position. Which I am not — if I advocate for something, you’ll know it: I will expressly state my advocacy in no uncertain terms.

Ms. West left a comment on Takuan’s essay clarifying the issue, but the post has now drifted so far down the page that many people will not see it. She asked me to reproduce it as a separate post, and I am happy to do so here.

From Diana West:

There is this erroneous notion abroad that in I formulate military strategy in American Betrayal. Not so! I am not a military strategist, nor do I claim to be. In my examination of Soviet influence on the Allied policy-making chain I consider the arguments posed by leading military strategists of the day — many of whom, in this case, championed continuing Allied efforts in southern Europe.

To wit (from pp. 263-264):

The decision to abandon Italy as an expanding, leading front at the end of 1943 made very little sense—unless, cynically, the true objective was to ensure that Central and Eastern Europe remained open for Soviet invasion. Then again, maybe that’s putting things too crudely, too harshly. Let me rephrase: The advantages to enlarging upon Anglo-American gains in Italy were obvious. There was no good strategic objective to be served by virtually abandoning this theater. Not because I say so. The top U.S. commander of strategic bombing in Europe, Gen. Carl Spaatz, said so, too. Capt. Harry C. Butcher recounted Spaatz’s views as expressed to Harry Hopkins on November 23, 1943, in the run-up to the Cairo Conference.

‘Spaatz didn’t think OVERLORD was necessary or desirable. He said it would be a much better investment to build up forces in Italy to push the Germans across the Po, taking and using airfields as we come to them, thus shortening the bombing run into Germany. He foresaw the possibility of getting the ground forces into Austria and Vienna, where additional fields would afford shuttle service for bombing attack against the heart of German industry, which has moved into this heretofore practically safe area.’ …

p. 264:

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Transcript of Pre-Clearance Interview With Aaron Alexis

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Interviewer met with Subject to discuss potential problems with his application for a “secret” clearance while working at the Washington Navy Yard.

Interviewer:   I see you had a couple of incidents involving the discharge of firearms during the last ten years or so.
Subject:   Yes, sir.
Interviewer:   And the police were involved.
Subject:   Yes, sir.
Interviewer:   Hmm… Have you ever attended a Tea Party event?
Subject:   No, sir.
Interviewer:   Do you have a Ron Paul bumper sticker on your car?
Subject:   No, sir. Nothing like that.
Interviewer:   Would you describe yourself as a “patriot”?
Subject:   Absolutely not, sir.
Interviewer:   Have you ever expressed a reverence for the United States Constitution?
Subject:   No, sir. Not ever.
Interviewer:   All right, then… I don’t see any problems here. (stamping paper) This will go through channels, and you’ll get your badge in two or three days.
Subject:   Thank you, sir.
 

Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/16/2013

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An African American Buddhist and former Naval reservist named Aaron Alexis went on a shooting spree in the Washington Navy Yard this morning, killing twelve people and injuring at least twelve more. Police officers eventually shot and killed Mr. Alexis. No motive for the attack has as yet been determined. The incident prompted congressional Democrats to renew their calls for stricter gun control.

In other news, a United Nations inspectors’ report confirmed that chemical weapons have indeed been used in Syria, without assigning any blame for who used them. Meanwhile, Italy reports that 3,300 Syrian refugees landed on its shores in the past month.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Apollon Zamp, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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Stalking the Mythical Islamophobe, Part 4

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This post is the fourth in a series about the Turkish definition of the word “Islamophobia” presented at the OSCE meeting in Vienna on July 12, 2013. Previously: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

An Examination of Terms: 8 Through 13

To recap: this is the definition of Islamophobia provided by Umut Topcuoglu in July 2013. Emphasis has been added to thirteen words or phrases that deserve further attention:

Islamophobia is a contemporary form of racism and xenophobia motivated by unfounded fear, mistrust, and hatred of Muslims and Islam. Islamophobia is also manifested through intolerance, discrimination, unequal treatment, prejudice, stereotyping, hostility, and adverse public discourse. Differentiating from classical racism and xenophobia [sic], Islamophobia is mainly based on stigmatization of a religion and its followers, and as such, Islamophobia is an affront to the human rights and dignity of Muslims.

