More Ideas Than I Can Understand

What was all that hijacking in the '70s about? It was about one thing only: keeping Arabs (read Islam) relevant. Without terrorism, Islam would be utterly unimportant to the whole non-Moslem world. Islam has two things only. Oil, and terror. Nothing else. Well, history -- but what is history?

Without oil, the Arabs would just be Africans. Africa -- the continent that no one cares about. Am I wrong? Nigeria provides us with more oil than does Saudi Arabia. Why don't we care about Nigeria? Well, I'm sure there must be Nigerian terrorists. So we must care a little. But the Arabs, the Moslems, have a genius for mayhem. Everyone notices genius. That's what the Moslems have made themselves. The outlaws of the world. Well, at least they know who they are. That's a good thing.

Islam has been seeking its identity for four generations now. Since the ’30s it has emulated the Nazis and the Soviets, or a secularism or nationalism, as with Nasser -- all unnatural transplants. All those Moslem decades of flirting with alien isms turned out to be years of famine and drought. They where trying to be what they were not -- Western. Now they have turned to their roots. Such barren and infertile ground, though. What could possibly grow in it.

The Islam that we are coming to know seems to be insane. It cannot make a distinction between what is offensive and what is incendiary -- a distinction that is diagnostic of our civilization. What is there that is not an insult to Islam? -- when every non-Moslem must believe their prophet is a false prophet. Mohammad, PBUH, the false prophet. Blasphemy of course, but such is the belief of every non-Moslem. Likewise, every non-Moslem must believe that Allah is not the true God. Every non-Moslem must believe that Mecca is not a truly holy city. Every non-Moslem must believe that the Koran is a mere collection of poems -- many of them plagiarized.

Disbelief is denial. Denial is an insult. The world is guilty, then, of the thought-crime of insulting Islam. The remedy, to that growing body of radicalized and empowered Moslems, is -- well, stoning is too inefficient. But Iran is getting its nuke.

The enemy? Well, the one who does the actual killing is Moslem. So far they congregate in Iraq, although they erupt like carbuncles in India and Sudan and Pakistan and Spain and London and Bali and ... well, and everywhere. The enablers, the fifth columnists seem to be everywhere as well. Who then is not the enemy? In this case, my rather literal mind must conclude that it is the enemy of our enemy that is our friend. That would be, um, us. Sort of a “either with us or against us” thing. How Bush-like. How Christ-like.

Nazis were a national phenomenon, with, of course, international sympathizers. Islamism is an international phenomenon, with sympathizers utterly prevalent in Western media and bureaucracies and institutes of higher learning -- or I should say, of liberal education. Hm. I wonder what course we should pursue. If only history held some answer, some salubrious example that we might follow. Maybe there’s some professor who could instruct us. Perhaps there’s some journalist who could inform us.

Otherwise we will be lost. Because history is such a bore. I can’t even remember last year -- after all, it’s gone. Imams? The Flying Imams? Didn't that used to be a TV show?

There was a time when those eastern lands were not dry as old bones. And the thing that sprang from that earth, rode horses and wielded swords. What can grow in the heartland of Islam? Only, it seems, Islam, as it originated. No alien isms can be grafted onto that tree. It is sui generis.

Their most recent riding forth? They call it jihad. It's actually hariba -- war with humanity. Do you think it will get better? They're getting the bomb. After they use it, what will grow? Mutations, I suppose, are their own sort of sui generis.

Current -- I do not say modern -- Islam has oil, and it has terror. Nothing else. Oh, it has history, such as it is. But who doesn't? Well, the West doesn't, in that it's turning its back on history. Urgh. This is becoming confusing. Maybe there’s some media outlet that will explain it to me. Maybe some religionist will call me to prayer, and do my thinking for me. Maybe oil will set the world on fire. Maybe nukes will.

No. I was wrong. It’s not confusing at all.



J