Why did they do it? What do we do?

Paris has been attacked by ISIS.  Why? What should we do about it? These are very important questions and deserve some thought rather than knee jerk reactions.

Why have they attacked Paris?  I think to understand that you need to have some understanding of who ISIS is and what they want. There is a remarkable and timely article in The Atlantic that is a long read but worth the effort entitled "What ISIS really wants".  

And what ISIS really wants is the apocalypse.  

They see the world as heading toward the end times, with a final showdown between True Islam and the rest of the world (false Islam and all other religions and beliefs).  They see themselves as on the side of God and fully expect God to make sure that True Islam prevails. ISIS is profoundly religious in their beliefs and motivations, and they see themselves as major players in God's plan to bring about the world that God wants - the establishment of the Final Caliphate.  They see any effort to move Islamic belief into the modern world as anathema needing to be violently eliminated. They see the word and world of Mohammed as sacred and perfect and see themselves as appointed by God to establish that world, and expect God to help them and assure their success.

They see the end times as having been prophesized and see themselves as appointed by God to bring it to pass. But, what does that mean?  Apparently, there is a script: the arrival of the Mahdi to lead them to victory - a massive confrontation with the "armies of Rome" (all those who are not True Muslims, I guess) in Northern Syria at the city of Dabiq - the defeat of "Rome" - the expansion of the Caliphate to conquer Istanbul - the emergence of an anti-messiah who will kill off most Mustlims - and finally (SURPRISE!) the second coming of Jesus will "spear the anti-messiah" and lead the Muslims to final apocalyptic victory.  

Whew, that Jesus guy has a lot of people waiting for his second coming to set up the perfect world after the slaughter of lots of people!  Apparently Jesus is considered by Muslims to be the second most important prophet after Mohammed.  I think there are some fundamentalist Christians waiting for Jesus to come down during the apocalypse and establish a Christian paradise.  So, a tough choice for Jesus, I guess.  Does he establish a Christian paradise or a Muslim paradise?  Either way, I think stoning folks for adultery and homosexuality is part of that Jesus inspired "paradise."  

I certainly hope Jesus has something better to do.

So, the second question is what do we do about the terrible attacks on Paris and the rest of the civilized world?  

DON'T TAKE THE BAIT.  That's my advice. Why do they attack Paris? to incite a massive military response in the Middle East. Why do they want a massive Western attack in the Middle East? As a call to arms to Muslims around the world to flood to the defense of the Caliphate and the initiation of the apocalypse that will end up with the end times and the establishment of (according to their deeply held religious belief) a final Caliphate and a final Muslim Paradise. 

Who wants to rush in militarily to the Middle East and crush the Caliphate?  Well, I guess we can start with Western Christians who also see the end times upon us and fully expect to have an apocalyptic showdown resulting in the establishment of a Christian Paradise (women and homosexuals beware in both cases!)

So, in my mind, that is what not to do - don't invade Syria/Iraq to crush ISIS because it will explode into a world war against hundreds of thousands or millions of deeply fanatical Muslims who seek death in the cause of creating the apocalypse that will establish a Muslim Caliphate paradise.

So, what do we do?  I believe we need to reach out to our natural allies in the fight against ISIS and other slaughtering in the name of Mohammed Islamists - Muslims. Sane Muslims. Adult Muslims. Modern Muslims.  A few centuries back there was the Spanish Inquisition - torturing and killling heretics.  That is Islam today.  Christianity outgrew that insanity.  Islam will too.  Now is the time to help that along. The Christian world knows how to do this.  It has already walked that path.  The Western world knows how to do this, it is part of our past.

It is time for modernist Islam to take over their faith.  Fortunately they are finally standing up and speaking out.  Muslim leaders around the world recently  released a detailed condemnation of ISIS as being un-Islamic.  This might seem like small potatoes to us in the West, but it is the heart of the matter in the Middle East. Who is Islamic and who is un-Islamic is the most important question of all to them. So, these Middle Eastern Islamic leaders say ISIS in un-Islamic, and they cite very scholarly textual justifications.  Here is a list of how ISIS violates the doctrines of Islam according to these Middle Eastern religious leaders (including Sheikh Shawqi Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem and All Palestine):

Here is the executive summary of their letter:

1. It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a portion of a verse from the Qur’an—or part of a verse—to derive a ruling without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and objective prerequisites for fatwas, and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’ Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Qur’an and Hadith.

2. It is forbidden in Islam to issue legal rulings about anything without mastery of the Arabic language.

3. It is forbidden in Islam to oversimplify Shari’ah matters and ignore established Islamic sciences.

4. It is permissible in Islam [for scholars] to differ on any matter, except those fundamentals of religion that all Muslims must know.

5. It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.

6. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.

7. It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.

8. Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.

9. It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief.

10. It is forbidden in Islam to harm or mistreat—in any way—Christians or any ‘People of the Scripture’.

11. It is obligatory to consider Yazidis as People of the Scripture.

12. The re-introduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam. It was abolished by universal consensus.

13. It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert.

14. It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights.

15. It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights.

16. It is forbidden in Islam to enact legal punishments (hudud) without following the correct 
procedures that ensure justice and mercy.

17. It is forbidden in Islam to torture people.

18. It is forbidden in Islam to disfigure the dead.

19. It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God.

20. It is forbidden in Islam to destroy the graves and shrines of Prophets and Companions.

21. Armed insurrection is forbidden in Islam for any reason other than clear disbelief by the ruler and not allowing people to pray.

22. It is forbidden in Islam to declare a caliphate without consensus from all Muslims.

23. Loyalty to one’s nation is permissible in Islam.

24. After the death of the Prophet, Islam does not require anyone to emigrate anywhere.

We can't kill our way out of this mess. This is a battle of ideas. This is a civil and religious war within Islam. The West is being used as a tool and a fool by the combatants in this religious war. That is why their attacks are so heartless and nihilistic against the West, as a way of baiting the West into foolish, massive military responses which will explode into a worldwide upsurge of fanatical Muslims and an exponential growth of the Caliphate that ISIS is trying to establish.  

Don't take the bait. Make alliances with those who are the real targets of fanatical Islamist attacks - Muslims in the Middle East.

