The first group has some value since the long term strategy of effectively irradicating or extremely limiting an ideology and its many followers is still an unknown quantity.
The second group doesn't believe that there should be any war against terrorism or believes that the terrorists' claims and demands are right and should be considered. For most of us, this second position is highly untenable considering the spread of this ideology and the attacks it has perpetrated on this country and many others, largely killing innocent civilians. Civilians which terrorists believe are legitimate targets because they vote for their representatives that make foreign policy decisions or because it has strategic value.
The "extreme left" that sympathizes with terrorists and root for their victory over the west, particularly the United States, shares similar views with terrorists on the history of the world and the alleged sins of the United States. Of course, one wonders what excuse they find for their terrorist brothers when they bomb Bali, murder people in Thailand, explode bombs in Kashmir and arbitrarily blow up children in Beslan. Actually, it's the same excuse, these are just misunderstood freedom fighters trying to fight for their freedom from all of these other countries.
What ideology do the extreme left and the terrorists share?
Literally, both terrorist Islamist organizations and the extreme left use nearly the same language in explaining their despisement of the west and the US in particular.
Then there is the question of morality. In Islamist terrorist language, the west is immoral because of alcohol, drugs, pornography, illegitimate child birth, abortion, divorce, scantily clad women, sex outside of wedlock, working women outside of the home, lack of religious faith (particularly the Islamic kind), etc, etc, etc. Oddly, the left believes that the west is immoral as well, but that has little in common with this list since most extreme left advocate all of these things as a sign of liberality which is supposed to impart leftist morality.
Not that this little issue gets in the way of the main complaint of the extreme left, that being imperialist greedy western countries. As far as the extreme left is concerned, in the guise of multi-culturalism, it's perfectly fine if these people want to force everyone that lives in the countries they want to "liberate" under these repressive rules because at least it would be rules these people created. Never mind some other citizens of these countries would prefer it otherwise. The issue to the extreme left is that if brown people want to make brown people live in the seventh century, than it's perfectly fine because its the brown people doing it to themselves and we should be good multi-culturalists and understand that brown people may not want freedom. Of course, we should not even support the democratic minded brown people because, if we do, then, since we don't live there, the reasons we support them are hegemonic and emperialistic, thus, any action to support democracies is automatically negated and suspect.
There is this one problem, though, which the extreme left refuses to acknowledge (which they refused to acknowledge about the Cold War) that Islamists just don't want to keep the US or the West from having military or economic influence, they actually want to expand their own influence over the area and control the economic and military power that would come from controlling the entire area once known as the Ottoman Empire.
On the extreme left, they believe that this is just some made up argument used to hold on to power and make war as opposed to being directly the words and plans of the Islamists. In the view of the extreme left, it's quite plausible for the extremist Islamists to conquer the Middle East and East Asia without wanting to take it to the next step and conquer additional lands. Of course, to be able to hold this fallacy in their minds, they would have to avoid looking at any map that indicated the places under attack and the extent of the terrorism. They would also have to ignore approximately a thousand years of Islamic expansionist history.
Not that that is too difficult for the extreme left because they pick and choose the history they want to support their ideology anyway.
The extreme left also believes, rather naively, that Islamist control of these entire areas would some how not make a difference to their every day lives, that the oil generated from or moved through these areas would not be lost and, if it was, then all the better since it would force the West to create an alternative, hopefully cleaner, fuel for energy. As long as that's not nuclear or doesn't create any other waste by-products. A nice thought, but one wonders what they would do when the winter came and significant numbers of poor would freeze to death because the cost of oil, until such an alternative was created, would be prohibitive and certainly, the poor would suffer.
Let's not forget that Islamist controlling the entire areas they contest would also prohibit shipping clothing, food and other raw materials that keep products cheap enough for the poor in this country and fuel the global economy, lifting the poor in other nations. For the extreme left, this is okay because the global market is a capitalist pig creation anyway. Still, one wonders what they would do when the poor are now hungry, cold and shoeless. Probably riot and accuse the government of not taking care of its citizens. And, since the lack of oil would cause gasoline and diesel fuel to be prohibitively high, with now immediate availability of an alternate fuel and the long period of time it would take to refit freight and tanker ships, the cost of their precious coffee beans for latte and cappucino would force millions of leftists to give it up and suffer from caffiene DTs. Then we'd have a real riot on our hands.
Speaking of ignoring history, another thing that the extremist left and extremist Islamists have in common: they both believe that the use of atomic weapons in Japan was morally reprehensible. The Islamists because they disregard the attack on Pearl Harbor and believe that, like them, the Japanese had ample reason to attack the US because the US was already emperialist at that time. Most of the extreme left don't go that far since then they would have to disown their own claim to fight fascism, the premise of leftist socialist support for WWII. Of course, those are details. Details which can be over looked as long as they can call it the same thing: immoral.
That's the problem with the left, the details. They have what they think are good ideas, but have no idea what will happen if they get what they want. The details are just pesky little things that get in the way of creating this fake utopia.
