|
Korean Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Thunndarr

Joined: 30 Sep 2003
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:14 am Post subject: They who must not be named |
|
|
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn16.html
Quote: |
Media utters nonsense, won't call enemy out
October 16, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement
F rom Thursday's New York Times: ''Nalchik, Russia -- Insurgents launched a series of raids today in this southern Russian city, striking the area's main airport and several police and security buildings in large-scale, daytime attacks that left at least 85 people dead.''
"Insurgents," eh?
From Agence France Presse:
"Nalchik, Russia: More than 60 people were killed as scores of militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
"Militants," you say?
From the Scotsman:
"Rebel forces battled Russian troops for control of a provincial capital in the Caucasus yesterday . . ."
"Rebel forces,'' huh?
From Toronto's Globe & Mail:
"Nalchik, Russia -- Scores of rebels launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
"Rebels," by the score. But why were they rebelling? What were they insurging over? You had to pick up the Globe & Mail's rival, the Toronto Star, to read exactly the same Associated Press dispatch but with one subtle difference:
''Nalchik, Russia -- Scores of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
Ah, "Islamic militants." So that's what the rebels were insurging over. In the geopolitical Hogwart's, Islamic "militants" are the new Voldemort, the enemy whose name it's best never to utter. In fairness to the New York Times, they did use the I-word in paragraph seven. And Agence France Presse got around to mentioning Islam in paragraph 22. And NPR's "All Things Considered" had one of those bland interviews between one of its unperturbable anchorettes and some Russian geopolitical academic type in which they chitchatted through every conceivable aspect of the situation and finally got around to kinda sorta revealing the identity of the perpetrators in the very last word of the geopolitical expert's very last sentence.
When the NPR report started, I was driving on the vast open plains of I-91 in Vermont and reckoned, just to make things interesting, I'll add another five miles to the speed for every minute that goes by without mentioning Islam. But I couldn't get the needle to go above 130, and the vibrations caused the passenger-side wing-mirror to drop off. And then, right at the end, having conducted a perfect interview that managed to go into great depth about everything except who these guys were and what they were fighting over, the Russian academic dude had to go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like "republics which are mostly . . . Muslim." He mumbled the last word, but nevertheless the NPR gal leapt in to thank him and move smoothly on to some poll showing that the Dems are going to sweep the 2006 midterms because Bush has the worst numbers since numbers were invented.
I underestimated multiculturalism. After 9/11, I assumed the internal contradictions of the rainbow coalition would be made plain: that a cult of "tolerance" would in the end founder against a demographic so cheerfully upfront in their intolerance. Instead, Islamic "militants" have become the highest repository of multicultural pieties. So you're nice about gays and Native Americans? Big deal. Anyone can be tolerant of the tolerant, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti- masochists. And so Islamists who murder non-Muslims in pursuit of explicitly Islamic goals are airbrushed into vague, generic "rebel forces." You can't tell the players without a scorecard, and that's just the way the Western media intend to keep it. If you wake up one morning and switch on the TV to see the Empire State Building crumbling to dust, don't be surprised if the announcer goes, "Insurging rebel militant forces today attacked key targets in New York. In other news, the president's annual Ramadan banquet saw celebrities dancing into the small hours to Mullah Omar And His All-Girl Orchestra . . ."
What happened in Russia on Thursday was serious business, not just in the death toll but in the number of key government installations that the alleged insurging rebel militants of non-specific ideology managed to seize with relative ease. The militantly rebellious insurgers of no known religious affiliation have long said they want a pan-Caucasian Islamic state from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and the carnage they wreaked in the hitherto semi-safe-ish republic of Kabardino-Balkaria suggests that they're more likely to spread the conflict to other parts of the Russian Federation than Moscow is to contain it.
Did you see that news item in Stavropolsky Meridian last October? "Strontium, Uranium And Plutonium Found In Train To Caucasus." When a region already regarded as a Bud's Discount Warehouse for nuclear materials is getting sucked deeper into the maw of Islamism, why be so sheepish about letting us know the forces at play?
The Russians couldn't hold on to Eastern Europe. They couldn't hold on to Central Asia. Why would they fare any better with the present so-called Russian "Federation"? The country is literally dying. It's had a net population loss every year since 1992, one of the lowest fertility rates in the world -- 1.2 children born per woman -- and one of the highest abortion rates: some 70 percent of pregnancies are terminated. Russian men now have a lower life expectancy than Bangladeshis -- not because Bangladesh is brimming with actuarial advantages but because, if he had four legs and hung from a tree in a rain forest, the Russian male would be on the endangered species list.
Yet, within their present territory, there remain a few exceptions to the grim statistics cited above, parts of Russia that retain healthy fertility rates and healthy mortality rates. And guess what? They're the Muslim parts. Or, as the New York Times/NPR/Agence France Presse/Scotsman/Toronto Globe & Mail would say, they're the insurgent rebel militant parts. Many of these Russian Muslim areas -- like Bashkortistan (and no, I didn't make that up, it's a real stan. Check it out in the World Book Of Stans) -- are also rich in natural resources.
If you're an energy-rich Muslim republic, what's the point of going down the express garbage chute of history with the Russian Federation? The Islamification of significant parts of present-day Russia is going to be a critical factor in its death spiral.
I'm aware the very concept of "the enemy" is alien to the non-judgment multicultural mind: There are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated. But the media's sensitivity police apparently want this to be the first war we lose without even knowing who it is we've lost to. C'mon, guys, next time something happens in the Caucasus, why not blame the "Caucasians"? At least that way, we'll figure it must have been right-wing buddies of Timothy McVeigh. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
bigverne