Pope Francis speaks to prisoners and to all of us

I continue to be very moved by Pope Francis.  I saw his speech to the prisoners in a Philadelphia prison today.  It was such a fundamentally spiritual message.  He spoke of the message conveyed when Christ washed the feet of the Apostles during the Last Supper.  The message Francis conveyed is that we all get our "feet dirty" as we travel the paths of our lives.  And Christ, the Divine, the Transcendent Eternal Love of God Goddess All That Is, can wash us clean of the "dust" of the past.  Forgiveness.  Renewal.  Hope.  

What a beautiful message to bring to prisoners.  What an important message to bring to me, and to all of us.  Francis is clear that The Divine's cleansing is as needed for him as it is for those he spoke to.  And indeed, isn't forgiveness the key to our own true spirituality?  Allowing God's forgiveness? Forgiving ourselves?  Forgiving others? Not forgetting, of course, but forgiving, changing, starting anew, finding again our True Path, finding again our spiritual connection with the Divine and thus finding again our spiritual path connecting us to all of God's creations, including our world, each other, and ourselves?

Francis has the platform of being the Pope to bring his message to the world.  I stopped being a Catholic decades ago, and I have many issues with Catholic doctrine.  But this Pope's message isn't doctrinaire, it's a message of loving, caring, forgiving, redeeming.  It's a spiritual message not a religious message.  Or so it seems to me.  God bless him and his journey.  I am moved by who he is and his chosen mission.

The Pope and what it means to be a man

What strikes me most about Pope Francis and his visit to the United States and his speech to our Congress is his incredible gentle, warm presence. I am especially struck by who he is in contrast to the Republican presidential candidate currently leading the polls who has taken over the news for the Summer - Donald Trump.

What a relief it is to have this contrast.  What a relief it is to have an oasis of kindness and gentleness in the midst of an endless assault of combative nastiness being spewed upon us by Trump (and his imitators in the Republican candidates).

The question most worth asking, in my opinion, is what is it to be a man?  Is it Trump? bottomless wells of aggression, attacks, defensiveness, hostility, judgment, threats, and ultimately violence?  Or is it Pope Francis? bottomless wells of caring, compassion, kindness, mercy, and love?

I think the question answers itself.  To be a man, a true man, the Pope is the model, not Trump.  Caring and understanding rather than attacking and intolerance.  

Nothing could have better highlighted to the American mind the stark choices we are facing in this election than a man whose existence is rooted in his spiritual experience and understanding - as a contrast to a man whose existence seems to be rooted in his relentless pursuit of financial wealth and domination. 

This has been the Summer of Trump.  I am glad the Summer of Trump has ended - the Summer of aggression, hostility, threats, and bigotry.

I hope that we are entering the Autumn of Pope Francis - an Autumn of caring, compassion, tolerance, and understanding.

Just a string of the salient words from the Pope's address to the American people in Congress today: common responsibility, dignity, common needs, freedom, extremism, fundamentalism, polarization, hope, healing, peace, justice, respect, cooperation, common good, dreams, relate, crisis, persons, help, grow, cycle of poverty, environmental challenge, culture of care, selfishness, violence, build bridges, family, freedom, dreams, justice, The Golden Rule.

What a wonderful man.  What a wonderful speech.  It can open our hearts to God, and the love of God, and the caring for God's creations - each other.

After 9/11...

Going backwards in time:

• Syrian refugees flood Europe 
• Isis terrorizes Shia in the Middle East  
• Isis is created by disaffected and persecuted Sunnis  
• Obama kills Osama, which doesn't really affect much of anything
• Iraq becomes a puppet of the new Middle Eastern power, Iran
• Obama keeps Maliki in power too long  
• Bush keeps Maliki in power too long  
• Shiite Maliki ruler persecutes Sunnis 
• Sunnis kept out of the Iraqi government by the Shiite Prime Minister,Maliki 
• Bush puts Shiite Maliki in power 
• Bush de-Bathifies Iraq, throwing all Baath Party Sunnis out of power 
• Bush invades Iraq 
• Bush throws the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan 
• Bush fails to find Osama bin Laden 
• Bush invades Afghanistan 
• Osama bin Laden kills 3000 Americans on 9/11/2001

So:

• Starting a war is easy 
• Knowing what the hell is going to happen in war is impossible 
• Ending a war is very, very hard

So:

• Maybe we don't elect a presidential candidate who promises to go out and win a bunch of wars for the American people.

American History in a nutshell - Aristocracy, American Revolution, Plutocracy

American history in a nutshell: Aristocracy - American Revolution - Plutocracy.  

Stretch that out a bit: British Aristocracy - American Revolution - Southern Aristocracy - Civil War - Industrial Plutocracy of the Robber Barons - Teddy Roosevelt the trust buster - Plutocracy of the Roaring Twenties - Franklin Roosevelt bank reforms and New Deal - WWII post war prosperity - Current Plutocracy of the modern Robber Barons.

WE NEED A NEW TR OR FDR - Obama tried but not enough force - none on the horizon? Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren?

The Republican Party might as well change their name to The Plutocrat Party.  Oddly enough, the current Plutocracy has convinced economic conservatives that putting the Plutocracy in power creates opportunities for them, and has convinced the social conservatives that putting the Plutocracy in power will make the country more moral.  What?

Strange.

Time for an ending of this version of Plutocracy.

One of the many reasons Trump is a dangerous politician

Donald Trump is dangerous for many reasons, but this one stands out to me the most right now - Donald Trump attacks and punishes anyone who says anything against him, even the press which is supposed to be protected by the first amendment. Just one example is that he attacked and demeaned a woman reporter, Megyn Kelly who asked him a tough question during the first debate. And now he personally attacks Kareem Abdul Jabar who wrote and article in the Washington Post pointing out that Trump attacks the press who displease him and thus attacks the first amendment itself.   

That makes him more than a distasteful huckster, it makes him a threat to the country, should the country have a fit of insanity and make him president.

However, the story that most reveals Trump’s nature, in my mind, is when he sued a former beauty contestant who claimed the Miss USA contest was corrupt.  He sent his vicious attack dog lawyer, Michael Cohen,  to destroy her financially for the rest of her life.  What chance did she have against that level of viciousness and financial power?

