Suicide bomber chickens have come home to roost

Obviously my heart goes out to all of the innocent victims from yesterday’s triple suicide bombings in Amman. But I can’t ignore the fact that for years the Arab world stood by passively—if not in support—while countless suicide bombings were unleashed against Israelis.

First the Israelis suffered. When the Arab world wasn’t cheering, they were yawning. After Saddam was overthrown, the suicide attacks began in Iraq, primarily against Shiite targets. Huge segments of the largely Sunni Muslim Arab world either supported such attacks or turned a blind eye. Indeed, it is well-known that Zarqawi’s terrorist group has enjoyed sympathy and support from Iraq’s indigenous Sunni Arabs and from those around the Arab world, who view the insurgents as heroes fighting American occupation.

But now Sunni Muslims in Jordan have suffered horrendous losses thanks to the evil work of three Sunni suicide bombers. For so long Sunnis in the Arab world gave outright or tacit support to the phenomenon of suicide terrorism, so long as it affected Jews and Shia. But all along they were riding on the back of a hungry tiger. It was only a matter of time before the tiger attacked—and so it did in Amman.

The arrogance of the left

Last night in one of my graduate school classes the professor stepped outside to retrieve a book. There was silence among us students, so I piped in, “Anybody want to hear a joke? You all will like it—it’s a Bush joke!”

One guy to my right said, “Why would you tell a Bush joke? You like the guy.” I replied, “Well, I also have a sense of humor, too.”

So I told the joke, which goes like this (and is best told in person, not on paper): Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush are having a meeting about Iraq. Rumsfeld tells the president, “Sir, I just got a report in that said 3 Brazilian (Braziillion) soldiers died in Baghdad.” Bush is beside himself with grief. “Oh my god, oh no!” he groaned. Then Bush turns to Rice and whispers in her ear, “Hey Condi, how many is a Brazillion?”

There were some chuckles, which was to be expected considering it’s an amusing joke, but no more. Hardly a side-splitter. But then a weird thing happened: The mood among my classmates took a palpable drop. Some of them started shaking their heads gently, looking down, commenting on how sad it was that the joke was so close to the truth. Then, the anti-Bush ranting began. But again, I must reiterate how strange it was that a stupid little joke changed the mood of the class. Very strange. A Pakistani girl in the class wondered how Bush ever became president if everybody hated him. I replied that she was insulated in a very liberal atmosphere (the university) in a blue city (Milwaukee), but that in many other parts of the country things were different. The guy to my right said the elections were rigged—period.

Perhaps because of the mood of the class the professor suggested we hold class elsewhere; get out of the classroom. So, we decided to go a eatery/bar place on campus to finish our discussion. On the way there we passed through the JMC department building. I noticed that on two different office doors were hung maps of the United States mocking the so-called ignorance and stupidity of Americans, particularly the ones from red states. Then I recalled a sticker that used to be on another professor’s office door that portrayed all of the red states as “Jesusland.”

I commented to those near me, “Gee, a lot of the faculty here seem to hold the majority of Americans in very low regard.” I pointed out the different office door posters. Nobody could really deny that. The elitist arrogance of so many leftists is astounding.


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What is really causing the riots in France?

More on the riots in France...

I’m trying to read as much as I can about the riots in France in order to understand as best I can what is going on. As an American who supports the war in Iraq and a secular Zionist Jew, I naturally have strong disagreements with French foreign policy regarding the Middle East—to put it mildly. Despite that, however, I want to examine the riots as dispassionately as possible without resorting to cheap shots or jingoistic arguments. I’m not here to “sock it to the French,” as it were, but to really try to understand.

So far, I’ve noticed a number of interesting media phenomenon.

For one, the mainstream media (not all the media, but the mainstream majority) really sat on their asses for the first few days of rioting. It was as if there was a desire to ignore the disturbances; but the riots grew and the media eventually had to report.

Why the reticence? It’s not uncommon for the media to report on relatively minor riots in the disputed territories in Israel, for example. Why not, then, report on a massive riot—even if lasting only a day or two—in France, where such things are less common, thus making such violence even more newsworthy?