The first seven highlighted terms were discussed in Part 3. The analysis of the final six is below.

8. Prejudice

“Prejudice” is another loaded word that demands extra scrutiny in light of its frequent misuse. We may assume that Mr. Topcuoglu, in formulating his definition of “Islamophobia”, had in mind this definition of prejudice:

2c:   an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics
 

The following is an excerpt from lessons that are taught to ninth-graders using Hadith, a recent Saudi school text: [1]

When God sent his Prophet Muhammad, He abrogated with his law all other laws and He commanded all people, including the people of the book, to believe him and to follow him. The people of the book should have been the first to believe him because they find him in their scriptures.

The clash between this Muslim nation and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills. In this hadith, Muhammad gives us an example of the battle between the Muslims and the Jews.

The above passage narrates Abu Hurayrah, as recorded by Bhukari and Muslim, who are also the most authoritative and second most authoritative hadith scholars respectively, for the following: [2]

Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, “The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. It will not come until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. It will not come until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him. Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.’”

An objective observer cannot help but note that these passages, taken from scriptural texts confirmed as authoritative by the consensus of Islamic scholars, display irrational hostility towards both Jews and Christians (the former constituting a race as well as a religious group). This demonstrates that the core sacred writings of Islam contain evidence of racial and religious prejudice against Jews and Christians.

This is not to say that there may not also exist prejudice against Muslims among non-Muslims. However, we are ill-served by an overwhelming institutional emphasis on one type of sectarian prejudice when others — amply attested both by the historical record and by current events — are almost completely neglected.

9. Stereotyping

This is another loaded word that is commonly used to stigmatize anyone who criticizes — or even simply observes and comments on — the behavior of members of a designated “protected” group.

The dictionary tells us that “stereotyping” is the making of a stereotype:

2:   something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially: a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment
 

Determining exactly what constitutes an “oversimplified opinion” requires a very subjective judgment. How much can an opinion be simplified before it is “oversimplified”? How much generalization about a distinct group is allowed before it becomes a “prejudiced attitude”?

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Revisiting the Diana West Controversy

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David Solway has published an overview of the controversy over Diana West’s book American Betrayal at Pajamas Media. Some excerpts are below:

Revisiting the Diana West Controversy
The ongoing implosion of the conservative ethos.

By David Solway

The controversy currently raging among conservative luminaries over the substantive nature and scholarly status of Diana West’s new book, American Betrayal, need not be rehearsed in detail here; its features are by now reasonably familiar to most readers of the political sites. But it will do no harm to offer a schematic overview of the broad contours of the “debate”—to give it the politest of tags.

[…]

I do not wish to enter into the vortex of the dispute. I readily admit that I am no expert on the subject West’s volume addresses. Was Harry Hopkins the infamous KGB agent 19 or was it Laurence Duggan? Was American WWII policy subtly shaped and surreptitiously directed by Soviet espionage and penetration of the inner circles of the White House—and if so, to what degree? Was Eastern Europe lost to “Uncle Joe” Stalin owing to American ineptitude or to Communist infiltration of the decision-making process? I am in no position to weigh in on the matter. These issues may—or may not—be satisfactorily settled in the future, provided an honest, impartial, and intellectual debate is permitted to flourish without rancor and personal vituperation.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/15/2013

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The secretary of the Arab League praised the Russian-U.S. accord on Syria’s chemical weapons, saying that it puts the region on track to a political solution. Meanwhile, with the likelihood of a military attack decreasing, Syrian students have returned to school. The rebels, however, are angry about the agreement.

In other news, thousands of Muslims joined a demonstration on the streets of Montreal yesterday to protest the Quebec government’s ban on the wearing of religious garb by public employees.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Kitman, RR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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The Turkish Spring Becomes a Hot Autumn

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The summer vacation is over, and Turkish college students are returning for the fall semester. As predicted early in the summer, with the arrival of the students the unrest and demonstrations against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have resumed. One young man was killed last week, and further protests have arisen in the wake of his death.

Many thanks to JLH for translating this article from Deutsche Welle:

Protests Flare Up Again

After a phase of comparative calm, violence returns to the streets of Turkey. The death of a 22 year-old demonstrator set off street battles in several cities. Observers expect a “hot autumn.”