Some key quotes from this article:

"The Trump confidant also bragged to The Daily Beast about how he “destroy[ed]” the life of a young beauty queen—a woman Cohen called an “idiot.”

…hit with a $5 million defamation penalty in arbitration for questioning the integrity of the pageant’s results.

When asked by host Harvey Levin about the size of the intended lawsuit (“How much money are you gonna get from somebody who works at the Sunglass Hut?”) Cohen said, “It’s not about the money. You understand that. You understand Mr. Trump.”

In her request to have the $5 million award vacated, Monnin asked the court “Please do not enter a judgment that will financially devastate me for the rest of my life based on this record.”

Oops, I think the worst word you can use when talking with an authoritarian, cruel, bully is “please”, shows weakness you see.

"Indeed, Cohen himself explained the meaning behind his nickname, Trump’s “pit bull,” in a 2011 interview with ABC News.

“It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit,” Cohen said. “If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.”

That attitude was on display when Cohen spoke with The Daily Beast. “I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen told The Daily Beast reporter who reached out to the campaign for comment over ex-wife Ivana Trump’s 1993deposed assertion that she had been “raped” by her then-husband, allegations she later softened in a statement in which she asked her comments not to be interpreted “in a literal or criminal sense.”

“So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?” Cohen said."

Disgusting is the absolute best word to describe Mr Cohen, and his boss, Mr Trump.  Yuck.

This is an authoritarian and cruel man who should never be given power of any kind, let alone the presidency.  When authoritarians gain power, supported by authoritarian followers and voters, the result can be tyranny. 

I expect Trump to flame out as soon as people start asking real questions about real issues that reveal that he knows very little about anything that a president needs to be intimately aware of.  That is what happened to Sarah Palin, and it is what will happen to Trump.  There are many conservatives who see how shallow his resume and knowledge are, and if Democrats are lucky enough to have him as a Republican presidential candidate, either Clinton or Biden will be able to make him look ridiculously ignorant, which of course he is.  The only tool in his kit box is bluster, threats, and punishment.  He can hurt anyone, and he wants to.  Not good. But he can't win the presidency.

HBO's Show Me Hero, Racism, and The Drug War

I just finished an excellent six part mini-series by the wonderful David Simon (The Wire) called "Show Me a Hero" on HBO.  Really well done, with terrific acting, especially from Oscar Isaac and Catherine Keener.  

It explored a real life event in Yonkers, NY, from the late eighties where the government wanted to establish low cost housing in middle class neighborhoods, which created violently intense opposition.  It has me thinking about the issues of race in our country.

As best I can tell, the worst thing you can do to poor black and brown people is put them into large Projects.  This is just a way of the government jamming them all together in one place and doing their best to forget about them, which is possible as long as their problems don't spill out and intrude into the consciousness of the middle and upper classes.  This last year, there has been a lot of spilling out going on, however.  

As I have written before, the problem with this is The Drug War.  Black and brown people are essentially sectioned off from the middle classes in Drug War Zones.  The people warehoused in these types of environments are part of The Drug War or at least in the middle of the battle zones.  

They are high crime areas, of course, but I believe a very large percentage of the crimes are Drug War related - selling, buying, organizing the drug gangs, killing and terrorizing other gangs, killing the police, killing and terrorizing civilians unlucky enough to be witnesses or in the wrong places at the wrong times.  Young men of color are born into a world that the middle and upper classes know very little of, and I am grateful to David Simon for his windows into these dysfunctional worlds.  

It appears that Yonkers did their integration the right way, which was to build scattered low cost housing that had only about 40 low income people of color in each area.  The purpose was to allow a small number of them to be more easily absorbed into the middle class neighborhood because the white and black/brown neighbors would interact over time and see each other as human, and thus be given a real opportunities to create more meaningful hope filled lives.  

The racism behind the outcries and avid opposition to the building and occupying of these units was pretty hard to watch.  And no claim was made by the show that every person of color integrated successfully into their new neighborhood.  But the point was pretty strongly made that it was a successful effort and the resulting communities have adjusted to each other pretty well.

I believe that this kind of integration, done right, can be successful, and good for Yonkers and good for David Simon to provide reasons for optimism.

Beyond that, I think the bigger question about race in America has a chance to be successfully dealt with by ending The Drug War.  Apparently Portugal decriminalized most drugs with some very positive results.  They stopped treating drugs as a crime and started treating drugs as a disease to be treated.  The result? No Drug War.

An obvious example is in America's own history.  In the early 20th century prohibition made alcohol illiegal.  The result?  The Alcohol Wars.  Gangs terrorized each other, civilians were killed who were witnesses or in the cross fire, etc.  Al Capone built his empire out of blood and terror.  Just like the current gangs and cartels do today in the Drug War Zones.  

So, what happened?  Alcohol was decriminalized and the idea of the head of one alcohol maker or distributor killing and terrorizing another is ridiculous.  Of course they don't.  There is no need.  There is not a massive police occupation of large areas of population that are involved in the making and distribution of alcohol.  Prohibition is over.  So is the killing.

I think the best thing that can happen to the inner cities of black and brown people is to end the prohibition of drugs.  The wars would be over.  The inner cities would no longer be war zones.  The police would no longer be an occupying force in the midst of an endless and hopeless war against the making and distributing of illegal drugs.

Would there be more addicts?  Maybe, but they would be treated as sick and in need of assistance rather than as criminals and thrown into the criminal justice system which does little else other than train them to become warriors in The Drug Wars. And the end result would be fewer addicts, not more, as Portugal seems to be proving.

Some countries have tried it with good success.  Why not here?

And, by the way, wouldn't black and brown people living in the inner cities start to be seen as human rather than as threats once they were no longer soldiers in the misbegotten Drug War?  Wouldn't their neighborhoods have a chance to become much safer and heal?  What could more dramatically elevate the environment of the impoverished inner cities than to have them cease to be war zones?  Wouldn't their assimilation into the middle classes become a much more natural evolution?

I wonder.

George Will says just say NO to Trump

I have never taken Trump seriously. I have always thought he is just this year's version of Sarah Palin, all attitude and no substance. So I am reluctant to write again about this empty suit, but I do so again simply for the pleasure of being able to quote long time conservative thinker George Will about the grandiose one:

"In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay."