Compounding this reticence to report on the full-scale riots comes the fact that routine, regular acts of anti-police violence have become epidemic in the suburbs of French cities for some time now. Everybody is familiar with the crime in America’s inner-cities. Why were the thousands of acts of anti-police violence in the French suburbs ignored by the media until now? I was aware of the tension in French society because I’m a weirdo and I pay attention to such things, but even I had no idea how truly bad the problem had become.

Then there is the demographic makeup of the rioters. Again, there appears to be a reticence to identify who the rioters are. Recent reports have been quicker to emphasis the identity of the rioters, but for the first few days one almost had to read between the lines to discover that the rioters were mostly composed of Arab Muslims.

The motives and reasons for the riots have been mostly couched in economic and racial terms. The rioters, we are generally told, are living in “poverty” and they suffer from “racism.” The conclusion one draws from such mainstream journalistic analyses is that because of oppressive racism the Arab Muslims can’t get jobs and therefore live in poverty—hence the riots. The implication is that perhaps the rioters are deserving of a certain level of sympathy and understanding, and the French state is merely reaping what it sowed? I’ve already read a number of comparisons between the riots in France and those in the race riots in the United States in the 1960’s. Such an analysis seems to indicates a desire to ignore or play down the Islamic component, which I will discuss shortly.

While I don’t doubt that there is racism in France, or that the rioters come from the lower rungs of society, I’m not convinced by the socio-economic argument—and I reject the comparison to the race riots and civil rights movement in the United States.

Poverty

No doubt the rioters come from the lower rungs of society, but to say they live in poverty is preposterous. These second and third generation French Arabs have a far better standard of living than most Arabs living in the Arab world. We keep reading that the riots are being organized via cell phones and text messaging. Excuse me, but people living in poverty do not own cell phones. Further, the French welfare state, from my understanding, pretty much ensures that its citizens do not live in poverty or go hungry or homeless. With socialized healthcare, every rioter can see a doctor. Grinding poverty is not the reason.

Racism

I’m sure there is racism in France. There is racism everywhere. Lot’s of groups of people suffer racism and don’t resort to violent rioting for days on end, or in the case of the Arab Muslims in France, for over 11 days as of this writing (and getting more violent). This argument also ignores the fact that France is the most pro-Arab country in Europe—and has been for a long time. If France is so implacably racist against the Arabs, why is it so utterly pro-Arab in its foreign policy?

Comparing to American race issues

There are a number of profound differences between the Arab Muslim minority of France and the Black experience in America. For one, Africans were brought to America against their will as slaves. Arab Muslims came to France as economic immigrants; free men who were and are free to come or free to leave. Most of the French Arab Muslims came to France in the 1960’s and 70’s, whereas African-Americans have lived in America for over 400 years. Despite the legacy of slavery and discrimination, African-Americans are nevertheless deeply woven into the fabric of American society and culture. African-Americans fought (and still struggle) for integration in American society. There is very little evidence that Arab Muslims desire assimilation into French society. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. Somewhat related, African-Americans by and large share the same values as the majority of Americans. Arab Muslims in France appear to have an extremely uneasy relationship with Western society, which leads to the next question.

Islam has bloody borders

Currently large segments of the Islamic world are at war with the West. But Muslims are also embroiled in conflicts in southern Thailand (Buddhist vs. Muslim); India and Pakistan (Hindu majority vs. Muslim); Israel vs. Arab (Jewish vs. Muslim); Southern Philippines (Catholic vs. Muslim); Caucuses (Russian Federation vs. Muslim); as well as other tensions around the world.

For decades we knew little about the simmering tensions among the Muslim minorities living in Europe. As a small minority, it appears they kept their heads down. Now, however, their populations are large. There are some 5 million Muslims in France, and an estimated 20 million throughout Europe. It’s almost as if a critical mass has been reached, and now the chain reaction has started. Reports this morning indicate that arson attacks have spread to other European cities, and the French expect things to get worse before they get better.

So the question begs to be asked: How much of this rioting is due to racism and poverty, and how much is due to the regrettable fact that in many places in the world, wherever there is a sizable Muslim population living in close proximity to a non-Muslim population, tension and violence are the results?