Friday, November 6, 2009

Michelle Malkin: 'Political correctness
is the handmaiden of terror'

How true. And I'll risk accusations of Glenn-Beckism by pointing out that "terrorism" and "political correctness" are both legacies of Marxist-Leninist thought.

Lenin advocated "revolutionary terror," first as a means of attacking the bourgeois regime and then, once the revolutioaries had seized power, as a means of intimidating the population and compelling cooperation with the revolutionary agenda.

The phrase "politically correct" is also of Marxist-Leninist origin. The concept of "democratic centralism" required that the Bolshevik vanguard arrogate to itself the authority to dictate what was and was not true, what policies should be pursued, etc. Once the Communst leadership had decided what the proper "party line" was, then all dissenters were said to be politically incorrect, and were anathematized as Enemies of the People.

This was how it came to be that after Stalin after Trotsky -- who had been second only to Lenin in the leadership of the Bolshevik Revolution -- he ordered Trotsky's image airbrushed out of photos of the original revolutionary leadership. And that was only one example of where political correctness led.

It is amazing to me the degree to which this type of Marxist-Leninist thinking has not merely survived, but thrived despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. And nowhere is this more true -- in a deeply ironic way -- than in the way so many conservatives have forgotten the Soviet origins of modern terrorism. I quote from a 1977 Heritage Foundation study:
The International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . . . has been the most important Soviet agency for the support of terrorism. Through this agency, the Soviets established two training schools for terrorists: the Lenin Institute or Institute of Social Studies and the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Both of them regularly train their students -- 300 to 600 at any one time at the Lenin Institute - -in the techniques of "sabotage, terrorism, assassination, and other kinds of clandestine ar:d violent warfare."
Another Heritage Foundation study from 1984:
The presence in the U.S. of large numbers of disaffected aliens, many from cultures with traditions of political violence, could be of concern. . . . It is not unreasonable to assume that some of these may be sympathetic to the political goals of some terrorist movements that espouse their national, religious, or ideological beliefs. This minority may provide an audience for terrorist propaganda or a valuable infrastructure for terrorist financial or logistical support.
Both of those studies were written by the author of The Soviet Strategy of Terror, published in 1981 by the Heritage Foundation. But the politically incorrect Sam Francis has been airbrushed out of conservative history. So it is that we have lost a vital key to understanding the problem of terrorism by "disaffected aliens . . . sympathetic to the political goals of some terrorist movements."

History, Ancient and Modern
Certainly, it is possible to see the roots of Islamic terror in the 7th century A.D., beginning with the warrior-prophet Muhammed and continuing with the Muslim conquests that advanced by the sword across Turkey and into Asia, over North Africa, to Spain, and into Europe before finally being halted by the Christian victory over the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683.

All of that is relevant background, but has little to do with the specific manifestation of terror-jihad that has arisen in the Islamic world since the 1960s. The fanatical anti-American stance of these groups has very particular connection to the Soviet strategy of terror.

The PLO and Fatah, in particular, received support from a network of communist agents. And the propaganda agents of the Kremlin were also involved. If you'll go back and study it, you'll notice that the Palestinian cause was embraced by the New Left shortly after American student radicals began trekking to Cuba and Eastern Europe for "study."

The skeptic will point out that Marxism is dogmatically atheist, while Islamic terrorism is devoutly religious. True, but it is likewise true that although Marxism is anti-nationalist, the Soviets exploited nationalist sentiment (e.g., in Vietnam) wherever they felt it might advance their long-term revolutionary goal.

Terrorism and 'Liberation'
What is today considered a religious phenomenon -- Islam's jihad against the West -- actually originated with 2oth-century Arab nationalism, of which "Palestinian liberation" was the principle manifestation from the 1960s onward. This was all part of the Soviet agenda of creating satellites via "wars of national liberation."

Whether it was the Viet Cong or the Sandinistas or the PLO, all such revolutionary outfits shared a common anti-American agenda. The Soviets supported all these groups for the same reason: One "brushfire" war at a time, the U.S. could be deprived of potential allies in its Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union, which claimed to speak on behalf of the victims of American "imperialism."

When the Ayatollah's Shi'ite revolutionaries in Iran dubbed America "The Great Satan," they were merely expressing in religious terms what the Soviets were proclaiming in secular terms. In the calculus of the Cold War, what was bad for the U.S.A. was good for Moscow, you see. It wasn't until the Soviets tried to impose their will by direct military intervention in Afghanistan that they got a taste of the fanaticism of "liberation" the Kremlin had done so much to foment.

Of Motives and Murders
The homicidal rage of "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" -- evidently the motive for Nidal Malik Hassan's murderous rampage -- is the legacy of a history forgotten.