I think Trump supporters are versions of the semi-drunk delusional bar fly described by Will, and those who delight in the silliness of right wing talk radio and FOX News, whose main message seem to be that all we need to do is get a president and congress who are really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really. really, really, really, really ... and I mean really ... TOUGH.

And what about the polls?  At this point in the campaigns they are little more than name recognition. Its very predictable that the biggest winners of today's polls are simply the most famous people - Clinton, Bush, and Trump.  Saying you like someone today doesn't mean you are going to vote for them when the time comes.

Thank goodness.

The Little Man is Done

No surprise, of course, but Donald Trump has already outstayed his 15 minute of presidential candidate fame welcome.  He managed to make a disgusting sexist attack on Megyn Kelly, probably the top conservative woman media person in the country.  I guess Mr Trump is just not very bright.

No loss.  I don't expect him to go the third party route, he could only do that if there was some kind of ground swell for him, and his swell has peaked and will fade into dust soon enough, it seems to me.  A third party run by Trump might end up getting the Duck Dynasty vote along with his own, but by that time even the DD fans would likely move on.

By the way, I suppose Mr Trump's greatest attraction was his attack on Political Correctness.  Many conservatives are very angry at Political Correctness.  I guess they feel inhibited by such constraints.  But why?

How about sexism?  It's politically incorrect to be sexist, but it's politically correct to be against sexism and to pursue a greater understanding of what that means as time passes and all of us born into a sexist world continue to become more and more conscious of unconscious sexism and chauvinism.  So, is this a tough choice?  Sexist or not sexist?  Obviously Mr Trump has made his choice.  Seems to be Politically Correct is the better choice.  Is that controversial?

How about racism?  It's Politically Incorrect to be a racist, but it's Politically Correct to be against racism, and to pursue greater understanding of what that means as time passes and all of us born into a racist world continue to become more and more conscious of unconscious racism.  Racist or not racist?  Seems Politically Correct is the better choice.  Is this controversial?

And homophobia? Politically Incorrect to be homophobic, Politically Correct to see gays as just folks like you and me but who fall in love with their own sex rather than the opposite.  So what?  This question is being answered generationally, and my favorite statement about it is conservative George Will saying that to the young someone being gay is about as interesting as someone being left handed.

So, Trump will fade into oblivion, probably as noisily as he can.  But who will his enthusiasts switch their allegiance to?  

I doubt that very many of them will change their anti-Political Correctness spots.  But, who knows, maybe seeing their beliefs being portrayed so openly and vilely by Trump can be an awakening for some of them, and maybe they can just walk away from their old politics.  It's not easy to change your mind, or learn new things, but it is possible.  I've done it a couple of times.

Donald trump is a joke but his constituents are not

Donald Trump has no more chance of becoming president of the United States than William F Buckley, and Buckley is dead.  Which is a shame because one of Buckley's greatest gifts to conservatives when he was the leading intellectual voice on the right was to keep the crazies out of mainstream conservatism - that is, he kept out the lunatic John Birch Society, the toxic hatred of the racists, and the paranoid fringes that are consumed with apocalyptic visions and paranoid howlings.  Yes, there was a time when conservatism had actual intellectual groundings and ideas.  Alas, in the age of the Tea Party and right wing talk show ravings designed to boost their ratings at all costs, apocalyptic visions, racist dog whistles, and paranoid conspiracies have taken over too much of the "conservative movement."  Scare quotes because they aren't conservative, they are delusional revolutionaries.  Or so it seems to me.

The problem isn't Trump.  To me he just seems to be a sad old man lost in delusions of his own grandiosity, who actually thinks that being rich is reason enough to elect him to the presidency.  I think his only motivation is his insatiable need to be in the spotlight.  It must be a terribly galling thing for his ego to realize that the history books will write about Obama and other presidents, and he will long be forgotten after his demise.  So, what better solution than to become president? or at least make enough of a splash in this presidential race that he gets some kind of mention in the future?

I don't know if Trump has ever honestly expressed a political opinion of his own.  His public views seem to align with whatever will get him headlines, and his view of previous decades are quite different than his public views today.

I have avoided any posts on Trump because I think he will be a momentary headline.  But the problem isn't Trump, it is the extremist right wing base that is excited by his cynical, opportunistic ravings.

Racism?  How about accusing Mexicans of being rapists?  Tough guy to the max? How about accusing John McCain of not being a war hero because he was captured, and the mighty Trump has no respect for captured people?  Mr. Success Himself? How about having no respect for losers like McCain and Romney?  Oh, what a mighty man Mr Trump thinks he is. 

He's not, of course, he's a national embarrassment, and a Republican embarrassment, as Republican denunciations pouring in from all sides testify to.

No, the problem is that he has a constituency in the extremities of the Republican base that say, Way To GO, tell it like it IS.  Good grief.  And these people vote.  They won't end up voting for Trump in the end, of course. But they will vote for someone. And that is something for all of us to be afraid of, indeed.

Dunford's evaluation of threats to the United States

Marine General Joseph Dunford testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in his confirmation hearings to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He looks to me like someone who understands the world.  When asked what the greatest threat to the United States was, he said it was Russia.  Followed by China and North Korea.  Of these three, only Russia is actively making dangerous moves.

I am especially heartened that he did not say ISIS or al Qaeda in answer to that question.

It seems to me that the bloodthirsty fundamentalist extremist segment of the Muslim world can harm us, and is certainly trying.  But they really don't represent an existential threat to this country.  They are a terrorist threat, which is quite different.  They could blow up another building, they could kill hundreds of Americans and Westerners, they could shock our sensibilities with horrific atrocities, they can do all that they can imagine to do to promote deep and disgusting depravities of violence.  But they aren't an existential threat to our country.  

I believe their intent is to act so atrociously as to bait the United States into making the same mistake that W made - send ground troops into the Middle East and wage war against - Muslims (which side to we pick in this horrible civil and religious war, and why?) This would frame the fanatic jihadists barbarities as Islam against the crusading U.S.  This would be an amazingly stupid mistake for us to make.  It would be a tremendous aid to the recruitment of Muslims to the barbarous jihadist side.  It would grow the threat rather than reduce it, or so it seems to me.

I don't believe Russia is out to destroy the U.S. but it does have enough nukes to do so, so they actually could be an existential threat.  And good for four star General Dunford for seeing that and being willing to take that threat seriously.  