Ahmet Atakan was struck in the head by a tear gas grenade, eyewitnesses said. Government representatives say he fell from the roof of a house, What is certain is that Ahmet Atakan is dead. And once again the conflict is ablaze between critics of the administration hitting the streets and police representing the regime. Once again, demonstrators are accusing the police of reacting with unnecessary severity against really harmless demonstrations. In Istanbul, in the early morning hours, the two sides had serious confrontations.

On Monday evening (9/9/2013), Atakan was the sixth demonstrator killed since the beginning of the anti-government demonstrations in June. A police officer also died in those demonstrations, which had flared up at a building project in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. And they have flared up again with the end of summer vacation.

Reasons for unrest are the same

Representatives of the government and of the protest movement agreed in predicting that new tensions could be expected in September at the beginning of winter semester at the universities. There was talk of a “hot autumn.”

The reasons which drove the alliance of anti-regime groups onto the streets in June are still present. The protest movement accuses Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of authoritarian tendencies, arrogance and contempt for the opinion of dissidents. To be sure, the regime pledged improvement in June, but nothing concrete has been done. At the moment, it intends to accomplish the construction of an expressway through a campus of the Technical Near East University in Ankara with a large stand of trees. There is talk of protests against that, too.

“Tactics of psychological Warfare”

The regime is sticking by its line that there are no seriously dissatisfied citizens behind the protest movement, but political opponents of Erdogan, who want to bring the Prime Minister to his knees through the power of the streets. On Twitter, Mustafa Varank, adviser to Erdogan, accused the protest movement of spreading hate and lies using the death of the demonstrator Atakan, and of using “tactics of psychological warfare.”

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Let’s Get One Thing Straight

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I just got a testy email from someone whose opinion I respect. He voiced a strong objection to my light-hearted “Putin for Prez” posts.

So let’s get one thing straight: I know exactly what Mr. Putin is, and Hillary Clinton is no less brutal, ruthless, amoral, cynical, and exploitative than he is. She lacks the means to do everything he does, but I’d bet my back teeth she wants to acquire those means, and will do all she can to put herself in that position.

Given the current state of the Republican Party, Hillary may very well be our next president. That’s a sobering thought — that the president may be someone who is no better than the former head of the KGB.

Putin is preferable to Hillary in one important respect, however: his brutality and thuggishness are used to advance the interests of his country, and not those of the New World Order. In that sense I’d take him over Hillary any day.

And that is the point of the Putin meme: to undermine Hillary. It’s useful for that purpose. It’s not like any of us would ever want Putin to actually run our country.

It’s unfortunate that I have to explain something so obvious.

The national political leadership of the United States is all but devoid of people who can even perceive the cataclysm that lies ahead of us, much less devise any way to avoid it. The Democrats are now in thrall to trans-national Socialism. The Republicans, with very few exceptions, have hitched their wagon to the same star, preferring to play permanent second fiddle as the “Democrat Lite” party rather than offer any meaningful ideological alternative.

Unless something alters the current political trajectory of our country, the Republicans will cede the next presidential election to the Democrats, just as they did in 2008 and 2012. Then we will have to get used to saying “President Clinton” all over again for another eight years.

And she will make Vladimir Putin look like a “moderate” — not to mention a capitalist — in comparison.

The Islamic Scam

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The following essay by the French writer by Jean-Gérard Lapacherie was posted in German at Forum Romanum. It’s not clear where the original French version was published.

JLH, who translated the piece for Gates of Vienna, includes these notes:

It is somewhat long and it lectures in places — but it is very informative in a way that Fjordman’s early pieces are. One also has to forgive some francocentrism and a bit of cultural snobbery in places. But he is a thinker, again reminiscent of Fjordman.

He is also cleverly snide as only the French can be. It may well fit in with your article on the Dutch and laïcité.