Objectively, there is no reason that the Islamic world should be infested with violent anti-Americanism. There is no objective reason why Israelis should constantly be plagued by Palestinian terror, nor that Iranians should suffer under the yoke of the mullahs and Ahmadinejad. The resentments which give rise to these phenomena are unacknowledged fruit of the Marxist-Leninist legacy.

Wherever it is proclaimed that capitalism is exploitation and that the United States is an agent of oppression, then the specific form and rhetoric of "anti-imperialist" violence -- whether religious or secular, ethnic or nationalist -- is just a detail.

All of these latter-day "revolutionary" movements are, in some sense, mere third-hand replicas of a Bolshevik prototype. The Taliban are an Afghan clone of the Khmer Rouge, Hugo Chavez is the CeauÅŸescu of Venezuela and Saddam Hussein was a Mesopotamian Stalin. Conservatives ought to understand this, and to say it out loud, no matter how politically incorrect it may be to say it.

More effort ought to be devoted to persuading the Islamic world that that their religion ought not require the periodic slaughter of Americans, Europeans or Israelis. But before we can persuade them of this, Americans must first persuade ourselves.

17 comments:

  1. Um,Stacy, I'm pretty sure that both the Mongol Hoards and the "sow the fields with salt" Romans well predated Marxist/Leninist thought.

    Nice thought, but using terror as a political/military tool can't be blamed on Marx and Lenin.

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  2. Charles "Pony Boy" JohnsonFri Nov 06, 05:57:00 PM

    Gates of Vienna? You are a racist!

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  3. The modern Islamist movement's historical influence is undeniable. It is a merging of the Kharijite mentality of constant war against unbelievers and death to aspostates with the extremely conservative sections of the Salafi school of jurisprudence.

    What's important about the intersection of these philosophies, which is the backbone for most modern Islamist thought (on the Sunni side), is that the Kharijites were the first "sect" within Islam (their beliefs have become mored defined but were always centered around war with unbelievers) and the Salafi school is the most conservative and given to accusing a variety of things as bid'ah, or innovation, which is the Salafi school's big concern and their reliance on hadith (anecdotes about Mohammed's life) means that they hold a more draconian standard. Not the best confluence of ideas.

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  4. PC = CS. CS means you die a coward. Or even worse your friends die because you lacked the nads to take positive action. The flags had been there for in one case over a year and in the others almost a year. DHS has no b*lls and many good Americans are dead many others wounded.

    Rod Stanton
    Cerritos, Cal

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  5. Actually, Lenin borrowed the concept of "revolutionary terror" from the French.

    All revolutions include, and are followed by, a terror of some sort.

    America's was relatively light (Tories were burnt out and sent packing, Washington led the army out to put down the peasants when they got uppity and started thinking that the revolution was theirs and not just the planter aristocracy's, etc.). France's was much bloodier and demonstrative.

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  6. "Objectively, there is no reason that the Islamic world should be infested with violent anti-Americanism."

    That's objective?

    You don't think Iraqis have any legitimate reasons for being ticked off at us?

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  7. The Frankfurt School of neo-Marxist theory is at the foundation of modern political correctness and is also the source of a number of other disturbing trends in modern western civilization...
    http://patdollard.com/2009/02/a-brief-history-of-political-correctness/

    Sorry I don't have the skilz to hang a link in here.

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  8. Indentured SG, there is a reason why the Islamic world is infested with violent anti-Americanism: Islam, the Koran and the example of Muhammad, who taught hatred and eternal war against us "non-believers." Ultimately, it is Islam that is the reason we went into Iraq, in an effort to stabilize the reason against Islamic terrorism.

    So to answer your question, no I don't think the Iraqis have any legitimate reasons for being ticked off at us. However, with 270 million dead infidels over the past 14 centuries, we have a lot of reasons to be ticked off at THEM.

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  9. Thanks for the link in the "Headlines" sidebar. It's quite an honor to be listed alongside Michelle Malkin!

    Excellent essay, by he way. The link between modern Islamic fundamentalism and revolutionary communist/fascist thought is unmistakable and their objectives are the same: the destruction of the free, democratic West.

    Just as George Orwell described those who advocated appeasement toward Hitler as "objectively fascist," those who do the same regarding the present jihadist threat are objectively Islamist.

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  10. Stogie,

    So, in spite of GWB's protestations to the contrary, we ARE at war with Islam, and that's the real reason we invaded Iraq. Hmmm. So--to fight Islam, we invade a secular country whose leader (Saddam Hussein) is a main target of the radical fundamentalists we are at war with (Al Qaeda)? Yeah, that makes sense.

    Incidentally---if by US you mean Christians, I think I should remind you, that it is not morally licit to do evil so that good may come of it.