Protect ourselves against terrorism, don't get sucked into their pathetic civil wars.

Right wing terrorist kills nine in South Carolina

Dylan Roof, a right wing extremist, slaughtered nine people in an historic black church in South Carolina. This hateful deed puts an exclamation point on the report from the Department of Homeland Security that right wing extremist terrorism is every bit as much of a threat in America as Islamist extremist terrorists. 

We always seem to want to explain away right wing extremist violence as expressions of mental illness, whereas we want to explain Islamist extremist violence as an expression of a murderous ideology. I think it is time to realize the the right wing terrorists are also acting out murderous ideologies. And, indeed, both right wing and Islamist violent extremists have some pretty serious mental problems. I believe what they have in common is the paranoid fear that they are losing the world they think should be - some sort of Islamist fantasy or some sort of right wing fantasy - and they see themselves as brave soldiers out to right the terrible wrongs of the modern world which they see as plunging into an abyss of darkness. 

And, in a way, they are right. The world is changing, and changing very fast. The extremes of masculine chauvinism, of hyper masculine purity that subjugates all that is feminine, or "impure" from a religious, or racist, or sexist  bigotry are dying. We no longer live in a world where everybody is just like us. We no longer live in a world where tough, ruthless men run everything. 

And that is a good thing. The days of brutal Islamism are fading away, and a reform of Islam is happening, despite the violent reaction against it. And, in the West, the days of hyper-masculine domination are also fading away. Hooray for the rest of us!  

Lost, frightened souls are the ones doing the violence. I believe that their violence trying to stop the world's evolution are actually signposts that the path of the future is moving away from their fantasy worlds and into a world of much more balance and harmony. 

Containment - not a new Republican War in the Middle East please

I think that the only wars worth fighting have to pass what I call the Mom and Pop test.  That is, if your son or daughter goes off to fight a war, and is killed in that war, Mom and Pop should be able to look at each other and say that even though the pain of loss of a child is unimaginably horrible, at least they can comfort themselves with the knowledge that their child died for a good cause.

I don't see where the wars in the Middle East pass the Mom and Pop test.  The Republican candidates for president all seem to be very intent on running on the idea that America needs to be actively involved in the wars of the Middle East.  The latest entry, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is especially hawkish and sees his hawkishness as his primary virtue. He proudly announces 

"I want to be President to defeat the enemies trying to kill us, not just penalize them or criticize them or contain them, but defeat them," he said at his kickoff event.

This seems to be a very clear promise of war in the Middle East to me, a war that does not pass the "Mom and Pop" test.  Who is it we are supposed to fight?  Who are we supposed to support? I think this is a civil and religious war to be fought out by them.  It seems to me that they are deciding that the straight lines of the countries created by the Europeans after WWI will no longer apply.  It looks to me like the Sunnis and Shia are fighting viciously to establish their own countries. Of course, each is fighting to annihilate the other, but it will end up with the establishment of independent countries in some form of uneasy balance - probably a Shia country, a Sunni country, and a Kurdish country.  Iraq and Syria are already gone, and will never return.

Iran is behind the Shia and Saudi Arabia is behind the Sunni, but America has no dog in that fight.  Both sides are hideous and dangerous.  Our only job is to try to keep them from killing us, it seems to me.  That sounds like the old fashioned "containment" policy of the Cold War, where we didn't attack Soviet Communism directly, but did our best to contain their spread.  Eventually, the Soviets imploded, and we had limited our wars mostly to two ill-conceived efforts in Korea and Viet Nam.  I say we have already done our two ill-conceived wars in the Middle East - Iraq 1 and Afghanistan/Iraq 2.

Back to containment, is what I hope for.

The war zones rebel against what they see as a police state

Whites see protests and violence by inner city blacks very differently than blacks see the same events.  They are seeing two totally different things.  

Blacks see unarmed black men being killed by a hostile, occupying police force in the world of the inner city which is little more than a war zone and police state.

Whites see a police force which is doing an enormously difficult and dangerous job being under attack by fools, criminals, and race agitators.  

Wow.  Different realities.

My take is similar to David Simon's - the creator of "The Wire". The inner cities are war zones, the drug war.  The inner cities are discarded places filled with people who are seen as not useful to the economy and thus are forgotten, neglected, disrespected, and held in contempt.  

Simon makes the point that America, and capitalism, cannot function if either unfettered capitalism or unfettered socialism wins totally over the other.  Unfettered socialism becomes the horror of communism, like the Soviet Union and North Korea.  Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring.  

He also makes the point that unfettered capitalism becomes the horror of plutocracy and oligarchy.  Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring. The perfect example is how unfettered capitalism deals with the inner city drug war zones - they ignore them - the inner city people don't feed the capital, don't feed the corporations, don't feed the quarterly reports. Thus, they aren't thought about until there are riots.

What is needed is balance.  Balance comes when neither side wins. The Soviets went out of balance and destroyed themselves by Communism.  America is in danger of going out of balance and destroying itself by Plutocracy.

The United States was created to overthrow aristocracy.  It wasn't England that our Founding Fathers rebelled against, it was rule by aristocracy.  When the wealthiest of the wealthy can contribute billions of dollars to control our elections, we no longer have a democracy, and we are living in the tyranny of aristocracy.  We are getting too close to that tyranny, to that loss of freedom.

The plutocracy has chosen the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" to rule the country for the sole purpose of creating unfettered capitalism and unlimited capital.  All costs are to be reduced, including of course the cost of "labor" - the cost of you and me.  They do this with the megaphone of talk radio, and ironically their attack on the middle class is done under the rubric of "freedom".  The more extreme the right wing becomes the less power the middle class becomes and the more power the plutocracy has.  

I have hopes that the American people will be able to walk back away from the blow torch of extremism, and will elect conservatives and liberals who are not crazy. The biggest danger to this is the enormous  amounts of money that the Plutocracy is putting into the election process.  I think they will lose.

U.S. Iran framework deal

Congratulations to Obama and Kerry for coming up with a better than expected nuclear framework agreement with Iran.  I know that Netanyahu is upset, but that is probably a very good sign that it is a good agreement.  I am really tired of him, his right wing Zionists in Israel and the U.S., and the American right wing of the Republican party trying their best to get the U.S. to attack Iran.  Inspect-inspect is much better than war-war.