The translated essay:

The Islamic Scam
by Jean-Gérard Lapacherie

November 18, 2004

We know little about Islam in France. The bits we are allowed to know — thrown to us by accommodating orientalists like Berque; by leftists Kepel and Etienne, who look on complacently as radical Islam continues the criminal undertakings of Pol Pot, Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, Stalin and Castro to which they have attached themselves; by the Turkologists Lewis and Veinstein, experts in the denial of the dual genocides perpetrated on the Armenians in 1894-96 and 1915-16; by the sage, Roy, who Friday at prayer predicted the defeat of political Islam; or by “enlightened” Muslims like Arkoun, Ben Cheikh, Meddeb, etc. The goal is not to enlighten us, but to let us simmer in the dark juices of ignorance.

1. Method

Like every intellectual worthy of that description, let us be skeptics. When we tried to understand National Socialism, we began with intellectual conceptions. In vain, until we saw the bodies. Neither nationalism nor socialism nor any combination of the two explains what National Socialism is. It is the emaciated, shrunken, martyred bodies, the heaped up corpses, the wounded, burned, tortured, suffering flesh turned to ash. What people say is not important, but what they do. Communism is not to be found in the sacred texts of Marx, Lenin, Engels, Mao, Trotsky, Pol Pot, etc., but in the wasted, starved, martyred bodies which were incinerated behind the barbed wire; in the heaps of bodies and frozen corpses in Siberia. The truth comes from the prisons, the torture chambers, the gulags and the laogai — the death camps — not from The Communist Manifesto and not from Mein Kampf.

It is the same with Islam. The throats cut at Tibhirin [Algeria], the genocides in Timur or southern Sudan, the children sold or enslaved in this region, the human remains retrieved with a small spoon from the ruins of DC 10, or of UTA or the RER cars, from the towers in New York or from Bali — this is what defines Islam. The reality is the wasted bodies. Islamic countries show themselves to be pure, in the sense that all their residents belong to Islam, but also — except. paradoxically, Saudi Arabia and the emirates on the Persian Gulf — they were all purged: the impure, infidels, foreigners, or any deemed to be such, were eliminated or driven out.

In 1940, about 1 million Jews lived in Muslim countries. Today, a few thousand survive. In May of 1948, several hundred Jews living in the Cairo ghetto were killed in pogroms. In the Cairo Fire of January 1952, buildings and businesses belonging to Jewish families were set ablaze. There were infidels living in Muslim countries, both of native origin and foreign — citizens of European powers, or Italian, Maltese, Greek guest workers. If there still are any such, they are keeping their heads down and not letting themselves be seen or heard.

For centuries, criminal acts have been a part of the rhythm of Islam:

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Some Days the Bear Eats You

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When the “Putin for President” campaign started last week, it didn’t seem like it would be much more than a brief (but very amusing) joke. Yet the meme seems to have legs, as if it is an idea whose time has come. The MSM does its best to demonize the Russian president, yet somehow the fever swamps of teh interwebs have decided that they like the cut of his jib.

After I put up the first Putin poster the other day, the cartoonist Baloo made his own version for the Ex-Army blog. In his accompanying text he says:

When I came across the graphic above over at Gates of Vienna, I got to thinking that maybe the joke element is receding a bit and there’s an edge of seriousness developing. Take a look at the prospects for the next election. You want Vlad or Hillary? See what I mean?

Here’s Baloo’s contribution to the new groundswell for Pooty-Poo:

That sums it up nicely, doesn’t it?

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/14/2013

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Russia and the United States have agreed on a plan that will avert a war in Syria. The Russian plan includes a timetable for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons, and if the deadline is not met, the matter will be referred to the UN.

In other news, a tattoo parlor owner in Raleigh, North Carolina has been arrested and charged with fraud for accepting food stamps as payment for tattooing his customers.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, KP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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Gospodin vs. Tovarisch

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One of these men grew up surrounded by Communists, and internalized Marxist ideology from a very young age.

The other is the president of Russia.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Here’s a snip from a conversation on the topic that Vlad Tepes and I had a little while ago on skype:

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It’s Time for Democracy in Syria

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Another demonstration was mounted by culturally enriched “Canadians” today in downtown Ottawa, this time at the Rideau Center in support of the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. The young men interviewed in the video below express their impatience with President Obama and their wish that he would hurry up and install democracy in Syria.