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  11. Oh, and by the way Stogie, do the Chaldean Catholic Iraqis have a right to be ticked, or do they deserve to die like the rest of the "THEM" you're talking about?

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  12. When I look at the fear and hatred that the radical Islamists have against us in the West, I see a male-dominated society, that hates us, because the West's influence is indirectly putting pressure on their society to give more rights to WOMEN. It is obvious to me what these insecure radical Islamists fear. They fear their women gaining EQUALITY. I have heard many experts say this is not true. It is obvious to anyone with rational thought that when radical Islam see the West, they see the downfall of their male-dominated, patriarchal society. These crazy Islamists just need to get over their insecurities and allow women to be treated with dignity, like we do in the West.

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  13. Indentured Dhimmi Girl, Islam is at war with non Islam, and has been since it was founded in the 7th Century AD. When a core rule is to divide the world into the Dar al-Islam, the House of Peace, and the Dar al-Harb, the House of War, this is not a peaceful religion AT ITS' CORE.

    As for the Chaldean Catholic Iraqis, who should they be ticked at? their Iraqi Islamic neighbors, who persist in violating Niven's Law: Never throw shit at an armed man? or themselves. who violate Niven's Second Law: Never stand next to someone throwing shit at an armed man.

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  14. Since we've been at war with Islam essentially as long as we've been a country I'm having a hard time getting there as well...

    First Barbary War

    http://tinyurl.com/6xewoa

    In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:

    It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

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  15. As for Hasan, it was criminal that the Army did not act sooner. I heard on NPR (after making some ridiculous PC statement that you can't determine if religion was part of this) then report that Hasan gave a speech at a medical convention (the type where you describe a new technique or medication to fellow physicians) and proceeded to rant on how non believers in Islam would be decapitated in hell and have hot oil poured down their throats. A Muslim doctor in the audience tried to interrupt him and say his interpretation was flawed and was shouted down. The doctors in attendence were horrified by the display. And then Hasan did a similar rant on another public occasion. Talk about a warning sign.

    Here is a writen summation of the NPR audio.

    We have a doctor treating soldiers who thinks the wars they are fighting are evil and that non believers in Islam are going to burn forever in hell? Heads need to roll (not actually as Hasan would support but figuratively) for sure, because someone seriously screwed up not getting this mad man out of the Army sooner.

    And next time Andrew Sullivan or Charles Johnson or some other idiot disparges Christians over something trivial, someone please slap them in the face and tell them to shut up. I am sorry, but Christians and Jews are not doing these sorts of crimes. Muslims are. There is something very wrong with Islam right now. I recognize it is a minority extremist faction of the religion, I am not blaming all Muslims. But Islam and Muslims have to deal with and stop this madness.

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  16. What is today considered a religious phenomenon -- Islam's jihad against the West -- actually originated with 2oth-century Arab nationalism

    You don't really MEAN what you said here......right?

    Vienna. Lepanto. The Crusades.

    The Jihad is not "against the West," it is against non-Muslims.

    And that started when Mohamet boppped his first 10-y-o virgin.

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  17. Dad29 is quite correct, as are Stogie, Mike LaRoche, Anonymous @2341 last night, The Man, and, of course, Stacy above.

    What I wrote in the Comments Section of another of posting by Stacy applies to this discussion:

    FACT 1: The Koran preaches that there are only two fates for the non-believer in the Islamic view of the world: slavery or death.

    FACT 2: If you read The Koran [and I have--every word of the bloody thing in 1989], it sees Islam as in a perpetual state of war with the rest of the world until such time as every infidel is either dead or converted to it. It is a religion based on an idea that there is one, and only one, way to serve God, and no other ways of worship can be tolerated because it’s version of God is as a bloodthirsty tyrant who shows mercy only when his followers show total submission to his will and power [the word ‘Islam’ means ‘submission’].

    Therefore, even if America in the 20th Century had not begun to get involved in foreign affairs, the Muslims would still hate and despise us, and, most importantly, would still actively seek to destroy us. They are commanded to do so by their holy book—every Muslim is charged with performing Jihad.

    Around the middle of the last millennium, we dealt the up-until-then-wildly-successful Muslims such a crushing blow that it took until this past century for them to recover sufficiently psychologically to begin attempts to destroy the infidels again. Despite this recovery of will, they lacked the military power to challenge us, so they turned to terrorism, which small groups and individuals can practice with near-impunity. And, at this they have been quite successful, although our lack of will in The West has contributed greatly to their triumphs.

    Every Sunni or Shia Muslim, must wage Jihad, whether infidels are interfering in their lands or not, or they lose the favor of Allah, which is a fate worse than death for them.

    Please people, read your history: Islam has had it in for The West ever since Mohammad [emphasis on the 'mad'] dreamed up his revelations--Ex: May 1543 and all that.

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