I know my right wing friends are convinced that Obama represents the end of American True Manhood, a manhood that stomps across the earth inflicting fear and shock and awe at our mighty forceful powers.  But, indeed, I think Obama is a glimpse of the future of American and of American manhood - one that has many more arrows in its quiver than just military force and intimidation.  John Wayne was a fictional character, and at best he was a picture of a manhood that is now in a very distant past.  

The American right wing keeps thinking that there is only one lesson to be learned in history - that of Churchill standing up to Hitler, and how much that was needed rather than Chamberlain appeasing the maniac tyrant.  But, there is so much more to history than that.  Ted Cruz and the American right wing see this deal as a capitulation to the maniac Iranians.  They see themselves as brave Churchills shouting against the weak foolishness of appeasement.  I think they are dangerously deluded about how to operate in today's world.

They forget a president named Ronald Reagan who negotiated a deal with the Soviet Union -a much more dangerous, brutal, and deadly foe of the America than Iran ever will be - and gave away half of America's nukes.  The right wing in America was apoplectic, and struck endless Churchillian poses, railing against such utter stupidity of the American president.  Well, of course, Reagan was right and they were wrong, and the Soviet threat fizzled and Reagan's nuke deal was a very good one.  

I think this Iranian deal will prove to be a very good one indeed.  Netanhayu and the hard core American right wing has been saying for twenty years that Iran is only a year or two away from a nuke.  This deal has extraordinary levels of inspection and oversight inside Iran in exchange for dropping those sanctions connected to Iran's nuclear program (the sanctions directed at Iran for reasons of Iran supporting terrorism are not affected).

So, good for the president.  Gee, do you think that this man will end up with a very good historical legacy after all - expansion of health care - which has dramatically slowed the growth of health care cost in America - the rescuing of the American economy by providing economic stimulus rather than government austerity - which is being used in Europe to disastrous effect - getting out of and staying out of, as much as humanly possible, the religious and civil wars in the Middle East, and now a defusing of potential war with Iran and containment of its nuclear program.  A pretty good record, to me.  

I know my conservative friends see him in the most demonic of terms, but I think that his choices have proven out to be pretty darned good.

Israel drops its mask

I am pretty disappointed in Israeli voters for decisively re-electing Netanyahu.  His promise was very clear, there would never be a Palestinian state.  

There is no chance of a two state solution.  There is only the relentless drive to eliminate Palestinians from Palestine.  There will be no "peace process", of course there never was, it was always a pretense.  The mask of Israel is off, and the real face is the face of a police state which oppresses Palestinians, occupies more and more of their territory, and makes life as difficult as possible in its relentless efforts to drive them out - this is the "one state solution" that has been obvious for years but America has pretended that a "two state solution" was always possible.  It's not.

Israeli peace activist, Miko Peled, gave an hour long talk a while back and I was so fascinated that I listened to the entire thing.  He tells of the dark side of Zionism - drive out the Palestinians, Israel for Jews only, punish and oppress Palestinians.  The rest is all pretense.

If you focus on Hamas terrorist acts you naturally conclude that the Netanyahu approach is necessary - a matter of self defense.  I have come to the conclusion that focusing on Hamas is the key to Israeli propaganda to justify their oppression of the Palestinians. 

But if you focus on the lives of the Palestinians the entire picture changes.  You finally start to notice that they are living in a totalitarian police state.  And what do oppressed people do when they live in police states? they fight back.  Terrorism is the language of the oppressed.  Terrorism is the language of the hopeless and impotent.  Remove the oppression and the fuel for terrorism dries up. 

It is a shame that American hawks are so committed to Netanyahu and his dedication to oppression and war.  One of Netanyahu's lovely goals is to goad America into war with Iran.  Let's have you and them fight, is his message.  Fortunately, we have a president who won't take the bait.  

God help us all if a Republican hawk becomes president and dances to the tune of Netanhahu, or more to the point Netanyahu's biggest contributor, American casino  magnate Sheldon Adelson.  The American Jewish lobby has had too much influence for too long on American policy.  

The Cold War is over and U.S. interests in Israel have waned.  It is time to rethink our relationship with Israel, especially when they have made it so blindingly clear that peace with the Palestinians is not now, never was, and never will be possible.

Netanyahu tries to sabotage U.S. negotiations with Iran

It seems to me that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is doing his best to sabotage the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran regarding nuclear weapons, by demanding the results that he insists on in the negotiations, knowing that his demands kill the possibility of a deal.  And, perhaps worst of all, he presented his case to one half of the U.S. government, the Republicans.  The House of Representatives is controlled by the Reps, and is violently opposed to almost anything the executive branch. or the Democrats in general, stand for.  By teaming up with one U.S. party, Israel now has declared war on Obama, and on Democrats.  Is he out of his mind?

Why on earth should the United States be doing what Israel commands?  I know that Israel has had great influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in the past, but I think it is about time to put an end to that influence in a very decisive way.

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has changed pretty dramatically with the end of the Cold War, it seems to me.  When the Soviets were dedicated to world domination, Israel was a valuable ally to the U.S. as a way of thwarting Soviet hegemony over the Middle East.  But the Soviet Union is gone, and although Israel is a nice ally to have for its intelligence assistance in the Middle East to help us deal with the Muslim civil and religious wars, Israeli interests aren’t any more important to U.S. interests than those of Saudi Arabia, or Turkey, or Iraq, or maybe even Iran.  They are all a bunch of Middle Eastern countries that refuse to play well together, and the primary interest of the U.S. seems to me to be to keep all of them from doing stupid things that will harm the U.S.  

I think that those who try to equate the Islamist nutcases with the existential threats that was posed by the old Soviet Empire are ridiculously wrong. The fundamentalist nutcases are dangerous, but mostly to themselves, using mayhem against us as a tactic in their religious civil wars.

It is certainly true that the U.S. Jewish lobby has had a death grip on U.S./Israeli relations for decades, but I think that influence is starting to wane a bit.  The primary argument for supporting Israel has become humanitarian since the end of the Cold War, but it is pretty hard for the average American, or at least for me, to see Israel as the victim as long as it brutalizes and dominates the Palestinians in its sphere of influence.  Israel really seems to feel entitled to subjugate the Palestinians and punish them at will.  Hezbollah is certainly terrible, but the Palestinians seem to me to be people who have had almost all of their freedoms taken from them by an Israeli police state. 