Another thing they have in common with the Islamists: utopia. The extreme left believes that they can create some utopia where all of the premises that make the current world work and that they consider to be immoral can be thrown out and a utopia of love, peace and socio-economic equality can be obtained. Not that the Islamists really want the leftist's version of utopia, but they do want their own utopia where, once again, all of the economic and political grease that makes the world turn is thrown out and they can live in a beatific utopia where everyone worships God the way they do, no one entertains lustful ideas, jealousy or illegal substances and certainly, Islamic rule would insure that the poor are taken care. Of course, both believe that all of the natural tendencies of man will be negated in this blissful utopia. Again, the details get in the way. In the leftist utopia, sex, drugs, alcohol and generally extreme liberal practices would prevail while in the Islamist version, those things would be a big no-no. And, in leftist utopia, no one would want to go out and fight for utopia and they certainly wouldn't try to coop any countries. All these countries, including the Islamic utopia, would just live together in one big happy world.
Until, that is, the Islamists, whose goal is to make one giant Islamic utopia, decided to expand into the leftist utopia. Then one wonders what the leftists would do since they would have been busy turning all the weapons into plow shares, singing kumbaya and re-distributing what little wealth and materials were left instead of preparing defenses against the invasion of the non-liberal Islamist utopia.
In leftist ideology, that would never happen because they would just put flowers in the Islamists gun barrels and all the love and understanding they would show them until then would just make them not want to attack them. Never mind all that Islamist rhetoric about pornography, sex, drugs and alcohol being the calling cards of Satan and requiring irradication around the globe. Those Islamists will just be happy to do that in their own utopia.
Speaking of utopias, there is one other thing that these two ideologies have in common: in their utopias, if you don't comply with the rules, you'll be imprisoned, exiled or executed. Still, there are those pesky details because in leftist utopia you'll be fined, thrown in prison or executed for even mentioning something like women think differently than men. Of with their heads! While in Islamist utopia, they'll be happy to cut off your head if you mention that women might actually be equal to men.
Still, it's all about creating utopia. As long as it's in the Islamist utopia and we're not forcing our idea of liberty on brown people from a different culture, it's all good. Besides, the world is advancing and sooner or later an advanced world will let women vote, hold jobs, drive a car, dress how she wishes, listen to music (yes, nearly forgot, Islamist utopia does not include music of any kind and they will certainly be annoyed having to listen to the drums, out of tune guitar and bad singing coming from leftist utopia; that alone is grounds for war), go to universtiy, and pray to Gaeia if she wants to. It's inevitable. Well, except for that pesky detail where the Islamists already think that part of the horrible emperialistic nature of Western Culture is the bleed over of all these ideas infiltrating their culture, destroying it and causing their youth to turn away from God (Allah), is worthy of going to war over.
Oh well, just another detail.
Then there is that issue of supporting dictators. In the leftist world, there is no Cold War, the USSR was not hegemonic or emperialistic and, if they were, it is only because they had to protect themselves from the US. Same reason they created nuclear weapons. It's all the fault of the west. In re-engineered history, there were no reasons to support one regime or the other to create a sphere of influence and a buffer against Communism or the USSR trying to control as much of the oil, mineral and food resources by exporting Communism to Asia, South America and Africa. Communism was just another one of those peaceful ideologies that did not ever espouse or support violent revolution in other countries. If they did, it was only because the US and the west, those greedy capitalist pigs, did it first.
The Islamist terrorists are angry about that because supporting certain regimes, including dictators, meant that they were oppressed and they couldn't get their own Kalifa into power. Of course, the details rise again, since the Islamists hated the Communists the most since they were Godless barbarians. Another detail the left chooses to ignore since most of the extreme left don't believe in God and thinks that the rest of Western Society, particularly the US, is trying to force religion on them every time the word "God" appears or is heard in public. Their Islamist freedom fighters prefer that everyone worship God and pray five times a day or have their head separated from their shoulders.
In leftist ideology, the West should have been morally superior and never made a pact with dictators or other regimes that did not meet our exacting standards of liberty and morality since these dictators and rulers would often murder their people to stay in power, which makes the west complicit in these murders. Allies of convenience are wrong unless those allies hold the same exacting standards of liberty as we do. Unless, of course, it was Papa Stalin, a heroe of the left, who only did what he needed to do, killing all those peasants, because he had to insure the survival of the workers paradise. All important and negates several million deaths. Oops! Don't look at those irritating details where the extreme left's new ally of Islamic Extremist Terrorists are murdering people everyday and would continue to do so when they came to power since they would need to purge their ranks of the kufirs (unbelievers). Something the extreme left should be familiar with since their favorite heroes, Castro, Stalin, Che, Mao, Pol Pot and Saddam (to name a view), did that on a regular basis (Uncle Fidel is still doing that).
Let's not forget "Zionist". If you have the temerity to believe that a holocaust occured between 1936 and 1945 that wiped out 6 million Jews, that Israel has the right to exist, has the right to protect itself against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that suicide bombers blowing up pizza joints and school buses is reprehensible, you're a Zionist. Something else that the Islamists and extreme left have in common. Except for that pesky detail thing again. The left adored Arafat and the Islamists hated him because he wrapped up an issue of "jihad" into Godless socialist slogans.
Details, schmeetails. To the left, the important thing is that the right words are used: Emperialist, hegemonic, greedy, capitalist, God (non-Allah) worshipping, Zionist and immoral.
Just don't look at the details.
No comments:
Post a Comment