Monday, June 14, 2010

The "Root Causes of Terrorism"? How About "Hate"?

John Brennan is Obama’s deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security. He’s also a fool. You might remember Brennan as the guy who couldn’t tell us why Islamic terrorists want to kill us, even though bin Laden wrote a letter spelling it out clearly. Well now Brennan has opened his mouth again. Apparently, John thinks terrorists are victims, and he thinks holy war is justified.

One of the most perverted ideas liberals ever came up with was the idea that criminals aren’t responsible for their actions. Indeed, nothing highlights liberal stupidity more than this idea that criminals are “victims” of “root causes,” i.e. that criminals don’t murder, steal, rape or torture of their own free will, but they do it because they are victims of poverty or discrimination or cycles of violence. . . anything other than personal responsibility. Of course, liberals are major hypocrites, so this doesn’t apply to white collar criminals or “hate crime” criminals or anyone else they don’t like, but it does apply to just about every other run-of-the-mill murderer, thief, rapist or child molester.

This theory is of course crap. There simply is no nicer way to say it. It fails to account for the fact that humans have free will and can make up their own minds how they want to act. And it completely misunderstands human nature in that it doesn’t recognize that people do act for many reasons, and many of those reasons are indeed down right evil. It also denigrates those who have risen above a bad start in life, and encourages others never to try. And it endangers everyone else just so that liberals can feel smug.

Over the years, liberals have occasionally tried to expand this thinking into foreign relations. That’s why liberals excuse the mass murders in places like China and Africa as being the result of events that happened 200 years ago, and why they excuse corruption and dictatorship as “cultural.”

Well, now John Brennan is applying that same stupidity to terrorism. Yep. According to Brennan “violent extremists” are victims of “political, economic and social forces.”

This would be laughable if it wasn’t so asinine. There is no political, economic or social force that causes someone to go out and kill innocent people. Billionaire playboys like Osama bin Laden and the children-of-privilege terrorists of Al Qaeda are not driven by political, economic or social forces. They drive themselves. And what motivates them is hate. Hate that wells up from personality defects, and which is re-enforced by a hate-filled “religion” that teaches its adherents to see the world as divided between believers and infidels.

And that’s not the worst problem with Brennan’s thinking. Brennan claims that:

“Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate about murdering innocent men, women and children.”
Ok, let’s take a look at this sucker. First, “jihad” is a word that can, in one sense, mean “a purification,” as Brennan claims. But its broader meaning is to wage a holy war against the infidels. What Brennan is doing by taking an ultra narrow interpretation of this word is the equivalent of interpreting the word “purge” as used by Stalin to mean “to clean out,” and ignoring what was done to those dissidents who were purged. Thus, either Brennan does not understand that he’s endorsing holy war, and he should be fired because he’s stupid and not qualified, or he is actively endorsing holy war, in which event he should be fired as a collaborator.

Secondly, Brennan is repeating a canard that Muslim-apologists keep repeating ceaselessly: “Islam does not condone . . . blah blah . . . against innocent men, women and children.” And this is true, to a degree. But what Brennan and the other apologists fail to mention is that only believers are considered “innocents,” and that the rules of Islam do not apply to infidels. To discuss Islam without addressing this distinction that it draws is dishonest at best.

To put this into perspective, the best Western equivalent that comes to mind is the distinction between humans and animals. Let’s put it this way, Brennan is saying the equivalent of “cattle have nothing to fear because American law forbids murder.” That's an absolutely true statement of American law, but it misses the crucial distinction that animals are not protected by laws that protect humans. The same is true with Islam, where the rules don't apply to dealings with infidels.

Finally, even if Brennan were somehow right in his interpretation of Islam, what does it matter when 1.4 billion Muslims follow a different interpretation of Islam than the one he espouses? Unless those 1.4 billion suddenly decide that Brennan is some new prophet, then it doesn’t matter what spin Brennan puts on their religion. We need to deal with their religion as it really is, not as arrogant John Brennan thinks it should be. Indeed, Brennan is spitting out nothing more than the modern version of the racist "noble savage" idea that liberals fell in love with in the Victorian era.

Brennan is not a man who should ever be put in the position of trying to understand or stop an enemy of this country. It is obviously beyond his ability. And that makes him at best a fool, and not-at-best a collaborator. It’s time for him to resign. Or better yet, send him to Pakistan and let him do an internship as a hostage of the religion of peace, so that he can get some first hand knowledge on this issue.