Maybe it’s time for the U.S. to make some real demands on Israel, like to grant basic freedoms and rule of law to the Palestinians, and to demand that Israel withdraws from the occupied lands.  But, time after time Israel expands their Israeli settlements, brutalizes the Palestinians, and seems to be secure in the notion that America will back them.  Why are we so passive with the Israelis?

And why on earth should America stand for Israel taking sides in the partisan divides in U.S. government for the purposes of sabotaging American diplomacy with Iran?

Is it really Muslims against the world?

The election season is beginning, and some battle lines are being drawn.  A conservative friend sent me a video of a speech by Newt Gingrich in Iowa.  I guess Newt is running, or at least wants to shape the debate.

Gingrich is a very articulate and persuasive speaker for his world view.  He says the we are losing the war on terror, our president and the State Department (meaning Hillary Clinton) won’t even tell the truth about who the terrorists are, it is a global war, and it is being waged by Muslims against the West. 

I understand this view, it is the view that I passionately held ten years ago.  I do not see it that way anymore.

I think we are doing a good job of keeping America safe from attack from the terrorist wing of the Muslim faith.  And the terrible flaw in the idea of ginning up hatred and fear of Muslim terrorists is that we lose the war against them by turning those that we need most in this war against us – Muslims themselves.  America is not going to defeat the Muslims.  America shouldn’t be waging war against the Muslims.  Muslims need to defeat the terrorists amongst them who are falsely claiming the mantle of Islam as they kill, maim, and terrorize us all – Westerners and Muslims alike. 

I do not believe this is a global war even though the terrorists strike against the U.S. and the West.  I believe we are peripheral to the real war, and that the real war is a civil and religious war between the Sunni and Shia Muslims.  We have no dog in that fight.  Both side include vicious, fanatical Muslim extremists.  It is up to Islam to sort this out.  My hope is that mainstream Islam will turn against the terrorist wing of Islam.  Fortunately, it looks like Jordan is going after the brutes of ISIL.  So are the Kurds.

But, most importantly, I believe we in the West need to refuse to take the bait of going after these monsters in their countries.  As soon as we do, ISIL and al Qaeda transform this war into the story they need to tell – it becomes the Christian and corrupt secular Crusader West against Islam.  And then what happens?  The ranks of ISIL and al Qaeda and other bloodthirsty fanatics fill with recruits from the one and a half billion Muslims around the word.  If we attack all we do is swell the ranks of the crazies, we play into their hands.  This was the goal of bin Laden, Bush fell for it, he attacked, and the Middle East exploded, creating more and more extremists, including the current terror – ISIL.

I think our job is to do two things- keep from getting killed by them, and stay out of their wars as best we can.

Muslims need to figure out what Islam is in the modern world.  Obama was right in his speech to the prayer breakfast last week – violent, puritanical extremism isn’t unique to Muslims.  Christians went through that stage a few hundred years back.  The United States was founded by Christian groups fleeing the attacks of the fanatical My-Christianity-or-the-Highway terrorists of their times. 

So, there are thee lessons we can take from history, our own Western Christian history:  first is that it is normal for extremist, puritanical fanatics to violently try to force the rest of the world to obey their fanatical views, and second is that religions split into factions and fight each other, and third that eventually they learn how to co-exist.  The Christians did it, and the Muslims will too. 

We just need for them to speed up this process, a lot.

Anti-vaxxer from the extremes on the right and the left

I get frustrated by the anti-vaxxers.  The notion that vaccination causes autism has long been disproven.  The idea was apparently proposed by a Doctor in 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield.  But his study was false, he was disbarred, the paper was retracted.  What more do people need? 

I am old enough to have gotten measles when I was in the sixth grade.  It was a very difficult disease.  We had a president who was infected with polio - FDR.  The world had a much lower life expectancy rate before Dr Salk discovered the polio vaccine and proved the value of vaccinations.  Massive numbers of people have died from contagious air born diseases.  And now, some people have been convinced to refuse vaccinations for their children.  This is really a terrible idea. 

There seem to be two political extremes vulnerable to the anti-vaccination fad.  First are the hard right wingers who think that anything the government wants is bad, so they oppose it because the government says it is good, and they see the government as an oppressive enemy of freedom of choice.  Second are the food purity people on the left who think that if they just eat whole, nutritious foods no harm can come to them.  Apparently one of the centers of anti-vaxxers is liberal, wealthy Marin county, CA.  I've heard it claimed that if you want to find a lot of anti-vaxxers, just draw a circle around Whole Foods stores. 

Both groups, meet contagious disease!  It doesn’t matter what the government says or what foods you eat, you will get the measles, or polio, or…  Vaccination is one of the greatest benefits to humankind in the twentieth century, and some seem to be longing for the days when, for example, the native Americans were extinguished more by the contagious diseases brought by the Europeans to America than by the calvary.  I guess we forget the terrors of contagion since we don’t see it.

So, today we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican presidential hopeful, Jeb Bush, needing to be courageous when he says he thinks all parents should get their children vaccinated.  It's like thinking that it would be a courageous thing to say that their children should wear boots in the snow.  This is a strange bit of silliness, it seems to me.

Obama finds his voice

After watching the State of the Union address a couple of days ago, I conclude that it looks like Obama has finally found a sense of voice.  What I mean by that is that when some people speak, their words carry a certain weight, have an impact.  I think it comes from the person’s own sense of their substance, their gravitas.  For a long time, Obama seemed to have lost his voice, and seemed to be speaking as just another guy with an opinion, and all he could do was pretend to be significant but was really just hoping that others would agree.

But, now, he seems to have been freed of some self-imposed restriction, and seems to have found his voice, indeed perhaps has found himself.  I think by losing big in the 2014 elections, he has decided it was important to let people know that he was still important, still president, still a power to be reckoned with.  Plus, I think he finally has decided that he might as well be who he really is rather than try to find ways to twist himself into a pretzel trying to appease Republicans in order to get things done.  I believe he has used the veto pen remarkably seldom compared to other presidents. If he follows through on his new authenticity I expect that to change.

