A Jew In Baghdad

The great irony of multiculturalism is that it is built on a kernel of truth. In fact, it takes something that everyone knows in their bones to be true and then perverts it: everyone is unique. But then we're supposed to believe that everyone and every group is of equal value. And everyone's just as rational as us westerners.

This stunning article by Jonathan Zagdanski clarifies the lie. Here's a critical snippet:

While patrolling the streets of Baghdad, I often got involved in political conversations with secular, educated, and "moderate" Iraqis about the war against Iraq, Israel, the Jews, and America. To my surprise, most of them held wildly irrational beliefs about the world. For example, most of them would swear that Ariel Sharon pressured a reluctant President Bush to go to war against Iraq [or] that the CIA put Saddam Hussein, a CIA agent, in power to allow U.S. forces to take Iraqi oil and impoverish Iraq. Finally, they were convinced that the CIA is an organization controlled by the Mossad and that powerful Zionists dominate Washington, D.C.! In fact, most Arabs in the world believe these absurdities. These beliefs are the product of years of intense brainwashing by their education[al] system, mass media and political and religious leaders. These beliefs turn educated, intelligent Arab family men into hijackers that slam passenger planes into buildings and homicide bombers that murder as may Jews as possible on Israeli buses.

We are not at war against terrorism; we are at war against an ideology. I consider this ideology to be the product of a dangerous mental disease. It is a disease that has infected millions of Arabs into believing that by destroying the enemy -- the Jew, the State of Israel, and the "Great Satan" America -- past Arab pride and glory [will] be restored. This mental illness is slowly but deliberately plunging the world into World War III.

[Emphasis added.] The only clarification I would add is that there's a fair argument that this is WW IV as James Woolsey has suggested, however there are some disturbing signs that it's just a continuation of the Cold War by other means. While there's obviously a huge element of brainwashing and creating external enemies going on here, I think it's also tied in with the grand historical sweep of residues. Reading "The Formation of Residues" is your homework assignment for the weekend -- strongly, strongly recommended. More on that later...