Joined: 12 May 2004
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
However, this nonsense is becoming increasingly untenable, as even President Bush has begun to call them Islamic extremists.
Without understanding the motives and aims of these Islamic Jihadis we will never be able to effectively combat them and secure our safety. The spread of Islamic fundamentalism represents the greatest threat to human freedom since communism, but much of our political and media elite are so wedded to multiculturalism that they cannot come to terms with this, for it would discredit their whole ideology. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:27 am Post subject: ... |
|
|
Ahoy there, matey!
What are these landlubbin' multiculturalists thinkin?
I recall the last time me and me pirate crew set sails acros "the plains of Vermont".
Nevermind ye who've been there. So there are no plains in Vermont. So what? I was just adding a little paprika to my salty sea tale of how the Muslims are a-queerin' our soil.
Well, blimey mate, if they aren't all a-followin' a pedophile A-rab.
Is that mul-ti-cultural-ism?
Blow me down, I say NO.
We should reprogram them.
That'll fix 'em.
Ooooooh yeah...
Shiver me timbers...
Me timbers be tremblin'....
Ooooooh yeah... |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
bigverne

Joined: 12 May 2004
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
Good point, well made.
Run along, and let the grown ups debate. Wouldn't want to confuse your silly little head with difficult concepts now would we? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: ... |
|
|
NO BIGV!
Don't abandon me like this!
I finally got it.
It's the HADITH!
DAMN ME for not recognizing it.
Sorry for that.
It just wasn't getting through to me.
But now I'm with you.
Let's do it.
I'll carp on the pedophile.
Direct me to the target. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
bigverne

Joined: 12 May 2004
|
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
A truly incisive mind at work. Good stuff. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
mithridates

Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
Wrong language perhaps? The Norwegians don't seem to shirk from it.
From nrk.no:
Quote: |
V��pnede islamister som torsdag angrep en russisk by i Kaukasus, holdt fortsatt stand da kvelden falt på. Men mange av angriperne skal v��re drept. |
That's the first sentence. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Leslie Cheswyck

Joined: 31 May 2003 Location: University of Western Chile
|
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
bigverne wrote: |
A truly incisive mind at work. Good stuff. |
That be, Matey, because Narwhal Man thar, be moft affur-ed, thatte alle blame and accounting fore the Vexationns ande Short-Commings on the Part of the of the followers of The Prophet Mohamet, must be be layde at the feete of His Majestee George. And when events onn the Parte of the Mohamatens leave no Traces of His Majestiy's Connexion (Because thar be nonne, I venture), bearing no Evidence thereof. That is to say, the rapaciouf and barbaric atrocitief onn the Parte of the Mohametans as commanded by theirre Holy Books being the way of thif People for many a Century, predate His Majesty's Birth and Reign by so much. Furtherre, to say: The outrageouf Adventurres of His Majesty in Mesopotamia, Bactria and Tales of fomme barbarik Dungeon in The Indies, cannot be called to account for the Depravities of the Mohammetans in the Lands of the Tartary. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
jinglejangle

Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Location: Far far far away.
|
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
This has been quite the thread hijacking here, hasn't it now? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|