Very little of his proposals from the speech have any chance, but his proposals wasn’t what the speech was about. 

His speech was about presenting his vision of the future of the Democratic Party and liberalism – empower the middle class - which creates demand and grows the economy, help the poor, and stop bowing to the demands of the Oligarchy.  Pretty clear message.  Very different from the Republican vision of empower the wealthy and they will create jobs and prosperity.

This should be an interesting couple of years in D.C. 

Why do they do it?

Why do they do it?  The Islamic terrorists?

Is it religion?  Does their religion tell them to kill infidels, so that’s what they do?

Is it poverty and lack of opportunity?  Are there simply a bunch of young Muslim men that feel beaten down and hopeless, so they strike out at their perceived oppressors? 

Is it the brainwashing of the constant drumbeat of propaganda demonizing the West? and Jews? and Sunnis/Shia (depending on whether the young man in question is Shia/Sunni)?

Is it refusal to integrate into the new world?

I think all of the above play very important roles in creating young Muslim terrorists. But, I think there is a reason that makes more sense to me – they see themselves as defending their "countries."  This is the underlying reason, I believe, for all soldiers to fight wars. The ideologies, religions, and propagandas all add to the fervor and the justifications, but I think at the heart of battle is the love of country, or of community, or of tribe - the desire to protect what is perceived to be the homeland.  That’s why the Americans volunteer to fight, why the Europeans fought in their terrible wars, why the Vietnamese fought, ad infinitum.  And to the Muslims, the only kind of fighting that can have any effect is asymmetrical warfare, i.e. terrorism.

This reason dropped into place for me when reading an article by David Ignatius, whom I pay attention to when it comes to the Middle East.  He cites author Mark Sageman:

"The core question for Sageman is why people become radicalized in the first place. In a forthcoming book, “The Turn to Political Violence,” he argues that it’s partly because militants see themselves as soldiers defending their communities. That’s why brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi wore military outfits when they attacked the Charlie Hebdo weekly, according to Sageman. “They self-identified as soldiers and tried to play the part as they imagine soldiers act.”

The Charlie Hedbo killers thought of themselves as soldiers and carried out what they considered to be a professional, military type strike at the heart of those they saw as out to destroy their “country” – i.e. their culture, their Home.

All of the other influences create a situation of young men, and some women unfortunately, who feel alienated, shunned, outcast, adrift – people without a Home, people who don’t belong.  When they join a cause, the cause of fighting back against the terrors of change and Westernization of their cultures, lands, countries, religions, they finally find meaning for their lives, they belong to something grand and noble and larger than themselves.  They join what they believe to be a worldwide movement to spread their idea of the future across all the world.  They fight for their “country.”

This is something that I can understand. They are not so different from all soldiers across all of time.  Although they attract psychopathic brutes to join them, it makes sense to me that they are like soldiers everywhere, they are defending their "country" from invasion.

That is why I think that John McCain couldn't be more wrong when he wants to fight this with military troops in the Middle East.  Most Muslim terror strikes have been in retaliation to what the terrorists see as Western assault on their homeland.  Even Osama bin Laden said his complaint with America was the presence of America and the West in what he saw as the sacred Muslim lands - Saudi Arabia, Mecca, etc.  He wrote:

"The deployment throughout the Gulf states of U.S. forces, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he argued, is “the greatest of … aggressions incurred by the Muslims since the death of the prophet.”

So, if we don't go to the Middle East and fight there, what do we do?  We defend ourselves, of course, using our Intelligence Services, special forces, limited military support in assisting roles, but I think our main objective is to support the non-terrorist Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere. I hope that Obama can resist the drumbeat of the hawks to commit troops overseas.  All we do is create more terrorists than we can possibly kill.

The Islamic Inquisition

Last week's barbaric attack on a satirical magazine was a shock to France and all of the Western world - make that a shock to all of the civilized world.

It is easy to see the violent jihadist wings of Islam as evil and crazy, and to conclude that we must expand our commitment to bloody war in the middle east. But I think a little deeper thinking is required.

Very shortly after the 9/11 2001 attacks a dear friend of mine pointed out that the mighty Roman Empire was unable to stop Christianity. Even they were unable to suppress a religious movement. Indeed the slaughter of Christians only created martyrs, which strengthened the growth of the religion.

At the time I was totally in favor of our invasion of Afghanistan, and later, Iraq. Over time, however, I reluctantly grew to realize that our military effort in Iraq was only creating more terrorists than we were killing. So, I concluded that our invasion of Iraq had been a terrible mistake. I do not want to see us repeat that mistake against ISIL.

ISIL has been desperately trying to bait the United States and Europe into legitimizing and expanding their violent mission to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq. We must defend ourselves of course, but I believe the tools we should use should not include being drawn into their civil wars militarily.

Islam is not the only religion that kills infidels and blasphemers. Christians did the same thing for centuries not that long ago. Unfortunately, Islam is just a few centuries behind the rest of the world.

The Spanish Inquisition lasted over 300 years, I believe. It took a lot of time for competing Christian philosophies to learn to live in peace. I wish I knew what ended the Spanish Inquisition, because that is what is needed now in Islam. (Maybe God managed to sneak in the idea that God was love, not vengeance or righteous punishment and dogma. After all, the religious at least pretend to pray to God, and maybe some of them listen in return?  That is my vision.)

If seems to me that today's bloodshed is the result of a violent war between The Sunnis and the Shia. The West is essentially collateral damage in that war as each side targets us for as part of its war against the other.  It seems to me that the west cannot settle that conflict, we can't even pick sides. We have no dog in that hunt. Our demand to both parties is that they stop killing us and that they find a way to live with tolerance for each other and for everybody else.

The main tool we have to defend ourselves is not military might, but rather modern philosophy. This is a war of ideas, not of savagery.The real war is the war of ideologies, and the West's best strategy is a powerful message of economic success coupled with emotional and spiritual fulfillment possible in the modern world.

How do we teach the intolerant to be tolerant? Demonstration is perhaps our strongest argument. We do manage to live with many religions in the West without endless bloodshed.  And we need to vigorously protect ourselves against their crazies out to slaughter infidels and blasphemers - us.