12 comments:

LL said...

In 1941 the Japanese were continuing their war of national expansion in China, Manchuria and throughout Asia. The US cut their supply of fuel oil, without which their grand navy was just so many barges. They attacked us to be able to seize the oil and other national resources in the South Pacific and strategic locations (Singapore [Straits of Malacca], Philippines, etc.)

The American response wasn't - "It's ALL OUR FAULT!"

People, nations and systems of nations governance (including religious states where "God calls the shots") have to be responsible for their actions.

I'm just so ashamed of America these days.

AndrewPrice said...

LL, I agree. Everyone has a choice, from individuals to nations. The idea that somehow we are the cause of these terrorists wanting to kill us is utterly ludicrous. We did nothing to them, except that we are a prominent target that they think they can use to get fame at home.

It's the same reason whackos target celebrities -- they want to get famous and the best way they know to do that is to attack someone who is already famous.

It's positively stunning that anyone would believe that we have had a hand in causing these people to become violent. These same people happily blow up non-believers of every stripe as well as other Muslims whose views differ even slightly and school children who are learning things they don't like. How did we cause that?

And the fact that someone in our government would be out there apologizing for these killers is truly disturbing.

Also, it's really a slander to poor people the world over to imply that somehow they are unable to control the choices they make.

Anonymous said...

Andrew: I know one holy war that this clown won't condone--a crusade. People somewhow forget, or were never taught, that the Crusades were to take back the Holy Land that belonged to the Jews and the Christians long before it belonged to the Muslims.

Not only do the Obamists and other leftists see terrorism in the form of the criminal model, but as you said, even after being found guilty of the crime, the leftist version of criminality is an illness which must be cured, not an evil which must be punished. We are becoming sheep being led to the slaughter, and we must get these fools out of office at the earliest possible time. John Brennan would be a very good start.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I think the public has done a great job of tossing out this garbage about root causes from the criminal justice system -- which not-coincidentally has caused our crime rate to fall again after years of increasing because of rampant liberalism. Now we need to insist that this same stupid belief system be taking out of our foreign policy as well, and guys like Brennan need to be sent packing.

Tennessee Jed said...

Let's see now: Brennan . . a fool . . . perveted ideas . . .stupidity . . hypocrite . . . crap theory . . laughable if not so asinine . . . arrogant.

Hmnnn . . nice summary Andrew.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Jed! LOL! You found the secret message within the article! :-)

Seriously, I can't say enough bad things about this kind of thinking. It's one thing to figure out what motivates people to try to change their motivations, but it's something completely different to idealize someone who is trying to kill you for no reason other than that they don't like who you are.

And the fact that our defense is in the hands of a guy like this just bothers me to no end.

MegaTroll said...

This guy is a turd and should be forced to resign. If not, then we need to hold his views against Obama and the rest of the Democratic party.

AndrewPrice said...

Mega, I agree. Guys like this should not be allowed anywhere near our government. Who knows what kinds of trouble he will cause?

Individualist said...

Andrew

You are absolutely right. The bad thing is that the criminals and terrorists are figuring out the "liberal" mindset.

I remember when we (the US Destroyer) caught one of the Somali pirates. The first thing out of his mouth was how poor he was.

StanH said...

Barry let slip the other day with his faux anger at the oil spill, the truth of his administration, “a college seminar.” These are inexperienced relativist who only know what they’ve read in a book. 93% of this administration have never worked in the private sector, consider it the enemy, and do not understand that actions have consequences. In academia mistakes lead to hardy debate, and tenure. We are in great peril until 1/20/13 when a new President can be sworn in.

AndrewPrice said...

Individualist, I think Osama and the boys have Obama's number pretty well. Take a look at Afghanistan. They have our time tables and everything, and as US troops advance, they fade away, telling the world, we'll be back as soon as the Americans leave on X date. Surprise surprise, none of the locals want to work with us.

In war, and that is what this is, you always study your enemy and learn their weaknesses. Only liberals put on blinders and try to see the enemy as a peaceful noble people. It's no surprise that our enemies have always acted against us when liberals were in power, but held their powder when conservatives were in power.

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, Very true. They do act like governing is some sort of college class. And that's very insightful to connect the faked anger against BP (for public consumption only) with their inability to grasp the realities of terrorism. This whole administration seems lost.

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