Many thanks to Victor Laszlo for recording this footage, and to Vlad Tepes for editing and uploading it:

Stalking the Mythical Islamophobe, Part 3

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This post is the third in a series about the Turkish definition of the word “Islamophobia” presented at the OSCE meeting in Vienna on July 12, 2013. Previously: Part 1, Part 2.

An Examination of Terms: 1 Through 7

Here once again is the definition of Islamophobia provided by Umut Topcuoglu in July 2013. Emphasis has been added to thirteen words or phrases that deserve further attention:

Islamophobia is a contemporary form of racism and xenophobia motivated by unfounded fear, mistrust, and hatred of Muslims and Islam. Islamophobia is also manifested through intolerance, discrimination, unequal treatment, prejudice, stereotyping, hostility, and adverse public discourse. Differentiating from classical racism and xenophobia [sic], Islamophobia is mainly based on stigmatization of a religion and its followers, and as such, Islamophobia is an affront to the human rights and dignity of Muslims.

Six of the terms highlighted above are “loaded”, in the sense that they are either of recent coinage or have recently acquired new meanings, and are commonly used to demonize, intimidate, and marginalize people who hold certain political opinions. These words are controversial, and thus should not be used in any official definition without themselves being defined:

2.   Racism
3.   Xenophobia
5.   Intolerance
6.   Discrimination
8.   Prejudice
9.   Stereotyping
 

The other seven words and phrases are problematic in various ways, even when the words themselves are well-defined and uncontroversial in their common usage.

Any terms whose contextual meaning might be unclear are defined. The definitions used below are all taken from the online version of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

1. Contemporary

The adjective “contemporary” is a perplexing qualifier for the conditions identified as the components of Islamophobia. The relevant definition of contemporary in Merriam-Webster:

2b: marked by characteristics of the present period : modern, current

Is “contemporary” racism different from that displayed by, say, the garrison manning the walls of Vienna during the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683? If so, what is the difference?

If there is no inherent distinction between the racism practiced centuries ago and that which exists today, then the use of the term “contemporary” is functionally meaningless, and should be abandoned.

2. Racism

“Racism” is a loaded word of relatively recent coinage (1933), and is as much a tool of political manipulation as “Islamophobia”. The definitions of the term that are relevant to this discussion are as follows:

1:   a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2:   racial prejudice or discrimination
 

Let us imagine that a white European or North American expressed an opinion implying a prejudice against the following men, or a belief in their inferiority:

All three of these men are white Caucasians. As a result, any “prejudice or discrimination” against them cannot be termed “racism”. Therefore it does not constitute “Islamophobia”.

The obvious conclusion is that any feeling or opinion about Islam or Muslims cannot depend on “racism”.

3. Xenophobia

“Xenophobia” is another modern word (1903), and is also loaded. Like “Islamophobia” and “racism”, it was arguably invented as a means to intimidate opponents of a dominant political ideology. Merriam-Webster assigns it the following definition:

: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

Given this definition, how might “xenophobia” be applicable to “Islamophobia”?

Consider the Egyptian city of Minya, which recently experienced extensive violence at the hands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. During August 2013, over the space of a few days, Islamic fundamentalists attacked and burned churches, orphanages, and homes belonging to Christians. The attackers chose their targets on the basis of religion; that is, buildings were set on fire because they were owned or occupied by Christians.

If those Christians are now afraid of Muslims or hate them, their feelings are not directed towards “strangers, foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign”. Those who attacked them were their neighbors, and were in some cases personally know to them. Local Muslims were very familiar to Coptic Christians in Minya; they lived in the same community and spoke the same dialect.

The fear and hatred of Muslims by Christians in Minya therefore cannot be described as “xenophobia”.

4. Unfounded Fear, Mistrust, and Hatred

The words “fear”, “mistrust”, and “hatred” are clear in their commonly-used meanings, and so do not need to be defined. “Unfounded” is also well-understood, but since it is problematic in this context, its definition is instructive:

: lacking a sound basis : groundless, unwarranted {an unfounded accusation}

Does a fear of Islam ever have a “sound basis”? Or is it always “groundless” and “unwarranted”?

Relevant examples might be drawn from a number of countries. In order to avoid excessive length, for the purposes of this examination we will consider only a series incidents that took place in Pakistan in the spring of 2013.

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