Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

Hat tip to�Instapundit�for this article,�by Matthew Parris in the Spectator,�declaring that Islam will lose.�Not sure why�Glenn felt�a need to put up such an extensive quote but if it was intended to�bolster the credibility of this idea it failed.�It should be noted that this article by Matthew was framed as a response to what was�actually a much more level headed analysis of our current plight: No more Pax Americana by David Selbourne.�Here is the quote from Matthew Parris�as posted by Instapundit:

Have we not noticed how incompetent are Islamic governments and organisations the world over? Has it not occurred to us that if al-Qaeda really were as wily and resourceful as we tell ourselves they are, and if their tentacles really did extend as wide and deep as some say, they would be on the advance�not battled into a stalemate by Western security and intelligence? If I were an al-Qaeda activist I could have blown up Parliament or shot at least one of a range of prime ministers by now. Al-Qaeda’s failure to infiltrate or penetrate Western structures has been complete.

This band of incompetents managed to drop�two of our tallest buildings as well as a third not so insignificant�building in the center of New York. During the run�up to the collapse we got to watch our fellow�citizens�jump to�their deaths on live worldwide television. At the�same time that this is happening�the center of our military headquarters in�the very heart of our capital city in the center of our country is attacked hmmm.�

Then lets not forget that these bands of incompetents�also successfully attacked�London, Madrid, Bali and they have also engaged and are close to humbling the greatest military the world has seen. Yes I am talking of Iraq. Yes just as in Vietnam where we won every battle and lost the war we are winning all the battles and if we lose our will to continue we will lose the war.� Victory in war does not consist of defeating the enemy in battles, it consists of breaking the enemies�will to continue. We have forgotten that lesson but Al Qaeda and others know that lesson well even if they are not able to produce their own weapons. Keep that in mind its important. Al Qaeda is unable to manufactor even something as simple as AK-47’s and yet they are close to victory in both of the battle grounds where we find the bulk of their “troops”. Perhaps victory in war depends more on something other than weapons?

�I am reminded of the scene in Aliens after their craft is blown up Hudson says: Hudson: Hey, maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!

It is also giggly to remember that not a single soul within the US Government lost their jobs for this massive failure. Trillions of dollars poured into the Defense�Department�and assorted Intelligence agencies these past 30 years and 19 Arabs from a culture of incompetence laid it all to waste. Hmmm who was it that we are calling incompetent?

There is a reason for this. Islam, in its more fundamentalist form, doesn’t work. Serious, committed Islamists are most unlikely to succeed within any structures but their own. Their own, meanwhile, are notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Only by lucky coincidence have much of the worlds known petrocarbons been found beneath Islamic nations, giving them what temporary influence they wield. How can any culture which despises modernity, hates mobility, distrusts individual liberty and autonomy, persecutes those who deviate from cultural or ideological norms, imposes a kind of brutal conformity on the way people live, love and work, and at a stroke disempowers 50 per cent of its people (women) from proper education and from all career opportunity so that every boy-child it produces is being brought up by a person who knows little of the world and only a fraction of what the boy must learn how can such a culture bestride the 21st century, as Selbourne fears Islamism will do?

Easily matter of fact so easily that when we are sitting around in the dark after they manage to blow up one of�our cities with�a nuke they will most likely aquire in the next 5 years we will wonder how they did it.� One word.

WILLPOWER

We used to have it, indeed�we used to worship it not so long ago, but increasingly it is a foreign concept to our political and elite classes and sadly more�and more of the rest of us�are also�forgetting its value.�We can see that in this screed by the object of this post. Look how he lists all of�civilizations�strengths yet he never mentions will. It is almost as if he does not understand that all of the technology in the world is for naught if one does not have the willpower to use it.

Furthermore not sure if this person lives on the same planet as the rest of us but brutality has not had a bad record against civility in history. Ask the Romans how they felt about the Visigoths as a culture. Were the Nazis a superior culture to�those nations they overran? Were Nazis more noble than the people they slaughtered? On a more personal level are murderers more worthy culturally than their victims? It bears mentioning that Islam itself has overrun many�cultures. Brutality and willingness to die for your cause tends to trump empathy, civility and unwillingness face the depravity of your enemy.

So ultimately Matthew Parris fails to understand two essential items in his article. The most important item being how are wars won. He falls prey to the answer the politicians want us to believe, that hardware and technology alone are enough and that even absent willpower technology alone�can carry us to victory. Indeed we have smart weapons, but none so smart that they launch themselves at the right targets at the right time. Almost as important is his failure to understand the nature of the enemy we face. Stated best by Hezb’Allah Chief.

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. Hussein Massawi, a former Hezbollah leader

The enemy is not interested in a battle of cultures. Far from it, in fact the enemy understands that our culture is somewhat appealing to his young and that if he wants his way of life to continue we must go away. He simply wants to eliminate the competition, us.

A far more compelling article which is many times more worrisome is the article by David Selbornne No more Pax Americana�� Perhaps the future as sketched out by David Selbornne was so scary that Matthew Parris felt a need to discredit it by ridiculing the prowess of Islam. Not sure but wondering why we haven’t been attacked and finding no answer that you understand does not explain away the threat.

Now the question of why they have not attacked us on a 9/11 scale deserves some debate. I believe a better explanation than incompetence might simply be�the enemy doesn’t need to attack. Why attack us now when we are getting closer and closer to surrendering.�The enemy believed we would surrender when they started this war nothing he has seen since 9/11 leads him to believe his assesment of us was incorrect. He probably did not believe we would go as far as we did but its evident given the rhetoric that the enemy understood us rather well. So why attack and strengthen those within the US Government who still are waging the battle against them? We are not the Spanish, if attacked again our backs will go up again and the war will flare up. They don’t do well when we are engaged. They do much better when they can humiliate us as they did on 9/11 then sit back and wait for us to lose interest as we are right this very moment in the process of doing. We musn’t forget that the battle is also being waged for the hearts and souls of Muslims all over the world. If they attack us again they are likely to spur us on and then even the Democrats won’t be able to get us out of the Middle East. But no attack and in a year or so we will leave the ME with our tails between our legs cowards again. Proving Bin Laden’s point to the Ummah.

The battle is being waged to crush our will. We must be prepared for another 9/11 scale attack or larger�when they discover that we may not crumble simply because of our press and left wing politicians ardent desire to surrender. Then they will attack. Small scale attacks on the order of the London and Madrid bombings are on the order of reminders to the cowards in our countries.

If they attack us again prior to our complete surrender in the ME it will be because they believe they can finish us, ie break our will to continue the fight. That will involve nukes, bio or some other weapon of mass destruction. For one scenario imagine that a nuke goes off in Mobile, Ala. Then a video is played on Al Jazeera with one or the other of the numerous spokesmen for the maniacs warning us that more weapons are planted and ready to go off unless we surrender. Try for one second to imagine the panic that would strike our cities. We have been very luck so far yes our enemy is somewhat incompetent, but let us never forget that they have the will to strike and that counts for a great deal.

Technorati tags: muslim, islam, iraq, iran, david selbornne, glenn reynolds, matthew parris, spectator, nuclear weapons, wmd, ron paul

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